Jeans and Sneakers

Aside from going back to getting less than enough sleep again. . .work is working out pretty good so far.  Day two went more smoothly than day one.  Mostly because I knew some of the things I could do on my own to keep busy.  I wonder if tomorrow is going to be a full day.  They might eventually have me design some print ads for them.

I made pancakes when I came home today.  Well, not immediately after coming home, I played Obilvion for awhile. . .(until now. . .it’s 7pm and I got home at noon.  What a waste of time. . .:[  But fun!) and then got really hungry and made pancakes.  Pancakes are so good with orange juice.  Orange juice is just good.

I want to finish my socks!  I’m going to work on sock #2 after I post this.  I’m trying to decide if I want to rip out about 20 rows of stitches. . .maybe a few less. . .because I didn’t  rib long enough.  I could have sworn I did, but I didn’t.  Seeing as how the socks are like. . .hideous (I really, really, really hate the color way.  But I’m still going to wear them.  I’ll like them better when they’re on my feet and not in my hands.) I don’t think it’ll matter that much.

Oh!  So we went to Gasho yesterday. . .man what a disappointment.  The first Gasho of Japan that my family found was on this beautiful piece of property with a garden and bunnies, and the building had high ceilings that looked to be held up by log support beams stripped of their bark and tied together with rope.  The hibachi tables that you sit at were mostly cooking surface, and the plates were hand painted, kiln glazed earthenware.  The chefs were extremely talented artists who knew how to entertain while preparing your dinner.  Now it’s totally commercialized.  This building looked like it had been an office building that was newly renovated, but not entirely completed.   The hibachi tables were mostly table with a tiny cooking surface, and the plates were plastic.  Even the chopsticks were a cheaper brand.  And our chef, while definitely asian, was pretty young, and both Rob and I suspected that his accent and poor english could have been an act.  He pulled off most of the tricks without a problem, but he dropped some things a few times.  But by far the worst part, was how he kept singing little clips of played out top 40 songs from somewhere around 2000.  It’s got to be part of Gasho’s company policy, or part of the coursework at whatever school teaches them the tricks.  It seemed like the chef was embarassed that he had to keep singing these little snippets of songs that haven’t been good since I was 18.  That’s got to be degrading, especially since the town that the restaurant is in, most of their clientele (if any, they almost closed before we got there last night because they had no customers) will be pretty ghetto high school and early college kids.  :/

Next time we’re going to Benihana.

I need to follow this advice more often. So today was my first day of work. Rob helped get me in bed before midnight, though I don’t think that was his goal, he was just really tired, and I like to cuddle. But I didn’t get much sleep last night. Turbo decided that he wanted to chew on his cage until 5:30 in the morning. I was pretty pissed at having to get up and go to work.

But I went in, and it was alright. I mean, the first day is almost always kind of boring at office jobs, because the person training you is usually busy, and shows you how to do things gradually. But it was cool. A seemingly laid back environment so far. And there is some small talk in the office. . .they’re not as militant as the guy had made it sound at first. So the first day is over, and I have another half day tomorrow. The only thing is it was really, really cold in there. I bought a new jacket. :] And a shirt. And a bag.

And I should be done with shopping for awhile. . .:[

Rob got a copy of that Oblivion game. He’s installing it here at his job now while we’re waiting to go to Gasho!! I’m so looking forward to some hibachi rice. I’m working dilligently on sock #2, I’d like to wear them soon.

A friend of mine ordered some sock yarn and had it shipped to my house, it should be here in two days or so. He wants socks to match a shirt he’s got. They should be cool.

I’m probably going to paint or draw something on the bag I got. It looks like a blank canvas to me.

Well. It was an interesting weekend, full of lots of Rob’s relatives. . .who were apparrently told by Rob’s parents that I’m “a keeper”. That was pretty amusing. Considering the occasion, things went pretty smoothly. I think everyone was glad when it was all over though.

I titled the post wishful thinking, because there’s a slight possibility that the roomate has started packing. I went into the living room today to get my copy of Blazing Saddles, and noticed that a previously empty box now has clothes in it (although the clothing used to be on the chair next to the box), but what made the biggest impression on me was that he’d taken all of his DVD’s out of the entertainment center. One can only hope. After the landlord incident on Friday (still no word on that), we all cleaned up the back deck, and the roomate took out his garbage and picked up most of his cigarette butts. Not all of them though. Yes, I’m that anal. :[

Sock #1 is done!!! And it fits!! I'm waiting to post a picture until the other one is done as well. It looks pretty much like the first one did. I do think I messed up the first one though, I probably misplaced the heel, and I'm going to try to do it correctly with this sock. It shouldn't be too hard, I've just got to pay attention.

