Several months ago I let you know I wouldn’t be posting as much, in an effort to spend more time on my thesis.  Didn’t get very far on that, unfortunately.  Now, however, my time is even more limited, in a way I can’t really ignore, even on “off” days.

I have a job.  A real, 8 am to 5 pm (one hour for lunch), Monday through Friday job.  Haven’t had one of those in about seven years, when I quit my job with city government to return to school. 

The Bad News is that I’m working for a government agency again.  Those who have worked for government agencies know that 1) the public generally distrusts the government (heck, I understand that!), which is reflected in how the people you are trying to help react to you.  While there will always be employees who waste time and don’t care — in ANY job, public or private — most of the people I work with genuinely want to help people, so it gets a little frustrating when the public talks badly about you.   2) It seems to be common that public agencies expect their employees to do more and more for less and less  (income, that is).  That was one of the reasons I left my previous job.  And 3) I have to be at work at 8 am.  For a night person such as myself, this has resulted in lost sleep.  I’m getting better at going to bed earlier in the evening.  (Yawn!)

The Good News is that I’m working in my chosen field — the one I returned to school for.     Not only will this help pay my student loans, but I spend my work days talking about things I learned in school, learning how to do it better, and actually helping people!  (I hope.)   This balances out the disrespect, the more-for-less, and the lost sleep.  I really do like my job. 

Have written before about my work with a rape crisis organization.  I also have friends in law enforcement, so I learned right away about how to set boundaries for myself and keep them.  Things learned in my volunteer work are NEVER mentioned in my social life, and vice versa.  My new job adds another intersection.  Confidentiality is VERY important, whether you are reading tarot, or helping someone deal with personal issues.  Trust is crucial, and I take it seriously.

Anyway, I may not be able to post many entries for a while, but I’m still here.  Reading tarot, knitting, watching movies, reading books, and occasionally getting some sleep.  

  This entry is about two books by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee:  At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much (Storey Publishing, 2005) and Things I Learned From Knitting…Whether I Wanted To or Not  (Storey Publishing, 2008).  It’s also about Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s visit to Portland, Oregon, on 22 April during her book tour.

Stephanie writes knitting humor books.  She reminds me a lot of the early Bill Cosby, who came on the comedy scene when comedians did jokes with punch lines.  Cosby talked about real life in such a way that you saw the humor of it, and it was great.  It’s like sitting around with a friend who tells funny stories about what happened to her in the grocery store, or while picking the kids up from school.  In At Knit’s End, the book is small (4″ x 6″, 320 pages), and on each page she has a quote, a short idea or story to tell, and a reflection on its meaning.  Most are funny, and you don’t have to be a knitter to see the humor (though it helps).  I read many of them to my non-knitting husband, and he often smiled or laughed with me.  I think my favorite is when Stephanie writes about having knitted a cable sweater (using black yarn, which can really strain the eyes) for a very large friend, and then discovering a mistake with the cables (the sort a non-knitter would probably never really notice) made early in the process, and trying to decide whether she should rip out the whole back and knit it over.  She knows she will never be able to live with the mistake.  In her reflection, she writes, “I will remember, should I ever find myself in a similar situation, that I don’t have to live with the mistake at all.  I can sew the thing up and give it away” (p.250).  :-)  I really enjoyed this book, reading a few pages before sleeping, or at odd moments during the day.  It always made me smile.

So when her new book came out, Things I Learned From Knitting—Whether I Wanted To or Not, I knew I had to have it.  The essays in this one are generally longer (2-3 pages), but the humor is still there.  She heads each little essay with a truism (”Beginning is easy, continuing is hard,” and “A friend in need is a friend indeed” are two of them), and then writes about how these concepts are illustrated in knitting culture.  Am only three-quarters of the way through the book at this point, but I love it just as much as the one above.  I’m savoring it a bit at a time, because I really don’t want to be finished with it. 

