2022 in review: Acting and other life events

You may recall that I retired from the day job near the end of 2021 with the intention of pursuing acting full-time. Here’s what happened:

February: had new headshots taken

March: I put together an acting reel (if you want to see it, the link is here), and sent out submissions to talent agencies. Signed with East Coast Talent.

March: I started regular training with Drama Inc in camera and audition technique. I seriously love this acting studio. They have a wide variety of classes available, and their fees are reasonable.

April: Spouse’s and my 20th anniversary. We celebrated with a trip to Vegas. We saw Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil, ate lots of wonderful food, saw some amazing sights, went on a helicopter ride, and generally had a grand time.

April through December: 35 auditions, five callbacks, 3 bookings. Not bad for the first year!

I shot two short films (one of those without an audition, just based on resume/reel), an industrial training film, and a feature film. I did two table reads for feature films as part of their fundraising — no guarantee of getting the part when they’re finally funded and ready to shoot, but that’s normal. I cut way back on stage work because I need to leave room for TV/film, but I still did two short play festivals with local Atlanta theatres.

June: Had two bouts with Covid. Paxlovid knocked the first bout down in June so I could go back and finish the play festival I was working that month. A week or so later, I had Covid rebound, which is a thing after Paxlovid. Blech. Despite the precautions we took, spouse got Covid in July. More blech.

July: Spent several days with my mother in Alabama as my father’s illness was getting worse.

I took a Linklater Technique class in August/September that really helped with breath control and getting centered. This technique isn’t just for actors and singers; it’s useful for anyone who breathes and feels and wants to find their authentic voice.

Autumn: Essentially took the majority of the last quarter of the year off from film work. My father passed away in mid-September, and I again spent several days over several weeks with my mother to help square away Daddy’s affairs. After Thanksgiving, I drove with her to Missouri and Arkansas to visit family she hadn’t seen for a long time.

December: Covid round 3, right after the last film shoot, which was a few days before Christmas. I tested negative before the shoot, but a few days later, I’m down for the count. I guess I picked it up on set. I have now sworn I will not go anywhere without a mask, and will only unmask when we’re shooting. As of today, I am still Covid-positive, but the line is barely visible on the home test kit, so I expect test negative in the next day or two.

I’ll be starting 2023 off right with a short film shoot (MASKED WHEN NOT ON CAMERA!) and a staged reading in January, as well as beginning a Meisner technique class (because I haven’t taken an acting technique class since college).

Here’s to an excellent (and hopefully Covid-free) New Year!

2022 in review: Books

According to my Goodreads shelf, I read 107 books in 2022. That’s a lot. Of those, two were re-reads and ten were “did not finish.” So a total of 95 new-to-me titles. Here are the standouts.

The Hell’s Library trilogy by A.J. Hackwith.

The first of the trilogy is The Library of the Unwritten. A soul sentenced to Hell is chosen to be the librarian for all the books that have not yet been written. This librarian is responsible for overseeing the plot lines and characters of these yet-to-be-written creations and making sure they don’t get corrupted or intertwined, or hell forbid, escape. Naturally, one Hero does indeed escape, and Claire the Librarian must retrieve him. Unfortunately, the Library and its company have caught the attention of a militant angel, who is convinced they are harboring The Devil’s Bible, a key to the struggle between Heaven and Hell.

I thoroughly enjoyed this first book — it’s fun and serious and grave and silly — and eagerly picked up the second (The Archive of the Forgotten) and third (The God of Lost Words) volumes of the trilogy from my library as soon as they were available. They were also just as enjoyable, and oh my god so well-written!

I have to tell you, I cried buckets at the end of the third book, partially because of the story itself, but mostly because somehow this book allowed me to tap into the grief I had withheld since my father passed away in September. I hadn’t cried for him at all because I was so busy taking care of my mom and seeing that all the loose ends of Daddy’s life were tied in neat bows. There’s so much that must be done in the aftermath of someone’s death, even when you know it’s coming. The God of Lost Words loosed that suppressed grief. And I love this series for helping me get there.

The Lady Darby Mysteries by Anna Lee Huber.

