Leaving on a Jet Plane? Ugh.

One of the big things that happened since the last time I blogged was that the Husband and I visited our parents in northwest Indiana. Now that we live in Vermont, going home means one of two things: a really long car ride or a moderately long plane ride. Actually, traveling home has meant a relatively long car ride for ages now. The closest we've lived was on the other side of the Chicago suburbs, and even that was over an hour through city traffic.

Vermont to Indiana, though, that's a whole different league. The first few times we did it, we wanted to take the dog, so we drove. Friends, that is a 14-hour drive, which is bad enough. But whether you go across Ohio or across Canada, there is no way to make it interesting. A piece of my soul died on the Ohio Turnpike, and I will never get it back. Frankly, if getting it back means returning to the Ohio Turnpike, I'll do without.

Thus it was that this time, we decided to fly. This is not a decision made lightly. Aside from the monetary cost (which was not inconsiderable even after the in-laws graciously got our tickets for us) is the emotional cost. I am not a fan of flying. This is primarily because I am emetophobic, which in my case means I have a fear of seeing people throw up, which I know is weird, but it's true, so there you go. I can only think of one place where people vomit frequently enough that they slip bags into the seats to make it more convenient. Coincidentally, it is also a place you are forced to remain belted in next to random strangers.

So that's a big chunk (ha!) of why I don't like flying. Honestly, though, why does anyone like flying? You're in a tight seat. It smells funny. There isn't enough legroom for me and I'm not quite 5'0" tall. They barely feed you, and when they do it's not good. You go to the bathroom in what is essentially a cramped portapotty with a disturbing vacuum flush. It is not a pleasant experience.

All of which is to say that in a plane I am not my most rational self. I am not a superstitious person, and I am a firm believer in and supporter of science as a concept. That doesn't change the fact that there is a very real, not insignificant part of my brain that really believes that what keeps the plane up is the combined faith of everyone on the plane that it's going to stay up. If too many people get too worried, the whole thing crashes. This is good in that it forces me to think happy soothing thoughts. It is bad in that any errant negative thoughts feel a little bit life-threatening.

It's probably unfair that I am choosing to focus on what is to me the least pleasant part of the trip. It was lovely to see both families. It was lovely to see Lake Michigan. We went to the Art Institute for the first time in years. We went to Russian Tea Time for the first time ever. I saw two of my siblings, and went to the outlet mall with my mother-in-law. It was genuinely a good time. But it is also genuinely good that it will be a little while till I hear a boarding call again.

An Appeal

Are you there, Spring? It’s me, Rachel. I was just sitting around with some time on my hands, and I thought I’d see what you’re up to these days.

 

Oh, who am I kidding, Spring? Let’s just face the facts. I miss you. I miss you, and I was hoping you could come home for a little while to Vermont. Not forever. I know you’re not a forever kind of season. But just for a little while.

 

By the way, did you notice what I did with my first line, there, Spring? I thought maybe an appeal to  pop culture would help you remember how much fun I am to hang out with. I know, I know, you’ve been around for a while. Maybe you never jumped on the Judy Blume bandwagon. It’s just that I'm getting kind of desperate. I’ve tried the whole “Wait around and eventually Spring will come” thing, and it’s just not working. I’m starting to feel like it's high school again, and you're too cool for me. I’m not exactly the cheerleader type, but I’ve got many fine qualities. I’m funny and smart. I will pretend to like your music. In fact, I will play your favorite song on repeat in my car in the hopes that you will park next to me, and we will “just happen” to be playing the same song. Unless you like Kings of Leon. I’m sorry, Spring, but I just can’t listen to Kings of Leon, even for you. Honestly, though, Spring, you seem more like an Enya type. I can definitely fake an interest in Enya for you. "Oh my god, I know! It's such soothing music!" See?

 

Actually, Spring, all of this talk about music is reminding me of how we used to spend our time together. Let's remember the good times, okay? Remember how on the first day it was warm enough to drive with the windows down, I would play The Clash at top volume and think about how happy I was to be driving with you? I really treasure those times. They bring me peace, Spring. I don’t drive as much as I used to, but I really want to go for my Clash drive. Don’t you want me to have peace, Spring? Why don’t you want what’s best for me? Why don’t you care about my needs? Why won't you make it warm again?

 

I’m sorry, Spring. That paragraph started to get away from me a little bit. I’m not trying to pressure you. I don’t need you to give me a perfect driving day. Why don’t you just throw on some sweatpants and an old shirt and just aim for a gloomy day with a high in the upper 40s? Even when you're not trying, you're so beautiful.

 

Wait, is it Winter keeping you away? That jerk Winter has left ice all over the town. I think he likes to watch people fall. Has Winter been hurting you, too? Because if Winter has been hurting you, you need to know that there are people who can help you. You have friends, Spring. Friends who love you and miss the way you used to be. I mean, tomorrow is March 28 and there's a winter weather advisory. It's okay to take a stand against that kind of pushy crap. This is your season, Spring! Take it back.

 

Anyway, I really hope this finds you well. And I really, really hope it finds you en route to the Northeast. I'll keep the Enya on repeat till I see you.

Tying Up Loose Ends

Spoiler: this post is going to start out being about knitting, but never fear, non-crafty types... it's a metaphor! Or a simile? Actually, it's more of an example, but the point is, the post is not just about knitting.

 

About four weeks ago now, I finished a shawl. That is to say, I finished the knitting of the shawl. For most projects, after you finish the knitting, you have to do the finishing: weaving in yarn ends and blocking. This is especially true of anything that includes lace, which my shawl does.

For some reason though, even though I was totally excited to wear the shawl and take pictures of it in finished form, I let it sit as a pile of rumpled up yarn for weeks. This means that not only could I not wear it or photograph it, but it was a thing in the way of other projects on my work table. I want to say that what was holding me up was the actual act of weaving in the yarn ends and soaking the project in water and spreading it on a towel to dry (which is basically all that blocking is). But weaving in yarn ends is basically the same thing as embroidery, and I do that for fun. And soaking and pinning is the magical part where you actually see the thing you made. So it's more than that.


