It’s me again.

Hello.

I got home about an hour and a half ago.  On the train, I read two articles, then stuck my headphones in and knitted for the rest of the journey.  And it was blissful.

I got back home to discover… more metaphorical hugs than I could have hoped or wished for.  It made me grin from ear to ear – exactly as it did when I checked my blog at His Nibs’ earlier, and discovered some of the comments here.  I think you ought to know that it made up for the fact that the floor space in the living room is nil, and that in the hall is rapidly diminishing.  It made up for the distinct lack of heat in my bedroom and all the textbooks and bits of paper and folders and washing dumped on my bed that I hadn’t had time to sort on Friday.  It almost – not quite – made up for the fact that the kitchen is a biological warzone and nobody appears to have done any washing up since I left.  But all in all, you know, feeling like you have a bit of back-up, a safety net if you will, makes all the difference.  (And, I have to say, discovering a new lurker always cheers me up!  Fantastic!)

I’ve also realised how very much I’m looking forward to going home for a bit next week.  And to having these essays finished.  These are the thoughts that are pushing me through at the moment.

Anyway, it’s been a wonderful weekend.  And you’re all just as responsible for that as purple sock yarn, lemon drizzle cake, Coraline, charity shopping and nearly black tights.  So thank you.

Look after yourself

One night, you are out late.  Until half past three, to be precise, helping people you care about a lot clear up the detritus of people you couldn’t tell from Adam, and then you get home, have your dinner – which has been waiting on the kitchen table since six the previous evening, nine and a half hours since dinner time and you can’t even tell – and fall straight into bed at just gone four.

You are up at half past nine because you have a careers talk – sitting in a lecture theatre while people tell you how hard you’re going to have to work to have a chance of doing something so very prestigious, all the research and preparation you’ll have to do, even though you don’t want to do it anyway.  (My options appear to be thus: Barrister.  If not; solicitor.  If not; finance.  Or You Could Go Into The EU, That’s A Bit Different, We’ve Had People Do That Before.)  You start to worry a bit about why you are where you are, and what you’re trying to achieve.  Who thought something you enjoy for the time being could only serve to push you in directions you don’t want to go?  I chose Law over Maths because I thought I could do what I want to do with it.  Now I don’t know what I want to do, just that it isn’t this.

Ignore it.  Pull yourself together and spend the next five hours in the library, solidly.  Try and understand what you’re doing, you’ve got an essay due on it soon.  You might want to start writing that too, if you’ve done enough work for it.  Your call.

You’re supposed to be half an hour’s walk away at eight o’clock.  Do the maths.  Eat beans on toast in an empty house, and set off at nine.  Ring home while you’re walking and find out how everyone is, because God knows when you’ll get another chance to do it.

Excuse yourself early, start walking home about a quarter to midnight.  Look neither left nor right because if you see anyone, or any drunken students start a conversation with you, you’re just going to burst into tears.  (I wonder if they’ll remember, and if they’re paranoid it’s their fault now.)

Your fingernails have been full of muck for a good twenty-four hours and you haven’t brushed your hair in coming up to a week now.  It ought to be disgusting, and it used to be something you’d never do.  Isn’t that interesting?

This is a request to everyone at the moment.  The nights are drawing in, the workload is getting longer, the stress is creeping up on all of us.  Please, it’s not much, but I’m asking you to ask people how they are.  They might be people you see every day, you live with, you work with, or people miles away, counties away, that you ought to share things with a bit.  Just, when you see them, or speak to them, say, “How are you?”  It’s not a big thing.  They might say, “I’m fine,” and leave it at that, and just feel a bit closer to fine.  They might say, “I’m really busy,” and being busy feels just that bit more legitimate, for once.  Or they might tell you they’re feeling worn down, or they had a really good lecture earlier, or that they have a hundred and one things to think about.  Bu please, please ask them, because if someone starts to go a while without switching off or shutting down, if they turn into an automaton for a bit without really realising it, and nobody stops them for a second and just gently reminds them that they have emotions too and that’s okay, and they’re interested, even if they’re only slightly interested… they might find themselves wandering through the middle of town at nothing o’clock in the morning with their hands stuffed in their pockets and just bursting into tears with the emptiness of switching off and finding there’s nothing inside themselves to fall back on.  I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

I’m not about the next few days.  See you on Sunday night or more likely Monday.  Sorry to everyone if this was a bit gut-spewy but I haven’t anywhere else to put it and blogging is all the vanity I have at the moment.  I’m still a teenager technically so I’m afraid it’s going to have to be okay.

