Year in review

2011 was not without its challenges.  There's the perpetual job drama, which has been going on for five years over the same point of contention.  I had some concerns about my health.  While I waited longer than I should have to get them checked out, my fears were basically overblown.  I felt pinched for time quite often, but in most cases it was because I was making time to exercise, which has made me feel better, and doing things I enjoyed.

All in all, it was a pretty good year that saw it's share of firsts.  I visited New York City not once but twice and couldn't have had a better time.  I finally attended the Toronto International Film Festival and managed to see a film from one of my favorite filmmakers several months before I would have been able to otherwise.  Plus, he and the main cast were in attendance.  Although my favorite team wasn't playing, I attended a World Series game.  I saw Paul McCartney in concert


On top of that I went to my fair share of ballgames and made my annual trips to film festivals in Cleveland and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.  On two occasions I got to see my favorite singer, who doesn't play in this part of the country regularly.  I even meet her and her husband, who she was performing with, after one of their shows.  I met and renewed acquaintances with several folks I've known online.  My parents moved to a home that is unquestionably the nicest place they've ever lived and are a solid ninety minutes closer, which makes visiting, especially at the holidays, easier to do. 

I know it is often easier to complain and focus on how things are not how one wishes for them to be.  I'm certainly susceptible to dwelling on what I'm dissatisfied with and worrying about stuff I can and can't control.  So it's important for me to look at last year and appreciate the ridiculous amount of treasured experiences it gave me.  I didn't expect a significant number of those things to come to pass.  Whether 2012 can equal or surpass 2011 is irrelevant.  I had a very good year.  Now let's see what this new one will bring.

In the company of friends

If you've been keeping up with my ongoing travels, you're probably thinking, "Conway, Arkansas is a vacation spot?" Ordinarily, no. The only way this qualifies as a hot spots i if you're thinking of places in the southeastern U.S. where the temperature soars in the summertime.

Unlike my brief, nonsensical trip to Birmingham to kick off this vacation, coming to Arkansas had a purpose. It gave me the opportunity to visit some friends I don't see (and haven't seen) very often because of the distance. Is that reason sufficient enough?

I stopped in Conway to visit Donna, her husband, and their family. Donna and I went to see a minor league game in Little Rock last night while her husband watched their kids, but other than that, my time with them was not especially tourist-y or even terribly different than how I might have filled those days at home, children's activities excepted.

But you know what? It didn't matter. I got to spend time with people I like, respect, and care about. I've known them primarily through online communication over the years, so being able to talk with them face-to-face and take pleasure in their company was plenty rewarding.

I also enjoyed being around and interacting with their precocious children. These delightful kids got along well with each other and were very welcoming to me, which I know isn't always easy when unfamiliar people come into the home.

Their son and I had fun playing Mario Kart. For the record, his victories over me were legitimate. Their charming daughter was always quick with a smile, a laugh, or a joke. (And mercy, her reading ability for her age is astonishing.) Having a four-year-old crawl into my lap and put her arms around me is not a common situation I encounter, but receiving such unexpected purity of expression provides a nice lift.

Being given someone's time and attention and being welcomed into their home are not small or inconsequential things. I'm grateful for the generosity and hospitality Donna and her family showed me. Where we went and what we did while I was in town may not sound like anyone's concept of a vacation, but I can't imagine a better use of leisure time than spending it with wonderful people.

It is revealed

I know that I've been tantalizing you all with talk of a secret project. Now that it has reached its destination, I can reveal what it is.

The dishcloths you see are my best attempt at reproducing The A.V. Club logo. My friend Donna, also a knitter, and her husband write for the site. In a stroke of inspiration, I decided to try to figure out how to convert the logo into knits and purls to send as part of a Christmas gift package. For obvious reasons, I needed to keep this project strictly hush-hush. I didn't want to spoil the surprise.

I'll admit that it was hard to keep quiet about this. That's why it's been a favorite blogging topic of late. I was giddy with anticipation of the reaction the secret project would produce. It was very satisfying to crack the problem of writing the pattern and exhilarating to know that those receiving the FO evidence would have no way of seeing it coming. I inadvertently titled one blog post with two words that have meaning for one of their site's features, but it still would have taken keen powers of observation and prediction to put it together.

