The Naming of Things

I like titles and names. Our descriptions of things have so much power; how often have you had difficulty remembering someone's name because they don't look like a Becky or a Liz or a Peter or a Martin Freeman? I carried a different name all the way through high school, and the changing of my name - while technically unofficial - changed a lot of things in my life. Especially that people stopped breaking out into song the moment they heard me introduce myself. You might think that people breaking into song would be something I enjoyed; after all, I'm a huge fan of musicals, I identify deeply with Julie Andrews characters, and I feel pretty strongly that one of the major things missing from my life is a regular and appropriately-timed dance break. But most people can't carry a tune in a bucket with a lid,

and I often had to smile awkwardly in that way people with easily-punned-upon names do, as if I'd never heard someone make the connection before.

Also, I learned a lot about people's taste in music; now they just ask me if I've ever been to the Tiki Room in Disneyland.*

Anywhoodle. Names: I like them, they are interesting, and they are curiously mutable in that they take on the aspects of the things that have the name, and also impart their own. Could Fairuza Balk have been a Jennifer Cook? Sure. Would she have been an early 90's gothic icon? Probably not.

All this came up because I've been assiduously avoiding the final discussion of The Woman in White on almost all of my book blogs until I finish the third reading (so...close...shut UP Hartright...stabby-stab...), so I'm rather desperate for news of the Book World, so I caught up on Neil Gaiman's blog today, which has far less book stuff than you'd think so I tend to just skim it to see if he'll be in town any time soon.** I collect names and hoard them away because they intrigue me, especially literary ones and generally in pairs, like Jane and Elizabeth or Mycroft and Sherlock or Kaylee and Simon or The Doctor and Idris (or Donna or Amy or Martha but not Rose).

Which is to say it's a good thing that I'm not a crazy cat lady (thanks only to Mr. Darcy being a finicky isolationist, as one might expect) or having any children, because I'd probably be doomed to twins and have to choose, and "The Doctor" isn't really an appropriate name for a child.

I think, though, that the next time I adopt kittens - far, far in the future because Darcy will live foreverdoyouhearmecat - they will be named Verity and Sydney.***












* The answer is: 1) Yes, of course, 2) Yes, I sing along with my own name subbed in for "tiki," and 3) Yes, my friends are awesome and sing along with me appropriately.

** All the commas in that sentence are grammatically correct, even if they are legion. Just so you know.

*** I understand that an entire blog post leading up to what I will name my future cats probably qualifies me as a Crazy Cat Lady.

My Brain on Post-Thesis Turn-in Day

Last night I turned in my final presentation PowerPoint and presentation outline for my Master's in Teaching. There are still some things to do - I need to finish my Teacher Preparedness Assessment #4, which is the write-up portion of the lesson I video recorded back in June, and I need to actually present my Action Research to the school panel. So I'm not done-done, but I'm done for a day or two and there are no more hard deadlines. Hurrah!

Today I've been tidying my house and thinking about the two wedding shawls I need to finish this fall. When my cousin Perfect Phillip announced his engagement to his adorable now-fiance last month, I decided immediately that the Rosebud Shawl I started last year would be my wedding gift to her; an added bonus to me as a fairly scattered knitter is that the shawl is somewhere around 30% finished right now. However, back at the end of December I went on a massive house-cleaning streak

And Put Everything Away.

The problem with this is that I am an extremely visual person, which is a nice way of saying that I'm pretty much an "out of sight, out of mind" type. So all of those carefully packed boxes under my bed? They're there to keep massive cat-hair bunnies from taking over my room. All those stacks of paper that I tucked away in boxes? As good as recycled. And all those half-finished knitting projects that used to live on my coffee table were tucked away as well - some of them several boxes away from their patterns.

Preach.

So, I spent the last week idly looking for both the Rosebud Shawl - tucked into one of the under-bed boxes - and then looking slightly more frantically for the marked-up pattern. It wasn't in the bag with the shawl where it should have been, it wasn't in the envelope with the original version, it wasn't in the stack of papers in the box in the closet (although there were approximately 50 other patterns tucked between school work and handouts). I dug through more boxes under the bed and discovered a plethora of knitting I'd forgotten, most of it with needles still in and some of it even with a recognizable goal.

I can think of at least 2 more projects that aren't pictured here, but I don't know where they are...

I dug through the decorative basket next to my couch that now holds my knitting-in-progress (instead of the coffee table). After finding a hojillion projects in various states of completion and therefore completely overwhelming myself with the extent of my knitting polygamy (shawls and sweaters and socks, oh my!), I pulled the Rosebud Shawl out of its fabric bag to see if there was any way I'd be able to figure out where I was. And there, tucked neatly into the bottom of the bag, was the pattern.

I'm going to pour a glass of wine and photograph the actually completed knitting I discovered along with the unfinished objects, then spend the rest of the week catching up on The Woman in White and either ripping out or finishing some of this pile.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

Dear Friends,

Let me take you waaaaaaay back to December 24, 2010. Can you remember back that far? I know, it's tough for me, too.

Tika 2010 is sitting at her family's table after Christmas Eve dinner, a few glasses of wine in and poring over the IK Winter 2010 issue when she gets an email: Today is the last day for a 25% off bags of Malabrigo sale at a Certain Website! Visions of a gorgeous Thandie Funnel Sweater begin to dance in her head, and soon her cart is full of bags of delicious Mmmmmmalabrigo lace and Rios and worsted. She trims the cart as much as she can bear (25% off!) and places her last yarn order of 2010. 'This is it,' she thinks to herself, 'the Yarn Diet starts... tomorrow!'

