~ Blue Caplet ~
As I have possibly mentioned previously, this was my birthday present to myself. From it, I have derived much inspiration, which has facilitated my rekindling a thrill for knitting. Based on one of the patterns, I knat this blue caplet. This is one of the catch-up blogs that I have on my list to write, as I finished this project several weeks ago (I refer you back to the GRE studying and the depression for why I haven't been posting much lately).
The project has something of a funny story. ...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA... I followed the directions in the book exactly, I even checked my guage (two activities which are not my forte: following directions & checking my guage), and after a couple of weeks dilligent knitting, I bound off. I had stayed up well past my senior citizen bedtime to finish the project because I was excited beyond articulation about wearing my caplet the following day. After binding off, I picked up the caplet and held it up to my shoulder area. And promptly found myself naseous...the caplet was approximately twice as wide as it should have been to fit upon my person. I sat for a time, still, thinking about my options until I decided that there was nothing to do but to unravel the entire project and begin anew. So much for following directions
I knat the entire project over, this time utilizing my tried and true technique of "guessing instead of checking", and it turned out perfectly. The caplet is wonderful. I find that it creates this amazing umbrella of warmth along my shoulders and torso, and is a fantastic layering accessory. Now I'm on a caplet kick and have several other varieties in the works.
~ Le Tour de Fat and other bicycling experiences ~
Yesterday, to put it mildly, was kind of an epic day. I was experiencing a hangover at 9p.m., had had my fill of silly costumes, wanted nothing more than to ride a bike with an extra pivit or with automobile tires or with wheels winding about my head, and was feeling embarrassed about my performance in a dance competition, not to mention my various wounds (such as a stubbed toe and lacerated leg). But before yesterday, came other sets of epic experiences. I have spent the past six weeks studying for the GRE, so as to apply for graduate school. I refer you to my previous post on how I felt about that. After taking the exam on Tuesday morning, I slumped into a depression for the rest of the week which was in no way related to the GRE. I had been feeling very blue. So, both of the items, the GRE and the saddness, contributed to my lack of posting for the past month.
On Friday, Josh and I rode Hard Guy. I had intended to make Hard Guy it's own post, but it leads so well into this post, serving as the nexus between my depression and the fact that today my facial muscles are seriously sore because I smiled too much yesterday. So, the air quality in Boise has been unhealthy at a pretty consistent rate lately, which has made me felt disinclined to do things (such as mountain biking) which incline me to breath heavily while outside. That, and also the aerial spraying of pesticides which "they" say isn't harmful to humans (my allergies have been going crazy since they began spraying). A wind storm came through on Friday and seemed to clear the air a bit. Josh and I seized the opportunity and rode Hard Guy. Neither of us had ridden for a while and we both observed a lack of feeling at the top of our game, yet the ride was fantastic. Additionally, I'm still timing myself on this ride, and on Friday I rode it faster than at any other time before, exactly five minutes faster, which made me feel incredible. Also, because there is so much pollution in the air, the sunsets have been stunning recently. Josh and I took the opportunity to take photos of us riding, in a vain attempt to photograph us "catching air".
This brings me to my main thesis: I feel that bicycling, in all its forms, is good for the spirit.
Yesterday, Josh and I attended Le Tour de Fat. It started with a cruiser parade in the morning. Josh and I donned our silly halloween costumes of a duck and dragon (which are good stock costumes to have on hand, you know, on the off chance that we need a costume for something but have no money to invest in costuming) and met about 500 other costumed cruiserers at the Rose Garden. We rode in parade style through the Greenbelt, down Warm Springs, and made a loop around downtown. It was a lot of fun. Many people went all out with their costuming and many of the bikes themselves were wonders to behold. Thus, I took many photos of the parade.
After the parade, Josh and I abandoned our costumes and got some lunch. We returned to the festivities around 2:00. We began by enjoying some beer and trying to ride some very wonky custom bikes. The bikes were so fun. There were two with wheels that wound all about the cycler, one which had an extra pivit on the frame so that the frame would swing around itself, one with big automobile tires, a two person bike in which the stearing was controlled by the peddling, a trike positioned backwards, a recumbant with the wheels that would wobble around, a bike with uneven axles and full suspension, one in which the frame was a huge spring and could pull apart and back, along with many others. I found that my ability to ride the wonky bikes increased proportionately to my intake of beers.
We met up with Sara Turbo and her friends Amy and Jeff, and had all kinds of fun talking, imbibing, riding bikes, hulla hooping, listening to the bands, throwing a frisbee to a dog, and the like. At some point, during an intermission in the music, there was a request for some volunteer contestants. Josh and I ran up to the stage, unaware about our role as contestants. Thoroughly inebriated, we learned that we would be participating in a dance contest. As the dude with the microphone gave us instructions, we discovered that we would not be dancing with eachother. I looked across and noticed that my dance contest parter was not the apple of my eye, but some other dude. I then proceeded to make a complete fool of myself along with sixteen other people, in front of several hundred.
At 7:00, we went to a locally-owed theater and saw Little Miss Sunshine over some turkey sandwiches and chips. By the end of the film, Josh and I both felt like we had hangovers, and it was 9:00 in the evening, presumably before most parties even get started. I went to bed at 9:30 on that Saturday night after such an epic day. A day which was filled with so much joy and fun that today my facial muscles are sore because of all the smiling. For more photos, a good 119 to be exact, please see my flickr page.