And tomorrow's the big day. . .first day on the new job. Even though it's only a half day. I think I'm greatful for that. Like how you ease small children into school by starting kindergarden off with half days. And not having to work today. That was nice. One last weekday to enjoy before I get chained to a desk again. I joke, but I'm really apprehensive and nervous about going back to work. I know I'm probably going to hate it, just because I really don't like working. At least, not in the definition that I've worked so far. So I tell myself how great it's going to be having money again, and start planning how I'm going to save and save and save until I can just blow my debt out of the water, and do whatever the hell I want to with my money from then on. Like save up to buy a car (or a scooter.), a nice car, that's newish and has a moon roof. And heated seats maybe. I guess this post's title is appropriate for various reasons.

There's also the wishful thinking Rob and I played with yesterday, talking about what we'll do with the house once the roomate moves out. . .maybe get a pool table. . .get groceries delivered from PeaPod. . .Which speaking of, I went to the Stop-n-Shop by my house for the first time yesterday morning and it was amazing. Very clean and huge!! I'm definitely doing my shopping there from now on.   And!! They had this awesome fire-pit table that I totally want for the back deck now. (Fire is good, fire on the deck unprotected is bad though. . .this way I can have fire. :] )

So there’s plans. I just hope this job works out.

So I finally rolled my sleep schedule back around again. I went to bed really early last night, and woke up this morning at 7. So I got up, took a shower, and planned for the day.

I ran some errands, I had to get razors and makeup, and wanted to see if my LYS (local yarn store) had any bamboo DPN’s (double pointed needles) in US size 1. They didn’t. They had a metal set of 4. I didn’t get them. But I did get this.

I like the colorway much better than the sock yarn I have now. It was on sale. (but still pricey for yarn. . .>;[ I’m not used to string being expensive yet.) I asked the clerk behind the counter for the bamboo needles and he actually brought out his ordering catalogue to see if bamboo DPN’s in US 1 even exist. They did, but he didn’t have them in stock, and I didn’t want to buy the ones he had. I felt guilty for bothering him (don’t know why, that’s what he’s friggin there for. . .) and bought the yarn. Plus it’s pretty. And I think I’m going to try the Jaywalker pattern everyone seems so keen on.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on the sock I’ve started!! Oh no! Not at all!! I turned my first heel yesterday. Check it out:

This colorway is totally wonky. Like totally out there and crazy. I think I’d like it a whole lot more if they never put the orange in there. What were they thinking?

Notice how it’s all baggy and semi-shapeless. I’m hoping this’ll improve with blocking. When I put my hand inside and fill it out a bit, it really does look like a sock though, I swear!! A big sock at that. . .I think it might be too big for my foot. But we’ll see when I get to the toe.

For the new sock pattern I also got these:

I needed size 1’s. No place close by had them in bamboo. This seemed like a good deal for $10 at Jo-anns. YAY! As you can plainly see, this is quickly turning into an addiction. :/

And in non-knitting news. . . out of the blue I got a job today. The place that’s really close to my house called, and I start on Tuesday, half days next week to get a feel for the job and so that they can get a feel for me. I think the reason they took so long is because they hired someone else, and it didn’t work out. Oh well. At least I have a job. Hopefully it won’t suck!

I don’t remember if I mentioned it, but Rob’s grandpa died, and we’re going to his wake tonight. The funeral’s tomorrow. :/ Things like this just suck.

Also, as a side note, the landlord stopped by today. He was going to change his insurance on the house I guess, and saw the burnt siding out back. It’s fixed now, but the roomate hadn’t cleaned up the deck from when he replaced the siding, so of course, it was pretty messy back there with bits of burnt siding debris. And also, the kitchen garbage has been rotting for about two days now (that’s just how long it’s been rotting, not how long it’s been sitting there.), so it smells pretty rank. That couldn’t have been plus points with the landlord either. I’m hoping he doesn’t think ill of us now. . .and tell us we have to leave. We’re really close to having the roomate and his stupid gf out. . .and it would be a shame to lose the opportunity to have a nice clean house. :[

So. I haven’t heard back from that yoga lady. Maybe she found someone else to sew her ridiculously easy project. That’s fine, her yoga studio is mad far from me anyway.

Yesterday, Rob and I watched a movie, and I knitted. I managed to get some more done on Sonnet:

Please excuse the blur of the picture, I was standing on my computer chair so that I could get the entire thing in the frame. Lol.

