WoolGatherer

Twenty-three-year-olds can be really stupid

It's 1990, and I'm playing an enjoyable tennis match with my friend Susan on a perfect late August afternoon.  Susan rips a flat forehand down the line and comes charging into the net behind it. 

As I spring like a little impala to return her approach shot, I actually hear the loud POP that accompanies the explosion of pain in my left calf muscle.  I collapse on the searing-hot court, holding my calf and writhing in agony.

It seemed I had done something not-so-terribly-good to my leg.

Bu did I go to the doctor?

No. 

For you see, I was stupid.

I iced, I elevated, and I rested my leg as much as I could. But I did not go to the doctor.

For you see, I was stupid.

My ankle turned a livid purple.  Purple later faded to sickly yellows and greens.  But I did not go to the doctor.

For you see, I was stupid.

Within a month, my leg was pretty much back to normal.  At least as far as I knew.

Jump ahead to fall of 2007.  That calf has decided to make me pay for my youthful stupidity with cramps, spasms, and painful tightness.

So, finally, after putting it off all winter, I'm getting physical therapy to soften and stretch the scar tissue that formed back in the '90s when I tore some things apart that were better off remaining attached together.

As I've been instructed to do, I heat my calf twice a day, stretch it carefully throughout the day.  I really hope I'll be able to play tennis this summer.

As I sit here with the heating pad under my calf, I think to myself, "Damn was I stupid when I was twenty-three."

~WG

Daisy

Our good pal yarn boy just got one of his fiction pieces published in the the Spring 2008 edition of Whistling Shade, a quarterly literary newspaper distributed here in the Twin Cities.  I've said it once, and I'll say it again: yarn boy rocks.

I had the privilege of reading the story, Daisy, a few months back, and I'm really happy for Jesse that he got the short story published.

I encourage you to head over the the online edition of the magazine and have a read.  The link to Daisy is in the left column under the Fiction heading.

Watch for a guest post here by Jesse while I'm off galavanting in Europe...

~WG

What some call jug-head ears, others might consider useful handholds.

~WG

Some people get so cranky when you burst into the bathroom with a camera while they're bathing!

~WG

Ohmygod, SHOES!

Tonight Darren and I are going with a few friends from my work to see Margaret Cho at the Orpheum in Minneapolis.

I've seen Margaret perform twice before, and she's always hilariously filthy.  (Filthily hilarious?)

Really, though, I'm more interested in seeing Kelly, a.k.a. Liam Sullivan, who's opening for Ms. Cho.

Kelly rules.  I must have watched Shoes about 100 times by now, and it still makes me laugh.

Hudson is spending the night with his doggie pals, so if we decide to have a late night out on the town after the show, we won't feel like bad dads.

What sort of debauched fun are you kids planning?

Well, whatever you do, have a great weekend, betches!

~WG

PS. Hey look, my friend Scott "southparked" me! It's uncanny, like I'm looking in a mirror!

Voices like angels...

When we were choosing a breed of dog, one thing we read was that "Border Terriers will sing several times a day." 

We weren't entirely sure what that meant, but now we know all too well. 

I offer a sampling of singing Border Terriers, with Hudson closing things out in a repeat performance from last year. (Notice that he needs no accompaniment.)

First, we have Jimmy.

 

Then Sisu.

 

And last but not least, my own little Canine American castrato, Hudson.

I think we need to get Hudson a few siblings and hit the road as a trio.

~WG

Now *that's* bleak

Perhaps you've recently seen ads for a horror film called The Ruins. The commercials feature bikini clad women (that's strike one against the movie) who shriek endlessly (strike two), while jerky hand-held camera-work and frenetic jump cuts make it impossible to see what's supposed to be so damn terrifying (three strikes and you're out).

Around the fifth time I saw the commercial, I heard the announcer say "based on the terrifying best-selling novel." 

Hmm, well maybe at least that's worth looking into. 

So, I forked out $4.50 for a used copy of the novel from Amazon Marketplace (hard-bound, ugh--that will teach me to read the description more carefully), and last week I breezed through the novel in a few evenings.

I'm not sure I'm able to agree with Stephen King's hyperbolic claim on the book-jacket that "The Ruins will do for for Mexican vacations what Jaws did for New England beaches." 