On swing dancing and GCSEs

Tonight I went swing dancing, for the second time in my life.  For reference, the first time in my life was an hour’s beginner lesson yesterday afternoon in which we learned the Charleston and one or two variations on same, and basically hopped about being enthusiastic.  For further reference, I have since discovered that the Charleston bears no resemblance to the basic Lindy Hop step in the slightest, which, also for the reference, goes a bit like this: ‘one, two, YUNK-a-tunk, five, six, YUNK-a-tunk…’ which differs from the Jive (which I’ve been doing for years) in one beat somewhere about the five and six and means I keep getting hopelessly lost every other bar.

On the other hand… well, it was really good fun.  The thing about being a girl dancing with a man who’s leading is that you spin where you’re spun, you move where you’re moved and you follow where you’re led.  You concentrate on where the signs lead you but other than that, it’s not your dance – it’s his dance and he’s making it up as he goes along.  Which is half the fun – like a game, if he sends you into three consecutive spins, can you keep going?  I’m not one for the clubbing at all, and this is very much my kind of losing yourself in the music.  (Which, I might add, is excellent.  And only occasionally foxtrot music.)

One of the things I love about swing dancing – and about social partnered dancing in general – is being asked to dance.  It is excellent.  There is something kind of tingly about being stood at the edge of a ballroom, and being asked to dance, and dancing, and saying thank you, and then being asked to dance by someone else and dancing with them.  I’m very lucky that my ordinary Ballroom partner and I have our own signals in terms of ‘I’m going to go in that direction now, you’d probably better come too or you’re going to be trodden on’, and we’ve been dancing together long enough and learned enough together that the leading and the following comes pretty naturally most of the time.  So even though I’d barely done it before I had no trouble getting up on the dance floor, letting him show me the basic rhythm, and then just going for it.  This is a pretty big thing, and a credit to him more than anything else: me a year ago would have under no circumstances agreed to start dancing a rhythm I’d only ever tried once, with steps I’d never tried before (although I’ve tried similar ones, so I suppose it wasn’t too bad), in front of a whole lot of people I’d met for the first time that evening.

This year, I’ve learned the gentle art of muddling through, pretending you know what’s going on, and making an arse out of yourself in front of people you don’t know with some degree of grace.  It doesn’t always work.  There is so much to be said for trusting someone to lead you, and being trusted to follow them.  There is so much to be said for asking someone to dance, and so much to be said for accepting it.  If you’ve never done it before, I very much recommend taking social partnered dance classes – I like salsa, but Swing/Lindy Hop is my new favourite.  There is so much to be said for spending four minutes not talking but being in it together.

Anyone who knew me at the age of about fifteen is probably staring with eyebrows raised at the moment.  Being asked to dance is akin to being bought a drink, and following the lead of some unknown male is akin to denying the revolution!  Well, sod it.  I’d only done it once, this evening.  I’m missing the next two lots of classes, for various reasons.  But by the end of this term, when I have a bit more confidence in my own ability to dance the right dance at the right time, I’ll be asking people for dances too, and probably learning the man’s steps and everything.  You see if I don’t.

As for the GCSEs, I wrote my CV yesterday.  I’m sure nobody’s interested, they can’t be, can they?  CV-writing always makes me worry.  Argh.

A Hint of Sticks and String

It’s been a while since the old sticks and string got a post to itself so I thought I’d give you a bit of an update on what’s been happening when I’ve not been in the library and/or theatre.  (I’m not going to lie, I’ve been knitting in lectures.  Lawyerly Housemate finds this very amusing.)