Stephanie is currently on a book tour for Things I Learned From Knitting, and everywhere she has gone there have been overflow crowds of knitters.  She was scheduled to appear in Portland, Oregon, on 22 April, and I was determined to attend the event.  So I made the 700-mile round trip (visiting friends along the way), and was there at the Forestry Center in Portland the night she spoke to 400 knitters.  You can read more about it in her blog entry about the event.  What she won’t tell you there is what a wry sense of humor she has.  Stephanie spoke for an hour, and after the first half my face hurt from smiling and laughing so much.  She has no problem with poking fun at herself, and in the process you identify with her.  And you are encouraged by her, because she frequently gives examples of “if I can knit, you can knit.”    My ears perked up when she cited a couple psychological studies.  One was about what scientists discovered when they studied monks who meditate regularly, which Stephanie skillfully linked to knitting as a meditation.  Another was a study in England, which found that people process upsetting events more easily when engaged in a repetitious behavior (and knitting was mentioned in the study).  [This part made me think of the research on EMDR, where repetitious eye movements help people with PTSD process their reactions to the event.]  When she talked about the English study, she quoted a line in their conclusions about how to apply these findings in everyday life.  They said something along the lines of it not being practical for people to carry knitting around in case of emergencies.  At this point Stephanie was laughing so hard she was crying, as were many of her audience, because most knitters ALWAYS have a small project tucked into a carry bag for those odd moments when they can knit.

Stephanie spoke for an hour, there was a short question and answer period, and when the presentation was over, she signed books.  People brought her little gifts, and had their photo made with her, and she didn’t rush people along.  The line was LONG, and it was almost 10:30 pm before I got to her.  I could tell she was tired, and her voice was hoarse, but she thanked me for waiting so long to have her sign my copy of her book.  I wanted to tell her how happy I was to meet her, and how much I enjoy her books, but I got shy.  At least I was brave enough to ask for a photo with her, so I held up the camera and snapped this photo.  When we looked to see how it turned out, I commented that I look fat.  Stephanie’s response was something like, you look fat, I look short, and that’s life.  She made me laugh again. 
 :-) 

   Starbucks has it’s grand opening in Crescent City on 20 March, but today they were having an open house (with free drinks and goodies), and in a town this size it didn’t take long for word to get around.  EVERYONE was there. 

Starbucks is on the north end of town, on Hwy 101 at Cooper.  The fairgrounds is across the street on Hwy 101 (which is probably where this guy came from with his horse), and there is a Home Depot across the side street (Cooper).  Am not a coffee drinker, but when I can have caffeine again (in July), you can bet I will be in there for a venti iced green tea (unsweetened). 

    When one of my friends sees me posting blog entries again, she suspects I am avoiding the thesis.  She may be right.  I prefer to think of it as writing therapy, or maintaining contact with the outside world.  Actually, my REAL daily therapy is the knitting.  I’m doing something useful and creative, and when I focus on the knitting I am less likely to have that mental tape going that reminds me of my failings, things I need to do, et cetera.  Weaving used to do the same thing for me, but it takes much longer to warp a loom, and they aren’t nearly as portable. 

A couple months ago I discovered the Yarn Harlot’s blog( http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/ ).  I enjoy Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s dry humor, and admire her beautiful knitting.  So I ordered a copy of one of her books: Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot Unravels the Mysteries of Swatching, Stashing, Ribbing and Rolling to Free Your Inner Knitter (Storey Publishing, 2006).  Not only is it fun to read, but I learned a LOT!  Being a beginning knitter, my only other knitting book is Knitting for Dummies, which actually has a lot of good information.  (And they don’t assume I know anything about knitting, which helps.)  Stephanie’s book is the sort of thing you need to read once you know at least a little bit about knitting, because what she really supplies is inspiration.  And little tricks of the trade.  I was already knitting hats by the time I read Knitting Rules!, but Stephanie gave me insight into making the hat look better.  And her stories about managing your yarn stash had me laughing enough to scare the cat. 