First, I've never taken a vacation in Mexico.

Second, I've never been to a New England beach.

And third, the novel just isn't very good.

It's not terrible by any means, and it does have its share of creepy (and increasingly gruesome moments), but apart from a few particularly nasty images that have stuck with me in the few days since I finished the novel, I've pretty much forgotten this unpleasant bit of fluff.  (It does make me glad yet again, however, that I live in a townhouse I don't have a verdant garden to tend.)

Out of curiosity, I watched the online trailers for the film and read the entire plot synopsis on the Moviepooper website.  Apparently women weren't victimized quite enough in the novel, so the film keeps the characters' names but reassigns their roles and grisly fates.  (That's a particular cinematic pet peeve of mine--something I've hated since I was a kid seeing the first of many Dracula films in which Lucy and Mina's roles are combined or swapped.  Why?  To what possible effect??)

[SPOILER ALERT]

Though I wasn't deeply invested in the novel's protagonists, I keep did hoping that at least some of the imperiled college students would survive their jungle misadventure.  I have to give the book credit for being bold enough to deny that hope.  The movie's producers, of course, didn't trust audiences enough to make the same bleak choice.

Still, I'll probably get the DVD from Netflix at some point.  After all, the film does benefit (at least for a time) from the presence of semi-hottie Shawn Ashmore, of X-Men fame. 

My recommendation: if you're in an airport bookstore about to board a long flight, you could do worse than reading The Ruins for a few hours. 

Otherwise?  Eh.

~WG

Feeling stale at the gym

Words cannot adequately express how bored I am with my workout routine. I really hate going to the gym these days.

Not that I've been to the gym terribly often in the past few weeks. 

(Hmm.  Perhaps the two things are related?)

Lately at the gym I more or less force myself through thirty monotonous minutes on the elliptical machine, I do a few sit-ups and push-ups, and I high-tail it home.  It's better than doing nothing, but only barely. 

Each day as I leave work at 3:00, I try to convince myself to put on my gym clothes and go to Lifetime by thinking about how good I feel after I work out.  I know part of that feeling is from the endorphins released during exercise, but lately it's more like the old joke:

Sven:  Why do you hit yourself in the head with a hammer?
Ole:  Because it feels so good when I stop.

I try to use the time at the gym to clear my head of the events of work that day and think up possible topics for blogging. (What was on my mind yesterday, I wonder.) Failing that, I can at least admire the rich display of male pulchritude.  Or course, now with the arrival of warm weather, more of the hotties are exercising outdoors.  That lowers the crowding at the gym, but at the cost of making the place even less interesting.

At the very least, I'd like to switch the cardio machines I use, but my always-ready-to-flare-up-or-rip left calf muscle won't let me do the treadmill or the bike for more than a few minutes.  Right now the only thing I can do that doesn't hurt is the elliptical.  Swimming would be an option, I suppose.  If I knew how to swim (and had a pool all to myself so no one could see my fleshy form.)

This morning I'm finally being evaluated by a physical therapist.  I really hope I can get some help for my calves, because tennis season is upon us, and right now I don't think I could play without hurting myself.  I was so happy to be back on the court last summer, and I've been looking forward to playing again this year.

Not only is tennis the only exercise I've ever really enjoyed, but it's one of the only things that makes me think it might be nice to live someplace that's warm all year.  (Otherwise, I'm quite fond of the cold and the dark of Minnesota's seven month winter. Let's not forget I was a German major.)

I guess I'm just feeling crabby, doughy, and sorry for myself.  Why couldn't I enjoy eating and drinking 50% less, and exercising 50% more?  Is that so damn much to ask?

Thank God the trip to Germany is less than two weeks away.  I always walk off a few pounds when I go to Europe.

Sorry to have no real point while simultaneously being whiny and self-absorbed.  (What is this, a blog??)

~WG

I tried to think of some witty double-entendre for today's BTC, but I had trouble forming coherent sentences.  I just really, really like this picture.

~WG

Perhaps I'm out of line here, but I'm guessing that at least some of you boys recognize our Sunday morning treat.

~WG

See, I wasn't lying!

Hey, kids!  Look what's on the Panopticon's blog!