What's so bad about pinning the yarn to the ugly towel?

Besides, I have an aversion to finishing in all areas of life, not just knitting. I did taxes three weeks ago, but I waited a week and a half to submit the federal form and I still haven't filed in Vermont. There is no good reason for this. The Vermont form is complete, and I have no intention of looking it over any more. I've even entered the amount of the check in the checkbook. I just haven't written the check, or put it in the envelope, or addressed the envelope. I just haven't finished.

Part of this is my natural inclination towards procrastination. After years of traditional "ignore the thing that needs to be done" style procrastination, I have reached a point in my life where I can force myself to start a thing. The procrastination doesn't take hold until about halfway through, and in the moment it feels less like I am putting something off and more like my brain gets so bored with the thing I'm doing that I have to go do another thing. I have been known to stop washing dishes with, like, two cups and a knife left to clean, while I go check my email. That, my friends, is ridiculous.

Really, though, I think it's something deeper than simple procrastination, and closer to a fear of finality. Like I said, finishing a shawl isn't actually that bad and I had already done the hard part of the taxes. But once the shawl is blocked, it's done. If I don't like it, there is no saying "Maybe it will be better once I do the next step." Once the taxes are in the mail, there is no remembering one little thing that I should have added. Once I click "Publish" on this post, which I started over a week ago, it's up on the Internet for anyone to judge. And while the consequences for finishing and not liking something are pretty low, why face them today? Tomorrow will probably be fine.

There is one more possibility, of course. It's one that I considered just now, as I looked in my tea cup and realized that it was not as empty as I thought (by which I mean that I had an inch of tea left). I could just be kind of flaky. I do spend a significant portion of my life trying to figure out where my keys are, and at least once I have done so while the keys were in my hand.

Whatever the reasons, I did finally manage to finish the shawl, which is wrapped around my shoulders as I type. (Remind me to take a picture of it being held on with the lovely shawl pin the Husband made.) And in just a second, I am going to take the plunge and click "Publish". The taxes though? I'm not too worried. There are still 22 days until April 15.

Demented and Sad, but Social

Recently, the Husband and I were out with a colleague/friend, and Willa Cather came up. (As she does. At least when you hang out with librarians.) I mentioned that I hadn't read any of her books since high school, when Academic Decathlon kind of ruined My Antonia for me. I started to move on conversationally, when the Husband noticed her confusion.

"I think you've got to explain Academic Decathlon."

At first I tried to compare it to Quiz Bowl, which my high school didn't have, but which my younger brother competed in at a different school after my family moved and which seems to be more common. "It's a little like Quiz Bowl," I said. "But the questions are more in-depth. Or at least I think that's the difference. Or like Science Olympiad, but without science. Well, I don't think there was science. I'm sorry, it's been a while."

Since she was still confused, I went on, but her lack of understanding combined with my fuzzy memory was making me question the details. "You studied things? And then you took a test? But, like, in front of people. As a competition."

I guess I had never had to explain it that far before. I'm pretty sure that up to that point, anyone I had mentioned it around had heard of Academic Decathlon, or Quiz Bowl, or Spell Bowl, or Science Olympiad. You know, competitive academics.

Competitive academics was what I did in high school. I was uncoordinated and slow, so sports were out. I wasn't artistic, or at least I didn't think I was, so art was out. I was shy and awkward, so drama and debate team were out. I was kind of scared of the soup kitchen, so Key Club was out. I needed to get some form of scholarship in order to go away for school, so not doing anything was out. Competitive academics it was!

People who also did Academic Decathlon, feel free to jump in on the comments if I get details wrong. (There have to be some of you out there, right? Maybe you came here looking for brethren. Hello! Come in! I bow to the nerd within you!) Basically, as a team, you got a book that was your subject guide. You studied those subjects, along with supplementary texts. Then you gathered with other schools' teams on a certain prearranged day and took a test. I think part of it was multiple choice and part required writing. There was also a speech portion.

Academic Decathlon was my biggest "sport", but I also did Spell Bowl (basically a written spelling bee) and Science Olympiad. (Focused - duh - on science and engineering, it required moving around and enthusiasm for science, so I didn't stick with it long). I promise you that I am not joking when I say that I lettered in Academics. Like, I could have gotten a letter jacket, and put my Academics Letter on it. That was not a thing I chose to do, but the option was there.

Preparing for these competitions wasn't fun, exactly, but I had friends there. Friends who I genuinely liked, with off-beat senses of humor and decent taste in pop culture. One of my fonder high school memories is meeting up with them after we won regionals and nearly getting kicked out of the theater for mocking Patch Adams. (Nerds can rebel too!)

Mock me all you want. God knows the Husband does. But at least my friends and I maintained a certain ironic distance from the whole thing. We were in a small public school in a city in Indiana's industrial corner, near Lake Michigan. Because of our school's small size and the statewide trend towards large consolidated public school districts, we were competing mostly against private schools, especially once we made it through regionals to the state competition.

And those schools took competitive academics seriously. They had Academic Decathlon classes. They brought (male) friends who painted things on their chests and took off their shirts during the mostly very quiet competitions. They asked my teammates whether we were in gangs. (Our city did have some issues with gangs, but oddly, they didn't seem to do much recruiting at the Academic Decathlon practices.) In short, we were on the fringe of a group that was already on the fringes of high school life.

I have no Academic Decathlon regrets. I don't think about it often, but when I do, I am happy. I was lucky to find people with similar senses of humor who started to help me feel comfortable in my own skin, and to do it before college. Perhaps the only thing I regret is having to explain what the hell competitive academics is. And the fact that I still can't face My Antonia.

