Tied Up in Hobbies

Let’s get away from the politics, since it’s just dull and infuriating. (Good to know the only reason I’m bothered by the cage-fight mentality is just ’cause I’m a fragile women, and not, you know, that getting actual information ought to be the point.)

Ahem.

So, in the meantime, I’m behind on my reading. Paul Auster’s The Invention of Solitude came in early for tomorrow’s book discussion group at the library, and I finished the first part on Friday night, but haven’t picked it up since. The first half “Portrait of an Invisible Man,” was simply beautiful, and I love how the pages yellowed in my copy. And some interesting marginalia—interesting to compare how readers respond: even when one is clearly responding to an assignment. Free notes!

Then again, I have been knitting. I finished the back of my first top. Casting on for the front took all weekend, because I couldn’t remember the cast on I used (knitted on, I think it’s called). I also finally started Susie Roger’s Reading Mitts, which has been in my queue since before the first version was taken down. I’m using the yarn my mom bought me in Maine. A pretty light green, with colorful flecks, called Lena’s Meadow. I can finish the thumb, I have to learn yet another cast on. I even got through another few inches on my brother’s Dr. Who scarf: only about 15 feet to go!

Dr Who hat and scarf (Photo credit: Plashing Vole)

My current obsession with White Collar has helped my knitting a lot. Really clever themes and character growth, and simply the best relationship on television  Peter and Elizabeth Burke. It’s sad how few shows can manage even a decently healthy relationship for one episode, but theirs is real and, as El said, “we work” (because real relationships aren’t easy). Also, despite what the fangirls think, the best part of the show is Neal’s growing up. I’ve rewatched most all of the four seasons since just this weekend, which has given me lots of finger-free time.

Now if only I could figure out a way to read and knit at the same time I’d be all set—and probably caught up with both.

Related articles

• Babies have no moral compass – NZ study (stuff.co.nz)
  (I have no idea how this is related, but WP thinks so. Also, so what? Babies don’t need a moral compass, because they aren’t in any position to make decisions period. Kind of by definition. Just say’n.
• How to Knit a Nerd Magnet (all-she-wants-to-do-is-knit.com)

I Like What I Like

Some people think that your given name influences your personality. If you think changing your name will give you better fortune, these people are willing to take your money to give you the best name possible!

Or, you know, just get them free.

Anyway, if Marie is a traditional name, maybe that’s where I got all my hobbies. Or maybe I just read too much as a kid. But uncool as reading is, I managed to get even more uncool as I got older and then went to college. I love picking up the unpopular hobbies.

Not like the hipsters people always make fun of but that I’ve never actually met outside of high school (isn’t everyone in high school a hipster?). But just the quiet stuff other people are tempted to make fun of especially on the internet. and not usually to my face. Another thing about the internet though is that it’s hard to tell, because lots of people have those hobbies, even there aren’t all that many in a given area and anyway you’re aren’t allowed to talk about such things with strangers because then you’ll be really weird.

So knitting, uncommon, much like the other crafts. Reading (obsessively) more common than tv-watchers think it is. Fan fiction reading a big, big thing, and also probably one of the biggest no-nos, aside from maybe playing the Sims games (which sadly, I hardly have time for, spending so much time online—and work of course. Work takes time away from everything interesting!

At any rate I’m not skilled enough with computers or math and not into enough manga and science to be a geek. As far as playground insults go I think that leaves me with dork.

Anyway,  I’ve always been vaguely embarrassed by the fact I read fan fiction. Because it has such an awful reputation—deservedly so, in the broadest strokes. As in any other subject, 90% is crap, but there are some real gems in there. Like the rest of web 2.0 (or wherever we’re at now), you have to do your own gatekeeping. You have to find your own meaning of culture and your own framework. <- Look, another, reference to Powys! And people aren’t ashamed of reading the Star Wars continuations when they come out in hard cover. Star Trek has the same, and having read those, they can be as bad as some fan fiction (if with slightly better grammar).

So there’s my justification for fan fic.

I think the only other one I don’t tend to bring up with people is the Sims and I haven’t been playing that often lately. And I can’t really justify it.

Because I really only play to take advantage of my control-freak tendencies.

This Time I’ll Use Quotes

I should trust my instincts.

I passed over this book twice in the library: taking note, but not making the commitment. It caught my eye when I pulled it from the new collection first, and then again when I was shifting the fiction section.

When I finally went back and checked it out, I had high hopes. Romance can work, and magic is almost always fun, right? And, hey, knitting!

This book isn’t even powerful enough to make it a wall banger. I still couldn’t finish, but more out of exasperation than any passionate hatred. But it was bad enough that even though the whole experience was more than a couple of months ago at this point, I simply can’t let it go without at least talking it out.