Oh heck, I can't wait that long.  Look below and then go read what he wrote about the photo shoot. (Why didn't *I* think to bake cookies for Franklin?  That Scott thinks he's so damn smart!  And he is, too, so that makes it even worse!)

Eric with a C / Going 40 / WoolGatherer

 

If Franklin comes to your town, haul your butt to wherever he sets up shop, and get added to the collection.

So let it be written, so let it be done!

~WG

Why does my house smell like a pine forest?

I came home from work yesterday, exhausted and cranky, and opened the back door. 

Suddenly, I was transported to a fairytale pine forest, someplace far, far away.  Someplace with, you know, a lot of pine trees.

What the hell?

Then it hit me--that's the smell of a clean house!  The phrase "Pine-Sol Fresh" worked its way to the top of my weary brain.

My house is REALLY clean.  As in, I could cry with joy it's so clean.

It's if someone walked into my house, stole all of my dust, and left behind a Christmas-like freshness and clean surfaces as far as the eye can see. 

Not only is the dust gone, but things are so amazingly tidy.  Even Hudson's dog toys are arranged in neat little rows, and the cologne bottles on my dresser are displayed as though my bedroom was the men's department at Bloomingdales.  I'm getting a little choked up just describing it.

I did my best to sit motionless on the couch until Darren got home from work to see how well our money had been spent.  The last thing  I wanted to do was mar the perfection in any way.

Oh yeah, WG is going to like this.

~WG

Shhhh, I'm hunting wabbits!

After years of back and forth over whether or not we should hire help to clean our house, sanity and sloth (i.e. my side of the dispute) have won out, and our new cleaning woman starts this morning.

I am beyond ecstatic about this development. 

Seriously, you have no idea.

It's not that Darren was dead-set against hiring someone to tidy the many dusty corners we studiously ignore.  His argument was fundamentally sound: "There's no reason why two grown men [with no kids, I might add] can't keep a house clean." 

I agreed completely.

Unfortunately we were the two men in question. 

You see, we just don't clean.

Well, let me clarify.  We pick up after ourselves very well (no need to imagine heaps of dirty dishes in the sink, for example), but we've never done a particularly good job of removing dirt and grime that we or Hudson didn't create. 

Instead, we largely rely on having social gatherings that force us to get the house clean. Lucky for us we're damn good hosts and people adore me, so it's easy to get guests to come over. 

So, if nothing else, the public areas of our house get cleaned fairly often, if still not often enough.  It's shoddy housekeeping, but it's still win-win: we see our friends, and for a short time before and after our get-together, the house looks neat and tidy.

Our master bedroom and bathroom, on the other hand, where guests rarely tread, are a testament to the slow and steady accumulation of grunge. And don't even get me started on the thick shag carpet of dust and dog hair under and behind our bed.  (Gross, I know, but we're all friends here, right? Judge me if you must, but let him who is without grunge under his bed cast the first stone.)

In fact, the sorry state of our private quarters is such that I spent an hour yesterday erasing the evidence of our lackluster domestic hygiene. Many a dust bunny met its long-overdue demise under the lackluster suction of my under-used Eureka vacuum.

While I know that nothing in our house could possibly shock a professional cleaner, shame dictated that I slay dust bunnies before she arrives this morning.

On a completely unrelated note, the largest rabbits (hares?) I have EVER seen were loping about in a large grassy field that demarcated the Czech/Austria border.  It was 1988, and I was on a bus full of college students returning to Vienna after a long weekend in Prague.  As we waited at the border for the guards to inspect our passports and search our luggage for contraband, we noticed fifteen to twenty truly enormous rabbits watching us serenely as they ate grass and passed hraka.  They were perhaps fifty yards from our bus, so our sense of scale was quite clear.

I swear to God that these creatures were the size of Golden Retrievers.  Everyone in the bus was awestruck and horrified by the size of these "bunnies." 

My shock was such that I lacked the presence of mind to take pictures, but I promise you, I'm not exaggerating when I say a toddler could easily have ridden one of these critters like a pony at a county fair.

To this day, Darren claims I'm exaggerating when I tell this tale, but if there's anyone out there who was on that bus with me in May twenty years ago, please back me up. 

Those mofos were like something from Night of the Lepus.

Yeah, that's what we had under our bed.  Not dust bunnies.  Dust Lepuses.  (Dust Lepi?)