For Those About To Weave

WARNING: This post is focused on my rigid heddle loom. If you don't care about rigid heddle looms, you may find this post boring. Maybe you should look at something else. Personally, I'm a fan of Radiolab's tumblr. I promise to talk about something else next time 

I've talked before about my stat counter and how much I love seeing what brings people who don't know me here. Before it was naughty vegetables that brought strangers to my corner of the internet. These days it's the post about my Spears Loom.

I know from experience that weaving info is harder to come by than knitting info, and that details about the nitty-gritty of choosing a rigid heddle are even harder. Since writing the above-mentioned post, I graduated to a 19" Glimakra Emilia. I mostly like it, and I'm going to say why. First, though, a quick word about the Spears loom.

If you find yourself with a Spears loom, or a similar loom that is/was marketed as a toy, I think the trick to getting good results is to remember that it is still a loom. I ran into trouble when I was measuring my warp threads. Rather than setting up a makeshift warping board, I measured the warp threads by hand with a yard stick. This was not only way more of a pain than doing it right would have been, but since wool is stretchy, it meant my warp threads were all slightly different lengths, which is part of why so many of them broke mid-project.

(On a side note, the instruction manual for the Spears loom was what led me astray. It also contained a racial slur, in reference to a brown color in one of the sample projects. Again, it's from the early 60s, but still. Really altogether terrible and unhelpful.)

Anyway, on to the Glimakra. First, quick details. I bought mine online from Paradise Fibers. It was a great experience. When I bought it, I had woven on a floor loom and on the Spears. After much waffling, I finally went with the Glimakra because I liked the look of it. This post features a couple of the projects I've finished on it most recently - the scarf with a single heddle and the towels with two. After three years of use (but with no experience on other rigid heddle looms), here's what I think.

The good:
More wood and metal than plastic. On a lot of rigid heddle looms, the ratchets that let you tighten the warp are plastic. On the Glimakra Emilia, they are metal. In fact, pretty much anything on this loom that is plastic (the heddles, for example) has to be plastic.

Easy to use second heddle. Being able to add a second heddle means that you can use finer yarns and make thinner fabrics. This was important to me.

Can handle long warps. Some looms have beams across the back (for stability, I suppose) that limit how long your warp can be. (A long warp is going to have to wrap around the back end of the loom more times, and thus be thicker.) Glimakra does a beam there, but it is far enough forward that it doesn't seem to affect the possible length of your warp.

Good weaving experience. I have to be honest: I don't have a ton of experience weaving on other rigid heddles. But one thing I was worried about was that the experience of weaving on one wouldn't be as fun as weaving on a floor loom. It's a fact that I still think I'll buy a floor loom one day. There are drafts (weaving patterns) you just can't do on a rigid heddle, even with two heddles. But until that point, any complaints about weaving that I've had have been corrected when I checked the tightness of my warp.

Folds. I'm not going to lie; even when folded, it takes up a pretty good amount of space. But when I had to move out of my studio, it was nice to be able to fold it up (with the project in the picture still on it!) to make it slightly easier to move.

Nice and wide. I love the 19" width. Much wider, and I think I'd have difficulty beating evenly. Much narrower and I would feel constrained.

Now the less good:
The stand. Oh my gosh, is this stand terrible to set up. The loom screws into it (rather than resting on it), and the stand isn't able to stay upright on its own until the loom is screwed in. The instructions for the stand tell you that it is best to put the loom on the stand with a helper, and they aren't lying. This, in my opinion, is a serious flaw.

Taking the loom on and off the stand while a project is on it is a risky business, a fact I learned when I had to move out of my studio before finishing the towels pictured above. When I watched the KnitPicks tutorial on weaving and saw how easily the Kromski Harp comes off and on its stand, I felt a bit weepy. (The Kromski also functions as a warping board, which is neat. But I personally don't like how the heddles sit upright rather than hanging.)

The stand is also not as sturdy as I would like. There was an ordeal with tightening the carriage bolts that attach the loom to the stand (in an effort to make it less wobbly) that I'd rather not relive. (Don't let your spouse/significant other hammer your loom! Even if s/he is very careful, if there is loom damage, it will cause marital strain. The loom and our marriage are fine, but it was touch and go for a few moments.)

Actually, that's really it for out-and-out drawbacks. It's a doozy, though - enough so that I have seriously considered getting a different loom.

What say you, though? If you care enough about rigid heddle looms to have read this far, I'd love to hear what you think. Have you tried out others? Are any of my complaints or compliments just a result of my limited experience? Which ones are you thinking about buying?

Opening Pandora's... Website?

For a variety of reasons, my current job is the first where I've felt free to put in an earbud while at work and listen to the radio all day long. Up to this point, I've only done this when previewing a new Wiggles album for storytime songs, so this is an exciting development. It also means that for the first time ever, I've been listening to Pandora.

I know the rest of the world has been enjoying Pandora for years and years, but I was new to it. What can I say? I'm a bit of a dinosaur. I'm all for new technology and staying current as an institution when I'm, you know, representing an institution, but I'm reluctant to embrace new technology in my personal life.

Pandora, though... that's different. Pandora, you sexy beast, how did I not meet you sooner? I knew I loved Pandora when I noticed the "Why was this song selected?" button, and one of the attributes it thought I liked was a "Prominent accordion part".

First of all, ha! Is that your prominent accordion part, or are you just happy to see me? Get it? The phrasing is funny! And so many of its phrasings are funny. Mild rhythmic syncopation? Either Pandora thinks I have a dirty music mind, or it knows that I love hand claps. Either way, I am totally in. Always and forever, Pandora. With or without extensive vamping.

Second, I am almost positive that I hadn't thumbs-upped any songs with accordions. I hadn't even asked it to add some variety with a Decemberists sea shanty (yet!), so apparently I just seem like a person who would like accordions. Which is true! Pandora can see into the heart of me! Though, really, who doesn't like accordions?

