Kaiju's New Clothes

david has been in the process of painting a vinyl gozilla. it was sitting up on the mantle the other day and as i glanced over at it i started to chuckle. godzilla looked like he had a pair of pants on.



then all i could think of was the story of the emperor's new clothes, not that there was any real correlation. it's just where my mind went.

In the News

my motivation still sucks. the urge to knit, blog and do anything else aside from the routine stuff and the job has not been too strong. work has been kicking my butt lately. i'm producing 2 very high-profile projects at work that are really sucking the energy out of me. so perhaps that's the culprit to my lack of creativity.

i figured i'd get to the laptop and write something in my blog while the thought was in my head. maybe that's the breakthrough ... drop what i'm doing whenever i get the urge to knit, blog or anything outside my normal routine.

um, yeah, right ...

"sorry boss, i can't do my work cause i'd rather start knitting the socks i've been wanting to knit for a few weeks now." or "sorry ceo of my company that the hugest project i've worked on since i began working here is late. but i just had to write a blog entry about the weirdest thing that happened to me. i'm sure you understand, right?"

anyway, here's a quick synopsis of what's been going on.

warmth

the weather has been very strange. 2 weeks ago it was sunny and in the 70s. this week it's been pretty cold and threatening to snow in the lower elevations. we live in oakland california hills. which means there was or is the potential for snow to fall near where we live. you can imagine the buzz these weather conditions are creating.

the good news about the cold temperature is that i was able to wear my orange sweater to work last week. i showed it off very proudly to a bunch of people. they were very impressed by how nice it turned out. several folks said that they could see the sweater in stores like ambercrombie and fitch or banana republic. that felt really good.

i know i promised a picture of me modeling the sweater. but like i wrote earlier, i just haven't had the motivation. plus the weather hasn't been very sunny. maybe i'll have david snap a quick picture today if the sun comes out.

protection

i clench my teeth. the secret is out. it's probably not too hard to imagine though that a person with a type-a-ish, obsessive personality would clench his teeth. i probably even grind my teeth in my sleep too. it's hard to prove that though since david is such a sound sleeper.

why am i telling you this?

well lately i've been waking up with really intense headaches that last for hours. i had been noticing that my jaw was also sore. so i decided to ask my dentist if it made sense for me to get a night guard. wouldn't you know that the problems i've been having with receding gums is actually a symptom of teeth clenching and grinding.

the guard is weird.



but it think that it's helping. i actually woke up this morning to find that there was a little fleck of plastic splintering at the tip of the portion of the guard that protects my right eye tooth. i must have really been grinding up a storm last night.

thank goodness for dental insurance. without it the guard would have cost $400. all that for a piece of plastic!

relaxation

it's been several years since i took a yoga class. i've been wanting to get back into it mostly because i've been having neck and back issues and know that yoga would help. i just haven't really pursued it because i was afraid to make my neck worse. david finally encouraged me to take a class yesterday at the piedmont yoga studio. the studio recommended a "special needs class" that is specifically designed with people recovering from injuries or who have other physical problems in mind.

the class was really nice even though the regular instructor wasn't there. it was very slow and the poses were done lying down on the mat. 3 women that were in class stopped me before i left to tell me that the regular instructor is phenomenal and that i should come back next week. i guess they weren't impressed with the substitute. i thought he was good enough for my re-entry into yoga.

i'm actually a little sore this morning... but it's a good sore. i'll definitely go back next week.

Returning to Knitting Roots

david has been wanting me to knit him a new scarf. he had been bugging me, in a nice way, to get started for a month or so. it is february so i can understand his sense of urgency, especially with daffodils popping up and blossoms on trees. plus he's allowed to push especially since the scarf (pictured below) i knitted for him was my first knitting project back in 2004.


it's hard to see from this picture but it's the typical nubie garter stitch scarf. you can see david modeling the scarf in this post.

several weeks ago as i was getting close to finishing the orange sweater i started to get antsy about lining up my next project. so i went to article pract to start scoping out yarn. david joined me. one thing to note about david is that he doesn't have a particularly long attention span when it comes to tagging along with me to a yarn store. so i enticed him by telling him to look for yarn for his new scarf.

he found a very nice and soft yarn by Cascade called Rainbow. when i looked at the fiber content i wanted to run out of the store screaming.

no it wasn't acrylic. it was cotton!

i had sworn off of cotton for a while after i made the sweaters for matthew and rainer. cotton just isn't the most forgiving fiber to knit with. but i bit my tongue and accepted the challenge.

i know that i have claimed to be a monagomous knitter. but i did write that there were times that it was okay to stray when it was absolutely necessary. keeping my honey happy is a good enough reason. plus i was theoretically done knitting the sweater.

so i cheated on my orange sweater and started a love/hate affair with a cable knit scarf a few weeks ago.



here's a close-up of the cable pattern


this is my first attempt at knitting cables and i'm really enjoying it even though knitting with the cotton yarn is a bitch. the adi turbos (metal needles for the non-knitters out there) are helping. i haven't gotten very far mostly because i wanted to complete the orange sweater.

the cable is very subtle due to the yarn color and texture which i like even though you can really only see the pattern when you're close. it's a nice visual surprise. i'm sure that blocking it once it's done will help. although i'm not quite sure what the final result will be since i haven't blocked a project made with this type of yarn before.

i must admit that it's nice to be knitting something simple like a scarf again after a long sweater project.

That Can't Be Comfortable

ripley has been sleeping in the oddest position the last couple of nights.



i didn't grab a picture quickly enough of the position she was in this morning. but just imagine the affect gravity would have if you fell asleep leaning vertically against a wall and if you had a very flexible backbone.

It's Finished

it looks like i wasn't too off with the sweater. janis at Yarn! (a great yarn store in alameda) offered to help me out with my finishing dilemma. i went to the store on super bowl sunday while david went to the alameda flea market with jessica and tiffany.

where else would two gay men go on super bowl sunday?

janis was actually busy with customers so her friend carel (pronounced carol) helped me out. thankfully i didn't have to rip out anything or undo a large portion of the seaming i had already completed.

i can now proudly say that i have completed my first adult sweater. i was waiting to post a picture of me wearing it outside where the lighting is better than with a flash in the house. but i couldn't wait any longer. so here is a picture of it on the all to familiar dining room table.



i will post a picture with me wearing it this weekend.

thank you janis and carel for your help and moral support!