Each of us knows all.

I just got back from seeing the movie Angels and Demons. It was a good movie, but rather than talk about the movie I was more amused with my relationship with the story.

At some point between approximately 2003 and now I read the book. In thinking on it I believe that my father may have gotten the book from the library and with it being around the house I then decided to read it. However that particular instance could also have been the book The Da Vinici Code and then because I liked the Code so much I went and got Angels and Demons on my own. I'm not sure. But I do definitely recall that my father had read the book and so he knew how it ended and I did not.

So in theory the movie could be good, but I knew how it ended. Except that my mind is at times rather equivalent to a sieve. I went in knowing that while I remembered a few things, for the most part I didn't remember what happened.

In the theater the credits started rolling and I turned and said to TRM (who has also read the book of course), "well that stuck to the book rather well". Her responce "kinda, except for the missing big plot lines at the end." "Oh really?"

It was pretty awesome how I really don't remember. And it amuses me. And it most likely pointless to everyone else.

Ah well your loss.

"Each of us is a god. Each of us knows all. We need only to open our minds to hear our own wisdom."

Things fall apart.

My life has been depressing me lately.

It started with me doing nothing but working. We had two concerts in a row and so for those of us who didn't take any days off (turns out only being 2 of us) we worked 19 days in a row with no days off. That includes 3 days that ran somewhere around 12 hours between time left house for work and time returned from work to go to bed. It's freaking crazy.

So that really made me feel like my life was pretty pathetic. Then to add to the stress of the situation I've hardly seen TRM. She was nearly living over at her boyfriends house. And being as she is the only friend that I have within a 30 minute drive, and only friend that I ever hung out with like ever recently - it was kinda sad that she wasn't around so much.

Then she took the cats over there too. And like didn't bring them back like she had done before. No friends in the house for me at all. Therefore for the few hours that I actually was home I was pathetically alone. *sigh*

This Tuesday the bomb was dropped. I talk to her on googles chat thing during the work day. We like to complain to each other. It helps us from not killing our respective patrons/customers and or co-workers. She wanted to know if it would be ok if we no longer did the 'the house spilts the cost of groceries' thing anymore. Before now she did all of the shopping and cooking - it was kind of insane but as far as I can figure she enjoyed it, so I wasn't going to argue. It makes sense because she was buying, paying a portion of, and preparing stuff and then wasn't around to eat it. I'd just been going along with it and not questioning it. Plus really I think that her non-aroundness wasn't nearly so intense as it became in the last 2 weeks. So anyways I said that would be ok because fair things are only logical to me.

But it started me on the path of 'holy crap' this is the beginning of a progression of events that very much changes how I've been living the past two years. I asked if she was planning on moving out "yes". Now thats all well in good except that she owns this freaking house. "Planning on selling the house?" Well not anytime soon, but eventually. *double sigh*

I also asked her if she was going to marry him. Because well sometimes I'm subtle like that, and hey it's how I think.

me: indeedi was going to say 'are you gonna marry him?'

TRM: I think so me: holy crap

TRM: no guarantees

but

me: damn all of you peoples

Seriously I'm quite familar with the idea that I need to be happy for her. But gosh darn it it bothers me whenever I see friends/people my age actually like getting married and all that jazz. I totally can't come to terms with it yet.

There are actually at least a dozen topics that roll through my mind as "ought to be explained further" as I write this. But I suppose it works for a readers digest type version.

Things, they are a'changing. Now if only I can convince myself that change is not bad...


"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold"

Complaining

Last weekend was a concert weekend and it’s finally the new weekend. Normally this means I get this sudden rush of productivity and I accomplish long lists of stuffs that I didn’t have the time or energy to accomplish in the previous week.

But not this weekend, nope. Instead there is another freaking concert. So I am at work, again. And I’m bitter about it. Plus I have this itch to be doing the things I would be doing at home. Namely cleaning, crafts, gardening, biking, etc. Plus when I left to come into my windowless hell hole it was shaping up to be another ridiculously georgeous day.

Last weekend we had ridiculously crazy downright hot weather (hit the 90’s). Most people around here bemoaned it as being “too hot”. Myself, being a warm weather creature, loved it. And I missed it because I was working.

Here we go again.

Really this is getting ridiculous.

Hydrant Hysteria - part II

The deadline for submission of sketches is May 1. So obviously I came up with a great idea just yesterday, and then proceeded to stay up way to late last night working on it (think 2am bedtime). It was rather reminiscent of college, or better yet high school....college was too easy. But I digress.

My design is based on a design that is on my little desk calendar for May. It's also from my city and being as this whole thing is part of some kind of city beautification project my hope is that my subject matter will add an extra edge to the design.

