Deviant Dispatches

Lately, my favorite project to knit has been baby hats. They're quick, versatile, and fun - the pattern I use, from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson, allows you to do pretty much anything you want to the hat. For example, you can add stripes, as I did in this hat for my New Mexico Auntie's new grandbaby. Pink was perfect for her, and I threw in a few green stripes to keep it interesting. I much prefer challenges, though, so I also made her a strawberry hat. And yes, I know there are already patterns for this kind of thing, but I made this one from scratch, based on the same hat pattern. I had so much fun with it. The one thing I might change about this pattern, next time I make it, is how far down the seed pattern goes. If this hat curls up at all, the black threads underneath show. Otherwise, I think it turned out pretty darn well. I'm pleased with the color combos, the innovation, and the way the green top turned out, decreases and all.

In my high school psychology class, we did a perception experiment one day. The teacher called out various adjectives, and the whole class wrote them down and distributed them to other students in the class. We wrote each word three times and handed each slip to a different person. These weren't anything negative; we weren't calling each other names. They were personality traits, and I only remember two that were used: introvert and extrovert. I remember that because I received four of each. Some people in the class thought I was an introvert; some thought me an extrovert. At that point, I was a senior. Some of the other students likely knew I was on the Forensics team and did competitive public speaking. They knew I raised my hand a lot in class - those characteristics, they associated with being an extrovert. Others had probably seen me in classes I cared less about, where I rarely spoke. They knew I didn't have many close friends and often spoke quietly - those

Hi all!  Spousal Unit here; Wifal Unit is taking the day off so you'll have to suffer through my musings instead.  I thought I’d start with a little television entertainment, which is odd because Wifal Unit and I hardly watch any.  What we have done is thought about shows that we would watch, and with the help of some friends, I have prepared the ultimate prime-time lineup.  6:00 “Craziest Pet Grooming” Starring Alec Baldwin and Will Arnett This would be a reality show.  An amazing reality show.  Imagine these two guys traveling the world, finding the most outlandish grooming styles (probably for dogs of rich people), and critiquing them.  If your imagination is having trouble coping with that much awesome, here’s a fake movie trailer made from scenes of them in 30 Rock. Now picture them with a 30 minute show.  I like to think that at least once per episode, they’d get into a growling contest with an animal/each other.  And if that doesn’t rev your engine, you

I had fun with the moon last night: I taught it how to dance. At first, it was a little shaky about the idea - it had been so long since the last time, and after all, its starry friends were all watching. But I finally talked it into trying a simple sidestep. P.S. Sorry if I've been a bit uninspired this week - here's a preview of a post you'll see next week.

The bookstore got an amazing piece of postcard advertising last week for the book Knight Light: The Powerful Story of Virgin Mary's Husband  by Roger L. Bennett. It's an autobiography. Yes, everyone, this means what you think it does. Bennett says he was married to the Virgin Mary. In the '80s. Knight Light  is narrated by star-crossed lovers quaintly identified as HE and SHE. He is the author, fate-appointed Knight on a King's quest. She is the Queen Mother, Virgin Mary in contemporary guise. What they did after their church wedding in 1982 is told in sizzling detail as a Royal romp in the hay. But it wasn't until the Immaculate Conception of 1986 that Roger Bennett's second wife chose to reveal Her eternal self for that ONE night only. That's when his silver seed was gathered for a mysterious purpose known only to Her and (perhaps, perhaps not) to that Black African race God's evolutionary plan determined to be first-in and last-out.

Look what's out on our porch! Mama's not too pleased with our afternoon porch-sitting, but she doesn't fly off when I just water the plants. Hopefully she will have beautiful, screaming babies soon. Right outside our bedroom window. Thanks a lot, Mama Bird.

Dear Owners of My Apartment Complex, You're outlawing sidewalk chalk? Really? I can think of no more asinine, meaningless way to spend one's time than to remove an element of pure joy from a child's life, just because you don't want to clean the carpets. It's chalk  - it will wash off. Your recent letter to tenants looks an awful lot like a tantrum to me. Sure, maybe some kids got out of control with it and drew on the buildings. I still see no reason to make drawing with chalk a crime. A smaller measure should have been taken in between these steps - something like contacting the parents and asking them to supervise the kids more closely. (Which I doubt you did, since you won't even call me back to let me know when the A/C will be fixed.) I've watched two six-year-old kids play out front with their chalk since the weather was nice enough. They've had a blast imagining so many different things, and I - yes, I, a 27-year-old child - liked watching