I'm going to squeeze a couple more entries out of this designing process. Still to come are pictures of the failed, oversized first knit and the rough draft on graph paper. And of course I'll publish the pattern. Like I said when first writing about this secret project, it is going to have limited appeal and was pretty much unguessable, but I'm happy to know that it was the right thing for the right people. Honestly, that's all that matters.

With a little help from my friends

The coldness of today's weather caught me by surprise. Sure, I knew it was in the teens, and thus not exactly appropriate for shorts and sandals, but leaving work I could feel the chill seeping into my bones.

Before heading out this evening I traded my ISE5 scarf, which I've been wearing, for a bulkier one I knitted myself early last year. The garter stitching has stretched so much that I need to wrap it around twice to keep it from nearly dragging on the ground, although that's a a bonus feature on days like this. (Still, I need another scarf.) I put my hat on and was now prepared to face the cold.

There were a couple other things keeping me warm too. Earlier in the day I got an e-mail from a friend who received one of the many seaman's caps I made for Christmas gifts. He said the hat was great and that he's been using it in the frigid spell that has descended on this area. (Guess I better finish the one I'm knitting for his wife.)

This afternoon I had a friend pop in for an unexpected chat via one of the top 51 things in the world (2007). I'd been going a little nuts at the office because I was feeling like I couldn't stem the tide of all the work that needs to get done in the near future. The chat was a needed diversion and put the workload in perspective.

What I'm getting at is that it was the small gestures that meant a lot. A short note of thanks and a brief conversation to see what's going on were highlights of the day, things that made me stand up a bit taller. It is easy to feel the necessity to look for or supply the grand statement, the big arm-waving call for attention, that the little things go unseen or undelivered.

There's a time and place for the large gestures, but they are anomalies in everyday life. It's the small kindnesses and courtesies that hopefully maintain the steady pulse of day-to-day existence rather than relying on the defibrillating charge from loftier displays of generosity. They're less expensive to give and likely to be more treasured in the long run. I need to remember that as much as anyone when it comes to giving and receiving them. I'm glad today's reminders came the way they did.

Yarn shop crawl, Texas-style

I've said it before. Knitters are the nicest people.

Donia graciously offered to take me to some local yarn shops while I'm visiting the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We had never met before today, but I felt reasonably sure that she wasn't going to whisk me away to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre family's house for unspeakable horrors. Apparently I don't give off a serial killer vibe, so there's no need to pull out the scary eleven o'clock news music and graphics for recounting today's activities.

Of course, my mom had a predictable line of questioning: "How do you know her? Have you ever met? Is she single?" There would be more explaining to do at our first stop.

We started at Simpatico Yarns in Bedford, TX. It's a small but nice shop that automatically earned points for stocking Dark Horse Yarns, one of my favorites. (It was cheaper than where I've bought it too. Maybe I'll have to go back...) While we were looking, one of the women in the store asked if we were married. Nope. Brother and sister? Nuh uh. Dating? Strike three. Obviously an explanation, convoluted or not, was in order.

When I mentioned my blog, the owner(?) made a beeline to the computer to look it up. She thought that she had read it before. This was unexpected. I also pointed her to my movie site, and again she seemed convinced that she had come across something I'd written. Whether she had or not, my mind was blown. One of the last places I would ever expect to be recognized in any capacity is a yarn store in Texas. And you wonder why I'm still secret.

After a nice chat with the women in the store and fajitas for lunch at Posados, it was off to downtown Fort Worth and JenningStreet Yarn. This was the only store in which I pulled out the camera to take the pictures adorning this post.

Unlike every other LYS I've been to, this one organizes the yarn by color. The advantage is that you can make easy comparisons with similarly-hued yarn. If it were up to me, I don't think I'd group the yarn this way, but it's a valid method.

One of the owners wound yarn that Donia had purchased on a previous visit. That's good customer service. The other was working on an entrelac scarf. I don't understand how that pattern can be done, but by now it should be well-established that I tend to make things more complicated than they are.