Trip forward with me just 48 hours when, curious as to when her card will be charged for enough wool to smother a small Arctic village, Tika 2010 receives the following "confirmation" email for her order:

On Dec 26, 2010, at 9:05 PM, A Certain Website wrote:

Hi Tika,

We'd like to update you on the status of your order #26306 placed on 2010-12-24 13:06:02.0.

Your order #26306 is being processed and is expected to leave our shipping location within the time specified on our website.  Your "ships within" time-frame is located on each product page of the item(s) you ordered.  Did you overlook the "ships within" time-frame for your order?  No problem -- a "ships within" time-frame chart is attached to this email for your convenience.  Please remember to add 3 - 5 transit days to the "ships within" time-frame.

A Certain Website makes every effort to ensure that the products available for order on this site are current and available from the manufacturer.  There are times however when a manufacturer discontinues or backorders an item without immediate notification.

Once your order has shipped you will receive an email with your tracking information.  If you do not receive your tracking information, please be sure to check any SPAM folders you may be using.

If you require additional information regarding the status of your order, please feel free to respond to this email.

Thank you for ordering from A Certain Website.  We appreciate your business!

Customer Support

How very timely, if not very polite. And yes, Tika 2010 had overlooked the "ships within" timeframe on the website in a haze of projected wool fumes - otherwise the order may not have taken place, as the "ships within" time frame mentioned was 4-6 weeks. 'No matter!' she cried, 'I have plenty of wool to keep me busy until then!' And so it was.

Four to six weeks later, having been curious but not of the chewing-on-knuckles kind, Tika 2011 receives her next communication from A Certain Website:

Hello Tika,

We are happy to inform you that the order with Order ID - 26306 which you ordered on 24 Dec 2010 has been shipped out. It was shipped out on 04 Feb 2011 using UPS -- UPS Ground.
If you have further enquiries about your order, please email us anytime. Thank you for ordering from us and have a great day.

Well, that was six weeks to the day after the order, so hurrah! The yarn is coming! And yet the amount charged on the card is not right; some significant portion of the purchase price is missing. Worried that A Certain Website may be shorting itself, Tika 2011 sends an email asking about the discrepancy and receives the following reply:

Hi Tika,

Thank you for your email.  The Malabrigo that has not yet been shipped is:  Malabrigo Rios 69 and Malabrigo Lace 32. 

Thank you,

Joe

A Certain Website.com

Well, that explains it! Surely the missing yarn will show up both on the credit card and on the doorstep shortly. Meanwhile, some of you may recall this little Yarn Incident. What Yarn Diet?

And now I bring you forward in time once again to only 2 weeks ago. Tika 2011, in medium dudgeon about the lack of Thandie Funnel Sweater she is capable of making with only half of her yarn order still present - after all, one cannot brioche with only one yarn, can one? - sends the following email to A Certain Website:

Dear Customer Support,

On December 24, 2010, I placed the order mentioned in the confirmation email below. 

On February 4, 2011, I got an email stating that my order had shipped, but there was a discrepancy between the original amountand the amount charged on my Visa I emailed your sales department to ask why there was a difference and on February 7th was informed that two bags of yarn had not yet shipped: 

[Joe's Email here]

I understood from the phrase "not yet" in Joe's email that the yarn would be shipped close to within the 4-6 week timeframe listed on your website, which should have been immediately after the first shipment, February 4th being 6 weeks to the day after I placed my order. However, this was not the case, and since then I have heard nothing from your company. I logged in to my account today to find that my entire order is marked as "shipped," but as I have 1) not been charged and 2) not received the missing bags of yarn, that cannot possibly be the case. 

I would like someone to contact me immediately with information on when I can expect your company to fulfill my order. I am highly disappointed by the customer service I have received and look forward to an explanation as to what went wrong. 

Sincerely,

Tika

Order #26306

Forceful and slightly annoyed, but certainly not the cruelest or most vitriolic of letters. I have been in customer service, after all. This is the response:

Hi Tika,

Thank you for your email.  Due to the overwhelming success of the Malabrigo sale we ran in December, our supplier became somewhat backlogged.  Per our supplier, the remaining portion of your order is still being processed at this time.  We will have the rest of your order shipped to you the same day it arrives at our shipping location.

Your patience is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Joe

What a great cut and paste job you've done, Joe! Clearly you've gotten a lot of emails about this issue, but did your company bother to use the mailing list to explain the situation in one simple step? Apparently not. Tika 2011 is losing her patience.

Hi Joe,

Do you have any idea when that might be? I - and I'm sure your other customers as well - have been waiting for over 3 months for yarn I expected to have within half that time. If I had known it would take this long, I would have ordered from somewhere else; now half of the yarn I need for my project is here and the other half is stuck in the backlog somewhere.  I recognize that you are a small business, but an email explaining the situation back within your original timeframe of 4-6 weeks would have been welcome. 

-Tika

 Hi Tika,

We do not have an ETA.  We have tried contacting our supplier every week asking for an ETA, and none yet.  If we had known the special sale we ran was going to take this long, we would have either forewarned our customers or not have run it at all.  We sincerely apologize for this, and understand your frustration as we are also very frustrated – and losing business. 

