Several months back I thought that if I started knitting a baby sweater for Brooke and Andy Brennan, that it would produce "good vibes" and they'd get pregnant. Well I guess it worked, because Brooke is about 14 weeks now!
This sweater will probably fit a 3-6 month old (I guess, I'm horrible with baby sizes.) It's a cute gender-neutral spring green (and the iPhone pic does no justice!)
I am going to knit some other accessories, right now I am working on a cute cap. I'll probably go all the way and do booties too. A blankie is a bit ambitious, with school and the wedding plans.
The little bundle of joy is due on June 3, 2010. That gives Brooke 10 weeks to recover so she can be my Maid of Honor!
I really enjoy knitting baby items, since they work up so fast. I won't even bring up the adult sweater I started in 2004... I completed one adult-sized sweater in 2003, but it was completed with the bulkiest yarn and super-large needles (like 11 or 13.)
After I finish the baby cap, I think I'll start a project with some beautiful yarn I purchased at Purl Soho down in NYC. Perhaps I'll make a cute chullo earflap hat
I am blessed to have a wonderful family who is fortunate enough to gather for just about every holiday, we can celebrate in great fashion and give each other fantastic material gifts. I'm so very thankful that in a world of turmoil, war and poverty we can do this. When I step back and take a look at it, the big picture, I honestly feel like I am wealthy. I'm not rich in the financial sense, but I am far from destitute. I want for very little. I have food (yes, that food that I love so much), a decent apartment, great family, a fantastic fiance and great friends and love.
I went Black Friday shopping with my cousin yesterday. As I was bringing her home, we saw this teenage boy walking down her street with his head down. I ask my cousin, "who's that kid" she told me, "I don't know." She went inside and told her Dad about the weird kid walking down the street, talking to himself. I felt so bad for the kid- and honestly didn't believe he was talking to himself. Weird- maybe. Turns out that kid tried to kill himself later that evening, and he lived right down the street. This reminds me of he hard fact that holidays can be so very hard for people who are lonely, sad or depressed. When my brother and I were kids, sometimes we would go with my grandparents to old folks homes around the holidays. One time, my brother got pretty upset because he didn't understand why he had to go do this. My Mom told us a story about how the holidays are very hard for some people who are lonely or depressed. A girl who went to her school hanged herself in her closet around the holidays.
Donations are not always financial. Remember that in this busy holiday season that sometimes people just need you.
It's really hard to write or articulate any of this.
Today is the 11th annual National Survivors of Suicide Day.
Over 16 years ago, my cousin took his own life. It's something that still makes me very sad. I miss him a lot, even though I've lived more years with Christopher here than I actually knew him alive. He was in his early 20's, significantly older than my brother and I but we loved him so much. He was that cool cousin- who was old enough to drive and could babysit you, but still your cousin so you could get away with stuff. Much like I am to some of my young cousins today. What would they do if they lost me? Probably grieve a long time and never full understand (just like I feel.)
I will tell you that's the worst way to lose someone. Losing someone to disease, accident or old age is easier. Not that any loss is easier- but losing someone who makes the decision to die hurts like nothing else.
I was 12 when I lost Chris, Jon was 9. We were so young, I understood exactly what happened, I imagine Jon did too. I remember that day so vividly, it feels like nothing can numb me to the memories even to this day. I remember answering the phone call when my aunt called. I was home sick that day- I had just had a bunch of pre-admiting bloodwork done for my uncomming eye surgery. It was after school hours though, because Jon was home. I remember trying to talk it up with my aunt, but she was blunt about me getting my Dad on the phone, so I did. I don't remember easedropping on the call or anything, but I remember my Mom and Dad getting my brother and I into the kitchen to tell us. When my Mom said "your cousin Chris is dead" I remeber colapsing onto the kitchen floor and crying. I remember asking "was it an accident?" Chris was always getting hurt at work. It was probably one of the hardest moments in parenting for my Mom and Dad to have to tell my brother and I that Chris killed himself.
Jon and I didn't attend the funeral. My parents decided to go through with my surgery, which happend to be the day of his service. Even in those early days, when everything is so fresh and difficult they knew they had to keep our lives going.
Chris had 2 babies when he died. They didn't even know their Dad. God, when I look at this kids now I just see him and he makes me sad that they never knew him. I look at his wife and admire her. She moved on and kept living. When I spent some time with her recently, she even mentioned Chris. That made me so happy. I think about my aunt and uncle, I think about how this loss feels to them
I think about the others I know who've lost like this. I think about my two friends who lost a brother a couple years ago. I think about what it felt like to hug them at the wake, and how my heart ached for them. I can't even fathom how hard it must be to lose a sibling to sucide, or a parent or a child.
Loss like this reminds you how precious life is. In this Thanksgiving sesason, it's important that we remember this.
Links:
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_ID=FEE7D778-CF08-CB44-DA1285B6BBCF366E
Ahoy-hoy is how Mr. Burns on the Simpsons answers the telephone. Great stuff, I tell ya!
So, as you may already know, I went to see Billy Corgan this weekend. It was not a Smashing Pumpkins concert. But rumor has it they're going to start a tour in Spring 2010.
I started the day out by hearing the opening music lines from the Beavis & Butthead theme. Perfect I thought. Pop icons from the 1990’s starting the day that I was making my way down to NYC to see one of the greatest musicians from the 1990’s (and today) – Billy Corgan.
We rode the Amtrak down on the dreary day, but of course that didn’t bother me. This was the day that I got to listen to Billy have a dialogue about an image from C.G. Jung’s Red Book at the Rubin Museum of Art. Yes, it’s true I had no idea who Jung was or what this Red Book was about before I decided to attend this event. So like any good academic, I did my research.