I will grant that it is not all hits in the world of Pandora. Pandora has overestimated my love of Wanda Jackson and only plays She and Him songs from Volume 1. It is convinced that if it just keeps trying, I will want to listen to Jack Johnson. No matter how many times I tell it to play more Talking Heads, it only plays a few select tracks from Stop Making Sense. But that's true of any relationship, right? It's only a matter of time until we get to know each other completely. And it will be a time full of prominent accordion parts.

Creative Output



My loom in my studio!

Last year I posted about my studio. Since then, we’ve moved, and with the move came a new studio. This one is a little nook in our apartment. As much fun as it was to say, "I'm going over to the studio," the actual act of going to the studio was sometimes a work deterrent, so it is lovely to have a whole studio at home.  

Anyway, picture posts are fun, right? Wanna see what I've been doing?

Knitting
I don't really do New Year's resolutions, but I swear to golly that 2014 is the year that I'm going to finish the mitred square blanket that I started in, like, 2007.

For the blanket you knit a bunch (in my case, 80) of little squares, sew them into 2x2 squares, and then sew those into a blanket. This is but a representation of what I've done so far.

3 of the 20 needed 2x2 squares. I've sewn 5.

Oh, it will be so lovely when it is finished. Psychologically, I mean. Hopefully it will also look lovely, but I'm really just trying to free myself here.

I wasn't going to start any new knitting until I had finished knitting the little squares (I'm on #72), but I couldn't resist Ysolda Teague's mystery knit-along (where you get the pattern in dribs and drabs without knowing what the end product will look like). It starts Monday, and I am so so super-psyched that I can't use big girl words about it.

Weaving
Here's a picture of the dish towels I finished in November:

Dish towels! Fresh off the loom, so they're a bit wonky.

 

Here's a close-up picture of a scarf I made last year whose pattern makes me happy:

Waffly scarf! So warm.

I haven’t started a new project. Why not? Because...
 

Stitching

Hey, I know what I need! A new hobby to take up my already limited spare time. How about handstitching? Don't mind if I do!

I started with an embroidery kit from Sublime Stitching, but stitching patterns on towel after towel seemed kind of silly, and it was hard to find other embroidery targets.
 

So, after some soul-searching to make sure I was invested enough to invest in it, I bought an Alabama Chanin kit:
 

Lots and lots of teeny stitches

 

That’s my progress as of a few weeks ago. I'm not too much further along, because I've started sewing the blanket squares, and I also have to go to my job sometimes. But, oh my god, I can’t even explain to you how very much I love this, much less why. It is repetitious and fiddly and I can’t read or watch tv while I do it. But love it I do. I love putting little stitches into my fabric. Teeny little stitches added one by one. It's like mindfulness training, which, when you factor in the fact that I'll end up with a skirt, makes it a very good investment indeed.

And that's what I've got right now. Three hobbies, lots of projects. Now all I need is more time to focus on them. (And a better camera to document them.)

 

One Shot To Win Devotion

One thing I do at my current job is teaching. I don't have a whole class to teach, but instructors can ask me to visit their classes and evangelize about the library and the proper usage of databases. In the library world, we call these one-shots (because you have one shot to fill the students with love for research skills). Please note that I didn't invent this phrase.


The number of these that I do can vary from term to term, but I have one regular one-shot gig, which is visiting the information technology class that all students have to take in their first term on campus. In the fall term, where there is the biggest incoming class, there are several sessions of this class, all needing to hear the exact same basic spiel about what online services are available through the library website. 

I genuinely look forward to these visits. I like meeting the new students, and I genuinely believe I have useful information for them. But even for a true believer, doing multiple sessions is rough. The first session is fine. It is early in the day. I have energy and jokes. I have a silly name (Ilse) and a back story for the sad looking blonde woman with a stack of books in my clip art image. I *sell* those databases. 

By the second session, I start to notice that the room is warm. I still have jokes. I still tell the students about Ilse, but I don't give all the details of her back story. By the fourth time, I can't remember if I delivered the jokes yet, and frankly, I'm starting to think that they're not all that funny. Poor old Ilse and her back story go down the toilet. 

I didn't have this problem when I was a children's librarian and would repeat programs. I could sell the same story over and over, and I never lost faith that thing I was delivering was awesome. This was partly because I was delivering songs and stories, which are kind of inherently awesome, and the people I was delivering them to were there because they (or, at least, their parents) thought library storytime sounded fun. But it was also because I had a basic confidence in my own abilities that I am still working on strengthening at my current job. 

I mention all this for two reasons. One, because it is almost time for me to do the info tech one shot for the winter term students, so it is on my mind. And two, because sometimes I feel like blogging is a little like doing a one-shot. I get an idea and I flesh it out it in my head. I think about it and tweak it and plan out the jokes. But by the time I sit down to write the post, I've been living with the idea for long enough to doubt its need to exist. I write two paragraphs and decide the whole thing's stupid and close the Blogger tab in disgust. 

In blogging and in teaching, I am working on building my confidence. When I am planning my Info Tech presentation, I know that it is good to have a name and a back story for Ilse. I think it's funny, and even if the students don't, it shows that I have a personality, albeit a dorky one. It is never the case that everyone in the room cares, but it is pretty much always the case that someone does. I don't know for sure that the same applies to the blog, but it seems likely that it would, at least some of the time. 

So, if you are the one who cares today, thank you. If not, well, maybe the next post will connect. Either way, I'm going to keep doing it.

Career Update

When last we talked about jobs, I was a Toddler Teacher at a preschool. When the Husband and I were preparing to move to Vermont, I was ready for a decision: is it more important to me to work with kids or in a library? As it turned out, the decision was actually: do I want to take a job at a preschool or do I want to stay unemployed indefinitely? I took the path that allowed us to buy food.