We are hoping it is not going to be much longer.  We will let you know as soon as your order has shipped or as soon as we find out an ETA.

Again, we apologize for this delay.

Thank you,

Joe

Aaaaand there you have it: the "poor us, we're losing business" excuse. Now, I have no doubt that they are indeed losing business, but not for the reason they think. No indeed; the reason they are losing business is because they did not bother to contact their customers over the course of three months to tell them that the product they ordered wasn't, in fact, available in anything like the (ridiculous) time frame given.
I replied that if I had not heard from them in two weeks, I would be contacting them to cancel the rest of the order. That's today, and just look what was in my inbox when I came home from work!

A Certain Website has sent you a shipment via USPS
The tracking number is: [redacted]

 Surely not! Can it be? The timing is, to say the least, suspicious. And having played this game once before, I checked my credit card. Sure enough, only one of the two missing items was charged; in my account on the website the whole order shows as shipped, and there is no information in the email as to the one lingering bag of Rios that was missing - the CPH That Wasn't, if you will. /sadface

Dear A Certain Website,

Thank you for the update on my order. As it has been over 3 months since I placed the original, please cancel any remaining parts of the order that have not shipped. As I understand it, that would be the bag of Malabrigo Rios. Please cancel the remainder of this order immediately.

Two weeks ago I corresponded with Joe, who explained your company's situation in regards to the Malabrigo sale from December. While I understand the dilemma and I am sorry that you are losing business, I want you to know that the reason I am canceling my order and will not be buying from you again is NOT because of your difficulty in getting the yarn from the supplier. If I had received any sort of communication from your company explaining the situation and giving me any kind of update whatsoever, I would have been happy to remain a customer. Even this email today did not contain the information that only one of the remaining two bags of yarn had shipped and neither did my account on your website; I had to check my bank statement in order to discover that both bags were not on their way to me. 

I do not expect you to take any recommendation I might have into consideration since I will no longer be a customer after today, but I do urge you to consider being more clear in your communications with your clientele. A simple proactive email would have ensured my loyalty and patience.

Sincerely,

Tika

Order #26306

 So I hope I made myself clear to you, dear reader, if not to whomever reads the website's emails. Annoyed Tika 2011 is annoyed! But wait! What should appear in my inbox but the following:

Hello Tika,

You have received a gift certificate from A Certain Website. You can use the gift certificate whenever you are shopping at our store within the duration specified. You are entitled to a reduction of $  10.00 with any $100.00 purchase (excluding shipping) at our store when you use this gift certificate.

Below are the details of your gift certificate :-

gift certificate ID : FE9AC0D3-00EB-9ACC-1FC857B98EADB3E6
Validity of the discount coupon : FROM 28 Mar 2011 UNTIL 04 Apr 2011 with any $100.00 purchase (excluding shipping).
Discount Value :$  10.00
Gift certificates used on any purchase less than $100.00 will not be honored.

It is easy to use your gift certificate. Just enter the gift certificate ID listed above when adding items to your shopping cart and your discount will be applied automatically.

So, what are you waiting for? Go on over to A Certain Website now and start shopping and saving immediately!

I... I don't even... WHAT AM I WAITING FOR?!?

You might well ask, Sumptuous Yarn Sale dot com. You might well ask.

Tika: 1, Impetuosity: 0

On Sunday, I had an overwhelming desire to learn to make paper. Think of all the things I could make! With paper! And paper slurry! Look how I looked up the appropriate words; clearly I shall be a papermaker!! I could make the buttons for my Sacred Tempest Cardi (sitting on my desk gathering Darcy fur on the topmost piece, awaiting seaming...) out of paper! It would be fun and I could use up all those annoying ads I get in the mail and the 250-lb phonebook that I'm currently using as a doorstop (for real) and the plethora of Netflix extra paper from the mailing envelopes and and and

and then I forced myself to stop. I went into my bedroom and opened my closet, which currently houses literally thousands of dollars worth of wool in varying degrees of spun-ness. There is exactly 18 inches of space for hanging items, and only because the closet does a weird little juke thing that means I can't get more tubs of yarn into it. Then I forced myself to pick up an unfinished-due-to-slacking knitting project (helloooo, Hera Mountain Shawl!), plug into an audiobook, and ignore my papermaking cravings.

At least until I finish this shawl.


P.S. - the thunder is rolling again. I have Taken Precautions: Form of FIRE (and iPod Charge!) this time, so worry not, my puddle ducklings!

That Didn't Last Long

Four days, or 13% of the month, to be exact. Ahh, well. Pick up and begin again, yea?

Yesterday was one hell of a day! My Nadia came over, we went to look at a charming apartment, then we got ready with Friday and the three of us went to a beautiful dinner at Ella's in Sacramento, followed by In the Heights, followed by drinks and dancing with my friend Randy, who has been the lead electrician on the show since it started touring about a year ago. It's nice to hang out with friends who've known you for 1/3 of your life, y'know? There's something so easy about it; when they say, "Derby? Really? That's so you and.. not you. At the same time," I know exactly what they mean. Or he meant, in this case.

When the 3 of us girls got home at 2:30 am, the elephantine subject of what's been brewing in this house came up again. We all three have different loyalties, and all 3 of those loyalties are exactly where they should be: Friday's are with THB, mine are with me and my family, and Nadia's are with me as well. Under that premise, we talked about a lot of the issues that have been coming to the surface; it was one of those conversations that can only happen at 3AM no matter how old we get, apparently. I haven't seen that side of 6:30 in the morning for longer than I can remember.