At this time of year, when I knit/crochet gifts for people, I always get a little flustered. It's not the right season for scarves, hats, and mittens, so what do you do? You do this. Rock Island by Jared Flood I love the intricate details on this shawl! Lightweight, lacy shawls are perfect for summer days when you're wearing cool clothing, but are making a trip to an air-conditioned joint. Then you don't have to carry around a big, bulky sweater. Unfortunately, this beauty is made with lace, which takes quite a while to knit up. Gifts are often last-minute surprises, but you still want to put effort and thought into it. Spring Petals Messenger Bag by Susan Gater I love projects that allow you to choose your own color scheme. Imagine this in red and black, or maybe orange, blue, and yellow. So many possibilities - plus, the original colors are eye-catching and really pop! This bag is crocheted with Lily Sugar 'n Cream yarn - great for quick, durabl

Today is Syttende Mai, Norwegian Independence Day! Today, everyone wants to be Norwegian. (Don't deny it!) Nearby Stoughton, Wisconsin, is having a Syttende Mai festival this weekend, where you can compete in an Ugly Troll contest , eat more lefse than any other day of the year, and even watch the high school's Norwegian dance group . Sounds like an excellent way to celebrate. Mmm, lefse . If lefse isn't your thing, how about some fruit soup? The Butterfly Jungle's fruit soup recipe You could engage in some Norwegian knitting to celebrate, with a book like Norwegian Handknits , which has knitting patterns, historical photographs and stories, and recipes. Everything you could want in a Norsk book! How are icy streets, knitting, and Norwegian culture related? Check out  Anne Landre's article on Knitty.com. Eunny has some beautiful work! Last but not least... my favorite song about lutefisk! (Okay, it's the only song abo

I've had a couple of very different songs stuck in my head lately, all for different reasons. Some have been really awesome to mentally play over and over. Others, like "Too Darn Hot" by Ella Fitzgerald, have been obnoxious. Don't get me wrong; I love Ella, but... Last night, at 4 a.m., the bedroom was sweltering. We've been doing our best to make the supposed air conditioning work, and to no avail. Last night, the air finally felt cool, and so we left it on overnight. Bad idea. Even if it was cool, it was certainly   not  AC. I turned it off, opened the windows (previously closed due to loud highway traffic), and lay in bed with this song running through my head. For an hour. I've had "Kese Kese" by DJ Sheb Sabbah in my head ever since I learned (finally!) who the artist was. Love its weirdness and the beautiful Eastern tune. A friend gave me this song in high school, on a mix CD labeled "XXX: Porn!". It

Yesterday, I got the most glorious cupcake ever, from Market Street Diner . Spousal Unit picked a chocolate one, and I picked vanilla. When we asked the counter-lady for them, her response was, "Do you want them with or without filling?" Um, WITH. Hells yeah. The frosting on top was creamy and perfect, and the cake was soft and moist. Perfect cupcakes. Unfortunately, I cut this in half with all of the filling just on one side of the cupcake, and about 30 seconds after taking this picture, the filled half plopped onto the carpet, frosting down. The two halves must have had a symbiotic relationship. But I was able to salvage the cupcake and most of the frosting - hooray! Other good things that happened this weekend: We now own Indiana Jones, and spent an evening with The Last Crusade. Source A robin started building a nest above our porch light. (Video is sideways, but still full of nesting bird.) He later abandoned the project, as

Dear AARP, You really have a knack for pissing people off, don't you? Take me for example. I am only 27, which (last I checked) really isn't that close to 50. I am young, I have a whole lotta life ahead of me before I get to retire and move to a quiet cottage by a lake, where I will spend my days writing, spontaneously dancing on the deck with Spousal Unit, and jetting off to awesome vacations whenever I feel like it. AARP, you and your membership card are spoiling my daydreams. Also, right now, I'm not at all looking forward to my next birthday. Jerks. According to the letter you sent me, I can get a free AARP Insulated Travel Bag. Tell me, if I send this letter back to you without payment, but with a copy of my birth certificate, do I get the bag for free? (I really ought to.) If you have AARP The Magazine (for those lengthy bathroom visits), I hope you also have AARP The T-Shirt (for bingo night), AARP The Lunch Box (for those days when you get lost in the ma