Following a quick tour of Texas Christian University, we went to the third and final yarn shop of the afternoon. The Knitting Nook tempted me with a few yarns, but in the end I finished the LYS crawl without making any purchases. I almost always buy yarn for specific projects. The Knitting Nook stocked plenty of familiar brands, so I suppose I can find these back in Ohio if necessary. This store isn't that far from my brother's place, so I could always hound someone into taking me back if I decide I must have something from there.

I must give a big thanks to Donia for showing me the sites and taking a few hours out of her schedule to be a kind hostess. It was really cool of her to do this and nice to meet a new friend. Hopefully I didn't talk too much.

Despite this being a yarn-centric day, I didn't do much knitting. This evening I went to a promo screening of Hitman--in a word, awful--and spent more time playing my brother's Wii than I should have. The current hat is more than half completed, so I'm thinking I might be able to turn it into an FO on Thanksgiving.

More tales from Texas next time...

Open arms

I don't really have much to say today, but I want to say thanks for your comments on yesterday's post. I think it isn't until you need to hear them that you remember how valuable a few reassuring words can be. Virtual hugs may not replace the real thing, but they're certainly better than none at all.

Blogging about yourself can feel like a big risk. Writing about your experiences and feelings and making those thoughts available for anyone to read takes courage. I'm not patting myself on the back and saying, "Hey, look how brave I am." I don't consider myself brave. Not in the least. I'm just pointing out that exposing yourself in strength and weakness takes some daring.

If you want to let someone in, you have to be open. Being open makes you potentially vulnerable. More often than not, I believe the payoff is worth the risk, not that it makes it easy when you get burned.

This is going to sound like a dumb example--and I feel silly for bringing it up--but the primary thing that moves me about the reality show Kid Nation is how openly the kids express their fondness toward and concern for the well-being of each other, especially when some are having a hard time. I'll be among the first in line to gag at idealized media representations of childhood, but the unguarded sincerity and affection in the kids' actions and reactions touch me.

I feel incredibly lucky to have made friends and deepened friendships through this blog. I don't know that I can fully express what that means to me. Some of you I've met; many of you I haven't. I'm grateful for the kindness you've shown me, and I hope I've been able to return the favor in one form or another.

Mini-knitting content: the blanket has been increased to 143 stitches. 25 to go. I'm beginning to wonder if I might be a skein short. If so, I may have to raid the yarn shops of Columbus to ensure that I find the right dye lot.

And in blog news, Friday's entry will likely be backdated. I'm heading across the Ohio River to The Southgate House to see Kelly Willis in concert. (It's in Newport, KY, but for all intents and purposes I'm going to Cincinnati.) I don't expect I'll be getting home until at least midnight, so some fudging of the time will be in order.

Hmm, I guess I had more to say than I thought when I started.

Bridge night

Today I'm rolling out the rest of the best (or interesting) photographs from my trip south. This picture is of a blossoming tree on the square in Fayetteville. (Below are some daisies growing in front of the newspaper's office.) Tomorrow it will be time to move on to other topics, but I would like to reflect and comment a little more on the vacation, though.

For instance, what did I learn? I discovered that taking notes about things that caught my attention or occurred to me while making a long drive helped the time go slightly faster. I found that Kentucky drivers were easily the worst I encountered in a trip that passed through seven states. I learned that telling a child that a tree is an emergency potty means she will share this information at a later time, potentially to the parents' embarrassment.

I had reinforced that where you are isn't as important as who you are with. Several people, including my hosts, expressed surprise that I would choose to vacation in Arkansas. Why in the world would I go there? The answer: to get away for a bit and to see them. It all seems kind of crazy and impulsive now. It did somewhat at the time too. Yet everything worked out very well. I got along swimmingly with the people I knew mostly through electronic communication.