This whole thing will pass, but nothing is going to be the same, and I'm a little bit afraid. It's not over yet, but I'm filling out an application for the apartment I saw yesterday and hopefully seeing another one today.

Roommate Trouble

It is time to shift house. For a long time, I've been struggling with living in this little 3-bedroom house with (usually) four other people. THB's Girl Friday is here most nights, and so is his best friend, and with our other Official Roommate, that makes five people in a 1200 square-foot house. With no closets (the closet thing really chafes me. Argh). It doesn't help my frustration that the other people living/staying here are younger than myself and therefore have different expectations than I do in roommates and living conditions.

That is not to say that I'm always cleaning the house. Just so we're clear; I like to operate in what is known as organized chaos, and it's sometimes difficult to explain why a pile of papers is in that particular spot on the floor (and has been for... awhile). And sometimes it's because I'm just lazy about going through papers, to be honest. Just because *I* know where something is in relation to the rest of my stuff doesn't mean that it looks tidy - often quite the opposite. But I try to keep my mess in my own room for the most part; other people live here after all. And my roommates do the same, for the most part.

But there is something rotten brewing in Denmark, my dears, and it hit the fan on Tuesday, spattering festered anger and passive-aggressive behavior all. up. in. heah.

For several months, or since I moved here, I've been pushing for us to suck it up and hire a housekeeping service. We're all busy and dislike cleaning, but THB and I have a higher dirt threshold than Other Roommate, so she ends up cleaning more than we do. She has, however, not brought up any frustration with this, and I've asked her several times if she feels frustrated by it. Without fail, she says no, that she likes cleaning and she's doing it to relax. Now, I am lazy and also dislike having to ferret truth out of people, so I've taken her at face value. So, the maid service idea has been pooh-poohed and nothing has changed. I brought this up again last week sometime, and they laughed me out of the room again. Then on Tuesday, the house was inundated by ants - they were fucking everywhere, and it was disgusting. We all pitched in to clean up, but there was a little sing-song in the back of my mind saying that if we'd hired a maid service, this wouldn't have happened (this may or may not have been true. Ants come inside when it rains, and it's been raining). I kept my mouth shut and started looking for 1-bedroom places on CraigsList that night instead of turning into a shrieking harpy.

Tonight, THB told me that he's been having a 2-day long email conversation with our Other Roommate, who told him he needs to step in as a landlord and not as a brother and fix this situation. She hasn't contacted me at all, not to ask to have a conversation, not to tell me I'm a crazy bitch, nothing. She also hasn't been home in 2 days. We are apparently in 4th grade and Not Speaking to one another, and I don't even know why. It's absurd.

I have an appointment to look at an apartment tomorrow. I really hope it's not shady so I can sign a lease on the spot. And I am beyond furious that this person has managed to make me uncomfortable in the house that I share with my brother.

Unveiled (now with more parentheticals!)

One of my favorite book bloggers is the hilarious and astute Raych. She consistently makes me laugh and also I agree with her taste in books, which is kind of a prerequisite for thoroughly enjoying a book blog. Anyway.

Raych has a sister (or two? I think two. But it is only the one of which I currently type.) who is Into Art in a completely opposite way from the way I am Into Art. That is to say, Rebekah makes art and I admire it. I'm convinced that Rebekah admires art as well, but I am not so much about the making thereof. Sometime in the last couple of weeks, Rebekah had an art sale on eBay. I clicked over and looked at adorable and whimsical paintings, but this one in particular caught my eye.

I decided to think about it, because $200 is a lot of yarn! And think about it I did, including having a weird dream in which I owned the painting but someone (not Rebekah) refused to give it back to me. I woke up knowing it may have been painted by someone else (Rebekah) but it belonged to ME.

The climax of this story is that I won the auction (it was a stressful several hours waiting, remind me not to play with eBay very often) and sent Rebekah a sappy little note about how the title plus the painting mean more to me than either would separately, and she wrote back to say that she's interested in how the people who buy her paintings interpret, see, and interact with them. How cool is that? I love when artists, like directors, understand that their work has a life of its own that may not necessarily be interpreted the way the artist/director intended. That's what makes art, Art, people. Make a note.

I came home late last night/early this morning from the Best Wedding Ever (congratulations, Nadia and Paul! Your love is the kind I hear makes the world go 'round.), went to sleep in my own bed for only the 9th time since June 14th, and woke up to make tea around the beginning of the afternoon. And the moment I finished simultaneously cuddling the kitty and drinking my tea, the doorbell rang. It was FedEx with a biiiig box and Canadian customs stamps! After a happy 10 minutes digging through puffed plastic bags and styrofoam, I got to this:

And after another 10 minutes of caaaaarefully wrangling plastic wrap with scissors (eep!), I got to this:

Isn't it sweet? And lovely? It goes perfectly on my wall

Love is a Servant by Rebekah Joy Plett

and has a title that coincides exactly with my summer. Everyone's First Real Art Purchase should be so easy and enjoyable. Thank you, Rebekah, for channeling my heart and thoughts into a painting even though we didn't know one another. To quote Lady Catherine, you have given me a treasure.

A Tale of Tape Measure Whoa

This is my favorite tape measure.

