Days on the waitlist: 1

As it turns out the woman who found the cat has decided to keep it. So no cat. I’ll probably scope out the animal shelters just to see, but I think this means I’ll wait on the cat till I move out on my own. Hopefully the fall. That’ll make things easier I think. In any case this is the second time that we’ve almost gotten a cat but had it fall through. (A dancing-friend’s daughter’s (siamese) cat had kittens in the late summer, and we wanted one, but it didn’t work out).

These things happen.

Not much else in the way of news.

Knitting Department I got my extra skein of yarn in the mail for this sweater, so though I’m not making a lot of progress there (it’s so fine) I really want to get this sweater knocked out. It’s been too long, and I need closure. There will be pictures. My goal is the end of the weekend for the sleeve, and this time next week with the hem and business.

Television and Knitting Department I’ve been watching the second season of Boston Legal during my knitting, which I do so enjoy. I think I have Blake’s 7 and Jeremiah on my computer to watch, but I’ve found the pacing on the former to be frightful and the second one to be… difficult, at the moment. We’ll see what I try next. I think there’ll be torchwood to watch tomorrow.

I’ll be around. See you…

Dear Readers,

Each of the past four days, I feel better than the last. Unfortunately, I still feel on average, like crap, so while I’m a ways away from feeling on top of my game, I think positive progress is a good thing.

Whereas the anger and hurt and what not had been pretty incapacitating for the past couple of days, I felt productively angry for the first time in a while, and this is good. Resiliency is a great thing. I’ve thought about, if it comes to it, trying again with feminist studies programs, but I think I’m too disillusioned and career prospects are way too dire. But the wait isn’t over.

I spent most of the last couple of days figuring out the pattern for this new sweater. I played with, probably a dozen different ideas on the computer, and actually tried knitting 4 things. This means, that I, tycho garen, actually made a swatch. It was a shock to me too. We’ll ignore for the moment

We’ll also ignore the fact that the decision that I have arrived at was in fact the first design that I eyeballed and decided against. This leads me to my first maxim of knitting: trust your first instinct, always. If you do this, swatching is irrelevant, if you doubt yourself, you must swatch endlessly.

I jest, but it does seem to hold true for me.

My second rule, I think, is that cuffs of sleeves, in cases where you want a snug, comfortable cuff, should be knit as the beginning of a typical sock in that yarn. I don’t think that this is the right way to figure this out, but it does seem to work. I think my main grief with Elizabeth Zimmerman style sweaters (aside from the fact that the shaping/styling is mostly out of date by no, which is fine, but it means that you have to hack the system pretty consistently) is that sleeve dimensions don’t vary as much as body circumference dimensions vary.

In other news… A friend of a friend found a kitten the other night, and it looks like we’re going to get it tomorrow. It’s not an absolute baby (looks more like it’s 5-ish months old) but it appears to be sweet. I have to work today, but it looks like tomorrow is going to be spent gathering additional cat supplies and figuring out quarantine. I already have a vet appointment.

Anyway. Hope you’re doing well too.

Cheers,

tycho

Waitlisted at last school. It could be a month and change before I know for sure. I feel pretty good about it, but it’s of course a crapshoot. but then it has always been a crapshoot.

So, who knows.

sigh

By g-d this had better come through.

Hey folks.

So I’m off to run errands and do things today, but I’d like to generate some cat names, so that I/we have something good to choose from when I meet the cat, if this indeed works out. And I want your help. Here are some notes:

1. Can’t reuse a name that we’ve already used/had/have on an animal in this household/family (Mouse, Fred/Phred, Ribbon, Crosby, Nash, and Montana are out).
2. We generally try and avoid giving people names to animals on the occasion that we might come across someone with the same name in our day to day life, so no Johns, Jims, Stuarts, Chris', Brians and so forth.
3. This is a boy cat. I prefer cross gender pet names that are absurd--eg. girl dogs names Rodney, boy cats named Alice--to more subtle example of this naming genre--eg. boy cats named Rydra (the protaganist of Samuel Delany’s novel Babel-17)
4. Naming after minor celebrities/passing fads is probably something that I’d like to avoid. Thus, there should be ample argument with the suggestion to name a cat something like Ianto or Starbuck.
5. Naming after living folk/academic idols that I might--even conceptually--cross paths with at some point even if I think they’re really awesome and way too famous for me.
6. I consider naming anything living or otherwise after a character in a book/story (but not a person) whose dies tragically, to be bad luck, generally, and avoid it.

