Where is your mobile phone? plugged in in the car
Where is your significant other? which one?
Your hair colour? redbrownblondegrey, or so say my kids
Your mother? lamented
Your father? gone
Your favorite thing? um....?
Your dream last night? I don’t
Your dream goal? find some community irl again
The room you’re in? bedroom
Your hobby? Knitting
Your fear? losing job/house...losing
Where do you want to be in 6 years? here?  no. there.
Where were you last night? here
What you’re not? monosyllabic
One of your wish-list items? um, things?
Where you grew up? Daly City, CA (outside SF)
The last thing you did? drank milk
What are you wearing? nightgown
Your TV? 15 years old and converted from a rabbit
Your pets? nonexistant
Your computer? two laptops, a tablet, a kid’s olpc xo, and an ancient dell.
Your mood? Exhausted
Missing someone? everyone.
Your car? 99 corolla with bonks, and things falling off.
Something you’re not wearing? skirts
Favourite shop? out of business
Your summer? quiet
Love someone? not now
Your favourite colour? red
When is the last time you laughed? i don’t know
When is the last time you cried? today

(originally posted to ravelry.com)

they’re here! general lecture last night; can’t wait for today’s workshop!! i had been worried as the shop that’s brought him seemed rather clueless about what he’s all about…f’instance they had us buy yards of 20 different shades of one colorway and precut 6 diamonds of each so we’d be “ready”. i bought 40 basic pallette 99 cent fat quarters at joann’s instead and turned those into 6 diamonds, or half of them i did and then asked kf/bm after the lecture. of course, they said no, don’t cut anything yet!! and i felt much better. he said he can’t wait to see how we mix ours with his fabrics and the shopowner piped up “oh, it’s going to be all your fabrics, kaffe, we love them!” to which he replied “then we’ll just pull some others down from the walls and mix things up!” (just as i was leaving bm whispered to me “if you’ve got any fabric at home bring that, too!” alas, i had to confess that i didn’t as i’m really a knitter in mufti.)

the room turned out to be a wedding tent out near the pool with a noisy generator powering the ubiquitous air conditioning; i saw kf sitting out by the pool near it, very still and mild, and somehow i just didn’t feel i could approach him, continuing to think maybe i’d made a big mistake raiding my savings for this weekend at this clueless shop and there he sits so still and seemingly biddable….WRoNG!

so i needn’t have feared, kf was wonderfully commanding and himself. in response to one of the few questions he said he doesn’t really plan what to do next but just flows creatively. whereupon bm couldn’t stand it and mentioned that actually kf’s diary is filled 8 months in advance and he has no cllue; kf admitted what one needs to flow creatively is to have a brandon:)

turns out he’s one of those performers who can (must, probably) turn it on and off like a current and i suppose he was simply in rest mode storing up (if you can imagine kf sitting alone by a pool outside a quilt venue and absolutely no one, including me, approaching him! on reflection, that in itself is pretty commanding, isn’t it.) first thing he did when on was call for the a/c to be turned off (thankfully, as far as i am concered.) but you should have seen the room still, i’m sure they all thought they were about to to die in an unmediated state. and then he just marked time until it did, indeed, go off, and only then then slides started.

so good to hear him ramble over the familiar images. although he seemed to sense part-way through that people were looking bewildered, which i hadn’t noticed, not looking at people (they always seem so to me) but very hard at slides, me. but the main thing i learned by example, i think, is that i, personally, need to be more intellectually aware of the things that are around me, to allow them into my mind as well as my eyes; i know from experience that they go into receptor storage without me knowing anyway, but i can’t really think about them that way, now can i. f’instance: i think of this place as being featureless tasteless corporate targetmart, but kf congratulated tampa on its appreciation of color. i didn’t realize tampa appreciated color; whenever i use any eveybody falls all over like they’ve never before seen such a thing. of course, he probably congratulates everywhere he goes on something, but still. if i had to recommend someplace to go to see something, or even just to dinner, to someone i respect artistically–anyone i’ve known, for instance, or say kf/bm, as an exercise– i wouldn’t be able to do it. i’d probably say the tampa theatre. or the columbia in ybor. lately i stay in my studio and make my own world as compensation/deflection. not that i want to change that part so much but i do need to become a bit more aware, i think. kf was sitting by the pool in the off mode and he was probably looking, not at dreadful social phenomena, but at the colors.