It used to have a Fibersphere logo on the sticker, but that wore off a long time ago. The nice folks at Fibersphere gave these away the first year they were at Stitches West. It's got a metal tape measure in the top and a pen in the bottom, and it's lived in my purse for nearly 2 straight years now. That scrape along the pen barrel is from being run over by crazy conservatives in Nevada when we went to canvas for Obama. We managed to lose every other pen we came across, but that one stayed with me.

Last year at Stitches, I bought 2 more of these miraculous tape measures. I put them in my bag, I saw them in my apartment once, and then -POOF!- they disappeared. I'm sure they're in a place so safe, they're protected even from me.

This year, I completely forgot to hit the Fibersphere booth at Stitches and get more tape measure pens. Sigh.

*****

Shifting gears, I like to order from The Loopy Ewe. I usually order Lorna's Laces from them because they carry loooooots of colors and I'm getting pickier and pickier about my sock yarn these days. The socks I've made from Lorna's Laces haven't faded hardly at all and haven't felted even a little, and that's with a ton of wear. My Daffodil socks were my go-to pair in Mexico last year, and I wore them all over the cement floors with no problems. They are arguably my favorite socks, so they get tons of wear and I love them.

But anyway, back to The Loopy Ewe. They have this cute little system of sending small gifts with your first 5 orders and on the sixth, you become a Loopy Groupie with all the perks and benefits therein.

I have lately been annoyed by the slow-yet-steady disappearance of my DPN's, so I ordered a set each of 0 and 00 Hiya-Hiya's last week, then in a panic sent Sherri an email asking if she could add 2 of her carabiner tape measures to the order. Oh yes - carabiner tape measures.

Heck yes! I'm thrilled with these (and my DPN's). One will go in my knitting drawer for emergencies, one will attach itself to the handle of the pen mug next to my computer, and my pen tape measure can go back to living happily in my purse. And if you look again at the picture, you'll notice something that makes me extra-happy: the stopper. See how I'm not holding the tape measure out? FanTAStic! So useful.

And on top of that, I'd completely forgotten that it was my 6th Loopy Ewe order. I got a much larger package than I had anticipated today, and inside was this!

A tote with the Loopy sheep on the front, some Herhsy's kisses, a sock pattern, an adorable sheep calendar, and a skein of Enchanted Knoll sock yarn! I was, once again, thrilled. Not only do I have a fresh new set of DPN's AND extra tape measures, but I also have a spiffy new bag and (even more) sock yarn! The yardage totally counts toward my yearly intake, though. But that's ok; I'm working on the second sock of my Risata pair, and they're moving fairly quickly.

I think tonight I'll finish up those socks and watch Torchwood: Children of Earth on Netflix.

Oh, and did I mention that I have a 7-page paper due tonight? That I turned in at FOUR THIRTY this afternoon?!? HAH!

A Feminist-y Question

So here's a scenario that might or might not be familiar, followed by my general reaction and then by the reaction to MY reaction by a male of my acquaintance.

Scenario:

You are walking to the door of a restaurant/bar/etc., when a guy dashes in front of you, opens the door for you, and while you walk up to the door, gives you the semi-lecherous once-over and a sunny, cheerful smile.

Think about your reaction for a minute. I want to know what it would be.








Do you know yet? You should tell me in the comments.







Here's mine:
I walk up, open the other side of the door for myself, give the guy a sunny smile while I walk through and say, still smiling, "thanks anyway!"

A Male of My Acquaintance thinks this is a bitchy response. He thinks this is bitchy because, as he says, "good luck finding someone who won't objectify you in the first 5 minutes of your relationship. Nice high standards you have; I'm glad you make it so hard for guys to appreciate you." When I told him that I don't see anything wrong with having high standards for treatment, he replied that high standards are good, but a little objectification doesn't hurt anyone.

I would like to know how on earth I'm supposed to meet a man who is planning to treat me like a person with real ideas and real thoughts - as opposed to a set of breasts and holes with an occasional flash of intelligence - if I allow him to be a lecherous ass in the first 30 seconds of our acquaintance, and (here's the kicker) act like I think that kind of behavior is cute.

So, dear reader, tell me in the comments: How do you deal with the constant double standard? Do you ignore it? I mean, let's be honest, we all do at times, both men and women. Do you think about it occasionally and just give it up as too hard to be a capital-B Bitch all the time? What do you do? I'd love to know, especially because I'm getting tired of regularly stand up to the ridiculous objectification, despite the fact that I have no intentions to stop doing so.

Let's Talk Twist

The CBEST is OVER! My unofficial scores give me a pass in the reading/math sections, so I'm just waiting until Nov. 30 for my essay scores. I'm fairly certain I did just fine; I stayed on topic, used relevant examples, and exercised my skillz at spelling and big words, which is really all one can expect from a canned essay on what life skills I've learned from being in school.

But enough about the CBEST! Standardized tests deserve no more of my attention, as I won't have to take any more of them ever (famous last words).

Let's talk about the Twist Collective in general and the new issue in particular. I am currently enamored of lists, lists, and more lists, so this will take the form of... a list. Predictable, thy name is Tika.