Which isn't to say that it's been easy to explain to others. Au contraire. My impression has been that the nature of online relationships causes them to be viewed with suspicion. At least that's what I thought people believed. Perhaps that's what you were thinking. Those I met on the trip didn't say that they found anything strange about it, although I'm not sure they understood entirely. My mom called me Monday morning thinking I was home. When I explained who I'd been visiting--loaded with qualifiers, mind you, as I knew her imagination would run wild with the mention of visiting female friends--she asked why I thought she would think it was odd.

So maybe my perceptions are wrong. Maybe we've reached a time when people don't think there's anything weird about meeting those you've known almost exclusively online. Ultimately I think the diminishing of that stigma is a good thing. Certainly it doesn't hurt to exercise caution, and there's no guarantee that face-to-face communication will be as relaxed. Still, like the railroad bridge in Fayetteville pictured above, the electronic bridge that helps people find like-minded friends must serve a good purpose, right? That being said, don't worry. I won't be showing up on your doorstep. Not without an invite, that is.

For me, knitting and this blog have been a bridge connecting me to new friends, people I might not otherwise have come to know or come to know as well. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started knitting, and I definitely had no clue where this blog would take me, literally in last week's example. It's been my figurative bridge to the 21st century.

I am at heart a quiet person. Despite evidence to the contrary, there are still vestiges of shyness and a preference for privacy within me, at least on a wide scale. I have no trouble confiding in those I feel close to, but I don't feel a need to explain who I am to everyone. What's remarkable from this side is that I've shared more about myself on this blog than I ever intended to. In retrospect some of it is embarrassing, but I think it's also been important for me in attaining deeper knowledge of myself. And you thought this was just a knitting blog. And I thought this was just a knitting blog!

Superbad, which I saw with Noel while in Arkansas, may look like just a raunchy teen comedy about the big, final party before school ends, but at its core the film explores a serious question about friendship. It got me to thinking about those friends who have faded away, not because of any bad endings but due to life leading people in separate directions. Noel and I talked about that on the way back to his house and whether the film's ending was happy or not. Let's split the difference and call it bittersweet. It's sad for what is likely lost and happy in that it appreciates what they had and where they are going even if it may be without one another.

That was not what my vacation was about, but it called to attention how lucky I felt to have met Jenn, Donna, and Noel. The trip meant forging new friendships. For that I am extremely grateful.

Back to griping about knitting problems tomorrow. :)

Drive south

It's almost time. As I write this, I'm thirty-four hours at most from leaving for vacation.

I don't know that it's been intentional, but my vacations have taken me a little more off the beaten path than your typical destinations. For my first "grown up" vacation, meaning I actually had paid time off from work, I visited a friend who lived about an hour south of Dallas, went on to Austin for a couple days, drove up to Iowa where my mom was a minister for a year, and then came home.

For spring break my freshman year of college I went to Cleveland. My senior year I went with some friends to Chicago. I don't imagine too many other college students were traveling to cold climes. In Cleveland I saw U2 and The Pixies in concert, so maybe that makes it sound less strange.

With 90-degree temperatures cooking us in Ohio, the natural place to go in early August is...Arkansas? Actually, it'll be my fourth time in the state. I've driven through it twice on the way to Texas, and I spent a tornado-ridden, late November night there two years ago when tagging along as radio announcer/surrogate sports information director for the college's basketball team. It was on that trip that I met Donna and her family in the flesh. I knew her and husband Noel from a film discussion group, but I wouldn't say we knew each other well.

It's through knitting, this blog, and chats that I've come to know Donna better, and it's through all those things and her that I've become friends with Jenn. Even though they live almost eight hundred miles south of me, I cherish the friendship I've developed with both of them. So I'm headed to Arkansas for vacation to visit them. That might sound kind of crazy considering our interactions have been online, but I'm sufficiently convinced that Jenn isn't an ax murderer. If Donna vouches for her, she has to be all right. (I imagine that goes both ways.) They're smart as whips and generous souls, kind of like the sisters I never had.

I'll be visiting Jenn first in Fayetteville. A few days later I'll make the drive to Conway and connect with Donna and the rest of her household. I am extremely excited that I'll be able to spend time with them--and knit, of course. Arkansas may be known for its diamonds, but it's a couple of other gems that I'm looking forward to seeing.