Well, whatever they were, they're gone.  GONE!

And they'll never be back!  HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

Pleased with himself,

~WG

When WG met the Panopticon

Last Friday's Men's Knit Night was an extra special occasion. First, Scott and Eric were kind enough to show up with two bottles of wine and a big batch of delicious home-made chocolate chip cookies, still warm from the oven.  YUM. 

As if that weren't wonderful enough, about halfway through our evening we enjoyed a visit by Franklin, a.k.a. The Panopticon, who was in town to attend the Minnesota Knitting Guild's Yarnover event.  He was every bit as charming and witty in person as I expected, and all of us knittin' boys were flattered that he had stopped by. 

Here's a picture of us, all smiles with Franklin front and center as the honorary leader of the pack.  (Or maybe that's "Queen for a Day.")



Eric, Scott, and I got to spend some more quality time with Franklin on Saturday morning.  I picked the boys up at their home around 10:15, and we drove over to Hopkins High School, where the Yarnover event was taking place and Franklin was doing a photo shoot for his 1000 Knitters Project.

There were probably fifty yarn shops from around the upper Midwest represented that day. (Eric and I resisted the urge to buy, but Scott fell prey to the charms of some really lovely alpaca yarn.) 

After some wandering, we found the classroom where Franklin was doing his photo shoot.  We had to wait about ten minutes for him to finish photographing a group of very giggly women, and when they left, he said "Thank God, the men have arrived!"

Scott, Eric, and I each sat for a couple minutes and knitted two rows on what is now a very long scarf that over 500 knitters have added to so far.  As we knitted, we just chatted with Franklin and he snapped pictures.  Eric was kind enough to remind me to smile, as apparently my natural knitting face is more of a snarl. Good to know.

So, it was a big weekend on the knitting/blogging front, even though I must admit that I only knitted a grand total of 44 stitches. Fine, but that knitting was captured for posterity by Franklin's camera.  I'm can't wait to see the book when it comes out!

~WG

Happy Monday!

~WG

I never really understand when people rant against tighty-whities.

~WG

Clickety clickety, so damn sickety

I'm sitting here on Thursday night, listening to sleet crackle against my windows while gale force winds roar and howl as they have all day.

I have to say, I'm really damn sick of winter at this point.  It's nearly the middle of April, for the love of little green apples! Can't we have some freakin' spring??

Yes, I'm fully aware that I chose to live in Minnesota, and as my fellow Minnesotan,  Prince , so wisely sang in 1986, "Sometimes it snows in April."  (In fact, my last year of college, it snowed six inches one night in May.  Now that was really depressing.)

Honestly, dear readers, I'm exhausted and cranky, and I don't feel very inspired to write.  If I may quote another very short person, Bilbo Bagins, "I feel like butter that's been scraped across too much bread."  Work is just nuts right now, and I'm not even doing half as much as my boss does.  (She's some sort of superwoman, I tell you...) 

My brain feels like it has been fried, flattened, and fried again.  Like a tostone.  (Mmmm, tostones...) 

See, my brain is where the words come from.  I'm pretty sure the words you're reading right now are coming from some other part of my body. Out of my butt, for example.

Or maybe they're from the devil.  Who's to say? 

Let's just start the weekend.

"Oh cabana boy, I'm ready for my Mai Tai and baby-oil rub-down..."

~WG

52 Pick-up

Actually, it's more like 40 stitches to pick up, but who's counting? 

(Um, I guess I should be, shouldn't I?)

Anyway, the write-y part of my brain is fried this week, so out comes the sock for a star turn on the blog. 

Speaking of turns, I turned the heel Tuesday night, and apart from a few scary minutes on Monday when I discovered a dropped stitch four rows below (back in the heel flap, ugh) things are going smoothly. 



I have a sense that it's going to be hard to give these socks away.  But that's as it should be.

~WG

PS.  Tomorrow's Friday.  I take strength in that knowledge.

Gleich um die Ecke

Nearly thirty years after my first German lesson, I still remember the little dialog that opened Chapter One of my grammar book.  It started out like this:

Kurt: Wo ist die Konditorei bitte? [Where's the pastry shop, please?]

Katrina: Gleich um die Ecke! [Just around the corner!]