Since this project is symmetrical, you can see I’m nearly done with the entire body!! YAY! I was looking over the pattern while knitting yesterday and realized that I can’t finish the body without knitting buttonholes. And simple logic deduces that if you have not yet picked out the buttons for the project, you won’t know how big to knit the buttonholes. Ha.

It became apparrent that I needed to go button shopping. My only problem was that I’ve been trying. Button shopping on the internet is tricky though. I believe I’ve mentioned this before. But I didn’t know where to go to buy buttons in any actual stores. Ha. So I had an adventure.

I went to Jo-ann Fabrics first, and they had some good buttons, but nothing big enough. . .I used a kind of chunky yarn for this, and that paired with garter stitch I’m pretty sure would swallow a small button.

So then I went to Michael’s. They’re more of a craft store, but they sell yarn so I thought I’d give it a shot. Well, they only had really small scrapbooking buttons, and tiny ceramic buttons that were all cutesy. No dice.

The only Michael’s by me is pretty far east of here. And I know of a good yarn store about as far east but way north of there. So, in desperation for some freaking buttons, I drove all the way north, and went to Wild and Woolly Wools. This store is fun. Shoshana is really nice, and she’s got some beautiful yarns. She’s always helpful if you have any questions, so going was definitely worth the hike. The first yarn and needles I bought from myself, I’d purchased there. And what. . .I found buttons!!! Check it out:

Sorry for the dim lighting. I could have opened the blinds, but I didn’t want to cause a glare on Rob’s monitor.

These buttons are mother of pearl I think, and they’re huge. I bought 5 of them (and caught W&WW’s winter sale!!), and I’m so glad. They match beautifully. I promise when this piece is done, I’ll take some really nice and fitting pictures. . .since so far you can’t see the color of the yarn properly. . .or the beauty of the buttons. Anyway, these should work out great.

And also. . .uh, I might have accidentally bought some dpn’s, (and got a ball of sock yarn for free):

I didn’t think I’d like the colors, but there weren’t many balls to choose from. There were only two colors of the big balls that could yield two socks. . .it was either this, or orange, white, magenta and some other color. The magenta threw me off. I’ll pick blue over magenta any day.

So yeah, I had a nice little conversation with Soshana about knitting socks, (which I’ve never done, nor had she up until recently. I’ve never knitted on dpns.) and how when they’re done you want to wear them all the time and show off your handiwork. Sounds like me alright. So I came home and cast on:

After looking long and hard for “the perfect sock pattern”. I don’t think the one I’m working on is perfect. . .for one, I should have known better than to do something in a 2×2 rib. . .I tend to like 1×1 better, at least on something this small. Other than that, I learned a nifty new way to cast on that leaves a stretchy edge, which is always nice. I’m worried about the heel gusset. . .but until I actually get there, I’m going full steam ahead. Haha. Even Rob was impressed at how crazy it looks to knit on 4 dpn’s. I’m enjoying being enchanted by the self patterning yarn. I’ve never played with any before. And just because I’m hopelessly infatuated, here’s another pic:

I started reading Hellblazer.  Pretty good stuff.  I haven’t worked on Sonnet at all.  I just can’t seem to sit down and pick it up.  The same thing happened with the golden tunic.  I’ll get over it and pick it up again eventually.  Other projects are starting to really pique my interest though.  It’s torture not having a job and at least being able to plan out when I can afford to start something new.

I continue to scan the job listings hoping for something out of the ordinary.  My failure at the interviews thus far this round, and the fact that now more than 5 places I’ve sent my resume to didn’t even acknowledge that I contacted them at all has begun to bear down on me.  I’m literally scared of trying again.  Mostly because there’s still no job listing yet that I’m really interested in working anyway, but also because of the what if’s.  Because I’m going to have to come to depend on Rob totally if someone doesn’t buy my office game.  And believe me, I haven’t been slacking there.  At interviews I put on my full professional costume.  I wish I could find a place that didn’t require that.  :/

I did find something of interest yesterday that might come of some use though.  A lady posted an ad looking for a seamstress, to help her with a project in exchange for yoga lessons.  I emailed her asking if she needed an actual seamstress or if  someone with a sewing machine and some know how would suffice.  When she replied I laughed out loud.  She asked me if I could handle making this:

It’s an eye pillow.  Made from a square of fabric, folded in half, right sides facing, sewn on two sides, turned right side out, filled, and sewn shut.  She wants 10 of these in exchange for 10 yoga classes.  Haha.  I told her it was definitely within my capability.