the lecture was wonderful and marred only by a near-total lack of audience participation, which ended things a full hour early. i don’t think there was one person in the audience under 50 and i have no idea what the rest thought–possibly entirely about air conditioning, i don’t know. i then bought some kf fabrics (i had planned to do so to augment the basic pallette fat quarters): six 1/2 yds for about $27, which i thought quite good, and i plan on allowing myself carte blanche (emphasis on the carte) no matter what comes up at today’s workshop. we’re doing the diamond pattern and i don’t want to make a quilt per se, but rather a 30” wide banner (+/- 10 ft?) of sorts for my “classroom” (probably giving the shopowners apoplexy) but i’m so psyched and relieved to find the actual kf i had expcted and more! got my glorious books from the 80s signed last night: 6 hours today, i want every second!!!!

one other thing? it’s so GOOD to hear my home accent again. genuine mid-20thC northern california via shakespeare –there seem to be so few of us left!

cleaned: started robbie on the bedroom and changed over the linen for summer. didseveral laundry and curtain- and bedding-flumpimg loads.
organized: charged up red, who arrived today!
refurbished:
arted:
knit: worked on princess ann back some.  went to the shop and did some more; and in the evening.
played piano:
read:
studied for exams:
got on track with food: started with breakfast on tracker.  ate three meals, pretty well balanced!  does soy count as dairy?
exercised:

first day of the summer break: two whole months with no commitments other than a luncheon today in ybor, a 3-day tech class next week, and a seated certification exam all day (2 exams,actually) on July 26! i slept in a whole hour this morning.
things to do this summer (in no particular order because probably all at once):
clean--this house, the studio, the car, everything!
oupgrrganize--ditto.  throw out stuff.  lotsa stuff, so i casn reveal other, long buried stuff and throw that out, too.  i want the studio room bare but for the the flors, thechandelier and theshelving…
refurbish--slipcovers, stick tiles down, finish the kitchen from a decade back…
art--painting and more 3d
knit--entirely from stash, i have so many wips, i can go for a year, i think!
play piano--this idea came on me again the other day.  haven’t touched it in years and there it sits.
read--i am determined to regain enough concentration to again read books. with my eyes. i can’t stand not being a voracious reader anymore, andit’sgoneon now for years!
study for exams--of course.  all i have to do is pass theprofessional practices and the rt exam and i’m in. it will all bedone before we go bck, unless i blow it. i have the study guides.
get on track with food again- again again.  starting recordning on the usda tracker again.  found a csa providing farm right here, but it doesn’t opeate in summer, of course.still, i think there’s a farmer’s market there on sundays, at least i hope that’s still there in summer.  that could get me broken in.
exercise--i’ve been paying for the place since last august when i joined and never went once all school year. things got too odd too soon.  i need to go back right now and decide this summer if i plan to use it, or quit it in august when the renewal is up.  i NEED to use it!

i continue in my quest to establish some sort of very simple discipline that i can just do. minimal purchasing, minimal eating, minimal upkeep, etc. so that, once again,come august and school i can just effortlessly flow. effortlessly. flow. right.

today: the luncheon for the school. I took this last morning off as a personal day, since i didn’t have anything to do there and didn’t need to drive all the way there just to drive back to tampa for the luncheon.  unclear whether i will be made to eat or not, since i seem to have missed the payment deadline; perhaps i can just go and not eat? anyway, that’s at 11:30, and then we’re all done.  I was thinking i could maybe catch the exercise...?

i am wondering whether bake and i are suffering from a similar malady:  we have come through, all is well, we just don’t believe it yet.