I bought the book initially because one of her blog entries mentioned it contained her receipe for A Good, Plain Sock.  So far, most of my projects have not required much effort in the guise of measuring gauge or specific fitting.  But a sock!  After reading her chapter on socks, and seeing some of the beautiful knitted socks online, I may just have to try knitting a pair.  (After I finish several hats for other people, and another table scarf.)  I love Stephanie’s lists of reasons, such as “Ten Reasons to Knit Socks.”  Her list includes such things as 1) socks don’t require much yarn (and cost less to make), 2) they are a very portable project, 3) they wear out, so you can never knit too many, 4) they feel better on your feet than the store bought ones, 5) you can make them many different ways, and so forth.  I may actually get brave enough to knit socks. 

And that’s the beauty of her book — it gives you courage to try knitting things that seem scary.  Or to vary some of the things you already know how to do.  Experiment!  On one of the last pages in Knitting Rules! Stephanie writes, “Wool is reusable, your mistakes are your own, they can all be fixed, and nobody dies or is fired when you make them.  It’s only knitting, and it’s one of the few times in your life when there are no bad consequences to a mistake” (p.211). 

Next payday I’ll invest in another one of Stephanie’s books, probably At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much.   Or maybe Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot’s Guide to the Land of Knitting, or maybe Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter.  Or, this week she has a new one coming out: Things I Learned From Knitting (Whether I Wanted To or Not).  And, she is currently writing a new one, which maybe comes out next September and is titled Free Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again.  It makes me happy when someone can make a living doing the things they love, which in her case are knitting and writing.  And she does both so well!

Okay, now I’ll go work on my thesis.  :-(     Oh, and Happy St. Paddy’s Day, everyone!

Click this link for a news article about the war in Iraq.  The article is titled “For few, Iraq war has changed everything.”  I think the only thing I would argue with is that it is only for a few.  I think it has changed things for many, many people.  I cried on the morning of 9/11 first of all because I knew it would mean the U.S. would go to war, but even then I didn’t imagine it would mean two wars.   Since then I have heard stories from people who have been in Iraq, and from people who have family over there.  The human cost of this war is FAR greater than anything you will ever read or hear in the media.  Individuals and families are paying the cost on a daily basis.  And it will last for many, many years.  We need to get out of Iraq.

   We needed to get out of the house yesterday, so on a whim checked out what was on at our local cinema.  The timing was such that “Vantage Point” was the next available movie, it looked interesting, so we saw it.

Wow.

The premise is that the President of the U. S. is attending a very public conference on terrorism in Spain, and gets shot.  In movie time, the story covers about 45 minutes of the event.  BUT, you see that time frame from the vantage point of eight different people: A Secret Service agent (Dennis Quaid), a news executive (Sigourney Weaver), the President (William Hurt), a U.S. tourist (Forest Whitaker), a Spanish police officer, and three terrorists.  And you see those vantage points one at a time (mostly), so there are repeats of events, but seen as the character sees them. 

While I don’t think there will be any Academy Awards out of this movie, for its type it is very well done.   Tension and plot builds quickly and continuously, and believe me when I tell you that you’d better not sneak out to the bathroom during this one.  Without spoiling the plot for you, I can say the President acts like I wish the President of the U.S. would act.  If you do go see it, give some thought afterward to who were heroes in this story.    I count three.

“Vantage Point” has a PG-13 rating (for things like violence and intense action) and runs 90 minutes.    I give it a 4. 

   As mentioned much earlier, I enjoy romantic comedies.  I also enjoy Steve Martin.  This is my favorite Steve Martin movie.  He plays the protagonist, and the female lead is played by Victoria Tennant (who was Martin’s wife at the time).  Sarah Jessica Parker plays the too-young-for-him temporary interest, and there are a host of other actors who often play character parts (Marilu Henner, Richard Grant, Susan Forristal, and Kevin Pollack, to name a few).  Be sure to watch for the surprise appearance of Patrick Stewart (well, it surprised me the first time).  And see if you recognize Terry Gilliam’s role. 