Yesterday, I was horribly ill and missed my first tutorial ever (bugger), and generally spent the day sleeping, watching Criminal Justice and feeling sorry for myself.  I’m therefore taking it as a sign that Linguist Housemate is in fact a saint, that she provided me with lemon tea, sympathy, and the best piece of post, possibly, that I’ve received all term.  (Close second is the little book of Winnie the Pooh quotations Mum sent me up last week with my post from home because she knew I was in the theatre, which made me smile all day, and is currently residing tucked in my Filofax to remind me not to panic when I see what I have to catch up on.)

Said post turned out to be my copy of Whimsical Little Knits 2 by Ysolda Teague.  For those who haven’t come across it before, this is a booklet (the second in a series, surprisingly) with twelve small projects in it – each of which has come out online once a week for the last few months.  And I’ve been so excited by them.  This came from there (the shawl not the sister):

…which you may remember from way back when.  Also the brown hat she’s wearing (of which I made another lovely green one for her birthday because I just loved the pattern so much):

(Isn’t it beautiful?  Suits Midge so well – although I didn’t get a photo before she left to go home.  Shall probably get some over Christmas.)  There are also several other patterns I fully intend to have a go at/have already earmarked for Christmas presents for various people.  I can honestly say – and this is rare for books of knitting patterns – that there is only one in there that I wouldn’t knit.  Every single design is so well thought out, beautifully executed, with such attention to detail.  So when I saw she’d signed it (-homigod-) I decided there was no point in denying it, for everyone must indulge in a little fangirling at some point in their careers.

In terms of the projects I’m doing at the moment, well, here is another snippet of the cardigan (which you may or may not have guessed is another Ysolda design.  You can probably find out very easily what it is, now.  But what the heck, I can only see bits of it at the moment, so can you!):

Garter stitch!  Lots of it!  Yay for garter stitch, I love garter stitch.  And I love the colour of the yarn!  Still undecided about the cotton, though.  It’s not got the smooshiness of wool blends.  The cardigan’s gone on hold for a bit though, because the deadline for this is coming up:

(I’m sorry it’s a bit wonky, I promise it’ll look far better when it’s blocked!)  This is the makings of a shawl that I’m test-knitting for this lovely lady on Ravelry.  The pattern’s called Haze, and it’s beautiful and drapey and the fact that the yarn I’m using is laceweight wool/silk mix, which is so very soft, in such a glorious dark purple, makes me unspeakably happy.  So it’s all guns blazing on this one at the moment.  It’s a complicated pattern, and involves a lot of counting, but I’ve just got this feeling that the finished object is going to be so worth it.

“But Fiona,” you may well say, “something is missing!  Surely there is something that you are always knitting, something that you don’t feel complete without having at least one of on the needles at any given moment!  Where is your comfort knitting?”  The answer to this question lies with this very blue mystery:

It’s also linked somewhat to the revelation that, if there’s something that irritates me even more than miles of 2×2 ribbing, then it’s 3×1 ribbing.  I can’t get into a rhythm and I’ve discovered, to my own disappointment, that I hate it beyond all rationality.  The blue’s nice, though.  I might have to get some more for myself.

Note on a well-rounded education

I’ve just spent the last hour on fanlore.com – I found it via a Google search, if you’re wondering – with my mouth wide open clicking link after link.  Honestly, it’s just as engrossing as Wikipedia.  Only… I feel kind of dirty now.

At one point in my life, at about the age of fourteen, I made The Decision as to which route of geekiness I was going to go down.  At the time I chose the maths route; probably this has now been amended to yarn.  But I was so close you would not believe to going down the fanfiction route.  So close that now, I’m always just that little bit fascinated in a “If I wasn’t cringeing so hard I might get to like this” kind of way.

I’m not going to lie, I thought ’slash’ was either indicative of violence, or what you did in an alley at two in the morning on the way back from the pub.  I think I’ve been reading The Internet wrong for years.

Anyway, I just thought you’d like to know.

To Remember

‘Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot… But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know, in 1605, he attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. But who was he really? What was he like? We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world. I’ve witnessed first hand the power of ideas, I’ve seen people kill in the name of them, and die defending them… but you cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it… ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love… And it is not an idea that I miss, it is a man… A man that made me remember the Fifth of November. A man that I will never forget.’ – V for Vendetta

This makes me uneasy, mainly for the reason of confusion between speaking up, and speaking up for the greater good.  Obviously in V for Vendetta, the implication is for the latter, but questioning and not automatically doing what someone tells you to do is very much seen as a positive thing, in theory – Disney’s all for telling small children to break the mould (in the most conventional way possible, of course), and it’s a massive part of marketing to people of all ages.

