In which I am perhaps a little sarcastic about serious things. Like religion.

Time passes so quickly, doesn't it? It's been a couple of months, I've traveled to the Holy Land, completely lost my religion, came home and moved to a new city. Phew!

So I suppose I will start with Israel. I could write a book, or perhaps a stand up routine about my birthright trip, but who has the time? Obviously not me or I would have been more diligent on this here blog.

Ah! The arid lands of my forefathers! This particular vista reminded me rather of Chalton Heston. You know that scene, in "The Ten Commandments"? Where he's cursing god and wandering in the desert? You know, and then he gets high and watches a bush burn for way too long? Good times.

So that tower up there? Thats the tower where Jesus will come down at the end of the world. And all those little white things on the hill top, those are graves. The people burried there will be the first resurrected by Jesus and will thus serve as his zombie army and slay all non believers. Then they will all pass through the Damascus gate (where I was standing when I took this picture) and have some wine.   That's exactly what it says in the scripture.  

This is one of the soldiers who traveled with our group.  She's a very religious orthodox jew.  She thought I was a hoot.  In this picture she's praying she won't end up like Charlton Heston.  At Masada.  Which was another excellent movie featuring men wearing really short skirts.

Here are some jews.   In Jerusalem.  Yup.

There was some beauty.

And there was also some love. But there really is no place like home. Thank you, America. This is my country.

Israel

Baruch atah Hashem Elokenu melech haolam, shelo asani goy, shelo asani aved, shelo asani isha.

This is an old jewish prayer that says "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who did not make me a Gentile, who did not make me a slave, who did not make me a woman." As I am about to travel to Israel, I feel the obvious need to make up a new prayer.

Thank you, God, for my peaceful life and loving family, and please keep my mind and heart open and help everyone in this world find peace.

The Shortest Day of the Year

Is also the darkest.

Anxiety Projects

I'm still reeling from the election. Being anxious about it for so long, it's hard to realize its over. Though I am thoroughly relieved, I still have moments of complete panic. Not that I don't have things to freak out about now. How can you deal with a world in upheaval, trying to find a job, and breaking up with your girlfriend? Well, damned if I know. But making stuff has always helped me. I finally finished the cardigan I've been working on since Santa Fe. Turns out, Careful Knitting Nelly is kind of slow! I admit, I got very angry that it wasn't going faster during the second sleeve. I haven't blocked it yet and its kind of covered in cat hair, but it came out very nicely.I also finally finished a scrap hat for Nora. Only took me a year to weave the ends in! Worst part of knitting, as far as I'm concerned.
Between Mom and I there is a lot of ugly scrap fabric in the family home, and really nothing to be done with it. I mean, neon fish with overbites might have been a good idea in some designers head- it appealed to 7-year old Nelly- but what to do with stuff like that now? In a fit of the crazies, I bleached and dyed all of it. (On the left is my post college dye kitchen.) Then I tore everything into strips and made a quilt top.


And when you have anxiety, its always good to have something to hide under.

To keep us from becoming completely demoralized from over work, the entire costume shop packed up last week and went on a little field trip Los Alamos.   Once the sight of nuclear testing, the city of Los Alamos seems to now have a thriving fibers community.   The exhibit was at the public library, and it was one woman's collection.  In addition to being a nuclear physicist, she has also been traveling the world for years, collecting hand made lace and lace paraphernalia.  She described it as a mania, which it certainly seemed accurate.  The people who must have sat there for years at a time twisting tiny pieces of thread by candle light must have been just a little bit insane.   The way it's made, all the layers and complexity, our maniacal lace collecting tour guide told us, was similar to figuring out complicated physics problems. 

Lace has such an intense history, people got so worked up.  But it seems like nobody remembers the makers.   Our lace collecting docent had obviously taken such loving care of each piece.

 
She pointed out that in one piece contained the initials "M M" in one of the flowers.  Can you see it?  I love reminders that people, probably people a lot like me made this stuff, their hands and their time.  And history doesn't remember them, because they were women, or because lace just wasn't important enough to be recorded, but they made it anyway.