I’ve been thinking about something sort geeky/literary/sf-y/queer. Authors, nicknames, good characters from books, Here are the ideas that I’ve had so far.

• Kip (after one of the main characters in Brightness Falls from the Air by James Tiptree, also I just realized in my novella from earlier this year, though I spelled that Kyp.) I think this is leading. Has diminutive possibilities of “Kipster” and “Kiptron”. Heh.
• Pace (from Brightness, very minor character)
• Delany or Tip(tree), though conflict with number 5, on the former.
• Trouble (after leading character in Melissa Scott’s Trouble and her Friends, though I think Melissa actually had a cat named this, and as she’s a contact in the extended social network, I think that would be potentially creepy. Also possible jinx regarding “trait” names, and minor boy/girl ironies unintended.)
• Saphir or Whorf (after the saphir-whorf hypothesis.) Though the latter has possible confusion with a certain Klingon silent-h) and the former isn’t as worth commemorating. Other (dead) good anthropologists/social scientists? Gertz is hard to name for: and No cats named Clif, I think.
• Any post-structuralists worth naming after that aren’t asinine? Deleuze, for instance, is probably a no go.

Please do elaborate. Other writers/characters I should think of?

Vote early and often!

In addition to getting word of the rejection from WesternState, I also got a form letter rejection from TopChoiceSchool this weekend. The total result: “wow, lets not have a weekend like that for a while, alright folks?”

I think that the rejection from WesternState hurt so much, in part because I had an extensive interview with them and it seemed so certain. As a result, where most rejections are easily interpreted as “not enough room, and there are other people who are better suited,” this one was very much felt like, “sorry, you’re not right for this kind of program and we wish you well.” I didn’t loose a competition to other people, so much as I failed to impress.

The issue is that--and this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone--I’m not a very quantitatively minded fellow. But I’m interested in issues that are best addressed by a very quant-ish discipline. But I’m really not opposed to quant work, and in fact sort of enjoy it. The issue in the rejection was that I wasn’t a good fit for a “traditional quantitative program.” Frankly I think I was probably too queer for them, though that’s difficult to suss out.

Though this has all left me pretty angry, the truth is that I was never very wild about the prospect of WesternState, so while rejection--particularly this one--sucks, it’s probably not the worst thing in the world. What it does mean, is that I’m more precariously concentrating on my one remaining program, which is probably a pretty good option for me (and it’s very qualitative and post-structuralist which makes me quite happy.)

I’m also percolating on other options, of course, nothing quite concrete yet. I’m thinking about spending some time trying to do something like tech-writing, or systems administration, or user interface research/design in a city nearer to a group of friends (philly?). If I apply again (in maybe 2 years?) I’ll probably try for feminist studies, and there’s an anthropologist at NYU that would be really great to work with. Who knows. Hopefully this will be moot in a few days.

I have a couple of quick news items, in case I don’t get around to posting again.

• I’ve started a new sweater. Well, just the first sleeve, for entertainment until the yarn necessary to finish the last sleeve of my sweater. But I’ve done all the pattern development and centering and what not, and I must say that I really like it.
• When ordered the extra skein for the in-progres sweater, I bought yarn for a new sweater, and it is my intention to knit this sweater as a sort of performance piece with you all. I’ll post the chart, instructions on getting the yarn, and doing substitution, and then I’ll write instructions and design process stuff as it happens, and we can all fallow along.
• My “s” key on the computer is on the fritz. It’s not too bad, but minnorly annoying.

Anyway, Onward and Upward!