I knew that I needed to find a way out when I was at a bookstore talking to the salesperson and said, "I used to be a librarian," and the past tense made me cry. (Yes, literally, though not until I left the store.) And so it was a great relief when a library job opened up at an institution of higher education. Since I've still not decided exactly how easily Google-able I want to be in this blog iteration, I'll just say that it's a specialized sort of tech school and leave it there.

As with even the best jobs, there is some weirdness mixed in.

First, it's personally weird for me to not only not be a children's librarian, but also to not be a public librarian.

Second, though I am technically an academic librarian, my institution is a tech school. Practically speaking, that means I am in a subculture of academic librarianship. My institution is focused on the teaching of a set of skills, and thus isn't focused on in-depth research. Honestly, I prefer that, because most of the people here genuinely care about teaching their craft. (If they didn't, they could go out into the world, and just, you know, do their craft.) It does mean, though, that most of the articles written about my general field aren't applicable to me. This is a disappointment because boy, do I love a professional article.

Third, I am working for the largest organization I have ever worked in but I am a sub-department of one. There are, of course, other professionals providing academic support, but there are no other professionals providing library support. Combine that with number two, and sometimes I feel lonely.

Finally, I live in an awesome little town that has a vaguely college-y vibe. As with any college, there are some people who graduate from the school, but never really graduate from the town. They kind of hang around in limbo, and their limbo involves coming to the library to read magazines and "do research". So even though I don't work in a public library, I still have reference desk stories. But the pool in this town is so small that I can't share any of my stories here.

Really, though? Those things pale in comparison to going each day to an institution whose work I genuinely support and who seems to genuinely value what I do. Which isn't funny or particularly interesting to read about, but it's true, so there.

Rebirth of the Blog

So, I've been kicking around the idea of bringing back the blog. The hardest part of bringing back the blog, though, is writing the first post. You know, the one where I explain where I was and what I was doing and why I haven't been writing the blog? I'd start it in my head, but then I'd start to think about the fact that Google Reader got shut down, and probably all two of the people who followed me didn't transfer their subscriptions, and anyway, isn't there a new Sherlock trailer to find on the internet?

Then, along comes this article to kick me out of my no-bloggy funk. Go ahead, you can read it. It's short! Wait, who am I to come into your house after a year of silence and make you read NPR articles? Fair point, dear reader. I'll sum up:

You know how at the beginning of calls to customer service, they usually tell you that the call might be recorded for training purposes? And you either forget about it, or at least assume that they aren't referring to the parts where they're playing a Muzak version of "The Boys of Summer"? Well, they're totally recording the whole thing! And they used the recording to judge you!

The study in the article looked at two things: how much people on those calls sweared, and whether they said "please" and "thank you". As a Hoosier, albeit a misplaced one, I was filled with all of the conflicting emotions my homeland usually gives me when I saw Indiana smack dab in the middle of the "Least Courteous" list, while not ranking at the top or bottom of the Cursing list. Hoosiers!We will not curse at you when you make us wait, but neither will we say "thank you" if you end up helping us! We made passive aggressiveness into an art form, you sons of a biscuit!

I should note that Vermont didn't make it onto the list. I don't know what that says. Vermonters are neither repressed enough nor rude enough to make headlines? I didn't get all "social science librarian" with the article, so it could just say that they didn't adjust for population, leaving the second least populated state with little chance of ranking. Who knows?

All of which is to say, I decided to skip the "What I Did on My Blog Vacation" post. Suffice to say, I'm still here, in Vermont, but I'm still thinking about the Midwest. More to come soon, I promise.

A Room of One's Own

Believe it or not, the tiny room pictured above is one of the more exciting developments from our time in Vermont. It's a studio, and it is all mine.

We had a bit of a scramble getting from the town we were living in to Montpelier. We had chosen a town in which to sublet in Vermont thinking that we wanted to either live there or in Burlington. As it turns out, we fell in love with Montpelier, and then, amazingly, I got a job there. Awesome, right? Except for the fact that it is really hard to find apartments here, especially pet-friendly ones, and our sublet was about to run out. We literally saw a place on Tuesday, signed a lease on Wednesday, and moved in on Friday right before our sublet expired on Saturday. We were so happy to have somewhere to live that we tried not to focus on the fact that the place we found was very, very small. 

And it is very, very small. It is a glorified studio apartment, though since it has two rooms and a bathroom, it was advertised as a one-bedroom. We are making it work, but it was very hard at first. It got easier when the Husband found himself studio space. It was actually his idea that I get studio space as well. My loom and yarn are over there, as well as sewing supplies. 

The theory is that I'm going to give the whole weaving thing an actual go, in a space where I won't have to fold up the loom or shove it in the corner every night. The theory is that I'll be a weaver, and maybe actually sell the things I weave, and maybe eventually even make a noticeable portion of my income from it. 

When Virginia Woolf talked about having a room of one's own, she was talking about bringing legitimacy to one's work. The flip side of legitimacy is a sense of responsibility and the fact that it's time to either do the thing you've been talking about or shut up about it. Frankly, it's daunting. We'll see whether in a few months I'm doing the thing or shutting up. I really hope it's the former.

It Happens

The husband and I have settled, finally, in the fine city of Montpelier. We are both gainfully employed. I am not, any longer, a librarian. I am working at a preschool as a Toddler Teacher. In practice, this means I am the assistant teacher under a very cool head teacher in a room full of children aged 12-18 months. 

There are things I like very much about my new career. There are things I miss very much about my old one. Overall, though, I think there is one thing that I can point to as the main difference between the two, and that thing is poop. 