My photography obviously doesn't do any of these lace bits justice, but it was incredible to see.  Cathy decided right on the spot that she was going to get some bobbins and start working on her wedding dress.

Weird fact about lace bobbins:  they used to make commemorative lace bobbins for public hangings.  So as your sitting, twisting threads, your thinking, "Ah, the day James Banbit was hung for heresy.  'Twas a bright, sunny day, and the children and I had a lovely time in the town square."  ????

  Any way, there was a lovely farmers market right next to the library and we got lunch there.  I also bought two skeins of yarn spun from sheepies right up in the hills of Los Alamos.  This awesome woman gave me delicious bread for only two dollars.  Because I didn't have enough money.

And at the end of the day we drove back right across the bandolier tuff. Which could make your heart stop.

Getting ready

Goodbye to Baltimore

To say goodbye, I want to write about how amazing theater is, about how it transforms the simplest, silliest stories into beautiful painful universal moments, and how happy I am that I can participate.
I also want to write about Baltimore, how even though its a hard, dangerous city has these blinding seconds of sublime brilliance.
I also want to write about how amazing it is to fall in love, and how unexpected.

I can't quite find the words, but I'll miss you, Baltimore.

Theater Slave

Sometimes I feel really beaten down by the theater. It could be because I'm an intern, I don't get a chance to fix my mistakes, things get taken away from me if I mess up. Perhaps it's being subject to other people's insane whims. It could be the deadlines. Or it could be the terrible hours or the terrible pay. But then I put on my penguin head and it's alright.

How did I get here?

Sometimes my job just gets really insane. Today we had fittings with Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Ariel. Disney princessess, right down to the hair color and the sunny, sing song voice.

None of them thought it would be a good idea to wear panties.

Deliciously Home

Sometimes it just feels so right to be at home. I am so lucky, I have work in a great place where we make beautiful things (like this fantastic gold dress) and I have friends who seek my company. Even with all of this goodness, I still feel distinctly melancholy sometimes. Today, in particular, in the midst of a large crowd, I felt very acutely lonely, in a way that I haven't in a long time. There is no better remedy for this situation than bowing out early for the comfort of home.

Perhaps one of the reasons for this fatigue is over work. It has been quite stressful recently at the little costume shop of horrors. I've been doing mostly assisting work this week, rolling fabric, xeroxing, maintaining the designer's bible (which is constantly being raided and added too) and swatching. There is nothing more stressful to me than being asked to take a pair of scissors to an untouched piece of million dollar fabric. I don't want to design, and my conviction is only strengthened by the fact that I am seriously jealous of my co-workers making wonderful 1900s corsets and bloomers and camisoles while I make binders.
I did, however, score some rocking vintage corset covers when we cleaned out camisole stock. I have to figure out a way to wear things like this. I want to be a little more adventurous in my clothing choices (mum's going to laugh at that) but what good are having such awesome items if they are never worn? Theater clothes have such odd fake history, one of the camis I stole has fake blood stains, I'm going to have to do some repairing. Tomorrow I'm going to Philly to see my Nora, hopefully mad crafting will ensue.