Freedom of expression is a wonderful, wonderful thing, and as a society, luckily, for the most part we’ve embraced it.  But, leaving the governmental conspiracy theories aside, Guy Fawkes’s idea was not the overthrowing of a totalitarian government for the good of the populace in general, it was the overthrowing of a Protestant government for the good of Catholics.  To say that it’s a wonderful idea worthy of people’s lives is, well, romanticising it a bit.  It’s also cheering the underdog to a great degree.  That’s not to say that it’s not a wonderful idea, just that it gets overemphasised a bit.

Equally, these days, freedom of expression is not always something we agree with.  I’m not talking about high-level cover-ups, I’m talking about things like this website here, which while very amusing always unsettles me slightly – everyone’s entitled to their freedom of expression and ideas, unless they’re too stupid to have proper ideas.  Or to be informed.  If you’re not informed, you can’t tell us what you think, and if you do, we will lampoon you because we have the superiority here.  It’s very fashionable these days.

There has to be a line drawn somewhere, of course.  Unlimited freedom of expression can be overwhelming, to start off with, never mind potentially damaging in a myriad of ways.  I think what I particularly want to say is that really, I object to people not just sitting down, shutting up and listening for a bit.  Everyone is entitled to my opinion.  They are also fully entitled to disregard it entirely.  The romanticising of speaking out for the greater good (but only with a certain point of view, otherwise you’ll get ripped to shreds) strikes me as a bit on the unhealthy side.

Probably unrelatedly, I had a dream last night, that I was in a flat about four storeys up with seven or eight  people I know relatively well from university.  My housemates were all there, for a start, and a few others.  And two others were coming to visit us.  (Does this sound a bit familiar to anyone, if my housemates are reading this?)  So one of these two others rang me to say they were downstairs and could I come and get them, so off I went, down this spiral staircase to go and find them, and there they were out in the street and as we’re coming back up the stairs I said something jokingly about something awful I did last year.  They laughed, and started to insult me.  When we got up to the flat they mentioned it and the others started to join in – even the ones who never join in with that sort of thing.  Eventually it got to the stage where one of the people I respect most wouldn’t even look at me, and they were telling me to get my things and move out.  Now.  So I stood up, and told the one who had started it exactly what I thought of him – he was a bully, picking on people he thought he could he could get away with picking on, and he needed to grow up and get over himself.  But they all looked at me, and I think some of them sympathised, but none of them said anything.  So I left, and I was walking down the street in the cold and pitch black with a cardboard box of my things when I woke up.

This also makes me uneasy.

Eleven o’clock

Last night was the first night of Iolanthe.  I’ve now spent three consecutive thirteen-hour days in that theatre.  It went well, I think, far better than the tech and marginally better than the dress run (which was alright, actually).  I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of actors’ pre-show nerves – does that make me a bit weird?  It’s not in a vindictive way, it’s sort of like seeing other people concentrating in the library, and sort of that it reminds me why I’m doing what I’m doing.  Essentially my job in the theatre is to make them look good, and make people take them seriously.  Actors’ pre-show nerves remind me that I might work bloody hard but that my job is supplementary and that my reward is when they take it seriously, and look good from it.  I think they looked good.  There’s tweaking to do, but I think they looked good.  (Thank you Lucy, by the way, glad you enjoyed it!)

I didn’t set an alarm last night because I was shattered and until about half past five this afternoon I don’t have a set timetable.  So I woke up at a quarter to nine, decided to have another twenty minutes and now it’s eleven o’clock.  I don’t know where it went.  My housemate says clearly I needed the extra sleep.  I did, but you know, I think I might have needed the extra working time more.  Never mind, onwards and upwards.