I immediately loved the idea of a place where pastry is always just around the corner.  It sounded like a magical fantasy land of carbs.

Now that my trip to Germany with Darren is just around the corner, I'm getting really excited to use the part of my brain that I spent so long filling up with German, only to have it sit fallow since I left Princeton. 

In the last few days I've found myself conducting little German conversations in my head, and I'm extremely annoyed if I come up short when I need a word.  "Great, and I'm about to go to Germany??"

Of course, this is completely neurotic.  I functioned perfectly well in France, and my active command of French is rudimentary at best.  Even if I'm not at the very tippy-top of my Deutsch game anymore, I know I'm still completely fluent.  As soon as I step off the plane on May 3, my brain will switch gears into full German mode, just like it was when we went to Vienna six years ago.

And still I fret.

I fret about getting the gender of nouns wrong.  I fret about fouling up a dependent clause and putting my verb (and maybe its separable prefix!) in the wrong spot, and most of all,  I fret about shop owners or waiters speaking to me in--ugh--English, making me wonder what "gave me away." 

This is particularly ridiculous, given that I will be speaking English with Darren, who doesn't know any German.  No sensible waiter, hearing two Americans talking together, is likely to imagine that one of them was a former closet case who had spent fifteen celibate years sublimating his sex drive into learning a pain-in-the-ass, verb-hop-scotching, three-gender-having, wonderful language like German.

So, I plan to brush up a bit in the next couple weeks.  First I think I'll finish reading my German edition of The Historian.  At work I'll go back to listening to German radio online, and this Sunday, I'm going over to my Bavarian friend Marnie's house for a German tea with her and an Austrian friend.  That should help me clear the cobwebs quite a bit. 

I'll be fully functional when we arrive in Cologne.

But is so wrong to want to dazzle?

~WG

A near-brush with pseudo-celebrity

Those of you of a certain age may actually remember the first season of MTV's The Real World. 

Long before reality television shows were the stupefying institution they have become in recent years, in 1992, The Real World was actually kind of interesting.

Of course, we've subsequently learned that things in the beautiful Manhattan loft these seven strangers shared weren't quite as "real" as MTV purported, but that doesn't matter much to me.

For one thing, the show introduced us to Eric Nies, who, though now sadly faded, was once stunningly beautiful (if dumb as a box of hair).

Even more important to me, however, was the presence of Norman, whom MTV labeled "the lone gay cast member."

Back in '92, there just weren't many real gay people on TV, so I was extremely interested in watching Norman try to find love in the Big Apple. 

The closest he came to having a boyfriend during the run of the show was a brief fling with a handsome fellow named Charles Dabney.  In one episode, Norman and Charles were even shown smooching while attending the NYC Gay Pride rally.  Pretty hot stuff for basic cable in those days.

Skip ahead a couple years, and Charles Perez, who had appended his mother's maiden name to is own, had a short-lived daytime talk-show.  It wasn't very good (he was like a male Ricki Lake), but I used to watch it with my my housemate Irma.  We watched a lot of bad TV together.

Check out this promo for his show, and note the diva-based queer club music.

Eventually I took to calling myself "Sean Seany Perez," claiming I was giving props to my (non-existent) Latino heritage.  Irma, who is Puerto Rican, found this hilarious, so I kept the joke going for several years.

Now Irma is a big-shot writer at Telemundo, and recently she managed to get Charles Perez, now a weekend anchorman on WPLG in Miami, to autograph a headshot of himself and dedicate it to my old ethnic pseudonym. 

That was right sporting of him, I'd say, since my silly name was pretty clearly mocking him. 

Hmmm, I guess this post might be considered something of a long run for a short slide, but, um, I don't care. 

This picture is now one of my prized possessions.  I think I'll get it framed.

~WG
(a.k.a. Sean "Seany" Perez)

So the photographer couldn't have waited one second longer before taking the picture??

~WG

A penny for his thoughts... 

~WG

Well that's a relief

After my recent unpleasant debacle with The Sock That Must Not Be Named, I had begun to fear that maybe I no longer liked knitting socks.

As it turns out, that's crap.

I still love making socks. I just hated that stupid damn Sockotta yarn.

Lesson learned. If I ever pick up a ball of sock yarn, no matter how great the colors are, I won't buy it unless I love the feel of the fiber under my fingers. I never really liked the texture of the Sockotta, and look that all turned out. Tragic.