I have not been reading enough. I intend to remedy this. As a writer, one of the most important things for me to do is to keep reading. I need to see how other authors have done it in the past - how they've created worlds, characters, suspense, phrases, plot, and words. Aside from actually writing, it is the single most important way to improve my abilities. I have read a total of six books this year - that's just more than one book per month. It's kind of pathetic compared to my usual track record. Along with that, I've had a pretty terrible case of reading apathy since the last book I finished. Thankfully, yesterday I got back into it again with Jem by Frederik Pohl , which won the National Book Award - one of few science fictions to do so. But this book will only last me so long. Part of the reason I've been reading less is my new job, I think - it's the first bookstore I've worked at that doesn't have a check-out policy for its employees. Yes,

Yesterday, I was planning on cutting myself some slack and not posting a full blog. I still wanted to put something up, though, so I construed a wee paragraph or two and added a picture. Then the internet crapped out for the rest of the day. Not even a blip of signal. On top of that, my day was pretty similar to the above image. I got little sleep, forgot to eat for eight hours, bawled in a shrink's office, and learned that skim milk does not a custard make. (The latter one was, in fact, pretty gross.) Needless to say, I'm glad it's today now, and not yesterday again. Worst Groundhog's Day ever, if that were to happen. It was obnoxious and disheartening to miss my first blog post since I started this thing, but today I take heart. Today, I will have had more than 10,000 page views since I started this lovely thing a year and a half ago. My sincere thanks to those who have followed me on this bizarre and exciting journey. Here's hoping it takes even les

Today, I have some pretty weird stuff for you. Like this plastic, upside-down half-lobster, found on someone's front steps as I walked to work one day. Because this is Wisconsin, and of course  someone would have a lobster on their front porch. It's one of our major industries. Or cranberries. I always get them mixed up, because duh, they're both red. Here's my sister, impersonating Lady Wisconsin. (Click to enlarge; they're both pointing the same way, but Chloe does not have a badger on her head .) Here's a close-up of Lady Wis.; not bad for a dinky little camera. She totally has a helmet and a badger on her head. Or maybe a three-headed turtle. But a badger makes more sense. Which is also weird. Here's Lady Wisconsin again, on top of the capitol. Oh yeah, and Lady Forward, who thinks she knows where she's going. Which one does the government actually follow, I wonder? (Methinks it's the wrong one right now, whoever it is.) &

Today's post is kind of bizarre because I'm running on very little sleep. Spousal Unit and I got all excited last night in our 80-degree apartment, because we thought the air had finally been turned on. So we closed all the windows and cranked it, but still didn't fall asleep till late (for us). And then we woke up at 3 a.m., realizing that it wasn't AC, but some weird form of cool air that just made it hotter for us. Finally, after camping out in the living room, hanging blankets to block the street light, and opening every single window, we got to sleep. But neither of us had more than a few hours of it. So! Here's a thing I found out about yesterday, about which I'm kinda-sorta interested and kinda-sorta pissed. The Glimpse by Claire Merle   This looks just like every other dystopian young adult book I've seen/read/heard about recently: Girl is young! Girl has a bright future in crappy society that she thinks is pretty fly! Girl is destined t

My new favorite food in this whole wide world (until I eat too much and get tired of it) is zucchini pancakes. I'd never tried vegetable-based pancakes before; the idea seemed kind of weird to me. Pancakes should be sweet and sticky and syrup-laden, not healthy for you. Well, these can be unhealthy too, if you top them with enough sour cream, but the recipe itself is pretty wholesome. I found it in Mark Bittman's newest book How to Cook Everything: The Basics . I have not read the whole thing, nor have I cooked more than one recipe from it (I'm not the kind of person to spend $30 on a single cookbook). But from the once-over I gave it, it appears to be a great collection of recipes that you can modify in pretty much any way you want. I don't remember what Bittman called the recipe (probably something boring like Zucchini Pancakes) but I've renamed it Zucakes. Makes them sound more fun and whimsical, like they actually are. The recipe suggests serving them with

Back when I was in grade school, my mom threw frosting at a squirrel. She absolutely loathed squirrels. (She still hates them, I'm guessing; she's just not as violent about it now.) The reason for her disgust was twofold: 1) Squirrels liked to dig in her potted plants, hiding their nuts and various other small trinkets in them. In the process, they cut through roots and even completely displaced the flowers she had lovingly planted. Our deck out back had about ten planters throughout the summer - not including the ones around the rest of the yard - so they often visited the backyard to hide their stashes. 2) These nimble little rodents always stole from the bird feeder in front of our house, which, no matter how often she greased the pole on which it stood, no matter how many squirrel-proof shields she attached, no matter what terrible spices she scattered on the ground, could not be defended. The squirrels would still make death-defying EvelKnievel jumps from ou