Oh, there was poop at the library, but for me at least, it was mostly in the abstract. I conducted storytimes for many diapered children, and sometimes I'd smell the telltale stink of a poopy diaper, but it was never my problem. Libraries are renowned for providing public bathrooms to any and all, including the type of unsavory character who would spread their solid waste on the walls, but when it happened at my library, I was already home for the day. 

These days, I am pretty much the Poop Queen. At frequent intervals, either me or my co-teacher will say, "I smell poop," and then we will begin the strange ritual of diaper-poking and bottom-smelling until one of us finds the culprit. Often there is more than one culprit, in part because these children eat most of their meals at the same time and are thus on very similar schedules in all parts of their lives. 

All of this was brought home to me in the past week, as a minor stomach bug swept the classroom. As illnesses go, it was nothing major. The afflicted children remained in good spirits and kept their food down. They just had wicked cases of diarrhea. I talked in great detail to mothers and fathers about the contents of their children's diapers, both during and after each child struck ill. In one case, within minutes of meeting a child's aunt, I was talking about his bowel movements to her. 

This is definitely not what I imagined for myself originally, but I'm enjoying it very much. In all honesty, diaper changing is one of my favorite daily tasks, because it is usually nice one-on-one time with each child that is hard to get otherwise in a busy room. Still, though, as I stand and talk earnestly about the texture of a poop, sometimes I would like to hit pause and enjoy a nice long Beavis laugh. So here, in my private space, I have but one thing to say to you: "Poop. Uh huh huh huh."

Thank you. I needed that.

Waiting to land

When we were planning this great move of ours, I expected to feel settled once we arrived in Vermont. After leaving Illinois, we spent nearly a month in a transitory state, spending time in the homes of family and friends. I loved seeing the people, some of whom we now live far from and others who are so much closer now. But I also felt like we were circling and circling and never quite getting to land. I was ready to settle down, and I was so sure that would happen when we arrived in Vermont.

The thing is, though, we're subletting. We picked a Vermont town, the town we most enjoyed when we visited on vacation last year. After trying unsuccessfully to find a permanent place for us to live, we found temporary one. The place is furnished, so we put the majority of our stuff in storage for the summer.

As it turns out, this was lucky. We now know that when we say we don't want to live in a city, we mean we don't want to live in Chicago. "City" doesn't mean quite the same thing in a state where the entire population is less than a quarter of Chicago's.

This is a good thing to learn while finishing off a two-and-a-half month sublet rather than, say, in month 2 of a 12-month lease. We're focused on two cities now, Burlington and Montpelier. In one of those cities (I won't say which, out of a ridiculous desire to avoid jinxing myslf), I have two very strong job leads. I feel so very hopeful about what the rest of the year will bring.

Still, though, I also feel like the circling continues. Where will I be working? Not sure! What sitting will we live in next month? Wait and see! I am aching to settle in and start the process of making myself at home. It will happen soon, but it's getting hard to wait.

In which I interact with real townspeople

Recently while walking our dog Beckett through the village green*, I had the following conversation. I share to prove that even in Vermont, there are Those People.

*Actually it happened near the bus stop, after I had left the green. I, however, would like to pretend I exist solely on the village green for as long as I live in a village with a green.

Random Woman: Oh, that's a nice dog. Is it a chihuahua?

Me: No, he's a fox terrier.

RW: Oh, because he looks a lot like a chihuahua.

Me: Yeah, people say that sometimes. But he's a terrier.

RW: His head is shaped like a chihuahua's. And his neck.

Me: (NOTE: The remainder of my side of the conversation takes place in my head, while in person I smile and nod.) I'm not sure that I can be polite to you anymore.


RW: (As Beckett allows himself to be pet) I let dogs approach me and sniff and decide if they want to interact. That's how I show that I respect them.

Me: Perhaps another way to respect him would be to acknowledge that he's not a chihuahua.

RW: Yeah, sometimes you have to watch out with chihuahuas. Sometimes they just want to bite.

Me: Have you ever actually encountered a chihuahua, or do you just refer to every dog you meet as a chihuahua? Maybe you enrage the dogs by causing identity issues. Maybe they think that while being a chihuahua is certainly not shameful, it is also not what they are and they get mad! Maybe they are just trying to prevent their owners' heads from exploding!

RW: All right, thanks for letting me pet your dog. To someone nearby: Did you see that chihuahua?

Me: Pfff! (It turns out that when your head explodes it just makes a quiet little pfff.)

Huzzah!

So we did it. We officially moved out of Illinois and into Vermont. We took a deliberately roundabout path that brought us to friends in Wisconsin and in Baltimore. (Our suggestion for Maryland's motto, in case the good people of the Maryland marketing board read this, is "Maryland: much prettier than you think it will be.") Finally, though, we've landed in the Green Mountain State. After trying unsuccessfully to find permanent housing from Illinois, we decided to sublet a furnished place here. The thinking was that while it is scary to commit to a year in a place without seeing it, we can live pretty much anywhere for 3 months. The only drawback is that it's been hard to shake the sense that we're on a really long vacation. It's not so much that it's so nice (though we did luck out and get a pretty decent place), but more that living with and using someone else's stuff feels a lot like staying in an inn. Also becuase we're finally living in a place that has multiple appealing restaurants. Also because there is a lovely little waterfall a short walk from our building's front door. And also, it must be said, because we're both still unemployed and our days are open. I've got faith that the last one will work itself out. We made the decision to value where we are over what we're doing for work while there. Having the choice is an advantage of not having kids and of living modestly enough to have accrued savings while both working part-time. Where I am, I can look out the window and see a mountain in the distance, as well as a pub with 17 beers on tap. For the moment at least, the decision seems like a good one.

The Name of this Post is Secret

I sometimes use this space to talk about my hypothetical beautiful life, wherein I live all my dreams and still have time to rock. In that vein, I'm going to make a confession now. In my beautiful life, a portion of my income comes from an Etsy store where I sell items that I have woven or otherwise crafted from yarn or thread. Like most aspects of my beautiful life, the Etsy store is fully plausible but thus far exists only in my head.

