I couldn't help it

I said I wasn't going to, but then I did.

I was going to be patient and wait for October. But then Tamara got in to Pottermore. And then people kept posting links to the site to register on plurk. And then I couldn't resist clicking on it.

So I registered this morning.

And I have to say, while I am excited about that, the name I picked has been on my mind all day.

Unlike other web communities, this one doesn't give you free reign to pick whatever name you want. It gives you a choice of five, all of which are some kind of reference to the Potterverse, whether it's mythical creatures, or spells, or potions ingredients, or some mix of those sorts of things.

And the one I picked is very twee.

PixieGlow, with some numbers at the end that I don't remember off the top of my head. As an aside, I wonder how many other PixieGlow-numbers are out there as well. Anyway. I'm PixieGlow-something-or-other. I could just go double check the validation email I got, but I won't bother, as it doesn't matter that much. It's the PixieGlow part I've been thinking about. At the time I wasn't sure why I was drawn to it, but I was, as soon as the screen loaded giving me my options. The others were FlightSpell, something to do with Snidgets, and two that had Cat in them, which I seriously considered. But I picked PixieGlow. And then spent the next hour or two wondering if it was a bit too twee for me.

And then I remembered. I'm a girl who does things like register early for Pottermore. I knit tiny sweaters out of candy-colored yarn. I write fantasy short stories, and I have waist-length fairy tale hair. I've dressed up as fairies and can-can dancers and fictional characters for Halloween. I sing and dance around my apartment all the time, and play the ukulele.

I myself am rather inescapably twee.

So PixieGlow it is.

Wheeeeeee!

I do realize yet another month has gone by without me posting.

It's been a busy month.

There was a school ski trip that I chaperoned. There was lots of knitting, and reading. There was me going to a dinner party, like a grown up or something. There was a group effort from pretty much all of my friends here to get me to start playing Dungeons and Dragons. And finally, there was me getting sick and spending almost a whole week in bed.

I really should be blogging more, for how eventful things have been.

I don't even think I mentioned everything.

Knitting with the Doctor

It has been a long, long day, filled with a little bit of actually getting things done, some tasty cooking, recipe courtesy of the Pioneer Woman, and lots and lots of knitting while watching Doctor Who.

It was finally back in at the library yesterday. Which is why I didn't get nearly as much done today as I should have. One day later, I'm down three discs.

But I did get a lot of my sweater done. I'm through all the raglan decreases, so I've just got the ribbing at the neck, the sleeves and the button bands. Which means I could actually have a finished sweater in a few days' time. How sweet is that? Finally.

And then I can cast on something else! Yay!

Hypocrisy! I has it!

Today on the way home from work, I saw a banner for one of those seasonal stores that are only open for Halloween, and I thought, "Ugh! August is barely half over, that's stupid. Which means the Christmas stuff should start up in about two weeks, which is even worse."

And then I came home to find my 2-disc special edition soundtrack from The Nightmare Before Christmas came from Amazon today! Which I bought partly because I love, love, looooooooove that movie, and partly because I'm crazy about Fiona Apple's cover of "Sally's Song." So I'm currently listening to "What's This?" and I have stopped scoffing at Halloween in August.

I had a dream once about being in rehearsals for a ballet of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I woke up thinking how amazing that would be. All black and white tutus and creepy sets and makeup. In the back of my mind, I still want to start choreographing.

Gravity. She is a harsh mistress.

Some days, I swear I wouldn't make it through the workday without Lime and Violet and Regina Spektor. Most days, though, it's more of a mixed bag of podcasts. Just enough to keep me entertained until it's time to go, in between phone calls.

Today I was listening to one that's come to be one of my favorites, the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. I was only half listening, between working and talking with my office buddy, but after awhile, it very much caught my attention. They were interviewing Michael Goudeau, this guy who's been a professional juggler and clown for years, and now he also writes for Penn Jillette. I didn't hear why they were interviewing him, but it was fascinating. Like a train wreck. Or, more appropriately, like a sideshow act.

