It's really started to get cold here, with temperatures getting close to minus 20 C. Basically it's cold enough that my glasses fog up when I walk into work after my short walk from home. My vision is extremely poor and rather than take off my glasses while the lenses clear up, I keep them on so I can see where I'm going. Anyone with glasses will be familiar with the way fog clears on lenses. Often you end up with owl eyes, as the centres of the lenses clear (in my glasses the centre is the thinnest part) and the outer edges take a little longer. Well, I'm waiting to get on the elevator to go upstairs and this woman looks at me and says, "ooh... your glasses are all fogged up, How cute!"
and I thought, "weirdo"
It reminded me of a clip that my sister showed me of the comedian Jiff Gaffigan (who apparently is coming to the Winspear in January). I can't access the Tube from this computer, but his routine basically went like this... you wear glasses, someone tries on your glasses, squnits, takes them off and is all "wooah, you're blind!" Would you do that to someone in a wheelchair? Say, "hey man, can I try on your wheelchair?" And then get out and be all "wooah, you're so cripple!"
That's what I thought of when the weirdo woman commented on the cuteness of my glasses. Cute is not the word I would use to describe my failing eyesight, which unfortunately is getting worse. I had a quick vision test for work and the guy advised that I get my eyes checked out. Mind you, I was wearing my contacts and my glasses prescription is stronger. I just have to compromise and wear glasses to work all the time because I spend all day in front of the computer. Oh the pain.
The arrival of the snow was unavoidable... but there is so little of it that I don't really care so much. Maybe because right now it makes the scene from my office window more picturesque. There is finally a little more than layers upon layers of beige.
Snow means ice where I come from... and that plays a big role in what footwear I walk to work in. Out go the heels and open back shoes, in come the handcrafted Italian hiking boots (eventually). Of course the problem with business casual attire it can be hard to disguise hiking boots with dress pants. So I usually have to keep a second set of shoes at my desk. The problem is, although I have a surplus of shoes... I really only have a couple pairs that are both comfortable and work with my everday business attire. One of these pairs lost a heel on the way to work the other day (not the entire heel, just the tip) and I was quite upset that I had wrecked my good shoes. For some reason, when I damage a pair of shoes I seem to forget that I can have them repaired. However, while strolling through the network of buildings downtown I noticed a shoe repair shop within five minutes of my office. How wondrous this was... a cobbler fell across my way when I most needed one. This was not the only item of good fortune that the winter wind blew my way... more on that in days to come.
I need to remind myself from time to time that most of my problems eventually work themselves out. Sometimes it may seem that things are spiralling out of control, but in a matter of weeks my situation may improve immensely. RIght now I'm in a particularly good place. I have a new job that keeps me busy and somehow I've scored a cubicle with a window and a view, allowing me to bask in sunlight all day long. Academically speaking, I've established some direction for the papers I'm writing and I actually feel engaged in the content. I've also finished seven Christmas presents and am in the process of making the eighth and ninth. In photographic terms, I've made some strides towards breaking out of this non-creative period. Over the weekend I was presented with a photoshoot challenge that I feel I successfully accomplished. My photographic subject is my new lady friend, with whom I have entered into an informal pact to provide with girly companionship (we've designated roles as each other's female bff), wearing matching outfits at the gym (yes, it's true... I'm going to attempt going to the gym, Edmonton has a brand new YMCA facility opening soon downtown) and quoting Arrested Development excessively. I think we're off to a good start.
Those close to me are well aware of my renewed interest in knitting. What started as a desperate attempt to keep my fingers warm in the Victoria rat house six years ago has blossomed into a full blown addiction. I suppose I could say that I'm a self-taught knitter, but that's not entirely true. My older and daintier sister showed me the basic art of yarning so many years ago, followed by a brief tutorial from my mother... but following these initial lessons I ventured off on my own. I might be so bold as to claim to have surpassed both mother and sister in the art of knitting, but only because I've knit more than either of them in the past few years (darling mummy probably hasn't really knit since I was still cute and cuddly and francine is too delicate to hold up the heavy knitting sticks for too long). Anyhow, the number of internet resources related to knitting has steadily increased over the years and now the interested knitter can not only find tutorials about various knitting techniques, but also find inspiration, free patterns and solidarity amongst the knitting kind. Recently, several of my knitting feeds have been referencing a site called ravelry... a social network of sorts for needlecrafters like me (and by needlecraft I'm refering to knitting and crochet). Ravelry is still in beta and you need to put your name on a waiting list in order to get an invite. It took a few weeks on the wait list before I was finally invited last Thursday. Some of you will understand what it was like to receive that email invite (sort of like being one of the first of your friends to get a coveted gmail account). Although it was one o'clock in the morning I immediately accepted the invite and set about creating my profile, adding finished projects, WIPs, and adding yarn to my virtual stash. There is quite a community on ravelry already, and thousands of patterns and projects that you can view. For me, it's an easy way to keep track of the various projects I'm working on or have completed. I haven't been very diligent about writing down the type of yarn or needle size that I've used for things that I've knit in the past, and often I have to rack my brain for any of the modifications I've made to various patterns. Now I've got a place to keep all of this information, AND it's integrated with flickr, so I can cross reference all of this data with photographs that I've taken. That's enough nerdly raving from me though. If you're a knitter I recommend that you check out ravelry, tis a nice little site that filled a much needed void in helping to sort all of the info that is available on the web. Oh, and if anyone in Edmonton wants to meet downtown and perform dark domestic arts in public at a bar/pub/club/coffee shop once in awhile let me know. I know of a knitting group that meets at a coffee shop across the High Level Bridge but I don't really fit in with the age demographic, plus it's a cold, dark walk across the High Level during the winter. I'm sure there are some youngish hipsters that I know who might be up for a twice monthly meetup or something like that. We can meet and discuss the revolution like Madame Defarge.
I saw this blog readability test on Darcy Norman's blog this morning. I thought I'd give it a whirl. The results for my particular blog are very amusing.
Darcy helpfully included this postscript...
ps. if you take the test and post the results on your blog, beware
the sneaky, sneaky person who runs the service. The HTML snippet they provide
includes a spam ad hyperlink. Not cool. So just be sure to remove that before
posting. Play safe, kids. And knowing is half the battle.
Sneaky indeed. Watch out for it. But you are all geniuses so I don't know why I'm warning you.
My last post was sometime in late September, I went away on vacation - was too busy to post during that week - I returned to Edmonton to find that my contract position ended suddenly - I spent a few weeks in a rather depressing state of low self esteem, during which time I neglected my blog. However, here I am, many weeks later, jsut completing my first week of work at an exciting new job. Things are looking up for me. I get to incorporate a lot of my creative talents in my new position... working on heritage grants, dabbling in a little bit of graphic design and photography, juggling a little bit of event planning. For now the exact description of my position will remain a secret (most of you who read this know already so I don't really feel like I'm keeping you out of the loop). In an interesting turn of events though, on my first day of work at this new job I got a call from another company who I had submitted my resume to back in September. They didn't have any opportunities that were suitable for me back then but now they're interested.
what else will the future bring?
