Smokey the Magnificent

1. It’s MOD PODGE, people! Not Modge Podge! I will slay your ancestors!
2. That last episode of Doctor Who was freaking awesome. I cried. Up until that point I was wavering on the season as a whole, but blimey. Epic, yet without sacrificing intimacy. And a corking line. And a fez.
3. I do not like the term “the menopause”. I know it’s technically accurate - well, I don’t, actually, but I assume it is, otherwise why would vast hordes of otherwise unpretentious people emit such a poncy phrase? - but anyway, it gives me the screaming heebies. Enough with ominous articles. I also dislike “an herb garden”, for similar though not identical reasons.
4. I decided on Sunday that my challenge for this week will be to complete one project per day. So today I made a grey skirt - actually I started it in a frenzy late last night, and it even hung overnight to allow the hem to droop correctly. Aren’t I coming along? Anyway, I finished it today and felt v smug, but then realised that all my other projects will take more than a day to complete. I started painting cardboard letters copper in order to stick them on the pig’s steampunked-up whiteboard, my (possibly) next project, but then realised there was no way I could actually paint it and make the fabric baskets all in one day, and then I thought about how many press-studs and little pearls needed to be hand-sewn onto my arm warmers, and how long it would take to learn how to do double-welted pockets in order to make my utility skirt, and then I started wondering if I could count cleaning out the pantry as a project, and then gave up the idea when I realised it just wasn’t gonna happen, and now I’m not sure what my challenge for the week is, but it bothers me unduly that I don’t have one.
5. My sister-in-law is expecting another baby. I will have to knit it something, maybe.
6. Gibbous-inspired clothes just never look as good as the real Gibbous ones. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but they look junkier. It might just be the lack of incredibly arty photography, but I don’t think so. The skirts have too much fabric and not enough deliberateness of structure, mebbe. Anyway, I’m tempted to try it. But the only event on the horizon which justifies such an outlay of time and vintage lace is practically my only sister’s wedding in November, and I’m not sure if she’d appreciate me turning up looking like a post-Magimix Helena Bonham Carter. Also, I’d have to look at the photos in twenty years’ time, and even now I suspect I would snicker. And that is never a good sign.
7. Flowers for Algernon is not a good book to read if you are even mildly moop. It will make you lunge for a knife.
8. Is not this practically the awesomest thing ever? I want to make one, maybe for Disneyland. Then when we wanted to ride the Grizzly River Run I could just pop it on, and we could oose into DCA and ride it and then go back and romp at the HoJo’s water park. Except I don’t know where I’d be able to buy a towel that wasn’t made in a sweatshop, and one would not like to make it with a used towel. So it might not be doable. Still, I spent a good half-hour today pondering it. This is why I never get anything done.
9. I was playing poker on Sunday with a large, smallish group of semi-manly men, and asked them all “Would you rather have your own unicorn or a hundred sheep?” And they all instantly said “UNICORN!”, and it was awesome.
10. Would you accept a million dollars from a genie on the condition that if you ever said the word “migratory”, you would die instantly?

A Sad Thought: I don’t know how to tie a noose knot. It distracted me in that awful scene in Once Were Warriors, where I should have been bawling and clutching my hanky, and I was a bit, but I was also secretly a little impressed at the girl for knowing how to do it as a mere stripling of a lass. If I ever wanted to off myself, I’d have to Google it.

A Happy Thought: I just discovered Sock Dreams, an awesome site, and because I very badly need some socks, all of mine being either holey or Helpdesk Man’s, I bought five pairs as a birthday present to myself from the piggie. Upon being told of her generosity the piggie stared at her own feet in great perplexity for some minutes and then dismissed the matter. Four of the pairs are stripy. And as I very rarely make impulse purchases online, I feel giddy and daring. They’re even anti-sweatshop.

A Sad Thought: “How to Make a Noose” brings up 276,000 Google results.

A Happy Thought: My worthy mother has given practically my only small sister permish to come along for our trip to Disneyland next year. And my other practically only sister who lives in London is meeting us there for a week as well. If I do not have them both married off before we exit the Haunted Mansion, it will not be my fault.