Michael Goudeau juggles chainsaws. And if you're interviewing a juggler who juggles chainsaws, how do you not ask how he ended up juggling chainsaws? He said it was like playing chicken with other jugglers. It starts with flaming torches, and then machetes (for which he bled for three days. I probably would have stopped right there), and then axes. And then running chainsaws. Naturally.

The thing is, I love circuses. I've taken static trapeze classes. I loved those classes, and even thought about auditioning for circuses. I have great respect for the circus. People underestimate the art and dedication that goes into it, and they forget the history that goes back centuries. I will always be fascinated with all that stuff.

But as much as I am fascinated by it, and by Michael Goudeau, by extension, I will never understand the impulse to throw several sharp blades ten feet in the air. Much less a running chainsaw.

The world is full of crazy people. Isn't it fantastic?

Maybe I should change it to booklove Sundays

Yesterday morning, I baked yumminess:



And I took a nap, while Boy-Creature watched golf (what better time for a nap?). And then I knitted. And today I knitted. And then I took a break to go to the yarn shop, because the #3 needles were too big, and the #1 needles were too small. I'm the proud new owner of a set of #2 needles. So the socks have been cast on yet again.

Luckily, after I got said needles, I took a break and went to my favorite coffee shop for some passionfruit iced tea and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It's the edition with Arthur Rackham's beautiful, iconic illustrations. I'm almost up to the croquet game. I must have looked like a crazy person at the coffeehouse, smiling like a loon. I do love that book.

The best part of it is that it's getting me out of the fiction slump I've been in. Thank god.

And now, back to some knitting. This yarn will become socks if it kills me.

Spoiler alert!!!

Sort of a spoiler alert, anyway. The card from my Christmas in July swap gift came today!!! (Ignore the fact that it's August. July sucked for a lot of people on the Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Ravelry boards.)

My swapper was the lovely and awesome Jillygirl, of the fantastic gummi-bear ravatar. I've meant to tell her for awhile now how much I like her ravatar, but haven't gotten around to it. I'll tell her when I'm posting about the actual package.

Anyway, like I said, I got the card today. I'm hoping the actual package will come tomorrow, although I'm sort of worried they might keep it at the post office, since both Boy-Creature and I will be working in the morning. They've left packages with next-door-neighbor-girl before, so maybe they'll do that again. Fingers crossed.

Especially since she mentioned something that's in the package, which I am now super-hyped up about. She sent me a spindle! I can start learning to spin yarn! And it's totally not my fault! I've fought it for this long without caving in to the desire. Until Jillygirl came along and gave me a little push!

Now I have to go do some roving shopping over on Etsy.

The lazy! It has me in its grip.

I had every intention of going to the library to actually get something to read today (and maybe the first disc or two of Doctor Who), but alas, I did not.

So I'll go tomorrow.

I have been monumentally lazy since I finished I Capture the Castle. Haven't read a bit of fiction since, and it's weird. I am still reading, but only non-fiction. I haven't gone this long without any in ages. I did end up sticking with the Peter Mayle, French Lessons, but that didn't last long. So I'm down to only one book, which is equally as weird as not reading any fiction.

What I am reading is Richard Dawkins' Unweaving the Rainbow. For several years now, I've had this passing interest in physics. I hated the math side of it when I actually had to take it in high school. I tend to only like math when I can put it in use. Like with stitch count in a gauge swatch for a sweater, or calculating how much overtime pay I should be getting. I'm great with that kind of math. But the actual science of it fascinates me. What little I know about it does, anyway. For ages, I've wanted to read more about it, so I'd keep buying science books all through college, but I never had the time to read them. So now that I'm out of college, I'm finally getting to them.
There's just so much that's fascinating about it. There's very little that makes me geek out the way quantum mechanics does. And astronomy. I used to leave the television on the NASA channel when they were showing their video files taken from satellites. There were some shots of this one ice shelf in Antarctica (which I naturally can't remember the name of) that was completely mesmerizing. And this book is written to exactly that purpose. We live in an amazing universe, and people tend to forget that when faced with all the theories and complexities and whatnot. People forget that science is crazily interesting. Like Calvin said, there's treasure everywhere.