Casting Spells is a book about blonde (don’t forget) Chloe Hobbs and her magical knitting shop in her magical town with her magical friends, where nothing bad, especially crime, ever happens. But when a voluptuous (remember–voluptuousness=wantonness) blonde is murdered, handsome cop (remember good-looking and crime-fighter) Luke MacKenzie must come to town and mediate on how odd everyone is…you might they’re magical but of course they’re totally not because I know better. And then together they will fall in love and solve the mystery. (Or is it the other way around? I didn’t get that far.)

Well, first I have to introduce the main character’s knitting shop with a quote from the book:

Blog posts about the magical store in northern Vermont where your yarn never tangles, your sleeves always come out the same length, and you always, always get gauge were popping up on a daily basis, raising both my profile and my bottom line.

What a way to make me resent your character. Knitting is perfectly easy if you have magic! I don’t have magic thank you very much, and dangnabbit, that’s just not fair. So why am I supposed to think that she actually works at this, that she ever actually had to learn knitting? I’m not sure I am.  So know I can only think Mary Sue alert! And this supposedly has a side of murder-mystery to its romance, so of course the male lead is an out-of-town cop who also has to comment on the heroine’s shop:

Her shop was a top link on websites and blogs from neighboring New Hampshire to Malaysia with all stops in between. Okay, so maybe it was like reading Sanskrit (apparently knitters had their own language), but I was able to translate enough to know Chloe’s shop was something special…
…According to the posts I read online, Chloe was Elvis and Sticks & Strings was Graceland, which I would probably chalk up to being a suburban legend if it weren’t for the fact that the noise level at the front of the store could cause hearing loss.

Which quite fortuitously leads me to point number two (especially since, well seriously, “hearing loss”???).

Yes, the story is told in alternating first person. I’ve found I’m a little iffy on first person in the best of times (positive example: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison), but alternating first person should be forbidden on pain of death. Okay, so I think many things should be forbidden on pain of death, but fortunately I’m not in charge of these things, nor will I ever be. Anyway, alternating first person=bad. Yes?

Because when it’s used, especially in romance you get gems like these:

They were all vying for the attention of a tall, skinny blonde, one of the disheveled types who always seemed on the verge of a meltdown.

That’s how Luke first observes Chloe—by they way, she’s actually mayor, which is why he has to opportunity to give this description—as he thinks ‘that’s totally not my type’. Totally. Like, never would I be attracted to a lady like that in a million, zillion years. Ever. Sure, I believe him. Seriously, Ms. Bretton, talk to your publishers. This is marketed as a romance, so as soon as we get Luke’s point of view, we know that he’s going to fall in love with her. If she’s observing that he doesn’t act attracted to her on a physical level, that’s fine. But when he does it? It’s just…just…ugh.

And not even fifteen pages later he finds Chloe asleep and snoring and doesn’t even try to wake her (as we also learned in Twilight, that’s not creepy at all) and tells himself this little gem:

Cops notice things. It’s an occupational hazard. Noticing details about a woman’s appearance was part of a detective’s job description. It didn’t mean anything.
Not even if the cop in question found himself standing there with a stupid grin on his face.

These two characters switch viewpoints several times a chapter (but only after the first fifty pages or something) so it’s only a matter of hours from “totally not my type” to “omg hawtness”.

Actually, if the alternating first person were between Chloe and her “best friend” whatshisname (call him Elf, because he is, naturally) it might have worked. Because Chloe’s been stringing him along since forever—because all male, non-gay best friends must be in love with the main character—and I would like to have seen him get with some nice girl of his own in a real relationship based on something more than lust. Maybe that happened later in the book? But not from his point of view. No, we get Luke’s, so we can see everything twice.

Wait, I haven’t gotten to the squicky yet.

That poor Chloe, from a long line of witches, has no magic herself but was raised by the village. Sweet right? Chloe thinks so. Except her family line (at least the women—WOMAN POWAH!!!) are in charge of this ancient spell that protects the town from exposure to the pedestrians. And she has to give birth to a girl by thirty-five or something to keep the spell going. Or get magic herself, idk. But the locals totally raised her out of the goodness of their hearts and just love her so much.

At that point, I really did feel badly for Chloe. In that whole setup she’s definitely the victim, and her so-called saviors are only exploiting her. But was this explored? Well, not in the part I read. She never questioned anything they’d done.

But she does tell Luke about her parent’s death, and of course this changes him. See, he’s a cop (in case you forgot—didn’t I tell you that it was important?!) and often hears sad stories, but hers touches his heart. As does she. Because she’s just so stoic:

She told her parents’ story without embellishment or self pity.