The Twist Collective In General:
1. Has interesting patterns
2. Uses pretty photography
3. Explores a wide range of yarns, styles, and abilities
4. Does good things for the industry in regards to paying designers/charging/etc.
5. Is not intuitively set up, and thus I click on ads when I want to know more about patterns
6. Actually makes me not want to buy patterns because of the layout
7. Makes me sad because of the combination of nice patterns and crap website
8. Overcharges for their contents.

Now, let me qualify #8. I fully believe that designers and magazine people (whether that magazine is online or not) deserve to make money from their creations. I don't believe that all knitting patterns should be free just because we're all combining knits, purls, yarn overs and decreases like everyone else. For a paper magazine, I am willing to pay $7 or $8 bucks as long as I like at least 2-3 things in said issue. Even if everything else is made of Muppet skin and peacock feathers, I figure that those 2-3 items I would make justify the cost of the entire product, perhaps in combination with a Strongly Worded Letter regarding the ethical ramifications of Muppet skin. Some of you may have noticed me reference my collection of Anne Hanson patterns, for which I gladly shelled out ~$7 each for shawls and ~$5 for socks. I also have a whole folder dedicated to Cookie A's patterns, which are also not cheap. Thus am I perfectly suited as a consumer of knitting patterns and also an opinionated loudmouth to express my displeasure at paying $6-7 each - regardless of scope of project, expertise, or volume - for the often-amazing patterns from Twist Collective.

So really, I guess what annoys me is that there's no volume discount from Twist. Most of their patterns are $7 (shawls, sweaters, bags) or $6 (gloves, hats, scarves). But here's the twist (ahahhaha! I kill me!): this hat is $6, and this neckwarmer/hat/mitten combination is also $6. Here's what ends up happening in my brian:

Spendthrift Me: Both are super-cute!
Cheap-o Me: But.. but.. it's just a cleverly constructed hat with piping!
Spendthrift Me: But still cute!
Cheap-o Me: Adorable, I agree. But $6-adorable? Maybe 4. Not six. I could reverse-engineer that in a couple of hours.
Spendthrift Me: It's a negligible $2. And then you wouldn't be spending your hours.
Cheap-o Me: The three-piece set is also $6. That's $2 each, and more for your money.
Spendthrift Me: Do you think the designers spent the same amount of time designing those pieces?
Cheap-o Me: Maybe. We're not designers.
Spendthrift Me: Hmmm. Both? Or just one? If you had to pick just one, which would you pick?
Cheap-o Me and Spendthrift Me: The combo.

Thus does my mind judge things, and the Piper Hat, while admittedly adorable, gets removed from cart. Here's how it would go if the Piper Hat were $2 less, or if there were a 4-for-$23 deal from Twist:

Spendthrift Me: Both are super-cute!
Cheap-o Me: But.. but.. twelve bucks for both?
Spendthrift Me: Yup. But if we get this sweater and this one, both of which I would TOTALLY WEAR as a teacher, it's only $23! That's less than a movie ticket plus popcorn!
Cheap-o Me: Sold. But the Twist Collective is getting a Mildly Worded Letter regarding the navigability of their website. Part of what my $24 is paying for is an accessible venue for designer's work, after all!
Spendthrift Me: Indeed.

Are you listening, Twist Collective? After all my ranting, I humbly suggest a volume discount. I submit to you as an example the vast number of knitters on the internet who bemoan the Knitpicks $50-free-shipping incentive as a reason that they always, ALWAYS spend $50 at that website instead of the mere $10-$15 they would have otherwise.

Also, I hate the set-up of your online magazine. It's difficult to navigate and confusing to access.

But let's talk about the Winter '09 issue In Particular:
1. I love this.
2. And this.
3. And these.
4. The articles were lovely, but would be better if they were separated more from the pattern stories. I keep skimming when I should be reading, and reading what I'd rather be skimming. This is a layout issue, see above re. navigation.
5. I would like to have a chat with your photographers and sample knitters, please.

Again, I shall elucidate on #5, but not at as much length. This is a knitting magazine for knitters who knit. As such, we (the knitters) are not so much interested in ANTM-style poses or smizing as you might think. There are some general suggestions for photographing knitwear that are based firmly in color theory and/or Photography 101 of which I would like to remind you. Please note that the following has nothing - I repeat, NOTHING - to do with how such items should be knitted by the knitter. Knitters are clever and experimentative and can knit however they like. But in order to maximize the purchases of some items, I suggest the following things:

5a. Stranded colorwork should be shown in contrasting colors so as to make the pattern pop. If we cannot see the actual pattern, we are not as likely to knit it.
5b. A sweater that contains a cable should probably be shown in a distinct color so that said cable is visible.
5c. A savvy knitter will be frustrated that this sweater is not shown straight on in any shot. It's beautiful, the model is beautiful, the pose is quirky, but please for the love of all that's holy, if you want me to buy that pattern, also show me how it FITS HER. Otherwise, I wonder what's wrong with the pattern, and I'm sure that the designer did a bang-up job.

Thus ends my rant. You may return to your regularly scheduled knitting.

Irregularly Scheduled Programming

Here is a brief update on my life in bullet-list format:

*I am moving on Friday morning, which is roughly 36 hours away.

*Moving sucks.

*I hate packing boxes, especially when all the fun stuff (like stash and books) is packed and all the lame stuff (like little things that don't really go together but fit nicely in this box) is left.

*I also hate seeing the box mountain grow because my room is teeny and my box mountain is getting bigger all the time.

*I am going to miss Panza a very great deal, but he will be happier with Roomie, and Darcy will be happier as an Only Cat.

