Up in the air with a friend

I find myself wanting to be close to the earth these days: outside in the garden, inside with the hula hoop. I don't think my days of flying are behind me completely, though.

My dear friend Allison and I are co-teaching a toddler's trapeze class this summer, and we can both bring our boys and watch them take to the air with pure joy. It's amazing: put down a trapeze, and a child needs know instructions. The child knows what to do.



Sharing this part of my life with Tommy - the up in the air part of my life - is a complete joy.




Tommy always gets tired out by the end and wants to sit in my lap and swing around, pretending we are birds. He cuddles up and wants me to tell him various landmarks over which we are soaring.




I'm down with it.

Full

So, I was just at the library with Tommy, as is our once-a-week habit, and we went up to the circulation desk to get "In the Night Kitchen" by Maurice Sendak, which was on hold for us. The really nice fellow working there recognized me and told me that he had some of my mini-comics. Trust me, this never happens to me - I'm not generally well-known for my comics, and I'm certainly no local comics superstar; I think he just recognized me from a previous FLUKE, where he bought my comics - and so I totally got all flustered. I introduced him to Tommy and said something dumb like, "And I haven't really made any mini-comics in about two and a half years." Ha, ha, ha! Kids, right?

After I walked away I fully felt my regret. First of all, that's not quite true - I always have something in the national "Not My Small Diary" anthology, most of all because the editor is a giant sweetie-pie. But most of all, I hate that I - even for one moment - engaged in that boring parental cliche of pretending not to have time to do anything meaningful because of time-sucking children.

I feel like my life is very full and satisfying, and I actually owe a lot of the exciting things in my life, job- and art- and creativity-wise, to my son. I would have never left my job to freelance without Tommy in my life, and making that leap has been incredibly rewarding. There are things that I don't pursue like I used to - mostly trapeze and comics, its true - but there are things in their place that fill with me extreme joy. I feel like I am creating on a daily basis and being resourceful in a way I never considered before. I have never successfully grown tomatoes before, and now we eat them in our backyard garden, along with fistfuls of peas and beans and basil. I am constantly making up stories and - best of all - witnessing the same predisposition in Tommy, who can spend the better part of an hour telling some elaborate story with made-up characters and dialogue and sound effects. I am writing my ass off because it means something different to me now.

So yeah, I don't know. I wish I could go back and tell that guy something different, but he's probably already forgotten that minutes-long exchange.

I don't even know where I've been

Hey, friends. I have been writing, writing, writing, but not on this blog, obviously. Lots of writing work, for which I am very grateful, especially considering we are about to purchase new floors (bamboo, thanks for asking) for half our house! I'm extremely excited about new floors. Yes, I am.

I don't even know how to catch up and share all of the stuff that's happened since my last post, so I think I'll just post a bunch of pleasant photos that give me happy feelings. Lucky you!

New floors, coming soon! (We're getting the darker color on the right.)


My very first loaf of yeast bread! It was made with your basic unbleached flour.


My second one! This time with whole wheat flour - a little splitty on the side (that's a technical term, let's say) but criminally tasty.


We've been tending our garden, too (not pictured: nine watermelon plants that just went in the ground). All in all, we've got (hopefully!) cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, bush beans, a spaghetti squash, basil, sunflowers, snapdragons, marigolds, zinnias, two kinds of mint, dill, oregano, rosemary...plus a bunch more flowers that are making their return (phlox, hydrangea, mums, salvia, butterfly bush, a wisteria arch, the monster lantana that gets nearly as tall as our house...). It's a good time to be outside, especially since we are hand-cutting swaths from the deep woods out back. For, you know, adventure purposes.




Oh! And Tommy got his first library card! It was one of those heart-clenching moments when I seriously thought I might pass out from an excessive amount of love. He was initially distraught that the card wasn't yellow like Curious George's library card, but he got over that pretty quickly. I think it may have helped a little bit that I made a special (and somewhat unevenly stitched) library card carrying case for him (in yellow, naturally) that attaches to the tote bag designated for his library books.




Oh, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.




We are having an excellent time of things, more or less.