A Sad Thought: I am worried that I might come over all phobic at Disneyland. I do not like animatronics, and while I hope this is because I’ve only ever met creepy cheesy fake ones like at Rainbow’s End, it might not be. And Pirates of the Caribbean is in the dark and on the water, like the log flume at Rainbow’s End which totally gives me the screaming feebles, because there are OBVIOUSLY killer whales slinking beneath the surface, and it has animatronic pirates and skeletons, one of which I happen to know is real. It’s an E-ticket ride. I can’t not go on it. It’s supposed to be awesome. And it’s 15 minutes long. And I do not want to spend that quarter-hour with the stench of abject terror oozing from my armpits, head burrowed into Helpdesk Man’s pancreas, frantically singing “You Are My Sunshine” and batting wildly at the air above my tender exposed neck. Also, Indiana Jones has an animatronic python that looms at you. And we won’t even talk about the Storybookland Canal Boats.

A Happy Thought: “How to Save a Life” by The Fray is an awesomer song than I initially thought. It has a poignant backstory and surprisingly good lyrics, and by “surprisingly” I mean that I am out of touch with Modern Music and generally assume anything I hear on the radio to be shallow and soulless, a thoroughly obnoxious tendency which I ought to combat, although I did hear Jason Mraz’ “I’m Yours” on two separate occasions in the fabric store and liked it and considered asking the lady what it was, but the second time I realised it was on the radio, not a CD, so the nice radio man told me (not personally, acourse) what it was and it turned out it had been playing in every store every four minutes for the last several months, but I don’t get out much, but at least it proved I liked the song on its own merits and not because it was drilled into my head by insane repetition; and also, incidentally, for weeks this was the only song that would put the snortlepig to sleep.

A Sad Thought: This couch is covered in smeg.

A Happy Thought: I bought two rolls of brown paper today. I ran out of the last lot and its replacement must have fallen out of the pram when I was bringing it home, so I have been without a roll of consoling brown paper for months now and it has been preying on my calm. But now I have two, so I can make the twofeenth and final version of my underbust corset pattern on it, and it will go with my new skirt, and also the arm warmers I plan to start making tomorrow.

A Sad Thought: I was conned into giving a cake decorating demonstration on Thursday to a bunch of Young Mothers, and I have no idea what to show them and will be revealed as a sham and ceremonially stripped of my fondant layer.

A Happy Thought: Singing group now. Bye.

Sometimes, the sheer volume of the things I plan to make and sew overwhelms my brain like a load of laundry in a wardrobe, and makes my eyes twitch. This is a Bad Thing. Not a totally bad thing, as it allows me to think of myself as a crafty person brimming with ideas; but on the occasions I break through this happy bubble and realise I haven’t done anything more creative for a month than sweeping around a rectangle on the floor and pretending it was a rug, it makes me feel very small inside, and then I have to go eat carbs.