She also wanted to know if I’d be interested in possibly doing this long term, and making neck pillows as well, as she wants to sell them.  I told her I couldn’t guarantee anything long term, but if she wanted to sell them and was interested, I could at least show her how to make them.  (Though seriously, Rob and some other guys I know looked at this project and were pretty confident that they could make this.  It’s not that hard.)  I would have just said yes, but I don’t want to make a commitment to something long term if I don’t like her yoga lessons. . .then I’d be getting nothing, etc.  I’m waiting for her third response.  She should have her own yoga studio in April.  I congratulated her.  Maybe she’ll give me a job as a receptionist or something.  Lol.

Oh yeah.  Here’s a little mote of interest.  When I initially emailed her, I used my nickname Meena.  Nobody in real life calls me this. . . except for a select few who first knew me by this name in an IRC channel.  And even then, only when they slip, or are too drunk to remember my real name.  But when I sent off the email, I felt bad, like I was lying.  I don’t know why, because I actually have somewhat of a web presence with this name, it really is a nickname, I use it whenever possible.  But I still felt like I was lying, and I was worried that if she finds out my real name, she’ll be mad.  My rational mind says “shut the hell up, it is your nickname, and you can just tell her that.”  It’s good to listen to your rational mind.

I think I’ll make another mouse in a minute.  Nothing like instant gratification.  :]

I didn’t really have much of anything to say the past couple of days. It’s mostly SSDD, just me worrying about money and not doing much else. And my sleep schedule is still out of whack. Fortunately though, that gave me reason to write today.

I tried to stay awake today, all the way through, and would have been fine if Craftster.org didn’t go down for maintenance. But they did, and I had already been browsing other people’s craftiness for a good while, so when it went down, it did so leaving me in a crafty mood myself. It was about 11am, and Rob was sleeping, and all was quiet, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I went in my room searching for my S’n'B books, to see if I had any quick patterns for something small that could take up some time, and simultaneously use up some yarn in my ever growing stash. Surprisingly enough, I did. There’s a pattern for Cat-Warming toys, and it calls for Red Heart Sport weight yarn, (you don’t want to use really expensive gourmet yarn for a cat to bat around the floor, do you?) which I happened to have, in contrasting colors, from when I made a Charlie Brown Ipod cozy for my dad. Woot. I got to work. Two hours later. . .this was born!

He knit up so quick, I didn’t even get the chance to put up a progress meter for him. Though I think I’ll be making another one that’s black with a yellow stripe.

I don’t know what to do with the second one though, as I brought this one over to Rob’s mom’s house today when we went to dinner, and the kitty (and other cats) only had minimal interest in it, even when Rob’s mom had dipped it in catnip.

You’re supposed to put some catnip inside in a little muslin pouch, but I don’t have any cats, and thus, no catnip. That’s ok though. Even if the cats didn’t like it, all the humans that saw it got a kick out of it.

My sleep pattern is still all wacky. It’s 1:43am and I just woke up about 43 minutes ago. I went to sleep around 9pm. . .and had a 4-5 hour nap between 1pm and 6pm, so that’s kind of understandable. But I had the weirdest dream while I was sleeping.

Click here to read my SUPAR long dream. . .

It was a crazy dream to say the least, and pretty vivid while I was having it, but now that it’s over, I’m starting to lose some of the finer details of it.

Now it’s almost 3 in the morning (I had to save a draft of this, and come back to it, because I asked Rob to help me update WordPress, and he decided that right then was the best time to do it), and I’m pretty wide awake. I’ll probably put a movie on and knit some more of the sweater.

So, Rob took over playing with the progress meter.  In fooling around with it, I also noticed that the post with all of the pictures of my golden tunic was messing up the sidebar in IE.  I hate IE.  I fixed the post so that the sidebar displayed correctly, and then Rob figured out how to fix the sidebar so that it displayed correctly in both firefox and IE.

I didn’t do much of anything today.  Woke up late, and got crappy sleep. . .the phone wouldn’t stop ringing this morning.   36 spam emails. . .I’m still not used to getting them.  Nothing from any prospective employers.  Scanned Craig’s List, Monster, nothing.

I did watch The Usual Suspects (hence the post title), and got thai food for dinner.  Got some knitting done, and I’ll probably go back to it after I post.

I spoke to the roomate yesterday.  First time in awhile.  I thought I needed some blank cd’s for something, and I went to ask him if he had any.  He gave me some, and started talking about Harry Potter.  It was kind of amusing, I could see him struggling to keep the conversation going, and at the same time, I was kicking myself for complying.  I know it sounds mean, but I don’t want to give him any comfort in thinking that because I’m talking to him, I don’t hate him, after all he’s done.  Maybe it’s just me, but you don’t mess with someone’s home life without expecting them to hate you for it.  Or at least, you shouldn’t.