UNDERPANTS

So, I got to interview Michelle Duggar for babygooroo.com - we chatted a good bit about breastfeeding, and what it's like to breastfeed, on and off, for nearly 2 decades! She was exceptionally easy to talk to and might be the nicest person I've ever interviewed (Although I remember interviewing Travis Tritt once, and he too was super nice).

Anyway, you can read the article here.

In case anyone is interested, Tommy is still nursing, mostly just when he wakes up and before going to sleep at night. We've done child-led weaning all along, as that option was the most comfortable and made the most sense for us, so I see no reason to suddenly cut him off now. I don't think this is weird, but maybe that's because of my upbringing - or the fact that I write about lactation on a near-weekly basis and am intimately familiar with the WHO and AAP guidelines on breastfeeding, and know that what we're doing is pretty normal on a global scale. Blah blah, etc. etc, boorrring, I know.

Oh yeah - I REALLY want to make my own underpants! I mean, look how cute these homemade ones are - or these! A friend of mine told me she might have access to a serger soon, and I about lost my mind. See you soon from Homemade Underwear Land, maybe...

hey dudes, how about THIS!

What a satisfying day.

Today was the first day since it snowed that I’ve been able to go outside – yes, I DID catch the stomach flu, or whatever it was that descended so hellishly upon us, and I honestly do not recall ever being so sick in my adult life. It was horrible. Anyway, now it’s practically summertime out there, and today was the first day that I’ve both had an appetite and wanted to be outside. I made up for lost time, digging a bed for sugar snap peas that will be ready for planting pretty soon. I’ve already got cherry tomato and snapdragon (the latter being leftovers from a homeschool pre-school co-op planting lesson I “taught”) seedlings sprouting indoors, a few impatiens seedlings (I think they’re still alive, anyway) and some zinnia seeds (those will go directly in the ground) waiting in the wings. I probably have way too many seedlings going as-is, but I am wanting to add some more vegetables to the mix. Well, anyway, in the meantime I’ll be plenty busy trying to figure out how to build a trellis for the peas. (My friend Liana has given me excellent advice, but of course I welcome your experiences. the snap peas in question will get to be about 6 feet tall or so.)

Oh yeah – a few of my livejournal pals and I have been lamenting, ensemble-style, the tanking economy. We discussed the idea of me posting something about “How to be Cheap” (which, frankly, I am good at, having a father who lived during and remembers the Depression, and being naturally miserly), but then I remembered – hey! I did write something about that, actually, for Babygooroo, and here it is! Since it was written for a parenting Web site, there are some suggestions that cater for families (breastfeeding, cloth diapers, etc.) but there are also some suggestions that I think apply to a larger audience. What do you think? Share your ideas on how to be cheap, please! Let’s be cheap together!

And now it’s time for a...BOOK REVIEW! Yes! Two of them, actually! Today we’ll be discussing “Knitting the Threads of Time: Casting Back to the Heart of Our Craft” (New World Library, 2009) by Nora Murphy. A copy of this book was graciously sent to me by the publishing house. And also “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns” by (mostly) Frank Miller (DC Comics, 1986).

First one first. I would love for Nora Murphy to write a book that is purely anecdotal about her life and family in Minnesota, for those parts of the book - gardening with her sons, holiday dinners, surviving the brutal dark and cold of northernmost winters - were my favorites. The rest of the time, Murphy writes about the history of knitting and other fiber traditions, simply put. But her approach is both interesting and ambitious: she makes connections between moments in history and cultural traditions with her own experience of knitting a sweater (her first, full of tribulation) for her son.

For example, Murphy frets about losing her faith in her ability to finish her son’s second sleeve — which leads to (hold on!) discussion of an ancient sock in a museum that has the word “Allah” knitted into the toe (“literally an article of faith,” writes Murphy), which then leads to archaeological knitting remains in Egypt, then to labyrinths both on the lawn at a local Catholic college and in France, to medieval Egyptian socks (which is now described as “a portable labyrinth, with divinity guiding the foot no matter where you go”), then to a renewed sense of faith to complete her son’s sleeve. Whew!

While some of those segueways feel natural; others feel a bit more forced, the connections more tenuous. In those more tenuous connections, Murphy often changes subject quite quickly, which is not a bad thing, but in this context it does leave the reader feeling as though he or she had a super fast history lesson that doesn’t quite stick.