A lot of writers keep blogs, and I take “writer” to mean, people whose output (creative and/or professional) is text in cases where the writing is an end to itself. Everyone writes--that’s a symptom of an information world--but there is a difference between journalists, novelist, and the epidemiologist: everyone trades in words, but for a lot of people who all work in words, the writing is a communicative medium and often not meant to be read in any orderly way. Which is fine, I’m just trying to be concrete.

Anyway, “the writer’s blog” is pretty common, and I think this is really cool. The thing about blogs is that it’s largely the “people’s medium,” so having the same people’s names in your feed reader and bookshelf makes writers more accessible, more human, less distant and very much “alive."¹ This is a good thing.

At the same time, an embarrassing proportion of writer’s blogs are about writing, about particular writer’s experiences with the business of writing, experiences with the practice and craft of writing. Now this isn’t surprising, as blogs and journals are outlets for half formed ideas, thoughts, and worries. Frankly, I’m a total hack at this whole “writing” thing, and I do this a lot. At the same time, surely, there’s a better use of ‘blog readers (and writers) time.

Writers, who I respect and value, give advice that’s often wildly contradictory: “to be successful you have to have good follow through and finish everything you start,” and “don’t be afraid to let a project go if you think it’s not going well,” or more comically “write what you know,” paired with “write something exciting, because no one wants to read about your middle class angst.” I think you probably get the point.

Because, the secret of writing, of being a writer, is that no one has a clue as to how they/we do it: every piece of advice that I’ve heard--other than, I guess, “write more”--is ultimately superstition.

As I start to work on figuring out what projects I’m working on in light of the impending changes in my life, I’m thinking about what it means to be a writer, in a non-full time capacity. Or, similarly what it means to be a guy with scholarly interests outside of the academy. This is sort of bleak, I think March may really be getting to me after all.

I’m going to leave it there.

Hey folks,

Today, 8 March 2008, for one hour I’m going to be doing the local Eastern European/etc folk music show on our community radio station while the host is returning from a shape note singing convention.

My “concept” for this show is the play some Scandinavian and Scandi-inspired tunes, followed by a series of tunes that covers the dialogue between anglo and irish folk music and chamber music.

Enjoy

• Name - Artist - Album - Label (Where Known)

1. Se På Tv - Swåp - Du Da - Northside
2. Erik Bohlin’s brudpolska - Väsen - Linnæus Väsen - Northside
3. Anton and Erik’s - 422 - New Numbers - Self
4. Luringens polska - Väsen - Linnæus Väsen - Northside
5. Blomstertid - Frifot - Sluring - Northside
6. Glasena Klingar - Boiled In Lead - Orb - Omnium
7. Jeg Lagde Meg Sa Silde - Caliban - Caliban - Self
8. Gycklarpolskan Av Peter Erson - Barry Phillips - Cello
9. Holborne Suite - Brass Monkey - Going & Staying - Topic Records
10. O’Carolan’s Farewell To Music - Tr’ona N' Dhomhnaill - Tr’ona -Green Linnet
11. Festus Burke - Barry Dransfield - Be Your Own Man -
12. O’Carolan’s Concerto - Robin and Barry Dransfield - Up to Now
13. Miss Wharton Duff/The Mare - Cuffe, Tony - When First I Went To Caledonia - Green Linnet
14. Carolan’s Draught - Arty McGlynn - McGlynn’s Fancy -
15. Planxty Llanthony, Loftus Jones - John Renbourn - Traveller’s Prayer - Shanachie

I heard back from WesternState Flagship University today.

No go.

Which is disheartening, mostly because I thought my chances were so good to begin with.

On the up side, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to being in WesternState so perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. Though I was really looking forward to the career possibilities that this program provided. So, yeah, a little hurt and angry, as well, frankly.

I’m beginning to think about contingency plans--of which I don’t have anything particularly good--even though I still have two, technically three, applications still outstanding. The two main ones are, pretty much up in the air, which is sort of crazy.

Anyway, I have to program for a radio show that I’m doing this afternoon, and I want to knit, and tonight is the my grandfather’s yahrzeit, which I think often makes this time in march more stressful than it would otherwise be.

So, I’ll be in touch. You be too.

Yours in struggle, tycho