At the moment, my list of unfinished creative enterprises runs as follows (not in bullet-point form, as a) the length would be depressing and b) bullet points are too orderly to represent the reality of the situation): a small cushion made out of scraps from my wedding dress, a pink and green Irish chain quilt for the pig, another one in flannel for the pig in winter, both justifiably put on hold as she doesn’t have a bed of her own right now anyway; half a winter wardrobe of dove-grey, pink, beige and blue clothes for the pig, for which I bought fabrics, only it turns out she has plenty of clothes; the pig’s art station, a blackboard/whiteboard easel thing from the inlaws which I wish to make steampunky and awesome, because it doesn’t match the living room; a knee-length swooshy dress made with this awesomely manly tweed from the thrift store, whose very essence I wish to subvert by lining it with a dusky rose print and adding lace and doing cap sleeves and stuff; a grey more-than-a-circle skirt; a lace pettiskirt; lacy pantalettes, just below knee length; a pair of knitted stockings with little Xes all up the front, even though I suspect this will not look as good on me as on the Gibbous model; a pair of knitted stockings with horizontal blue and tannish stripes, sort of Alice in Wonderlandy, even though ditto; a pair of knitted lacy cream arm warmers that I’ve been knitting since the dawn of time; three unspecified baby gifts for recently ex-foetal pigs; typographical miniature cushions with ampersands and things on them for Helpdesk Man’s office, not that he’s holding his breath; a brown duster like Helpdesk Man’s current black one; a floor-length voluminous winter coat for me in smoky blue; a shorter one from the same pattern in some unexpected colour, so as to make me known in the boroughs as the Girl With the [undetermined but totally groovy] Colour Coat, which is on hold indefinitely as I can’t think of the right colour; a pair of natty lace wristlets, possibly done with very thin string in crochet, if I learn how; another pair of arm warmers with the leftovers from my pinstriped skirt, with dozens of little shroomy Victorian buttons down the side; a Mod Cloth-inspired grey dress with an asymmetrical cowly collar that makes me look like a scifi heroine; a demure grey pinny with tucks on the bodice, cunningly concealing invisible zips for breastfeeding access; a truly awesome autumn leaf quilt for the master bedroom, which is so ambitious I wisely refrained from buying the fabric and committing myself, but it still pesks my mind; a more doable but still not done bronze and blue bedspread cover, because Helpdesk Man doesn’t like the Laura Ashley one I got on sale three years ago, and it has ink on it; a cool Star Trek quilt I have vague and noble intentions to make for Helpdesk Man’s best friend’s couch, which is unseemly; somehow creatively ModPodgeing my old faux leather boots which are falling apart and showing their faux; a fairy-inspired dress with a ballet top and froofy skirt, for which I bought a lot of expensive fabrics and then panicked because they are sheers and I don’t do sheers, and they’re too expensive to mess up; a Grecian evening gown with a woven bodice which I want to make with some fabric someone gave me, only I don’t think my hips will stand the cut and I don’t have much occasion to wear evening gowns anyway, and Helpdesk Man wouldn’t like it because he objects to dresses that don’t have a defined waist; a pinstriped zipup dress based on a top I got from an op shop, but trying to copy the pattern gave me a headache; a top for the pig made out of this awesome dragonfly flannel I got last year, but she doesn’t need it and by the time she does it’ll be too small to make a whole top; a mini quilt I made ages ago to cover the changing table, which still needs to be bound but is a bit rubbish; a hand-sewn chevron quilt I started years ago, but I’ve gone off the colours; several underbust corsets, because I bought a bunch of spiral steel boning and things a while back, but am waiting on eyelets and inspiration and diligence, etc; new oven mitts; a new manly apron for Helpdesk Man, because his other one went missing; some summery, holidayish fifties-style bright dresses to wear to Disneyland next year to improve our festive moods, including a red polka-dot dress for the pig like Minnie Mouse wears; a smoky blue knitted hoodie with a frill around the bottom and a cabled tree on the back; a knitted grey dress with words from the end of The Return of the King chain-stitched all over it, in case I ever need to go to a book-signing; a harem pant/bellydance-inspired pair of pyjamas, although ovbiously not with dangly coins on them, but with breastfeeding access, but not until my current PJs wear out because of the environment, and they’re proving to be very long-lived; a fairy costume for my friend who’s a fairy at children’s parties, for no good reason except I looked at her costume she bought online and thought “Muahaha, I could totally make that”; a knitted top or two for Helpdesk Man; knitted knee-high socks for me and the pig that have demure wee bows at the top; a new Roman blind for the room of Flatmate Man, because the current one looks like a girly shower curtain; a stuffed pig for my nephew, which was supposed to be his Christmas present, but I got bored with the nose; a knitted top for the pig from a pattern I found online; a two-layer cutout top for the pig that I started making, but it wasn’t going well so I shelved it; and an assortment of hair accessories for myself to match the clothes I am planning to make.

You see the issue? I wouldn’t even swear that’s the lot, either. There’s a bolster cover lurking on my sewing shelf whose origins I can’t even remember… two, actually. Now, not all these ideas are unfinished in the sense that I actually started sewing them. Some of them are nearly done, some I have the fabric for but no notions, some just milled around in my head long enough for me to construct a precise plan. The point is, I spent a lot of mental energy on them. I spent weeks planning that autumn leaf quilt, and I knew at the time it was doomed, even as I said hopefully to myself “I could do a block a week, while I watched movies; it’d only take a few years”. I still have the sketches somewhere, probably.

In fact, the sobering thought occurs to me that if my next year’s New Year’s Resolution was “Finish up all unfinished or thought-out projects”, I couldn’t do it. Not a chance. Not in a year. Does that seem right to you?

Anyway, in the spirit of ignoring my own inadequacies, I thought I would show you pictures of the projects I have actually completed in recent history. Not the squab I finally finished for the bedroom window seat, because it’s a bit dubious and the light was all funny. Here’s a muskrat instead.

Pretty nifty, no?

Here’s a bowtie scarf I made.

This here’s m’ pig.

I made her dress.

She likes it.

I went all arty with the bodice, and Helpdesk Man laughed at me. He is basically a smegger.

He did, however, insist on me putting a bow at the back (see above re. defined waists, which is amoosing because if there’s one attribute the pig doesn’t have, it is a defined waist), and that helps.

Also, in true marvy craft blogger form, this dress was made out of an old bedsheet. Weep in awe.