~ Barf, Except More Elloquent ~
This morning, I spent five hours sitting in an enclosed room, not being able to go to the restroom when I needed to(for fear of losing precious time), not being able to drink when thirsty, and had dry air blowing into my eyes (which are susceptible to drying out), while typing out completely pointless essays (on such things as why a cooperative leadership is more desireable than a competitive one), answering completely pointless questions on the handwriting of Emily Dickenson, and selecting the answers to basic math problems which have no significance to my life. What a waste of time. What is even more indicative of a waste of time is the fact that I spent the last six weeks studying my little toosh off for this day. When I think of all the hundreds of totally useless words I memorized, and didn't have a use for, I kind of want to throw up. The entirety of my morning was such a load of bull, and I am seriously going to throw a shit fit if I somehow fail to get into the program to which I seek admission. Of course, I totally exceeded the score necessary for admission, so I'm hardly concerned about that. I am merely pissed about the complete wasting of my life on pointless stressful endeavors. In case anyone is interested, apparently Emily Dickenson wrote with strange handwriting and scholars have been debating whether this has significance. Otherwise known as totally useless information and all day I have felt impending emesis, which is the eloquent term for barfing.
~ Hackneyed Ebullience ~
Last night, I went to the dollar theater and saw a grossly overrated film with Joshlet. We shared a popcorn with a ridiculous amount of butter. Before ordering, Josh and I had a row about whether to add salt to the popcorn. I expatiated upon the fact that theater popcorn saturated with butter already contains more salt than is desirable for a single serving of snack. Once seated and eating our popcorn, we found oursevles wincing at the saltiness of our popcorn, sans addtional salt. Indeed, I noticed that Josh, who said that he did not want any of the water that I purchased, drank almost all of my water. I surmised that there was a correlation between our salty popcorn and thirst. After the film, Josh said that he felt the book would have been more cogent to his rational sensibilities than the film, and I agreed.
The film was longer than either of us had anticipated, and I had little enthusiasm for playing frisbee with the little koala lover in the basketball court across the street from where I reside, mainly because I am an underslept little birdie. So we shared a beer while sitting on the ledge of my patio banister. Later, Josh returned to my place of residence after I had called him regarding some dudes hanging out on my porch who I overheard talking about me as "the bitch on the porch", presumably because I threw a coniption fit at them not long ago for creating an absolutely ridiculous amount of noise and disturbance at 2:00 in the morning on a work night and later informed the landlady about their failure to abide by the quiet time after 10:00p.m. policy as outlined in our lease. There was no confrontation between my strong boyfriend with muscles and the weinery underage hooligans, but there could have been. Prior to calling aforementioned strong boyfriend with guns and pistons (which is slang for biceps and quads), I had given serious consideration to calling the police if they repeated their behavior. They managed to contain themselves to barely unaccepatable, and I didn't feel it was worth making a deal over...though my landlady did instruct me to have no tolerance for that kind of behavior, it is still difficult for me to be confrontational.
~ Sigh of Relief ~
Almost, at least... ... There is such a thing known as "too much fun," and it isn't so fun. I am finally at a place where I can say that I have nothing "fun" planned for a few months. No trips, no amazing adventures, just the opportunity to sleep in my own bed (except that this morning I agreed to housesit, belch, this weekend). And this is good.
Three days after getting back from the Wallowas, having had no time to get anything in my life back in order, I had to go on a business trip, at which I received exactly no sleep. I felt like crap because my entire exisence was disorganized (I had to scrape from the bottom of the barrel just to find clean clothes...which means that, while my business attire for the trip was clean, it looked ugly and I was lacking in confidence because of my hiddeous outfit), and I hadn't had a chance to do any of those things I need to do to feel good about being alive. I drove up to the town, and spent the entire evening meeting with people. Before going to bed, I went on a long walk to get some of my pent up energy released. Then I went to bed...and didn't sleep. At about 1:00 a.m., I realized that I was so hungry that my body was going into an anxiety attack. I realized that while I had had some food, that I had somehow forgotten to eat dinner. Which is very bizarre for me because I am all about the food, and have never forgotten something so wonderful as eating dinner. I feel that the fact that I forgot to eat is indicative of the state of my disorganized life.
So, at 1:00 a.m. I wandered around the hotel looking for a vending machine to find some calories. The hotel was an older hotel, reminiscent of "The Shinning" it was very creepy and labrinthyne. I actually became afraid, for example, while I was walking around in the basement, which was totally dark (in fact, all of the hallways in the hotel were dark, no lights at all anywhere) and I was feeling disoriented because of my starvation and low-blood sugar, and I came across these strange alcoves with showers and tiled walls in the middle of the hallway. Then I went up this stairway, having basically lost my way in the maze, and practically shat myself when I encounterd a stuffed man with his arms raised in a peculiar gesture standing in the middle of a dark room. Thoroughly freaked out, I ran out of the front door and proceeded to walk around the totally empty town, in search of a convenience store or anything that might be open with food. I walked for some time and found nothing, the town was dead. I returned to the creepy hotel and decided to have an interaction with the night attendant, who I have dubbed Igor for good description purposes, about the possibility of locating some calories. Through Igor's inbred grunts, I was able to surmise that I was shit out of luck. So I returned to my hotel room and watched late night programming in a completely blood-sugarless disoriented state until 6:00 a.m., at which point I got ready for my day-long meetings.
I returned to Boise with the intention of not planning any more trips for several months. This weekend was delightful. I slept, and slept, and had plenty of time to do all of those things necessary for me to feel good about being alive.