Original stained glass dome (use the link to see a much larger picture:

And this is my translation onto a Fire Hydrant:

I'm quite convinced that I am not a particularly good artist (at least for drawing and similar type arts). But I am quite the copyist.






I also made a penguin, because that's how I roll:



I'm going to title it "SSO Penguin". Which actually stands for Secret Society of Penguins, but I figure SSO is much safer. :-)


Sorry about this formatting - it is fighting back and I can't be bothered fixing it.

Hydrant Hysteria

I want to paint a Fire Hydrant.

It all started sometime earlier this week. My city has some funny little organization that send around a Things to Do list. And I think they also run some kind of downtown revitalization program maybe. But the first thing listed in the email was "Hydrant Hysteria".

They are having a thing where there are 48 fire hydrants around downtown to be painted. They are asking for submissions with designs and they will choose people to paint each of the hydrants.

I have always wanted to do something like this.

Does that make me a huge dork?

Every smallest stroke.

That to be continued was significantly longer than I had intended. But at least I'm finally continuing now.

I arrived back at my house around 5 o'clock on Sunday with my treasure. I unloaded the car, pretty much just dumping everything in piles in appropriate rooms. And then determined that the next appropriate course of action was to gather spinning supplies. Unfourtionately I don't have many spinning supplies and my learn to spin kit hadn't even arrived yet :-(

So I gathered supplies to make my own spindle:
The wooden dowel was too long, and we use it to keep the window open so I figured shortening it was not a good idea. The knitting needle seemed to be missing it's mate anyway, plus I rarely ever use needles above size 6 lately, and it was the right length. I wanted to add some weight to the spindle without using tons of CD's so I taped some pennies to the CD's, used duct tape to attach the CD/penny sandwich onto the needle, and then duct taped a bent paper clip onto the tip to form a nice hook. Voila:


After that I went ahead and based on the dozens of 'how to spin using a drop spindle' sites that I've read and or videos watched online I spun out some yearn. It was rather crazy - mostly owing to me putting way too much twist in the yarn I do believe. Then unable to find very helpful instructions I created my own method of plying.

I divided up what was on my spindle into two by wrapping each bunch around a spontaneously chosen object: the points of my detachable circular needles. And then I again used the spindle and some brute force to ply them into one "yarn" that ended up being between 2 and 3 yards long and looks more like rope than yarn. But I'm still quite proud of it.

:-)





“We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar.”

We are spinning our own fates.

Hi, my name is Carlin. I’m 23 years old and I’m already a spinster.

As referenced before I had the idea in my head that I was going to learn to spin yarn. I journeyed back home for the weekend to visit with relatives who were visiting from NH. That in and of itself is a separate blog worthy event, but for now I digress. On the route back home (as in the house that I live in on a daily basis these days) I had arranged to stop in and visit Mrs. D. She is my friends, Bananas, mother. She has five pet alpacas.

She is also crazy. Having visited and having listened to stories a number of times during our high school years and even a few times during college I knew she was crazy. But sometimes time makes one forget things, like how odd some people are. Not to knock her or anything. She’s an exceptionally nice and kind individual. Just happens to also be crazy.

I pulled into the driveway and Mr. D happened to be out in the yard and went to go and get her. Laid out in the garage (they have a big garage) were, oh probably 40-50 medium size plastic garbage bags of alpaca fleece. Holy crap how much did she think I was going to take.

She eventually came out and so began the chatting. We were rather focused around alpacas and hand crafts. But at least at one point we dabbled very briefly on personal spirituality. All in all I barely got a word in edge wise.

To begin with I was feeling a bit iffy about just taking all of her fleece. The stuff really does actually have value, but no worries there anymore. She just wants to see something done with it. From Banana she had heard that I’m considering going back to school. And somehow she suggested that I could sell the fleece and use the money for school. The naivety of the idea makes me laugh. Yet it does show the point. She had also given thought to the prospects of us starting a business together. Both of our names have good C sounds so she was combining that with some form of Create. Actually rather catchy. Tempting, maybe someday, I can always hope.

I left her house with a bag of fleece for each Alpaca. And big dreams.

At home I weighed my new treasure: approximately 15 lbs. For comparison sake, one will typically sell fiber by the ounce. 15 lbs at 16 oz to 1 lb = 240 ounces. A slightly researched conservative estimate of $2.50 per ounce from an individual alpaca farm = $600.

*Reaches down to pick jaw up from the floor*

That is ridiculous, even if you reduce the number in speculation that one would receive a bulk discount.

My goodness.


This story of my transition into spinsterhood to be continued…

“We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar.”