Anyway. I also made her a hat from a Ruffles and Stuff tute, which is not that super but does in a pinch. She hates it, acourse. She’s always pulling off her hats. But I got her to cooperate while I was taking photos by getting her to say “communism”.

I also knitted her a wee scarf and handwarmers.

And I finished my pinstriped skirt.

That was a rubbish photo and it makes me faintly moop, so I will conclude with another muskrat.

Pretty nifty, no?

Even though the snortlepig pesks me all to hell, I like her. Here are some reasons why.

1. When she’s chillin’ with me on the couch and wants to go somewhere else, she’ll say “Back inna second!” as she scuttles away.

2. Sometimes, when she is having the milks and I ask her to come off, she will bury her face in the milks and cover her eyes with her fat wee hand. And I’m like “Dude, you’re latched on, you can’t pretend you’re not there”, and she looks at me with beady eyes between her fingers, and then I hold her nose until she unlatches and she laughs and laughs and says “‘gain!”, and it is amoosing.

3. The other day, she was stirring a pat of butter and some onions around a saucepan and chattering away. And suddenly she looked down at the pot and squeaked “Oh, where’s a butter a go?” and started hunting round the onions trying to find it.

4. She reads Helpdesk Man’s comics over his shoulder and points out all the cloaks.

5. She is immensely fond of The Pirates of Penzance, and sings “Come, friends, a plow a sea, Dooce a luss a Jason, take a duck a Jason” many times a day.

6. She understands the concept of not having things in the cupboard. If she wants crackers and I say “We don’t have any” she says “All gone. Later” and is perfectly philosophical about the matter.

7. She feeds us things she is eating, even things she loves very much.

8. She knocks on Flatmate Man’s door and says “Come a dinner! Dinner time!”

9. She demands I look up photos of “Diseymand” on the computer, and shows a healthy appreciation for Mickey Mouse and the “dresses”.

10. She says “fingums” instead of fingers, and “pengums” instead of penguins.

11. She strides up to random cats and picks them up without fear or a by-your-leave. They do not bite her.

12. She puts away the knives and forks from the dishwasher, and is fairly efficient, even pointing out the forks with smeg baked on ‘em; but sometimes she will get distracted flirting with her reflection in the back of a spoon.

13. When we remove her clothes she will run to the nearest person available, leap into a starfish position and say “NAKED!” with a look of immense glee. This disconcerted Flatmate Man a bit the first time.

14. Whenever I ask her “Are you my friend?”, which I do a lot, probably ’cause I was a middle child and Forcibly Weaned, she says firmly “Yes. Friends a Daddy too”.

15. Sometimes she wakes up from a sound sleep and says things like “Rhinos!” or “Cats are great!” and then goes back to sleep.

16. Whenever Helpdesk Man goes out, she makes sure he does not forget to give me a kiss and also one for her. If he does, she shouts at him out the door in garbled distress until he comes back.

17. The other day she went through Helpdesk Man’s bag after he came home from the supermarket and exclaimed in tones of rapture “Oh my goo’ness, MUSHROOMS!”

18. At singing group practice last week, she joined in on Panis Angelicus, resulting in several false starts as we couldn’t figure out who was off-key. Her Latin was good, though.

19. She is still convinced she patted the “winos” at the zoo.

20. I dunno, really. 19 seemed a silly number to leave off at. Her cheeks are nice. And she dances. She started waggling her bottom in her sleep the other day when a rap song came on during a movie.

Anyway. I will keep her for the nonce.

It seems I forgot to update on my Medical Situation of Doom. Well, it turns out that not all healthcare practitioners keep virgins locked in their basement and howl at the moon. The doctor I saw was pleasantly tartany and consoling, hunted out a speculum a quarter of the size of the previous one, scoffed at the idea my cervix was hard to find and indicated by slight though not disloyal hints that she, too, thought the Nurse From Hades could use a stint in the Iron Maiden. It turns out my cervix is peachy awesome, and in her doctorly opinion the only reason it had looked inflamed the last time is that the nurse had bungled and assaulted it. Words cannot describe, etc.

Anyway, this is in the past and we shall move on to happier and less cervical topics.

