A wheezy hiatus from from an old friend

My letter to Macy's.

Hopefully, one day, they'll listen.

I have been a Macy's customer since I was old enough to shop on my own, and, as Macy's Herald Square is around the corner from my office, I often have dashed over there on lunch hours, or after work to buy whatever I need. I have always appreciated having such a full-featured store so close by.
Your recent remodel, while lovely to look at, has made this impossible.

I am allergic to perfume, and while previously the perfumes and colognes occupied a space that was somewhat segregated from the rest of the cosmetics, etc, it is now more integrated with the rest of the first floor. The fragrances were so strong, in fact, that I could still smell them in both the cellar, and in the Mezzanine. I had to cut my shopping trip short, because I had an asthma attack and needed to leave.

I respectfully request that you reconsider this arrangement. While I understand that perfume sales people would like to attract customers, I would hope that this could be accomplished without alienating the rest of us. Until this happens, I'm afraid I'm going to have to do my cosmetic, housewares, and handbag shopping, elsewhere.

Regretfully,

A non Poll Poll

Ok.. so I have a poll-type question to ask but I don't feel like building an actual poll so I'm just going to ask the question and hope for comments.

I'm one of those knitters that never actually finishes anything... like ever. And this is why..

I cast on for something, anything, and i'm going along nicely and then I'll glance down at what Im doing and see a mistake. The mistake isn't huge, and its like 10 rows back, and I think "noone will notice that" and I knit another 10 rows. At which point I can't stop seeing it.

Now I'm 20 loooong rows away from the problem (or some insurmountable difference) and its something like lace, or somethign else with a ton of decreases and whatnot and I really really don't want to go back and undo and fix it. But I also don't feel like I can go forward either. So I put it down while I contemplate the problem. A month later I pickthe project up, can't remember where I left off, but I see exactly where the error is, I have a little panic and put it away, often for good.

This is a problem. Its an expensive problem, and its resulted in a gazillion, slightly irregular, unfinished, projects that I don't recall where I left off so I can't even resume, all over the damned place.

Which brings us to today.

I'm knitting a pair of socks and somewhere at the very beginning of the stitch pattern (below the 1 inch cuff about 3 rows in, I got off the pattern by 1 stitch, creating a skew. The pattern is fine below there, but there is this glaring (to me, anyway, I mean how glaring can something be that is in little tiny yarn on little tiny needles) mistake at the top and i'm now 20 rounds below it.

So what do I do?

Do I keep going/ I mean its a sock. socks get worn, and worn out, and a small mistake on a couple of rows under the cuff arent going to make or break the thing?

Do I fix it, knowing I will keep noticing it?

How do I force myself to do one or the other?

How do I jump this hurdle so I don't end up with another project that is in the "why the hell did I stop knitting that" pile?

Who asked you?

So Maura Kelly of Marie Claire posted this the other day and stirred up a lot of anger.

These are my thoughts on the whole thing.

Here’s the thing, for me. (and I will articulate this poorly, I’m sure)

I’m fattish. Medically anyway. size 14 sometimes size 16 others, right now i’m in a 12. Medically obese, but not necessarily unhappy with my weight or how I look, most of the time.. If i pay attention to my weight its because I feel like it. Sometimes I do, and I enjoy losing then. And sometimes I don’t feel like it. Like right now. don’t get me wrong, I used to be obsessed with it, and one day I woke up and just didn’t care anymore. It didn’t seem important. Best thing that ever happened to me, that.

So the arguments that this kind of thing provokes bother me because they buy into the social obsession/importance of weight.

Stupid woman at Marie Claire claims fat is unhealthy. Many justifiably angry people argue that fat and health are not necessarily related. They’re right, but what does it matter if its healthy or unhealthy? Whether it is or not isn’t the point. I’m under no moral obligation to pursue health if I don’t want to. My body, my choice. Does it cost other people money? possibly.. so does driving, and smoking, and industrial pollution and a lot of other things. What level of attention I give it is a personal one, decided between me, my spouse and if I feel like involving them, my cats. And is no one's business but ours.

The problem with her being hurtful isn’t specifically that fatter folks have suffered enough with attempts to lose weight. Granted many have, and they shouldn’t have to. But some of us don’t suffer at all. Some people (and this is horribly scary to the weight obsessed), don’t actually give a shit about their weight.

(Imagine what it feels like to have people youv’e spent your whole life trying ‘not to be like’ or looking down on, telling you that how you’ve spent your life (trying to be thin) is unimportant.)

For many people it isn’t a choice. But for those for whom it is a choice, its a choice we have a right to make. Just like being unmarried, or choosing not to be parents, or, for that matter choosing to be parents or choosing to get married. I can choose to be fat because I am too busy with things I care about to make it a priority and there isn’t a damned thing wrong with that.

What Ms. Kelly did ts not wrong on the basis of what individuals experience, or because she has the science wrong. Its wrong becuase it marginalizes an entire group of people based on arbitrary criteria.

cleveland12

cleveland12
Originally uploaded by weaselrina

Paper.

Spending a beautiful saturday inside writing a paper.

oy.

If only I had time

I would be doing nine million things.

Like sitting for a whole day listening to the absolutely awesome 'best albums of 2009' list over at

http://powerpopreview.blogspot.com/

I've been so busy I didn't know that Ian Hunter had an album out.

and I love Ian Hunter.

I'm going to try and listen in between the schoolwork - I've been missing out.

Adventures in cosmetic application

or.. How not to put on eye cream. step 1. put a blob of eye-cream on your right index finger. step 2. realize that to put on eye cream you need to remove your glasses.

step 3. remove glasses, using right hand, thereby spreading said eye-cream all over lenses.

step 4. take a bow.

Another proud moment.