it's not like anyone is reading...

but hot damn, i was inspired by this:

here is why it is bothersome to make art with conviction... or to do anything with conviction

this makes me want to get up every morning and work on my dissertation for six hours straight and then spend the evenings learning how to play my silly little argentinian hand-me-down acoustic guitar and when i'm not doing that, i want to be designing the alpaca sweater that i have been trying to make for myself for a while now or writing poetry that i've been working on in my head...

we all have our own version of stage fright... or at least most of us do. i can relate so much to what ryan has to say recently, with this sort of re-birth that he has been going through (at least as he has been expressing it in his blog). i am inspired to sit and write down my own version of this... my own testimonial to myself about my convictions as an academic, as a linguist, as a woman, as a knitter, as a guitarist...

thanks ryan. i really appreciate you putting yourself out there. your vulnerability is amazing... it sparkles and mystifies me.

schuba dooba do

well, it's not 'skuba doooba do' it's more like 'shuba dooba do' (like 'shit' not 'skate'). i kept on pronouncing it like 'skate', but i guess because it's in chicago schuba's tavern is pronounced like the 'sh' sound in 'shit' or 'chicago'.

saw bobby bare jr. there last night - good show. i am a sucker for his tune 'i'll be around' and they did a great job on that one last night. i'm curious to see how his shel silverstein tribute album comes out.
the opening band was great, but i forgot their name. they were this rocking set of four guys from memphis, tennessee. i wonder if anyone out there saw them and remembers who they are????

go bears.

i think guero canelo saved my life tonight

...well, it was actually friday night. i heart calexico.

the show was great.

the opening song of their set (goin' to acapulco) and the closing song before the encore (guero canelo) were fabulous - as were the other songs, but these were so well placed in the set. definitely one of the best calexico shows i've seen so far.

one of the openers, a hawk and a hacksaw, was really quite interesting.

and maybe next time photos of some knitted presents that have already been gifted.

the nytimes says...

that this is what we're saying:

ny times buzzwords

one of those buzzwords happens to be "kinnear", popularized by the yarnharlot.

funny stuff.

to join or not to join

well, i guess that's not really a question since i can't officially join anymore. what i'm talking about is InaDWriMo (International Dissertation Writing Month) (see a post about it here and thanks to PhDknitter for mentioning it). it's part of the whole jumble of 'get-things-done-in-november' activities which have semi-clever acronyms.
regardless of the fact that i can't officially join anymore, i can hopefully use this as a way to get more done this month. it is a crucial month and i have so much to do - finish a presentation for a conference in january, finish a poster for a conference at the end of this month, work on a presentation for my dissertation committee... yikes! i also have a potential journal article that i need to develop further... not to mention the regular dissertation crap -- yowza!
to top it all off, tomorrow at this time i'll be in charlotte, waiting to catch a plane to mexico city. i guess i definitely have to bring my laptop to get some work done while i'm gone. i had this grand idea that i would be traveling around without having to lug around my stupid laptop and whip it out for the security guys at the airport and could go sight-seeing without any guilt of not getting work done. what was i thinking?

knitting content

just a quick post... i have been knitting on a gift for a while, so i haven't been able to show pictures of that. luckily, i've finished with that and was able to move on to something else. i wish i had been working on what she was working on, but alas, i'm just not that creative. here is what i did on monday:



and another crappy shot:



this is my interpretation of jackyll and hide from knitty. because i was in a time crunch and used what yarn i had, mine ended up being knit out of bulky weight yarn. i used lamb's pride bulky in sandy heather. the mouth and nose (which are dark brown - not black) are made of some unidentified stash yarn that i picked up from a remnant bin a few years ago. i used some of the tips from adrian.

all in all i like it. people at the party last night were amused and my head stayed warm on the walk over to the party (bonus!). a few issues with mine include the mohair content of the yarn (fuzz everywhere, including in your mouth) and i should have gone through with all of adrian's tips because the eyes initially came out wonky. i tried to repair them by adding a crochet edge... not sure if it works.

if i find the time today, i'll have to do take a few better pics of it outside, including a modeled shot. i think it looks quite amusing on.

potential new lease on life...

i have been pretty sleep-deprived lately due to what i fondly refer to as 'the patty situation'. patty has had a couple of surgical procedures on her foot lately and consequently, we haven't been able to exercise her and she has to wear an elizabethan-collar (e-collar) on all of the time (which means at night when she decides that she wants to go to the bathroom at 4am, the cone gets jammed into anything in her way - and let me tell you, this is loud). i know that i shouldn't make any comparisons here, but i feel like i have a new appreciation for new mothers and fathers.

so let's have a little photo-montage of 'the patty situation'.

here she is, all healthy not long before 'the accident':


doesn't she look great?

here she is again, keeping busy on her nasty rug (note the back foot you can see is the one that has been affected by nerve damage):


then what happens? she decided to chew one of her toenails off on her lame leg. i don't have any pictures of that. take my word for it, you don't want to see it.

turns out she chewed so much that the bone was exposed on her foot. they tried to save her toe by sewing up the skin around it. here she is recuperating after that procedure:


her sutures didn't hold and back to the vet we went. we scheduled an appointment for toe amputation. on the day of surgery, patty was a real trooper. here she is after that surgery, all groggy looking:


it's been over a week since her toe amputation and the vet has been hinting at what the future might bring for us... leg amputation. it's kind of a bummer, but we think it is likely patty's best option. we don't know if she was chewing on her leg due to the weird sensation that she might be experiencing there due to nerve damage or if she was bored or what. whatever the reason, it's not good for her. we were worried about being able to exercise her just a week before this all happened since she started dropping her foot completely while walking, causing it to drag on the ground.

although it sounds pretty grim, leg amputation might be her new lease on life. if this can allow her to walk without dragging her foot and could potentially eliminate the weird sensations she might have been having in her foot, than it would be good for her quality of life. we're going to talk to the vet about the specifics on friday... well, i won't be there (i have a dissertation proposal to defend!), but steve will be.