I made a cake (for instance). Tomorrow is the twenty-first birthday of practically my only sister, who is autistic and therefore should not, according to the textbooks, be inviting upwards of a hundred people to the accompanying bash. (How many people came to my twenty-first? Like, ten. Including me and a foetus. All blood relations, again, including the foetus.) My mother cunningly inveigled me into making and icing the cake, back when I thought this was a modest twenty-person shindig; and now - a hundred icing flowers, nine cups of sugar, 1.5 kilos of butter and two significant mishaps later - the thing is done. It is large. And purple. Not my fault, in both cases. I tried to take a photo so I could be like those bloggers that make things, but it came out blue (which was depressing, because it actually looked a lot better than the current colour scheme) and I couldn’t find the camera cable, and then the pig wanted the milks and I got distracted looking up Hypnobabies, which I’m totally going to do next time I have a pig, but I will still call them “contractions” and not “power surges” because good heavens, who do you think I am.

Also I made butterscotch straciatella ice cream, tomato oregano bread and marbled chocolate-orange cheesecake. ‘Cause after Becky’s party we are coming straight home to have another one, this one for me. I turn twenty-four on Thursday. A near-as-dammit quarter-century, and I’m still not clear on the role Japan played in World War Two or what happened in the movie Primer.

I leave you instead with a thought that gives me daily succour: “It’s pow’ful hard ter po’ outer a bung hole inter a go’de”.

Today we were woken up at cock-crow by a telephone. We ignored it twice before I leapt out of bed the third time, thinking perhaps it was Editors wanting to make me rich. I should have known that no reputable person rings up before 9 in the morning.

Remember my cervical smear? Yeah. Horror and carnage, that’s the one. Well, I received my reluctant admission via post that I am free of both cancer and chlamydia, and thought this was the end of it (making, meanwhile, a private resolution to skip next year’s one at all costs, even if it meant giving birth). Well, it turns out the Nurse from Hell, who by rights should have committed seppuku after my previous visit, was not only unrepentant but in fine fettle. Apparently, even though my results were normal, the angel Moroni appeared to her in a blaze of weaponised hallucinogens and convinced her that my cervix had given her lip (heh) and must be punished. And since then, as she told me in horrifically mumsy tones, probably while shining up her broomstick with a freshly-skinned chinchilla, she just hadn’t felt quite right about it, and had decided to book me in for a “wee chat” with a doctor. A WEE CHAT. I don’t think so. Oh, that’s right, two sentences later - a “look-see”. You malevolent adjectival noun, thought I.

Faculties paralysed with the horror and indignity of this chutzpah, I tried my best “No means no” diplomacy for the next seven minutes. I tried the “No, I do not want to join your cult” approach; I tried the tones of “I’m flattered, but I have a husband at home and you just puked in my handbag”; I attempted the “Thank you, we don’t actually own a television and I’ve just got dinner on” method, and even the “I really don’t think I’ve won the British lottery, and since when was it headquartered in Nigeria?” skepticism. To no avail, of course. She booked me in for 2:45 tomorrow.

All I can say is, I’d better smegging well HAVE cancer or at least a decent dollop of flesh-eating bacteria, or I will sue her squamous, conscientious little chumpy all the way to the morgue.

Also, I hate life. And what freakish kind of wench finds herself worrying about someone else’s cervix WEEKS after the fact?? She’s a nurse, for heaven’s sake! Doesn’t she have gang members coming in with hypodermic syringes sticking out of their eyeballs to worry about? Surely the odd case shows up that blows my normal test results out of the water on terms of severity, say, I dunno, the common cold?

For the last seven days or so I have been suffering from what Helpdesk Man informs me is a low-grade flu. For all I know it’s very low-grade leprosy or homeopathic ebola, but I will take his word for it. It is not unto death, just enough to prevent me from being productive and bouncy. Helpdesk Man has been a trooper throughout - this morning he took off his T-shirt in bed so I could blow my nose on it. We were out of hankies. See above re productivity. Anyway, marriage is a wonderful institution.

Actually I haven’t been totally unproductive. I have been well enough to knit, a few feeble inches at a time, and during my Week of Moop I not only completed a bowtie scarf but started a pair of armpit-length fingerless gloves using a snazzy diagonal eyelets stitch, the success of which has impressed my lurgy-addled brain immensely.

Also, I went to a party. Not this week. Before. It was a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and in a fit of brilliance two days before it I decided to go as the Queen of Hearts. So I bought an impressively vile red prom dress from the op shop and thought “I shall make an overskirt out of playing cards, for this will be Simple and Speedy”. It wasn’t, but thanks to a very long church AGM and the sweatshop skills of my tiny sisters, I got it done. The pig went as a single card, which actually was simple and speedy, but only because my little sisters did it themselves during said AGM.

Here do am be the pig, and myself twirling with Alice, the birthday girl.

K?