It was craziness at the yarn store yesterday so there wasn't much knitting, I think maybe I've knit a round on the sleeve yesterday. I spent my morning writing, and I got some good work done, not as much as I'd like, of course, but I'm not complaining at all. This post will be a sort of random collection of thoughts, sorry if you were looking for something more concrete.

I did some reorganization and I have three short stories that I've begun in the last six months or so, and then abandoned, when they hadn't worked out on the first try. I am however encouraged, by the fact that I heard a story on EscapePod that fell into a number of really--to my mind--horrible traps. The narrator was a writer, the tone of the narration was much like this post (he talked to the reader, the author signposted the main point, (one character said "do you know what the point is?" and the other said "yes, it's ____") and sort of rambled) and it was moralistic (the moral was a good one, but it still was beaten into the reader.) So dude, if famous people can pull shit like that off, we have it made.

I don't want this to come off as a criticism of EP or Steve Eley (the editor), because the story worked, and while I didn't enjoy it as much as some of the other ones, it was pretty good. I'm just saying, that, maybe I'm holding my stuff up to a standard that's too high. I mean, I think generally that's a good thing, but it means that I don't finish stories, and I don't submit them to readers and crit groups.

Ok, enough about writing. I saw theBoy last night. At one point after dinner we were sitting on the couch checking our email on the computer and I, had to check into ravlery, he asked "What's that," and I described it, and gave a brief tour, which involved showing my project page. He was mostly nonplussed by the experience but saw something that caught his eye. When I went back to see what it was, it turns out that it was these:

Which I totally made for him. So woot! I of course left them at home, along with the real "boyfriend socks" which are heavier. But these things will all sort themselves out, and I'll remember at some point.

For those of you that are curious, it's socks that rock medium weight, my basic toe up sock, with a turned hem cuff. Knit on US 1.5s (2.5mm?). There's some slight row-gauge difference between them because I unintentionally used metal needles on one sock and wood on another sock.

He was pleased.

Also in the good news category, I got an email from a professor back today saying that he'd gotten my application and that it "looked terrific," it's too early to tell of course, and really I'm sort of throwing my future on departmental politics. But I feel good. One thing I remember thinking last cycle that my chances weren't really as low as the numbers (initially) make them out to be. I mean most schools let between 5 and 10 people in, and get applications for 250-300 (I'd guess) people. But the applicant pool doesn't grow even arithmetically, because everyone's applying to more than one school. So I'm applying for one slot out of a possible say, 25, and there are 500(?) applicants. Which seems like better than most nation wide job searches. Or not. I feel like I'll know in the next 6-8 weeks.

I have a class tonight. This should be interesting.

Writing to do now.

Onward and Upward!