10:25, 4 Jun 08
Keith: I was reminded, however, that I used to often buy books from Vintage Contemporaries sometimes just because of the cover art
10:28, 4 Jun 08
Bakerina: Oh, Vintage Contemporaries had great art. Terrific graphic design.
10:28, 4 Jun 08
Bakerina: And I still have a soft spot for Dell Yearling paperbacks.
10:28, 4 Jun 08
Bakerina: I often wish someone would bring the old cover art back. The new Yearlings are spiffy, but I miss the old format.
10:31, 4 Jun 08
Keith: Okay, I need to go hunt down some late breakfast.
10:33, 4 Jun 08
Bakerina: What a coincidence. I have to hunt down some late lunch.
10:33, 4 Jun 08
Bakerina: Enjoy yours, sir. Will see you ‘round the campus, I’m sure.
10:33, 4 Jun 08
Bakerina: Later, Br.
13:52, 4 Jun 08
e: ah. that’s what happened to my publishing caree, too, a couple of careers back
13:53, 4 Jun 08
e: alberto something or other, head of bantam when they were merged with us, only had eyes for tom wolfe
13:54, 4 Jun 08
e: but when i mentioned maumauing the flak catchers, he looked at me as if i had two heads. i went freelance within a year or so then, eventually, left new york…
13:55, 4 Jun 08
e: and that was the end of publishing
15:27, 4 Jun 08
Bakerina: Ahhh, I think I remember that guy, e. I keep wanting to say Alberto Manguel, but I know that can’t be right.
15:27, 4 Jun 08
Bakerina: Alberto Manguel wrote A History of Reading, and I’m positive he knows all about Maumauing the Flak Catchers.
15:27, 4 Jun 08
Bakerina: But I can’t wrap my mind around the BDD guy’s last name.
15:59, 4 Jun 08
e: alberto..alberto..do es it start with a g?
16:03, 4 Jun 08
e: no, here you go:
16:03, 4 Jun 08
e: “‘I WAS sitting around one Friday afternoon with our president, Alberto Vitale, discussing this hard-cover venture we had just embarked upon,’’ Stuart Applebaum, Bantam Books’ vice president for publicity, reminisced. ‘’It was a summer afternoon; nothing was going on. I observed that business books seemed to sell well in hard cover ...”
16:04, 4 Jun 08
Bakerina: Vitale! That’s it! Sorry, do continue.
16:04, 4 Jun 08
e: alberto vitale, illiterate marketer, THAT was the book that sold our 100 year old publishing firm…
16:21, 4 Jun 08
e: after the merger the switchboard was moved from our park ave digs (inexplicably undocumented chrysler bldg spire right outside my window) to the bantam bldg further north
16:22, 4 Jun 08
e: ony day i called it to see how it would henceforth be answered, this telephone to the new BDD
16:23, 4 Jun 08
e: and i swore she said “bubblety bubblety bell...”
16:24, 4 Jun 08
e: (ah, the stories, the stories!)
16:24, 4 Jun 08
e: there was the time i narrowly avoided informing isaac asimov that the space shuttle exploded...(i already told that one; i recently,online, ran into my fellow asst.ed. from then, his young editor then, now gaiman’s at another house...)
16:26, 4 Jun 08
e: the time i expressed concern that, as it seemed everybody was suddenly and en masse turning republican, that jackie, surely,couldn’ t be? (which somehow was received with the utmost distaste....
16:31, 4 Jun 08
e: the time my eccentric art director swept into the employees’ full dining room--not the exec one, the one like in the devil wore prada--and announced “what SHALL we do with poor booth?” (meaning tarkington, whom she apparently figured was due for a revival, no doubt with one of her all-type jacket designs…
16:40, 4 Jun 08
e: the time i filed a contract card for the latest shari lewis tome right after the one for elmer gantry (as far as i know, bubblety bubbelty bell pulped all those old contract cards, which i, and others, used reverently to peruse for their wealth of association, imagining ourselves a future link in the lineage: helen keller advanced $25 in the early part of the last century, etc....
16:45, 4 Jun 08
e: going to (and you’ll recognize this annual pilgrimage from the other side) Sales Conference at corporate headquarters, which was privately held, and, as we descended the train at the Garden City Station into what looked like Dolly Levi’s yonkers, my (jewish) boss calling out “here come the jews!” (after dinner we danced hedonistically to born in the usa, while outside the news was of chernobyl…
16:46, 4 Jun 08
e: im outdoing orionoir here, recording all this on scrinechat…

you won’t find anything here.  you’re what stopped me posting alltogether.

I give you the last dozen hits i gots, not unlike the dozen before them (bots):
1 Unknown 2 Unknown 3 United States Tempe, Arizona 4 United States Tempe, Arizona 5 United States Tempe, Arizona 6 Unknown 7 United States Tempe, Arizona 8 United States Tempe, Arizona 9 Unknown 10 Unknown 11 United States Tempe, Arizona 12 Unknown…

loading up for spring break.  does the road call, or is it just trying to drown out the studio?