*This is the order in which things will go into the truck:

Mattress

Stash

Books

Everything Else

Therefore, I will not be turning over my stash all willy-nilly to whomever asks for it. Or to anyone, for that matter. So there!

*"Box mountain" sounds vaguely dirty.

*Every time I feel like I'm making progress, it turns out that the progress is not, in fact, as much as I thought.

*If my mother, who is driving the U-Haul, does not make it to my brother's house, please hunt her down and retrieve the stash. I'll even offer a reward. She's a shifty one, my mom.

*I plan to resume blogging (and podcasting) once I'm settled into my new place, especially because I have lots of stuff to show you. Some of it is even finished.

*In my new place, everyone understands that value of a clean coffee mug. This is of pivotal importance because in my current place, I am apparently the only one who can scrub coffee rings off the inside of a cup.

*Clearly, there are benefits to moving.

*But, moving still sucks.

The Last Straw

4/7 @ 11am **There's an update at the bottom of the post!**

::Italics and !!! and ALL CAPS warning::

So graduating from SJSU has been what most people would call a "challenge." I started there in fall of 2006, and my transfer credits weren't applied until mid-spring in 2008, which shot my 2-year plan to hell. However, my credits were finally applied and I was finally able to turn in my graduation plan in summer of '08.

Then, as I began my third year this last fall, I got a message from Financial Aid that I had been at SJSU for too long (ya think?!?) and thus they were not giving me any more financial aid.

After writing them a somewhat snotty letter saying that if they wanted to blame someone for my lack of graduation, they should take it up with the transfer office because clearly they - the transfer office - had nothing better to do than sit on student transcripts for TWO YEARS, Financial Aid replied that they would grant me one more year to graduate. Fine.

The thing about applying for graduation 2 semesters in advance is that there is little-to-no schedule planned for that future second semester. So my advisor and I made up class numbers, and I planned to turn in what is called a "substitution form" in the spring, telling my graduation advisor which classes have changed. Because clearly she is INCAPABLE of looking at my transcript herself and figuring this shit out for herself. But she's new, so I filled out the form. Without, I may add, the help of the Art Department's graduation person, who quit in October after 35 years. The position is rumored to be open sometime this summer for applicants.

In early March, I trotted over to the graduation office and tried to turn in my form. No dice, they replied, it has to be signed by the department chair (whom I have never met) and also by the department secretary person in charge of such things. Who, you may recall, quit.

I got the required signatures - apparently the department secretary can sign for the empty seat - and went straight back. I turned in the form, the nice girl at the graduation desk stamped it, and handed me my graduation advisor's card.

And then I waited. And waited.

And waited some more.

Finally today I could stand it no longer and emailed my advisor:

Hi Advisor,

I turned in my substitution form back before spring break, but I haven't heard anything from you regarding my graduation status. Could you please fill me in on the status of my graduation? I'm getting a bit anxious, as you can imagine.

Thank you,
Tikabelle

This is the email I got back:

Tikabelle,

As of today, this is what you need to take. Just for your information I don't contact the students when updated are done to your file. You can contact me if you have any questions.

B2 Biol 10
F3 Pols 1
Area V & Major Arth 193A
Z 100W
Arth 294, 152, 183B
Art 2A need De Anza transcript can't locate this course


There are so many things wrong with this response, beginning with the fact that every class on the list is either a class I took last semester (Bio, Pols, Arth 152/183B/193A) or one I am currently taking (100W and 294), and ending with the shit-poor grammar. Also that she doesn't contact people to tell them their grad deadline is coming up and they still have a year's worth of classes on the requirement list, or for that matter that she never initiated contact with me at all. Also that I turned in my form in the beginning of March. Which was a month ago.

There are 6 weeks left in the semester. Six weeks, and my 12-year stint as an undergraduate is supposed to end, and it will, despite any challenges this so-called "advisor" puts in my way.

Dear Ms. Advisor,

I will be on campus tomorrow (Wednesday) from 9:30 until 1pm. Please let me know when in that time I can come see you, as this is a fairly important matter and I don't believe it will be solved by email. You can reach me at [redacted], or by email until 9am. Also, could you please send me your manager's email address and phone number, as I would like to address a couple of items to that office.

Thank you,
Tikabelle

Tomorrow, if my advisor doesn't give me a signed piece of paper saying that I will graduate in May, I will file a formal complaint with the school. And likely write a Very Angry Letter to the school paper. And maybe make an appointment with the school lawyers. Tomorrow is a makeup, skirt, and glasses day; stay tuned.

**UPDATE**

All is well. The classes I am taking are the only ones I still need, and everything will be fine provided I can get through this final semester without choking. Or falling down the stairs. Or.. you get the idea.

Loudmouth!

Today my boss called and surprised me by giving me the day off. This came directly after I spent the trip home listening to podcasts and thinking "I should make one of those... when I have a spare afternoon..." then scoffing at the spare afternoon part. 

Gentle readers, I give you (drumroll please!) Gives Good Knit, a podcast about knitting of both the charitable and selfish variety, among other things. 

You may now shower me with praise. 

