Category Archives: crafts

Here is a big catchup entry:

The end of March weekend was the northeast glitterati retreat! Pictures are here. It was superfantastico fun, we rented a house very near Atlantic City and will stayed for the weekend, crafting, enjoying our gas fireplace and deck and bay-side view. And, Tony Danza was appearing at the showboat on Saturday night, and I think it’s safe to say that it was the closest I’ll ever come to him. We didn’t go, of course, because it was $35 and Atlantic City was scary. Not so much scary, but weird and creepy. Like the extra-oxygenated air really spaced me out, but didn’t distract me enough from noticing the casinos weren’t as fun and glamorous as I think they should be. I mean, if you’re building a whole culture (“America’s Playground!�) on gambling and showgirls and Miss America and big boxing matches, well, I think it should be a little glitzier. It’s cheap to make things look very outlandish and luxurious, and they could have gone that much further with the window-dressing. In my opinion.

It’s really hard to plan a get-together, actually. Everyone sort of vaguely wants to come, so you try to impress on them the importance of really truly coming. And then some people back out, other people confirm. So you make reservations, start to collect money, and actually put a deposit down. And then more people, confirmed people, back out. It’s terrible. Stressful. You can’t make anyone happy. The cost goes up. Luckily, however, the people who can go are usually sweet and cool and ok with that kind of thing. At least, that’s what happened for us!

I went to Pittsburgh last weekend to scope out the town and the school. It was very very good. I enjoyed it a lot. I learned muchly. I foresee big life-changes for me… And it’s scary, too. I am excited to move but at the same time when I’m really tired and let down my guard I get very nervous about actually moving. About moving so far from my friends, and so much further from my family. About going into debt. But I’m young, right? So even if this isn’t the right decision, and I honestly am sure it is (unless I’m on an airplane and I just finished a good novel and I’m feeling really tired and vulnerable), I’m young and this is the best time to make wrong decisions. It’ll all be just fine.

I still don’t understand the reasons people move, outside of the standard moving for a job, or for a school. I feel like I am moving for not exactly the right reasons, but I can’t figure out what the right reasons would be. Is it to be near other people you love? Is it because you need a change? You like the weather somewhere else better? You can’t afford where you’re living now?

I guess I think that people don’t move when they’re happy already. They move because they need to improve something, like their job, or their relationships with other people. They want to fix something that’s wrong. But that makes moving seem so terrible. You’re doing it because you HAVE to. Because you can’t stand the way things are now. I don’t like to think of it like that – I want to go into a move feeling very positive and excited about things, enthusiastic about what the future may bring me.

And, if you’ve made it this far, here’s an extra special bonus tip! Go to the Photos page. It’s updated! I won’t get any more google hits for “photos peeing behind,� which makes me a little sad, but, pictures for you!

I flew to Tennessee for a whirlwind visit with my grand mother this weekend. It was fantastic. I got a wicked cheap flight, and the traveling went so smoothly (probably because I was traveling at non-traditional times, Saturday AM and Monday AM). It was really good to see Gramma. She’s one of the neatest people I know. She’s super crafty, and tough, and stubborn (in a good way). She can make anything, and if she can’t make it, she’ll figure it out. I told her about being interviewed for a book about crafting, and why I craft (I don’t get much of a feeling of accomplishment at work) and she said she likes to do things to figure them out. There’s the story about her weaving, where someone told her it would be impossible to weave a checkerboard pattern on the loom she was using, but she figured it out and that year gave us all little traveling checkerboards. And, she’s got so much wonderful great stuff. If I ever am concerned about how much stuff I have, well, as she said, it’s genetically inherited that I collect junk in case I need it later. I love going to her house, she’s got patterns from the 70’s (I scored a cool knit ascot pattern and a neat flyer on macramé bags!), boxes of fabrics (she’s been collecting them to make lap rugs for Meals-on-wheels recipients), and so much yarn and neat old stuff.

How I feel about my own belongings, well, that might be a longer and more stand-alone entry.

I’m concerned about the possible torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I saw a newspaper today with the headline “Tormented, but not Tortured.� But after reading this article from the Washington Post [I’ll revise with a link, I can’t find it now. I’ve asked my source…], with this paragraph down towards the bottom:

“U.S. authorities have an additional inducement to make Mr. Mohammed talk, even if he shares the suicidal commitment of the Sept. 11 hijackers: The Americans have access to two of his elementary-school-age children, the top law-enforcement official says. The children were captured in a September raid that netted one of Mr. Mohammed’s top comrades, Ramzi Binalshibhâ€?

…I’m not really sure what’s going to happen.

Why would we ever consider using children as leverage? Unless we’re hoping that the promise of being raised as an American is so terrible that he cracks, I can’t see how this “leverage� would mean anything except for torture. And I guess the NYPost article was right, if he’ll be tormented but not tortured, and his torment is knowing his children will be tortured.

OK, so he’s a bad man. So he might know things that will help stop terrorism. He probably knows the other people responsible for September 11th. But you know who tortures children in front of their parents? Saddam Hussein. And by suggesting we use these children as “leverage� implies we’re going to do the same thing that Saddam Hussein has done, you know, one of those things that gives Bush the moral imperative to invade Iraq. If we do this to Mohammed’s children, will our great buddy Tony Blair in Great Britain feel the moral imperative to invade us?

These are some of the things that I love about America (that people seem to walk over at will lately):

* Equal rights/Freedom for all (as long as they look just like me).

* Land of Opportunity (for me and my ancestors but no one new, because new = dangerous and costly).

* Due process of law (except for those people who oppose the government).

* Freedom of Speech (but not if it requires you to assemble in the streets of Manhattan below 59th Street).

I am feeling particularly cynical about the current state of affairs in America today. I love America. I consider myself a patriot (pre-patriot act, of course). I think we’ve got a great way of life here, and we have a fantastic society that can do a lot of good if it wants to. But slowly, slowly, we’re slipping into that gray area of too much power in the hands of a few. And it’s terrifying to me how quickly our most basic rights, the ones that America was founded on, are being yanked from us. It baffles me that the republican party, the one that insists the government has too large a hand in everyday American’s lives, is the source of these revisionist policies. And I don’t know how to stop it except to tell everyone I know, and to call my senators every single day.