Carl Gusav Jung was a German Psychologist who at one point in his life worked closely with Freud, but they had a falling out in about Jung’s mid-life. Jung created the visually impressive Red Book over the course of years. A short video is available here: http://bit.ly/3nKl8I
Since I’ve been attending Smashing Pumpkins/Billy Corgan related events for almost 15 years now, I know that if an event is general admission you must arrive early. This is because surprisingly, there are people out there like me. Dave and I arrived 2 hours ahead of time. There were not people lined up outside the theater (housed inside the museum) so we explored the museum a bit, then got in line at with just about 1 hour left ‘til show time.
Waiting in lines generally pays off for me, and this time was no exception. We got some sweet front row seats with a few other very nice fans. We all ended up with great seats so that was great (I'm taking front and center here, folks!)
Billy and Morgan went back and forth for over an hour analyzing one particular image from the Red Book:
Billy compared the fish to a monster. Billy said that the monster wasn't the obvious monster and that "I lived with a monster in New York." Billy also talked about how record companies tried to manipulate what he did/change him- it's really clear why he is going to release a collection of 44 songs on his own... and for free.
Billy also offered criticism of the internet/technology throughout the dialogue. The Smashing Pumpkins online community has been nasty for years, and Billy called the internet a place to vomit (I assume he meant language or textual vomit) or something like that.
There was a Question and Answer session, and of course my hand shot up. I received the privilege of asking the second question. When my turn came about, I said "Hi Billy. During the dialogue here you've offered some criticism regarding the internet and technology. But you're always blogging, you have smashingpumpkins.com and you're always communicating with the fans via the internet. So why are you so critical, you must think it's good for something?" or something like that... I asked because I was genuinely curious, it was relevant to the discussion and it was relevant to my academic work.
It was really interesting having your "pop-culture" address my question and speak directly to me in a room of 100 people. He answered that he did believe it did bring some people together who wouldn't normally have the opportunity to communicate (so true.) He then brought up how he just decided that he just had to let the sp.com community "kill themselves" if they wanted - or something like that.
My favorite question of the day came from another fan, a guy probably my age also sitting in the front row. He started off by saying "I listen to a lot of music, but there's no body of work that I've connected to like I have to yours" this was awesome, because it's a great description of my relationship with his music. He continued to ask about the meanings of a few lyrics, The world is a vampire and The more you change the less you feel.
Billy responded that The world is a vampire just came out- he didn't think to hard about that one. He then said that he wouldn't write the line The more you change the less you feel today.That was my high school senior quote. I agree that I wouldn't have picked that quote today myself. I'm not into numbness as of late.
Here are a couple short videos (about 2 mins. a piece)
And... here is the end- When BC sat on the stage RIGHT in front of me, which was pretty damn cool.
I'm well on my way to becoming a Ubuntu (Linux) fan-girl (fan-woman?.)
Dave & I just completed our second successful (2 out of 2!) Ubuntu 9.04 install.
We finally broke down and set up a second bootable drive in Dave's computer and now we're running Windows 7 & Ubuntu along side eachother, which I may say is pretty neat.
Isn't Ubuntu pretty?:
I'm still in the "figuring out how everything works" phase in Ubuntu, but with the experience I gained from using it on my old box, I've learned how to get around in the terminal using commands. It's amazing how I can do pretty much anything I can do on a Windows OS on this system and it's OPEN SOURCE! If I had kids, I'd set them up with Ubuntu on their computers, less risk of virus' which would lead to a decrease in frustion for me as parent.
There are organizations for women involved in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), which I would love to be involved in at some point (perhaps during a school break.)
My favorite part of installing Ubuntu was when you were done with the installation CD, you were instructed to "Please remove the disk, close the tray (if any) and press ENTER to continue". I liked that it said "Please" and menioned "if any" in regards to the tray. Politeness and attention to detail, I like that.
Since Alyssa Menneto got all awesome and started to blog about her semester in London (which will most likely be more interesting than my situation- since she's livin' it up going clubbin' over there at Tiger Tiger) I decided that I needed to use my blog account.
I just started attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) as a grad student working on my Masters of Science in Human-Computer Interaction. Up until about two years ago I never imagined I'd be studying anything of like that, but I must say I am happy I found the program and happy RPI wanted me too. The program feels like a natural place to pick up where I left off as an undergrad (a comm major who was very heavy into visual communication, graphics, photography, and other technology.) So far, it seems to involve a variety of topics I am very interested in. I'll be sure to share my work & details about this adventure as they unfold.
I've always been a fan of technology- up until a few years ago I was somewhat intimidated by it, thinking I wasn't savvy or smart enough to harness (help create) it. I was always a user, but now I am happy to be getting deeper into the world of helping to make it.
I just completed another Adobe Dreamweaver tutorial, I am really digging the program. It's great that I can take what I have learned in the past about HTML and use the program to expand my horizons in the page building world. I would like to learn a little more about other programming languages, like Java. I read a little bit about Ruby and Ruby on Rails too. (I'm open to any advice anyone might have too!)
In my Theory & Research class last week, we were asked to reminisce about a favorite childhood memory of technology. I spoke of the times my brother and I would slither over to the neighbor's house to play their Sega Genesis, in particular the game Altered Beast. Lately I'm not really into gaming, but there's something about 1990's era video games that just put a grin on my face.
I especially liked this Satan-thing that repeatedly threw his face at you.
I'm also getting married next year, to a great man named Dave Levis. I'll also have to share details about that adventure too. I just busted him looking at centerpieces @ theknot.com. It was very sweet. I'm lucky that he cares about the wedding.