The Plath Mystique

The Plath Mystique


Picture, for a moment, the magazine image of a 1950’s housewife. Lovely, perfectly coifed, her manicured hand holding a duster like a queenly scepter. Her skirts are frilly, her apron sparkling, and her joy in knowing that the perfect roast will shortly emerge from her oven is unmistakable. She eagerly waits for her husband to return home from earning the daily bread, and while she waits she cleans, cleans, cleans and cooks, cooks, cooks. This Lady of the House, unlike her predecessors, has no need of servants - she can run a household all on her own with the help of Technology! She is the queen of all she surveys...

In many ways the image is the epitome of domesticity, as previous women were not. As Anna Quindlen says in her introduction to The Feminine Mystique, “The advances of science, the development of labor-saving devices, the development of the suburbs: all had come together to offer women in the 1950s a life their mothers had scarcely dreamed of, free from rampant disease, onerous drudgery, noxious city streets” (xi). But this new-found dream had unanticipated consequences, as she goes on to say, “the green lawns and big corner lots were isolating, the housework seemed to expand to fill the time available, and polio and smallpox were replaced by depression and alcoholism. All that was covered up in a kitchen conspiracy of denial.” A conspiracy of denial, indeed - a “problem with no name,” a hatred and fear of the domestic requirement of the era. But before Betty Friedan blew the lid off of the conspiracy in 1963, there was Sylvia Plath; criticizing her role as a housewife and mother with a viciousness that belied her outward appearance and a bitterness that resonates through the drama of her biography to continue criticizing even today.

Both Plath and Friedan have been stereotyped as “neurotic,” which means “abnormally tense or sensitive” - implying that the neurotic have created their own problems and therefore their ideas shouldn’t be given any consideration (Merriam-Webster). Certainly the patriarchy that sought to put women back in the home after the second world war had a hand in such a categorization, as did the businesses that thrived on perpetuating similar roles for women. Friedan recognized early on that no women’s magazine would publish her findings because of their investment in womens’ roles. Redbook told Friedan's agent that only neurotic housewives would identify with her work - bringing up the “n-word” again. Similarly, Plath’s chosen medium of confessional poetry can often give a reader the sense that the poet has spilled her vitriol on the page wholesale; the poems emerging like Athena from Zeus’ head, fully-formed and ready to do battle with the world. If this were true, it would be easier to dismiss Plath’s poetry as neurotic. However, there is much evidence to the contrary: the many, many drafts of even Plath’s bitterest poems, and this quote from an interview in October of 1962:

“I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have, but I must say I cannot sympathise with these cries from the heart that are informed by nothing except a needle or a knife, or whatever it is. I believe that one should be able to control and manipulate experiences, even the most terrific, like madness, being tortured, this sort of experience, and one should be able to manipulate these experiences with an informed and an intelligent mind” (Interview).

All this to postulate that Plath knew exactly what she was doing, knew exactly the systems she was attacking through poetry, just as Friedan knew what she was attacking with her most famous book: the unnecessary roles women were being forced to fill in the post-WWII western world.

In 1962, Plath wrote the poem “Daddy,” a scathing exorcism of the memory of a father long-dead and his ghostly influence on the speaker’s life many years later. A queer mixture of anger and love, “Daddy” represents the father figure as an image of ultimate oppression.

“In the picture I have of you,/A cleft in your chin instead of your foot/But no less a devil for that, no not/any less the black man who//Bit my pretty red heart in two./I was ten when they buried you./At twenty I tried to die/and get back, back, back to you./I thought even the bones would do” (Plath 76)

While it is generally accepted that a poet’s poems do not necessarily speak with the voice of the poet herself, it is nearly impossible to separate the poetic voice from Plath’s own history, and from there extrapolate to the influence of her dead father over her entire life. It is also not a large leap to say that Plath’s “Daddy” goes beyond her own experience to cast judgment on patriarchal control in her society. The father is portrayed as a nazi, a devil and a vampire, exerting control over his child from beyond the grave and (as cliché as it sounds) sucking her will to live through his memory alone, just as the patriarchal structure of post-WWII society sapped the will of housewives across the United States by putting them in roles that devalued their intelligence and education, “Like a two-headed schizophrenic... once she wrote a paper on the Graveyard poets; now she writes notes to the milkman” (Friedan 23).

“The Detective” is another poem that tackles the subtle oppression of women’s housewifely roles:

“A body into a pipe, and the smoke rising,/This is the smell of years burning, here in the kitchen/These are the deceits, tacked up like family photographs,/ And this is a man, look at his smile,/ The death weapon? No-one is dead” (31).

This poem speaks to the disintegration of the woman as a whole when she is thrust into the roles created for her by a patriarchal society. The crime in the poem will never be solved because the woman no longer exists; she has disappeared piece by piece under the burden of being “in the kitchen” for years with no purpose. The deceits are the ones that kept her there; ideas that made her a housewife against her will and perpetuated by a man who does not understand. Later in “The Detective,” the woman loses her lips and so cannot speak - a loss of voice echoed by women throughout the era. Betty Friedan opens The Feminine Mystique with a similar statement about the voicelessness of women:

“The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction... Each suburban housewife struggled with it alone.... -she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question - ‘Is this all?’” (15)

Certainly the similarities between Plath and Friedan are multitude. Both women defied tradition and shattered barriers that had held their fellow housewives captive. Their ideas and theories are eerily similar, although Plath’s have the obvious overtone of depression while Friedan's sound more like determination. One wonders what Plath’s fate might have been had she held out a few more months and read Friedan’s opus - perhaps she would still be with us, continuing the fight they started.