Two nights ago I started this sock in yummy Regia yarn, and things are moving along briskly. (The camera's flash washed out the colors a bit. The blue is quite a bit darker than it looks here.)



In a couple weeks, this sock-to-be and its mate will be sent to my pal Matt in long overdue payment for the banner images and new color palette he designed for WoolGatherer.

Rejoice with me in the arrival of Friday. This week at work has totally kicked my ass. Next week will be worse, the next week still worse. Then a I expect a let-up, then I'm off to Germany for two weeks.  I'm counting the days.

~WG

Kids, don't try this at home

This clip is all over TV and the web this week, but even if you've already seen it, watch it again anyway. It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen on a tennis court. (And remember, I taught tennis to high school girls for four years.)

I've had a crush on Mikhail Youzhny for years because of his incredibly sexy fuzzy-wuzzy buzz-cutt hair and his classic one-handed backhand.

BTW, the video starts out a little wonky, but clears up a few seconds in.

Oh that Mikhail. Sexy, but definitely crazy.

~WG

PS: Kenneth already got in the best line about this clip, one I thought to myself when I saw it on TV for the first time. Man, I hate getting beat to the punch with a quip.  But Kenneth is so damn handsome, I just have to forgive him.

One of a kind

This sock is destined to a solitary existence, for I hate it. 

Sure, it looks fine, but I hate the feel of the Sockotta yarn I used to make it, and I hate the stupid effed-up toe.



I've tried the damn thing on, and it fits just fine (apart from the lumpy toe). I really don't care.

It was a cursed project from start to finish. I started it over a year ago, frogged it twice, and pretty much had a bad feeling from cast-on to kitchener stitch, which I screwed up (again).

Yesterday I took the sock to work, tacked it to my cube wall and put a little label above it: Entäuschung in Grün / Blau / Weiss. (Disappointment in Green / Blue /White)

This Sockotta nightmare project has had me "sock-blocked" for six months: I couldn't get myself to finish it, but I wouldn't allow myself start new socks until this pair was finished. Meanwhile I had a eight balls of luscious, exciting Regia upstairs that I was dying to starting working with.

Well nerts to waiting. I'm cutting my loses and moving on.

Last night I finally picked a color and started a decent, soft pair of socks for my friend Matt. I'm an inch into the cuff, and I'm alread loving this new sock.

 

Ah, satisfaction.

~WG

Zoom-zoom choo-choo

Something I took for granted when I lived in Europe, but miss terribly now that I'm stuck on this side of the pond, is traveling by train.

Darren and I usually take a couple nice vacations each year, but as anyone who flies can attest, the old saw "getting there is half the fun," has long since ceased to be true. 

Flying is, at best, uncomfortable, frustrating, and tedious. Even a first-class upgrade does little more than gain you a few extra inches of legroom and the same bland meal one used to get in coach for free.

Traveling by train, in contrast (at least in Europe, as I've never taken the train in the US), is comfortable, relaxing, and infinitely more civilized than being packed like sardines into a flying tin can.

That's why one of the things I'm really looking forward to when Darren and I go to Germany in May is taking the Intercity Express Train from Cologne to Berlin. These trains book along at nearly 200 mph, but even at that speed, it's possible to enjoy the German countryside as it flashes past. 

It's only a four hour ride between the two cities, but I plan to savor every minute of it. We'll be able to get up and walk around at our leisure, enjoy complimentary drinks and food (yes, we're going first class, as it was cheaper than second class for some reason that makes sense only to Teutonic bureaucrats) and arrive at our destination without experiencing dehydration or deep-vein thrombosis.

True, flying round-trip between Cologne and Berlin would have been almost $200 cheaper than taking the train, and the one-hour flight wouldn't have been very likely to cause blood clots in our legs. Fine, I'll grant you that. But in this case getting there will be, if not half, at least a large part of the fun.

(Full disclosure: at Princeton I briefly dated a guy who was a total train fanatic. He was my first real boyfriend, and he dumped me. Hard. But I don't hold that against trains.)

I'm not a train fanatic. I just like traveling in comfort and going really fast. 

Like this.

Four and a half weeks and counting...

~WG