Also, remember the part about a sock being a portable labyrinth? Murphy holds knitting in high reverence and is not afraid to call the owner of the local yarn shop a shaman. Yes, this book is full of The Goddess, people. I am not a Goddess type of person, I have to admit. But if you are into finding your inner Goddess, then you will certainly appreciate this book on another level.

My goodness, what a sorehead I am. Did I like the book? Well - despite those minor complaints I mentioned above (and the one I briefly griped about a few posts ago) - yes, I did. I learned a lot about textile history, which is something I am genuinely interested in, and I also learned more about Hmong, Native American, Mexican, African and Irish cultures. Er, I also learned more about shamans and The Goddess, too, but that’s cool. And like I said, I love it when Murphy focuses more on her own personal quest to make her son’s sweater, and I love it when she writes about the looming darkness of winter, her son’s annual growing of pumpkins (“the jewels of October”), the cozy times inside her “skinny blue house by the Mississippi River in the American Midwest.” I certainly want more of that. Yes, I liked this book.

Now: the crapfest that is “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.” Folks, I love comic books. I love reading them and I love making them myself (though admittedly, it’s been awhile since I have made a new one). I love writing about them for articles, and I love getting to know modern independent comics artists. I’m not a huge fan of modern superhero comics, but I adore the classic ones – for example, I really enjoy the 1950s-1960s run of Superman, in which he was a colossal jerk to most people. Also? The storylines were bananas. I love that an entire story could be about Superman trying to pull a prank on Batman. Or about Superman’s dog having to prove his worth to a panel of other super-pets.

OK, I’ve established the fact that I am already a long-standing comic book fan with a decent and diverse knowledge of the genre. Dude. WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THIS BOOK? Seriously, I want to know. If you like this book, please tell me why. The art itself is almost an insurmountable barrier for me to even try to read the thing. I hate that scratchy, washed-out style, and I just hate the way the whole thing looks. I hate the no-nose nostrils and the weird lips and, I don’t know, everything just looks STUPID, man. I hate the organization of the action – there are some panels in which I actually have no idea what’s going on, and I don’t know who’s talking, and I just don’t know anything. I think perhaps this is intentional, to add to the overall chaotic feel of what’s happening? I dunno, I still don’t like it. I suppose when the book was published, folks wet themselves about Miller’s revolutionary approach to the character (which people might not appreciate if their first major introduction to Batman was the 1989 movie) but the writing itself is pretty mediocre, I think. Now, I do like the idea of a feisty young girl taking up Robin’s mantle, but I thought the actual execution was booooring.

Thus ends my first (and probably only) thrilling book review section.

Well! I actually love daylight savings time, because I like to entertain dilettante-type thoughts of being a farmer. Also, it means that at 8:30 p.m. I’m not too tired to watch a little Doctor Who, which I am about to do. I’m in the mood for some just slightly older Who – not Classic Who, not tonight, but maybe first season Tennant Who. It’s almost startling how much younger he looks in those episodes. Oh, Doctor Who. I do love you.

Oh, hi world

Where to begin.

Well, first of all, it snowed yesterday, of course. A lot – almost 7 inches, according to the news. I don’t remember the last time it snowed that much here; usually, it doesn’t snow at all, and we’re lucky to have a day of flurries all winter long. It started snowing right after lunch and didn’t stop until after dinner, and then started back up again after that for awhile. Around 60,000 people lost their power and some are still without. We are immensely lucky that we have power, and had power for most of the day yesterday. This whole snow business is a big deal for us. Tommy was absolutely delighted, of course, as evidenced by the photos you’ll see in just a moment.

I’m glad we had power yesterday, and I think it might be because I would have lost my ever-loving mind if we had lost it. Poor Robert has spent the past two days in the throes of an agonizing and violent stomach flu; apparently, it’s very virulent and all over town. It incapacitated him completely for a while there, and the thought of getting it – or Tommy and I both getting it – absolutely terrifies me. I’ve been sleeping on the sofa and wiping things down with Lysol and dousing myself in Purell. Last night was a very anxiety-ridden night, between huddling by myself on the sofa, hearing loud things fall on our roof from the storm, gathering and lighting candles while the lights flickered in and out, trying to bring Robert’s scary fever down, trying to wash dishes and hang laundry in the hallway before we were plunged into total darkness, wondering what I’d do if a pipe burst, etc…

It was a delightful evening!