The other day, the Husband upped the Etsy store ante by showing me a wooden pin he had crafted and saying "If you do all the paperwork, I'll contribute to the store." This is awesome, obviously. The motivation of having spousal involvement means it might actually happen. The flip side, though, is that now I really do have to come up with a store name.

I have long felt that the worst part of most endeavors is naming them. Papers (in the days when I had to write them), screen names, dogs, blogs, blog posts: all require names, ideally clever ones that provide insight into their owner/creator's character. It took me forever to come up with a blog name that I was okay with. When I was talking about ending the blog hiatus, the Husband pointed out that I should change its name. "Misplaced" Hoosier implies that I might want to find my way back to Indiana eventually, which is demonstrably not the case. This may be true, but aside from the practical element of not wanting the URL to change, I also don't want to have to think of something new. Maybe if I learn a super cool nickname for Vermonters, I'll use that to create a new blog name, but until that point, "Misplaced Hoosier" I remain. (Also, part of the point of the name was that no matter where you encounter us, there is something distinctly Midwestern about us Midwesterners, and something even more distinctive about those of us from the Great Lakes region, but I digress.)

This, then, is the major obstacle of the Etsy store. It really needs to have a good name, because I'd be selling stuff. Something memorable, maybe clever, but not cutesy. Not something yarn specific, because the Husband will probably make things from wood and found objects. I know that not everyone thinks this hard about these things. There are people in this world who name their children after Twilight characters, for heaven's sake. But, since there is no way I'm going to be the proprietor of the Renesmee Emporium, I'm going to have to put some thought into it. Got any ideas?

Elation, Terror, and a Tiny Drop of Moose

I'm spending the days leading up to the move oscillating between elation  and terror. The elation is usually easy to access. This, after all, is a move the Husband and I have been talking about in some form for years. At the beginning of our relationship, we'd say "Seattle" instead of "Vermont", but in either event, it's a big move away from the Midwest and toward mountains. And it's happening! For real!

The terror is sneaky, though, and it manifests in the oddest ways. Looking at the Spring Preview issue of Publisher's Weekly, I saw a book that looked good and went to the library catalog to see if it was on order. When I saw that it was coming out in May, there was the panic. In May, I may or may not live here. If there's anyone ahead of me on the request list, I may never read it. How can I put a book on hold when I don't even know where I'll be living? If I breathe deeply and focus on mountains and the existence of libraries in Vermont, I can usually get back to the elation.

Yesterday was a hard day though. For reasons to do with the condo (wait, have we talked about the condo? I try to avoid talking about it, because it makes me feel panicky on a normal day. Come over for drinks sometime and I'll tell you the story. Spoiler alert: it ends with a word that rhymes with "more closure", which is ironic, since that's exactly what it didn't bring. Also, if you come over for drinks, I'm probably still not going to want to talk about it.)

Anyway, back to the point. For reasons that are unpleasant to think about, our taxes aren't done yet, and I was thinking about that and feeling tense. Plus, I have a dentist appointment this week to fix a chipped onlay. (Never heard of an onlay? Welcome to my mouth, your visual dental dictionary.) Dentist appointments are painful and expensive and usually come in groups, so I was already feeling stressed out when our landlords dropped in.

I should explain about our landlords. They are people we were friends with before we moved into their house. They have moved to Chicago, but he is a professor who comes in town to teach once a week. The point being that they're cool and not landlord-y and that we see him a lot, but not the two of them together. The Husband had talked to him about the fact that we were moving but didn't know when, and he (the landlord) thought he knew of some people with similarly fuzzy plans who might be able to move in whenever we moved out.

Yesterday, though, they said that those plans had fallen through and that we were going to need to give them an end date. This is entirely reasonable and entirely expected. I told them what the Husband and I had agreed, which is that we don't have solid plans but that the goal is to be out by the end of May. If we're not ready by then and they do have a new tenant, then so be it. We'll figure something out. All of which is true, and all of which has been previously discussed by the Husband and me. But there was something about putting a date on it, especially on an already stressful day, that brought on the fear.

I suppose that a little fear is a small price to pay for a beautiful new life in Vermont, or at least a new life in beautiful Vermont. And I'm learning a sort of site-focused meditation technique in which I focus on the good things until my heart rate slows. You know what nearly always works? The fact that we're moving to a place where some of the highways have Moose Crossing signs. How bad can life be when you're less than an hour from the potential of seeing a moose?

Is This Thing On?

Why, hello. Is there anyone still out there? I've been wanting to come back to the blog for a while now - framing stories in my head and wanting to share life's small developments. After sitting down several times to write a re-entry post, I realized that the thing that was holding me back was the whole "summary of what's been going on" thing that seemed necessary after being gone for a year and a half.

In truth, a lot has been going on. Tons of stuff has happened since July 2010. But any time I start to write about it, it turns into a list that I find boring to write and that therefore will likely be boring to read. So I'm skipping all that. Some of it will surely be covered in future posts, and please feel free to ask questions, but really there's no point in doing this if it's going to be boring. The key thing to know is that we are once again on the path to moving. Not just to another dump in CollegeTown either. (Though, in the interest of full disclosure, I must state that the house we are renting now is quite nice. It's not the filing cabinet mentioned in my last post, though we did live there. Suffice it to say that it was an entertaining novelty for a while and then it wasn't.) No, we are on our way to Vermont.

The Husband and I have long joked about the three rings of heaven. The outer ring (Level 1, if you will) is Bloomington, IN. This is where we went to college and where we met. People who stay there tend to wax rather ecstatic. With good reason - it's a nice college town with great restaurants and a progressive political vibe, surrounded by beautiful hills. Yes, it's in southern Indiana, which is kind of a drawback, but it doesn't feel like southern Indiana. Anyway, I met my life's love there, so I have a soft spot.