First picture of cardigan-related joy:

This is the yarn I’m using (picture shamelessly pilfered from the internet, sorry, I couldn’t get the saturation right – credited to yarnandfiber.com) – it’s Rowan Cotton Jeans in Sailcloth and I bought it in Liberty in London when I was up with Marcus over the summer (remember this stuff, love?) in a sale (£15 for ten 50g balls of Rowan? I should say so!).  It’s now, I believe, most of the way to discontinued.  It’s a bit weird, the twist is funny and, um, I know a lot of people who’ve seen me knit it are a bit dubious about the colour.  But I assure you when it’s knitted up it looks FAB, and it works with blue jeans like nobody’s business.  I’m usually not so much a fan of the cotton, I’m a wool blend girl myself, but you know, it’s definitely growing on me.  And I’m using up the stash as well, so It’s All Good, really.

Speaking of the stash, I direct any lurking knitters to www.laughingyaffle.com – it’s full of inexpensive luxury handdyed sock yarn.  Yes it exists.  I… haven’t just bought two colourways.  Nor have I got my eye on about a dozen more.  That would just be shallow.

I think I just love colour, you know.

The unexpected ‘woe is me’ post

It’s a quarter past one in the morning.  I got back from the tech run for Iolanthe about twenty minutes ago.

To say it went well would be probably true, in a roundabout kind of way, although it was bloody hard work.  Some things never fail to amaze me, like the inability of people to see outside the tunnel vision of directly what affects them, the seeming propensity of actors to be really lovely people and yet trample on your feelings, patience and intentions so effectively (what does the sentence, ‘This is my rehearsal, you’ve had yours and I listened to you and told you how well you were doing and paid you attention and let you work things out at your pace, so can’t you shut up for five minutes while I try and recover this train wreck of a stage?’ mean to you?), and of course that innate ability of people in production teams to chuck every single issue they’ve had in the last week at you in the space of five minutes.

And of course, the way some people manage to realise that what you’d love most in the world after doing one of the bits of a show you most hate is a cup of coffee, a bourbon biscuit, a bit of a confidence boost and a natter.  Maybe it’s the sort of thing you notice in people when you’ve worked with them for a year or so, or maybe it’s just that some people are destined to sainthood.  Particularly the man who made me a cup of coffee at half past eleven when I’d shouted myself hoarse, and the girl who turned up mid-afternoon with a hug, an excess of enthusiasm and a carrier bag of chocolate doughnuts.  When sanctimonious people tell you to ‘pay it forward’, this is presumably what they mean.  It’s got to be.

Tech rehearsals over which I have to preside are absolute anathema to me.  I can’t stand them.  Especially with a large cast, where they don’t do as they’re told, and then moan that it’s taking forever.  I turn into a Guider and that’s bad.  These people are some of them older than me and I’m treating them like eleven year olds.  I hate it.  But it has to be done because if you don’t do that you get walked over.  Tech rehearsals make me resigned to the fact that yes, at heart, I am a pushover.  I just want other people to enjoy themselves.  It makes me sick that I can’t do that, and it makes me sick that I feel the worse because I can’t do that.

Hopefully, though, there’ll be a good show.  Hopefully it’ll be successful.  Hopefully things will go well and then at the aftershow party all the tech team will be ignored because if it’s good tech you won’t know it’s there.  And hopefully – I can’t believe this still matters to me, it makes me sicker than all the rest put together – I’ll get asked back.

And then some

November. So what’s happening in November?

Iolanthe’s on this week – shows are from Wednesday to Saturday – and I’m so excited. It’s my first proper show in the Assembly Rooms this year and it’s going to be so much fun.  I’ve been in rehearsals all this week and it’s been the most fun I’ve had since, well, the last DULOG (Durham University Light Opera Group – they do all the musicals) show that I called.  Hard work, certainly, but the cast is fantastic, ditto the production team, and I’m back in my theatre with my friends working on my shows to the exclusion of all else.  This time last year I was WAY out of my depth.  But now, it’s where I’m comfortable.  I’m doing what I do again.  Plus it’s Gilbert and Sullivan – and who doesn’t love a bit of the old G&S?  I’m sure I’ll be talking about it a lot.

And then the week after that, off I trot to Castle for a rather exciting production of Murder in the Cathedral.  In Castle Great Hall.   We’re putting up truss in a Grade I listed building again.  Who in their right mind turns down a chance to work with stage lighting and a chamber choir in the great hall of a medieval castle?  I worked there on Carmen last year and it just blows you away, the surroundings, and also what you’re doing in there.