But the primary character is Los Angeles.  I left L.A. in 1976, but when this movie came out in 1991 it was so much like the L.A. I knew that I could smell the smog while watching it.  It’s got everything: the traffic, everyone’s favorite shortcuts, the incestuous fascination with the entertainment industry, the shopping, the little birds chattering in the trees, the pretentious attitudes, the art galleries and museums, the earthquakes, and it is always 72 degrees.  Martin plays a wacky weatherman, Harris K. Telemacher, and in one scene he is interviewing an Angelino about the record-breaking cold spell of 58 degrees, which turned the weekend into a real “weenie shrinker.” 

Did I mention Steve Martin wrote the screenplay?  He has witty word play and broad humor all through the movie.  It begins with him in an exercise park, quoting Shakespeare about how wonderful L.A. is.  In the background you see a woman collapsing from the rowing machine she has been using; as the paramedics lift her onto a gurney, some other person in sweats runs to take her place on the machine.  Shakespeare shows up a lot in this movie.  Such as:

“Sitting there at that moment, I thought of something else Shakespeare said.  He said, ‘Hey — life is pretty stupid, with lots of hub-bub to keep you busy, but not really amounting to much.’  Of course, I’m paraphrasing: ‘Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’”   (Did you know Shakespeare is buried in an L.A. cemetery?  He lived there from 1612 to 1614, while he wrote “Hamlet, the Revenge: Part 8.”)  (I’m kidding.)  There is also a great scene in the cemetery where they co-opt part of the graveyard scene from Hamlet.

I remember seeing an interview with Martin about why he wrote “L.A. Story.”  Everyone talks about how Los Angeles lacks culture, or is an irrigated desert, or whatever, but he wanted to show how it can also be a magical place, if you look at it with the right eyes.  There are deer eating the clipped grass in the Hollywood Hills, and hidden walkways with stone lions, and freeway signposts that truly care about you.  :-)    (I forgot to mention The Freeway Sign, another character.)  There is a lot of music by Enya in the soundtrack, and that adds to the magic.  Oh — and it begins with a slip of New Moon and ends with a Full Moon, as the story waxes to . . .   (Nope. Don’t want to spoil it for you.)

The movie is rated PG-13 (probably because of sexual humor) and runs 98 minutes.  I give it a 4.5.   And if anyone can explain the scene to me where Martin asks, “What’s that clanging sound?” and Grant answers, “It’s a nuisance.  It’s my damn testicles,” please do so in the comments or send me an email?  :-)   Thanks!

   I finally got it right!  This is my beautiful, green beret that I knitted from a pattern at Crazy Aunt Purl’s blog ( http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/archives/2008/01/supersimple_fas_1.php ).  She’s right when she says it is simple and fast to make — just make sure you swatch first so you know how to adjust the gauge to fit you.  [And make sure you know how to count stitches in a swatch.  Sigh...]  Also, if it is your first hat (as this was for me), it would be good to read the blog entries she suggests first.  I used Lamb’s Pride Bulky, and it took almost the whole skein.  It is lovely yarn to work with.  Am already anticipating more berets using the same yarn in red, and blue, and white, and lavender, and brown, and …

   I’m still working on my thesis — really I am.  It’s gone through some revisions, and I hope to post about it after my proposal is approved and I get my IRB number.  But I’ve been involved in another project with an even more definite time-frame, and THAT one I completed on time!  :-)  Feast your eyes on my first, knitted afghan! 

This was for my husband’s birthday (well, originally for Christmas, but that was overly optimistic), so he picked the pattern and the colors.  I found the pattern in “Knit Afghans of Many Colors” (American School of Needlework, #1347), and it’s called Falling Leaves.  The idea is to use up bits of worsted yarn you have left over from other projects, but since I’m such a new knitter (I have very little left-over yarn) and this was a gift, we went to Michael’s in Eureka (CA) and chose colors he liked.  [Which also happened to match their illustration.  His choice.]  I used Lion’s Wool-Ease whenever possible, but there is also some of their Wool.  [This Michael's really doesn't have a large selection of colors, unless you want acrylic.]  I used a size 10 circular needle (29″), so it took a LONG time to knit.  But it was fun, and good therapy when life got stressful.  Best of all, he likes it. 