I’d rather hope so. She was, what? a few years old at most? Firstly, she shouldn’t know any embellishments, and at this point in her live, self-pity would be rather pathetic (now, if she ever seemed like a rounded character or even thought about her parents). We’ve had her first person. We know that she doesn’t have any reason for self-pity.

But this is Twu Wuv.

My hand touched his, and we both jumped back as silver-white sparks crackled through the space between us.

Great Minds

Have messy desks.  –It’s on a mug, it must be true.

I rather doubt that I have a great mind. But I do have a messy desk. Well, perhaps not “messy”–there are too many papers and a few receipts that I haven’t filed yet. Mostly it’s the twenty plus library books sitting on top.  Unfortunately, the height of twenty plus library books is too much height for a comfortable workstation. Also an unstable one.

So the mess left over has mostly corrupted the top of the dresser, and it’s spread into the bookcase (which is also on top of the dresser). But the bookcase has resisted nearly all but books so far, and the few small invaders have only inspired a few half-hearted rebels.

Part of the problem is simply too much stuff. Not books, so much. As far as I’m concerned, if there is enough room on the bookshelves to hold all the books, however well-stacked, there are not too many. Library books are not a factor in the equation. It’s too much…stuff. Things like pads of paper, ummm, I really don’t know what else…I have little boxes to keep track of my earrings, slides of my art, my camera, a screwdriver…lots of little things without a real “place”. Admittedly, all such things could find a place, and be put away, and not a mess. But because they’re all little things, it’s just going to take awhile. What you get when you just get lazy for a month (or two).

I think I’m inherently messy, though. Surely that counts for something. As an excuse that is…take for granted for now that nature won in the nature vs. nurture debate. I just can’t keep up with myself. Whether I’m bored or distracted, or both, I like to keep plenty of things to do around to go back and forth.

It appears I’m attracted to messy hobbies. Cluttered ones anyway.

As has surely been made evident elsewhere,  I am rather fond of my computer. I like to play the Sims…which many people who find out don’t understand, but I try not to begrudge them that.  I can’t comprehend sports myself. And while the computer fairly self-contained–as a laptop–computer ‘attachments’, as it were, are not. In fact, should I like to play my sims in the living room, I have to have it plugged in too. And I like my mouse.  I keep the printer in my room though, and because my dock isn’t working it’s stuck in my drawer along with my keyboard, lots of accompanying cords and a cd player for a car.  Hopefully soon I’ll be able to afford it in my car…the current one is a little touchy, don’t let him know I said that.

Of course I like to read. Really, though, like is the wrong word. Not quite obsession, almost a habit, but entirely more compulsion-al. If I see a book, I have to pick up, or nearly always. I won’t always read it, but I at least have to pick it up. No personal leanings toward nonfiction or fiction, or any particular genre. Nonfiction is nearly always fascinating, unless the author is simply terrible. Otherwise the subject matter can make up for most other mistakes.  Still reading the pencil book for instance. Turns out it’s about the development of the pencil as paralleled by the development of engineering (as the subtitle suggested), and it is, well, fascinating. Love reading about architecture, biography, the sciences, oddly enough. As for fiction…character is everything, really. I love to reread series, at least when I’ve had enough time in between to forget.

Let’s see. I used to think I would be an artist. From the time I was maybe in second grade, or so I have convinced myself. Now art can be a fairly simple hobby. Technically, all that’s really needed is some kind of writing utensil and a surface on which to use it. Or if you want to go post-modernist, either one alone or neither. I’ve never understood it myself. But I like all the different mediums, to experiment with each, though not so much all together. This means: pencils, pens, colored pencils, soft pastels, oil pastels, watercolors, acrylic and oil paints–in addition to the accouterments: erasers, sharpeners, chamois cloth, paint brushes, easels, blending stumps, etc., etc. And then to store not just the various surfaces on which to work these mediums, but to store the finished pieces as well. And mostly forever, since a lot of it I just can’t toss.

I also knit…or rather, occasionally try to teach myself to knit, I suppose I don’t quite qualify as a true knitter yet. Mostly I have no idea what I’m doing. But it’s not the neatest hobby either. I’ve got quite a lot of yarn stored for those future projects most of which lack patterns so far. But it takes up lots of space, and is something of a pain to carry around. At least the finished stuff can be useful.

So while my desk is only not messy because it’s piled too high with books, underneath the desk is a knitting bag, my computer is on the bed, and easel is set up in the corner. (It’s a work in progress, I swear!) Maybe not a great mind, but at least I keep it occupied.