So that’s what I’m crowing about at the moment.

It’s November, so what does that mean craft-wise?  A new month’s yarn budget for me, hurrah hurrah, a new Mystery sock (I don’t know what it’ll look like yet but the moment I do there shall be overexcited snap-happiness with the camera – hoping to cast on in the next week somewhen) and – joy of joys – my first cardigan.  It was going to be one of these but after swatching I discovered it looked all wrong – the yarn I’d set aside wasn’t nearly thick enough.  So with the help of Ravelry and a bit of sodding about on the internet… I’ve found a cardigan, and I cast on this morning.  It doesn’t really look like anything at the moment.  But it will do.  Let’s just say that it’s an old favourite designer of mine, and that it’s exciting.  It had to be, really.  There will be owl jumper at another point, I hope, but for the time being, I’m just soakin’ up the i-cord.

Yeeeeah.

Show of Hands

‘The Law is the true embodiment
Of everything that’s excellent.
It has no kind of fault or flaw,
And I, my Lords, embody the Law.’

- The Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, lyrics by WS Gilbert

Techie Towers has turned somewhat into a hotel for various people’s younger sisters plus entourage – Katie’s was up a few weeks ago, Alex’s is on the sofa downstairs as we speak, and my ever-magnetic Midge was here over the weekend – hence the lack of updates, the lack of work and the lack of attention span.  (If you get the chance to see Fantastic Mr Fox while it’s in the cinema – do.  And sit next to someone who’s a parent.  It’s double the amusement, I assure you.)  I miss having her about, now.  Durham is a completely different place when you’re in it with someone you have to entertain, but also look after a bit.  I miss mornings in cafés talking about everything.

The fact of the matter is that my sister is now at the age where she’s growing up a bit – she’s just discovered boys, alcopops and neat vodka.  You remember it, I’m sure.  Not that she’s in any way abusing any of these, just discovering them, and it sort of makes me nostalgic for the days when that was all new to me as well.  In some ways I think it was good to be terrified by all these new things that affect your head and make you do things you wouldn’t otherwise have done.  Everyone else was terrified too.  It was exciting.  I made such a hash of it first time round.

Went to see Show of Hands at the Gala on Saturday night with Midge and a few others.  (T, I’m terribly sorry for not inviting you along but we didn’t actually have a sofa free at that point and there’s only so many people you can fit in a house intended for four people.  Hope you don’t mind too much.)  It was spectacular.  Not only in the professional skill (we counted a good fifteen instruments on stage between three people – Miranda Sykes was with them and my god, what that woman can do with a double bass), but also the showmanship.  Midge pronounced it ‘Fi music’, partly as a result of it being two middle aged men with guitars.  I would have said so myself if I were her.  But to be honest, there aren’t many occasions I’m going to find myself in the same room singing along with the sort of people I was in the same room as, singing along with, on Saturday night, and I loved it.  I thought it was electric.

The guy behind me was pissed out of his skull.

Having finished with the catch-up, then, I thought I’d share this with you:

I’m reading a case at the moment for a tutorial next week.  It’s called R (ProLife Alliance) v British Broadcasting Corporation and it’s about the 1997 elections, where the BBC wouldn’t let the ProLife Alliance show pictures of just-aborted foetuses, among other things, on television in its Party Political Broadcast.  It’s a very interesting case.  It’s a difficult issue, and there are a lot of other very difficult issues jostling to be noticed and acted upon that shouldn’t be noticed and acted upon.  There’s also a description of the images that weren’t allowed to be shown.  It’s not an easy case to read and it’s not an easy case to read objectively.

In the event, ProLife Alliance were, of course, allowed their four-minute slot on TV for their election broadcast.  They just weren’t allowed to show any of the images – the screen was left blank and only the audio was used, and the House of Lords found with a majority of four Lords to one that that was okay.  I can’t quite think about it properly – I’m usually as forceful an advocate of freedom of expression as you could hope to find.  But this… it was a tough decision for ProLife to make, for the BBC to make and for the courts to make.  I’m interested to know what you think.