My next knitting project is a beret, from a pattern I found on Crazy Aunt Purl’s blog (http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/archives/2008/01/index.php).  [She's fun to read.]  Am using Lamb’s Pride Bulky, in a beautiful, deep green, but am having problems with the sizing. [Yes, I knitted a swatch.]  But before I ripped it out (it would have fitted Shrek) I saw it was going to be very pretty.  Am looking forward to getting it right this time. 

 PS:  I got out Knitting for Dummies and figured out I was counting my stitches in the swatch incorrectly.  Duh!  In my defense, I’ve been knitting things in the last seven months where gauge is not all that important (wash cloths, a table scarf, the afghan), so this is the first time I’ve needed to do a swatch. Still . . .

In case anyone was wondering why I haven’t been writing blog entries, thought I’d let you know I’m working on my thesis.  (Finally.)  Apparently the students who get a master’s degree in school psychology take their classes, do their intern work, and for their final project put together a portfolio of their work — and they get to be called School Psychologists.  Meanwhile, the students who get a masters degree in counseling also attend two year’s worth of classes and do their intern work, BUT  they have to do a research project and write a thesis (about 50-90 pages, give or take) — and that’s only to graduate!  After that they still have to put in 3,000 hours of intern work and pass a written exam, then they get to be called Marriage-Family Therapists.  (This is in California.)  

I’m actually very good at writing reports; I did my first term paper between 6th and 7th grade, on Greek and Roman mythology.  Yet for some reason this Thesis has been a real pain.  I think it is because the professors at Humboldt State University get very uneasy when you mention anything that might fit into the “New Age” category.  They talk a lot about the scientist-practitioner model.  The things that interest me most are on the edge between New Age and proven (to death) techniques.  Life begins where things meet (as in shorelines).  We had a research class that encouraged us to think outside the box and look at things in new ways, but apparently my “new ways” were a little too “out there.”  I had a difficult time finding a Thesis topic they would approve and that held some interest for me.

Then, of course, Life happened.  Our son went to Iraq.  My husband was getting toxic feedback from his job (which he finally quit).  Obviously Life wasn’t in a hurry for me to get my Thesis done.

Things have finally come together (and I’ll have to start repaying student loans in a matter of months), so am devoting myself to working on the Thesis.  About five years ago some undergrads at HSU studied the correlation between tattooing and self-harming behavior, and unfortunately found a significant correlation.  I suspect a flawed survey, and at the time the results made a variety of people with tattoos (including myself) rather unhappy.  Unfortunately much of the psychological literature of a couple years ago still supported that correlation.  So I decided to work with a larger, more general population, and see if I can disprove that idea.

To that end, I have two hypotheses:

“Tattooed participants will report significantly higher levels of deliberate self-harm behavior than reported in previous studies in the general population.”   And,

“A significant proporation of the participants will choose ‘I like the sensation of getting tattoed’ as one of their motivations for getting tattooed.”

I am hoping to disprove these hypotheses.  Am designing a survey that includes a measure for assessment of self-harming bevior, and a question regarding motivation (and some other stuff).  For now I am still in the literature review stage, reading a lot about the history of tattoos and current studies, and the history of and studies about self-harming behavior.  Actually, am glad I waited this long, because in the past couple years there have been more studies that question and even disprove the old psychological idea that people with tattoos are pathological deviants.  (Yep, some of those old studies make my blood boil.)  Am hoping to write about some of my reading here (eventually), because it is fascinating.

Meanwhile, I’m taking time out to begin my Thesis.  Wish me luck!