Knitting your heart break

Back in November I read No Idle Hands: a Social History of American Knitting by Anne Macdonald, and it made me cry. One quote in particular, from the diary of Lavinia Porter:
"I never recall that sad parting from my dear sister on the plains of Kansas without tears flowing fast and free. It was like tearing our hearts asunder. But such sorrows are to be endured, not described. Climbing into the wagon, with everything we possessed piled high behind us, we turned our faces toward the land of golden promise that lay far beyond the Rocky Mountains."
Its hard to imagine now, being so far away from your family and not knowing if you'd ever see them again, and traveling in rickety, awful wagons, and being so isolated.
Anne Macdonald wrote about how all through American History women knitted to quiet their minds, to keep their anxieties at bay. During wars and economic recession and terrible hardship on the frontier, women would knit not only to keep their families warm, but also to loose themselves in quiet creative monotony.
My motives for knitting are similar, though my circumstances are much less extreme.
The first thing I knit when I arrived in Baltimore was a scarf based on the one Mary Poppins has. I felt as if my life was way more chaotic than the Banks household, and I needed a magic nanny with the voice of Julie Andrews. I bought bargain bin sparkly yarn at AC Moore, and size 13 needles at Rite Aid (isn't it crazy they sell knitting needles?) and it took me about a week to knit, just doing garter stitch with yarn so small and needles so big. Then I ironed it out with the industrial iron at work, so it would look all lacy like Mary P.'s. It stretched out twice as long. I ended up giving it to my boss, who I have great affection for. So I the only picture I have is the little sample I made on #10 needles.
Right after I finished that project, it became clear that my girlfriend and I were breaking up in a painful way. So I decided to knit her a scarf. Not totally logical, but I thought if I put all my frustration, sadness and anger into scarf form, I don't know, we'd get back together, all wars would end and Julie Andrews would come down from the sky and make me a princess. I made it out of chenille on number 8 needles, with 2 by 2 ribbing.

Obviously I didn't give it to her, not after all that work, and after it came out so warm and soft and lovely. I was really into it too, because it was red and blue and therefore sort of patriotic and therefore just like the knitting described in "No Idle Hands." I've decided I'll give it to the next girl who loves me.
And then I made myself a hat! My old hat was a comfort hat, I would put it on when I was sad or stressed out, and it would make me feel better. But, new winter, I have to make a new hat. I used the bunny ear pattern from the Stitch n Bitch book, but decided to leave off the ears. Because when I put them on they looked really goofy.

This was my first time doing seed stitch, which I was afraid of until I made this. (What do you mean? Knit the purls? Purl the knits? don't you get confused?!) And it was my first time making i-cord! Which is my new favorite thing to do. My father liked this hat so much, I made him one that was gray and had red stars above the ear flaps. I wish I had a picture of that one!
This has been a brief chronicle of how knitting helped me get my life together. I haven't gone over the prairie or sent sons off to fight the rebels. But I know that if I keep knitting, everything will be alright.

Oh, is it a new year?

New years always seemed like such a tacked on holiday, as if the calander making people just couldn’t let go of the christmas season yet. The Jewish new year, in the fall, makes more sense to me, because it happens right as school begins, which is the time to make resolutions. I actually did go out, this year, though it is my normal habit to stay indoors and be in bed by 10 to avoid shennagians.

I have a vague memory of the new year’s episode of “Will and Grace”, Will’s resolution is to “move on” with his life, get a boyfriend, not be so needy, etc. The episode ends with him kissing Grace at the stroke of midnight, and him saying “kissing a woman, that’s the opposite of moving on.”

If you replace Will with Nelly, Grace with a random dude, and woman with man, then you have my evening.

The gentlemen are really digging me right now, and I can’t figure out why. Some guy even followed me home the other night! I am really really out, all I talk about are gay things. It’s got to be one of two things:

1. Ladies aren’t as bold as gentlemen, and are intimidated by my straighty looks. Or
2. I’m not hanging out with the right crowd.

So I geuss my resolutions should be
A. Initate conversations with more lesbians.
B. Hang out with more different crowds.
Or hidden option
C. Stop caring that I’m single. And just say no to kissing dudes.

waxing poetic about 42nd Street. Never a good sign.

Here's a dumb cell phone picture I took during 42nd Street when I was running wardrobe this summer. I remember thinking what a stupid play it was. But recently I've begun to feel more kindly towards the accursed musical. It is, after all, a story about a young girl who gives up the security of home for the magic of the theater. And she gains a persnickety, loyal and annoying tap dancing family. And I like that she ends up single at the end, with what seems to me like two gay boyfriends. I'm feeling that, innocent, single theater girl in the big city vibe. I came home today humming "young and healthy" under my breath. Could be I've been running wardrobe for too long. I feel like I haven't seen natural light in ages. Joe Turner has come. And Gone.