Friday, March 17, 2006

You have no idea

how much I want to go here and fondle yarn and spend like a drunken sailor. Oh, I really do. Maybe I'll have a free Saturday in a month, but I'm booked up right now - not with anything exciting but with paycheck work, homeowner work, and elderly parent responsibiliities. Go look. Go look at the walls of color. I could blow my entire paycheck on Lorna's Laces.

I know it's mindless (unless I add lace inserts to piss myself off) but I'm thinking a nice EZ Pi Are Square shawl would be my speed, maybe in, say, Helen's Lace? Let the color do the work the knitter is too lazy to do, that's my plan. Because I need knitting I can do on the phone or during my online real estate class or when I'm otherwise trying to cram preparing for the future into the present.

I am so happy, because I have a Real Office again. We were in the process of remodeling the office for what felt like eternity and most of us were stuck in random places for months while it happened. I was in a cube next to someone who plays Christian pop music radio all day. This station has about 25 songs in its play list and I heard them all, over and over, until I was tempted to convert - to Buddhism. Some really aren't bad but after a million repetitions a week, I'm sorry, it's too much Jesus. The Pope doesn't get that much Jesus music a day. Okay, maybe he does, but in the Vatican the music is much better. I could do with some chanting monks after having that pop-lite-BuddyJesus drek jackhammered into my head all day.

And speaking of drek, what is with the saturation of non-country pop radio with Keith Urban? Is it because he's boinking Nicole Kidman? I didn't mind the last song (Was it "You'll Think of Me"?) that was played over and over and over, at least not until it was played over and over and over, but this new overexposed piece of nothing "Making Memories of Us" makes my teeth hurt. Is it possible to cram any more romance novel cliches and shitkicker-isms into one lame song? He actually says, "Paw," and "Maw" in this song! With that Jethro Bodine inflection and apparently without irony! I mean, WTF? I don't know Keith Urban, is he always this awful and the OTHER song was the fluke? I mean, "take your cat and leave my sweater," made me like him, and I'd never really heard him before. That's a quick, incisive image of an ending relationship that makes sense and is quirky. "Dying in your arms" somewhere "Where the wild bees roam," or whatever the hell inappropriate creature is roaming for no particular reason, just made me want to slap the lyricist. It's painfully sappy.

Anyway, I have an office again. With a door. To shut out the 25 song playlist of Christian music across the room, and the Keith Urban next door. (Thank God, and sorry about snarking on your music - but truly, aren't you sick of being called Awesome! by people who couldn't get a job writing car dealership jingles?) This Song, Is a Lousy Song. I didn't realize how much this was getting to me until it STOPPED. Quiet is good.

I'm bloated and fat and PMSed and I want an enormous pile of Lorna's Laces as a substitute for the food I can't stop eating. We are having our THIRD big lunch of the week at the office today, and I'm meeting a friend for dinner on Sunday. Exercise hasn't been happening. I need to schedule it in my planner and make it an unbreakable appointment or it never will happen. This is getting out of control - I wanted to be busy, I didn't want to sit around in a cube rotting my brain like I was at the last job, but damn, I went from Office Space tedium and idiocy to major responsibility and reporting directly to the people running the company, and from shuffling papers to lunch meetings and project planning, and it's all good except the stress and the calories consumed make exercise a must, not an option, and I'm failing miserably at fitting it into my schedule. This has got to change, and it will only change if I schedule it and stick to it and make everything else wait until I take care of myself. I need to remind myself of this every day. I'll start today.

9 comments:

  1. Actually I find it completely ridiculous that keith Urban is a "country singer" since he's Australian...um, would that be south Australia? Not.

    I heard yesterday that Keith and Nicole are getting married, she was talking about her Chanel wedding gown!

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  2. The "Awesome" song seems to confuse Old and New Testament a lot, as well as confusing the son with the father. Also, this insistence that God (in this particular concept) is a he? I would think that for such a being the concept of he/she doesn't really exist.

    I don't get Keith Urbane's popularity either. His stuff is standard, fluffy, and awful. What I find telling is that whenever I hear his fans talk about him--and every fan I've run across has been female--they go on and on about how good looking he is but never mention his music.

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  3. Anonymous9:51 AM

    You CAN do it, chica. It's way too easy to push the exercise hour back behind the errands and the housecleaning and just chill time. Don't know if it will work for you, but I bring something to read while doing stairmaster, et al. It makes the time fly and since your time is tight, it will give you the chance to catch up on fun, trashy and/or good reading you wouldn't otherwise do. and NO beating yourself up. every day is another chance to start fresh, eh?

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  4. I agree with Caroline; every day is a new day and a chance to start again. What's done is done and there's no point getting upset over what can't be changed.

    The pi-r-squared shawl is an attractive and ingenious design, but in its original incarnation it's too much of a muchness for me. I completed one in the Old Shale/Feather and Fan stitch and I really like the effect. The beauty of the pi-r-squared design is that you can choose pretty much any simple lace stitch and incorporate it. But, as you say, you want something fairly mindless and pi-r-squared as it is will fill the bill.

    I have a simple 4-row lace edging that I used on my own pi-r-squared. I'll send it to you privately. It's pretty, easily memorized, and best of all it requires no blocking. The edging is designed to create a slightly ruffled effect which suits a circular shawl.

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  5. Well, I have to admit I am a closet Keith Urban fan. Party, I think because it gave me a small respite from Faith and Tim and "It's your looooooooove" crap. And, yes, I think he is sort of hot. But I like the fact that he actually uses bluergrassy stuff in his songs. But, hey, at least he is not assy little, "I am the repository of all knowledge" Tom Cruise.

    So I guess this is where we differ, Miss Catherine!

    The yarn looks luscious. Don't you want to just roll around in it???

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  6. Anonymous12:44 PM

    I have never seen so much Lorna's Lace in one place. I will dream of fondling it tonight.

    And I am with you on the exercise thing. Despite being extremely cognizant of what needs to be done, I can't seem to do it either. Why in the hell is that?!?

    Allison
    http://gumdrop.typepad.com/knitting

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  7. I stumbled across your blog and I love it.
    I couldn't agree more about Keith Urban.

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  8. Anonymous5:47 PM

    For all his good looks he is still a musician's musician. My husband and son both were won over by his earlier recordings which featured his excellent guitar work.

    "Making Memories Of Us" is a Rodney Crowell song so that might explain the tone of the song. ;)

    I will agree that anyone can get old if they are overexposed. Especially if radio stations insist on going on and on with a song. My son just informed me that he's had 2 or 3 more singles already released from the same album so we don't hear it much around these parts (although we all like it). We just weren't beat over the head with it.

    CrabbyLou, we enjoy the bluegrass flavor too!! Lot's of good music to be heard on the festival circuit.

    Catherine.....thanks for the LL link. No more excuses for me!! I am going to have to pick out something for a shawl now.

    poormary

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  9. I just couldn't tell if this was normal or abnormal for KU - I'd never really listened to him before and I actually liked the first song I heard, so this was a real WTF?? "PAW?" Dude, you're AUSTRALIAN!

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