Kind of bored today.  It sucks when you wake up at 6pm and don’t have any money to spend.  You can’t go out and enjoy “the nightlife”, (not like I would anyway, but still, that’s just about all there is to do on long island after the sun goes down), and we don’t have our tv hooked up to even basic cable, so there’s nothing but movies to watch.  And video games to play I guess.  But it’s hard to play video games and knit at the same time.

Today we were supposed to go to a pre screening for some horror movie, but we were running sort of late, and weren’t sure which theater it was at, so we ended up coming back to our town and getting some Subway and going to see Date Movie.

This movie looked hilarious in the previews, unfortunately, they used most of their really funny clips in the trailer. I hate that. I wouldn’t suggest that anyone else spend money on it, if you haven’t already, we were kind of late in seeing this one, so if you went and saw it and no one told you it really wasn’t worth it, I’m sorry.

I’m kind of bummed out today. I’ve sent my resume to two places on Career Builder, and one place from Craig’s List, and haven’t heard back from any of them. It’s only been a couple of days, but still, usually when I send out my resume, I get an email back the next day. I’ve got silly things running through my head like, maybe my last job put me on some kind of do-not-hire black list, and then the logical part of my brain says that’s not it, but doesn’t offer any other explanation. I could be sending my resume to a lot more places, but I’m still trying to avoid the take-what-I-can-get method to job hunting, and am still trying to find a place that I’d actually at least partially enjoy working for. It bums me out though when I don’t hear anything back at all.

I think that part of it too, is that I’ve had a rush of people I knew from high school get in contact with me on myspace, and two of them are doing really well. One has a master’s degree in psychology, and the other one has a fun job, he’s a camera crane operator for commercials and tv shows. Some movies too I guess. Last night I started wondering if I missed out on something when I dropped out of college after all. . .because college isn’t entirely about the classes you take, it’s also about the people you meet. It’s like your first segue into the real world networking opportunity. And because the short time I was at college I’d only really hung out with people who didn’t get to know me at all, I didn’t really make any contacts, and further, got nothing out of going. Other than a lesson in relationships and 19 year old boys ideas of how long distance relationships work. :/

I dunno. I don’t think I’d do any better if I went back. I’ve become less social, I can’t relate to most people on long island. I might find one or two people, but who’s to say that we’d help eachother out in any way? And plus, I still don’t know what to study, which is really the purpose of going to college, and without that, I’d just be spending money I don’t have.

I got some more of Sonnet done last night. I’ve got a ways to go before it’s done though. I think I might throw in “The Usual Suspects” tonight and mindlessly knit, trying not to stress too much about my job situation. I’ve really got to start waking up during the late morning hours, at the very least. This sleeping through the day stuff isn’t helping my mood at all.

Edit: I just got much happier because I found a Progress Meter Plugin for WordPress by damselfly. YAY!!! I can totally be like every other knitting and reading blogger and mark my progress!

Edit,edit: I wanted the meter a little different than it came, so I asked Rob for help and we changed some things.  He told me how to edit the php file so that if I don’t select a unit of measurement there is no useless colon displayed.  He also showed me how to move the text into the box.  We’re still fiddling with it, so. . .it’s not done yet. 

But I’m not so sore anymore, and I started knitting again last night. I’ll probably knit some more tonight, considering I want to knit right now (but I’m at Rob’s job) and we got netflix today.

I bit my cheek today. It hurts.

I’ve been looking for either a WordPress theme with a progress meter, or a plugin with one. No such luck. I want the nifty knitters/reading progress bars that I’ve seen on a lot of other people’s blogs. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably going to have to try and either make a plugin, or a theme, (which I’m supposed to be doing anyway), or find a way to alter my current sidebar to have one. The basic code is simple, you can do it with just CSS and html. But I don’t have anything in my WordPress dashboard where I can just input html for my sidebar.

I think I want a three column template anyway.

That would be all fine and dandy, except that when I view the template files others have made to try and learn that way. . .I pretty much get lost. I know I should have a basic grasp of PHP to be trying to understand this. And my html and CSS knowledge should be way better than it is. But I try anyway, and then get frustrated. Haha, I’m such a crackhead.

Well, at least my CSS knowledge is inching along.

You know what the worst part is? I understand how things are supposed to work. Like, I don’t know php, but I can look at some code, and sort of get the gist of what’s being done. I just get lost in really long code (and I know I’d do this, even if I wrote the code myself from nothing. . .I think I have attention span problems. My stupid online IQ test thing said my weakness was short term memory. I could have told them that.), and then I have no idea which way is up. Well, some of the code is totally obscure to me. I’ve seen parts that are composed entirely of symbols, and I have no idea what is going on there.

Yay for dinner!