The inner ring of heaven, Level 2, is Madison, WI. If people wax ecstatic about Bloomington, they downright gush about Madison. We've never been there, but have friends who recently moved to the general area. They say it's all true. The restaurants are filled with local food, the country is beautiful for miles around, and it's nowhere near southern Indiana. Basically, everything Bloomington can do, Madison can do better.

The center of the rings - the crown jewel of my very mixed metaphor - is Vermont. We had always said we'd like to end up there, but that was just based on the fact that it is the land of organic milk and backyard honey. We want to be crazy hippies, albeit well-groomed ones, and Vermont very hippie-friendly.

Then we visited last May and we knew we need to actualize the heretofore somewhat vague plan to get the hell out of Illinois and be the organic hobby farmers we were always meant to be. Having spent several years in the purgatory of Illinois, we earned the right to go straight to heaven's core. We decided on a 12- to 24-month time frame for a move, although I think both of us were afraid that we would lose steam and give in to inertia. Then, conveniently (ha!), the Husband's job ended more quickly than planned, and all of a sudden it looked like 12 months was actually realistic.

So here we are, getting ready to move yet again, though we don't know exactly where. I have told my boss that I will likely be leaving before the summer, though I haven't put in official notice. Leaving my job is the aspect of the move that I really regret, as it is by far the best job I've ever had. We are both now looking for good jobs in Vermont - the Husband has even applied for his teaching license there. If jobs don't manifest, then at a certain point we'll move and take what we can get. We have some savings to fall back on and our needs are fairly simple. Time will tell if we are totally brave and awesome or totally stupid and nuts.

Movin' On Up

After two years of living with practically no water pressure in the kitchen, a large bump in the living room wall, and horribly, expensively cold winters, the Husband and I decided that it was time to move. I've talked before about the difficulties of renting a dog-friendly apartment in a college town, so I won't rehash this year's adventures in slumminess. Suffice it to say that photos can lie and that slumlords with memorable phone numbers can trick you into visiting their rentals by using a second phone line.

Let's focus on the positive, though, shall we? We are moving to a Lustron home. In case you're not in a link-following mood, I'll summarize. These were houses thought up after WWII as a way of taking advantage of all the surplus steel. They are made of steel, inside and out. Even the walls are steel. We are basically moving into a filing cabinet. But it's a cute little filing cabinet! It's got all these little built-in (steel) shelves and a big backyard and, best of all, a functioning kitchen sink. It's carpeted, which is kind of a downer after years of living with hardwood floors, but the carpeting is new. It is within walking distance of the farmer's market and the library and a park that rents out garden plots.

All of that is why we start moving tomorrow. Our current lease ends at the end of the month. The Husband kept saying how great it would be if we could move in a week early, but then decided not to bother our current landlord about it. But then the current landlord called us, and asked if we'd be willing or able to move out early. At that point, we had already arranged to have all of our utilities transferred and made a reservation on a van, not to mention the fact that I had arranged to visit Melinda for this weekend. But, oh my lord, the water. The slow-dripping water from our kitchen tap, it drives us mad. And moving early would save us money. So we agreed. We get our keys and move a few boxes tomorrow, and the big move is Saturday. And despite the fact that I spent nearly an hour on the phone with AT&T changing our move date - and the fact that rather than holding Melinda's baby and playing with her Wii, I will be crying (literally!) because our couch is really heavy and awkward and we have too much stuff - I am glad that we're moving. Because I am tired of living in a moldy house and would very much like to move into my file cabinet now.

Dear Catastrophe Server

We have friends here who own a food business, one aspect of which is catering. They don't do a lot of large events, so when they were getting ready for a wedding, they asked the Husband and me if we'd be interested in being servers. We agreed, but I was terrified. There is a reason that I was never a waitress. I have no grace or coordination. Waitresses balance large trays of food and drink (much of it hot!), and walk through crowded rooms, and remove the items from the tray one by one, all without spilling anything. I can barely walk through a crowded room empty-handed without hurting myself or those around me. The meal at this wedding was to be served family style, so I would just be carrying out the platters of food and putting them on the table for the people to deal with. That only meant that when I dumped something on someone, it would be a whole platterful. It was official: I was going to ruin a wedding reception.

Fast forward to yesterday, which was the big day. I'll give away the ending here, and say that I did not actually ruin the reception. My height, or lack thereof, worked against me, since it was hard to reach to get the platters to the middle of the table. I had to sort of shove myself between people to get my arms far enough in, but I don't think it bothered anyone too much. I was kind of slow, too, but overall, I did well enough. (The Husband did fine too, but he didn't have any anxieties about it, and he thought I was weird for being worried.)

On the other hand, I learned the actual reason that I was never a waitress: I am a wimp. We were on our feet for nine hours, and except for a few lulls, we were busy the whole time. By the end of the night, my knees and back were throbbing. There was a point while clearing the tables, that the utterly Sisyphean nature of the task occurred to me (so. many. plates.) and I felt close to tears. (Bear in mind that this was late, and I am a fragile flower who is used to five-hour shifts.) There were aspects of it that were a refreshing change from my job. I really liked how the time flew by and the sense that I was constantly doing useful things. Overall, though I am glad to go back to my day job, where there are far more snot-covered children, but where I rarely stay longer than 7 and a half hours.

Really, though, nine hours was nothing. Maybe what I really am is too wimpy to be a caterer. Our friends who own the business had already been at it for a while when we got there - one of them had gotten up at 4am to start the cooking for the day - and they're going back tomorrow to finish clearing out their stuff. That's not even factoring in the fact that they cooked several of the items in advance. Or the fact that they have two young children who have probably been up since 5am today.

So kudos to all of you working in the service industry. May you have supportive shoes and a glass of something comforting to come home to. And may you never be forced to work alongside me.