Before all that went down, our dryer had recently stopped working, and I scored a used one for pretty cheap, but it’s still sitting in the garage – we need to buy a power cord for it and also we need someone to help us roll out the old one and roll in the new. (Anyone? I’ll make you cookies or something. You know, once the threat of spreading the stomach flu passes.) So there it sits, cold and alone, while our house is strewn with clean but wet diapers and clothes, hanging from every available place. Awesome!

Before that, I went to a conference at the CDC in Atlanta for some articles I’m writing for Mothering Magazine, and that was interesting, and I’m pretty excited about my next national feature!

Before that, my dear sweet friend had a VBAC, and it was through no help of her doctor, let me assure you. Every once in awhile I have a fleeting thought about becoming a doula – and I don’t know, it might still happen – but the thought of having to breathe the same air in close quarters with treacherous (I don't use the term lightly) fellows such as her OB-GYN gives me pause. I am so thrilled for her, and she and her baby are doing fabulously well.

And before that, I was given (remember?) a knitting book to review, and I will very soon, assuming I don’t soon find myself writhing on the bathroom floor horking my guts up. I think the book deserves its own entry, so that will come next. I’m thinking of paring it with a review of the Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” just for contrast. (Spoiler alert: I liked the knitting book, and I did not like the Batman comic book. I didn’t read it because I saw the recent movie, because I did not see the recent movie; I just like comic books a lot, but I didn’t like this one at all.)

OK! Photos!

When I was still wondering whether the snow would stick (HA HA HA):


I eventually figured out how one should actually dress in the snow. (Look, I live where we can usually get away with not owning any rain or snow boots at all...which is why Tommy went through three different pairs of shoes yesterday.)


Tommy's first snowman, and the first I've made in years and years. (I'm a little out of practice.)


Ah, yes. THIS is what snow is like! Now I remember...


And it didn't stop for hours!


Goofy fun snow faces!


"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Tommy says, which is exactly how I was feeling last night.

The snow is still here, by the way, but it's definitely starting to melt away, and I suppose it will be gone tomorrow. So long, snow.

fake metal, fake religion

I just came up with a few fake metal band names:

Skies of Murder (or, alternately, Scythes of Murder)
Doom Mallet
Brandybuck
Buckleberry Ferry

You're welcome.

So, I've been reading this book, "Knitting the Threads of Time: Casting Back to the Heart of Our Craft," by Nora Murphy. Actually, let me clarify: a publicist for the publishing company, New World Library, sent me a copy so I can review it for this blog. That's the first time anything like that has happened - I've reviewed books plenty for newspapers and magazines, but never for the blog in any kind of official capacity.

So I haven't formulated a proper review just yet, but I can say it would appeal to people who are interested in knitting history all around the world, and those who...how can I put this...freely use the term "shaman" and "goddess" to describe knitting teachers. I'm not sure if I'm that type of person, but there are parts of the book that do appeal to me, particularly how the author describes winter in Minnesota and the all-consuming darkness of it, something fascinating and completely foreign to me.

I also liked learning about Knitting Madonnas, like this one by Bertram von Minden:


But here's a big criticism of the book (I'm nearly, but not quite finished): at one point, the author refers to Mary (as in the Virgin Mary) as the "Christian fertility goddess." To call someone a Christian fertility goddess suggests that A. the religion in question includes goddesses (it doesn't) and B. some part of Christianity regards Mary as a fertility goddess (no one does, not even Catholics, ha ha. For real: Catholics do not worship Mary. It astounds me that some people still believe this.). I think that at that point in the book, the author is trying to make a comparison to knitting in Greek culture and mythology, which is also irritating, since Mary was an actual human person whose existence has been proven by historical research.

Anyway, when it comes down to it, that's just one (so far anyway) sentence in the entire book that I've decided to harp on. I wouldn't not recommend the book because of that.

In other news, I'm about to eat some cookies.