The first of the series is The Anatomist’s Wife. In Scotland, in 1830, Lady Kiera Darby, a young gentlewoman, is widowed. In the aftermath of Kiera’s husband’s death, it is discovered that she assisted her physician husband in making drawings of deceased men for the anatomy textbook he was writing. Society is scandalized and Kiera is therefore shunned for her unnatural behavior. She takes refuge at the country estate of her sister and brother-in-law, spending her days painting and walking and reading in solitude. Then a houseguest turns up dead, and Kiera’s brother-in-law asks if she can use her knowledge of anatomy to assist an inquiry agent, Sebastian Gage, the son of an English nobleman, with determining the cause of death.

This series has chosen a delicate path to follow. It is both a period police procedural/murder mystery, with the usual frequenting of low places with low people, and a post-Regency romance, with the requisite discussion of balls, gowns, and societal mores. Kiera and Gage are likeable, and mostly creatures of their times — by that I mean their views are more progressive than most upper-crust 1830s society members would be, but still retroactive enough that they don’t stand out as complete anachronisms. Some fluff, some dark moments, and overall an enjoyable read. I’ve read the first nine of the series. There are ten volumes total, so far, with the eleventh scheduled for publication in early 2023. I suspect Ms. Huber will ride this pony as far as it will take her. I imagine I’ll ride along.

I had a goal of reading one non-fiction book per month in 2022. I managed to read 8, not 12, but that’s an improvement over previous years. The one I enjoyed the most was The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History by Kassia St. Clair. Absolutely fascinating discussion of how humanity learned to create fabric from the most ancient of times to the immediate present. If you have the least bit of interest in textiles, either because you sew or knit or weave, or if you love clothes, or wonder how “women’s work” has affected mankind’s quality of life, this is the book for you. I borrowed it from the library, but I may buy a hard copy for my permanent collection.

And finally, Metropolis by B.A. Shapiro. Honestly, who would have thought a novel about a failing self-storage facility would be so entertaining? This is the third or fourth of Shapiro’s novels that I’ve read and they’ve all been quirky and unexpected and oh so very good. Highly recommended.

That’s all the highlights for this year. Sadly I didn’t write any actual book reviews on Goodreads for anything I read this year — except briefly for a couple of the DNFs because OMG they were fucking awful — but if you want to see the complete list, click this link.

2022 in review: Yarn

This is a simple post, because I haven’t completed a single project! I’m close, though.

I began Little Bird, a laceweight tunic, on October 30, 2021.

Some 14 months later, I’m finally on the last sleeve and may actually get it finished by the end of January. This is through no fault of the pattern. I love Veera Välimäki’s patterns. They’re gorgeous, well-written, and easy to follow. No, this is because I’ve spent a hell of a lot of time either reading or online, literally wasting time scrolling through Reddit (wtf is wrong with me?!) rather than knitting. TV time that I normally used for knitting also involved me having my phone in my hand instead of my knitting. This constant scrolling thing is a habit I intend to break.

Lack of finishing a project did not prevent me from acquiring yarn, although admittedly not as much as in prior years. 35 skeins of mostly sockweight in 27 different colorways, many of them coordinating and intended for fade projects.

I discovered a new-to-me LYS, one of the few remaining in the greater Atlanta area, Eat Sleep Knit. Their selection is amazing and the staff is friendly and helpful. (The skein pictured above came from that store.) It’s on the far side of the metro from me, and takes well over an hour to drive there, so I don’t go often. Some of the new skeins came from there; others came from visits to Alabama and Arkansas, as well as my usual online perusals of Forbidden Fibre Co, Expression Fiber Arts, or Miss Babs.

Although I haven’t actually purchased any of her amazing yarn, I want to point out a new favorite indie dyer, Republica Unicornia. Kathleen is local to the Atlanta area and creates some of the most beautiful colorways. I follow her on Instagram (@republica_unicornia_yarns) and am so impressed with her creativity, open heart, and sewing skills!

Another Instagram fave is Lola Bean Yarn Co (@lolabeanyarnco). Adella is another Georgia-based indie dyer, and her yarn sells out almost as soon as she posts it to her website. That doesn’t prevent me from following her activism and outspokenness. She’s passionate about yarn, passionate about social justice, and from all appearances is an amazing wife and mom on top of all of it.

Support your local independent yarnies.

2020/2021 in review: Books

In 2020 and 2021, I read a total of 216 books — 85 in 2020 and 131 in 2021. Of those, only 5 were shelved as “did not finish.” Yes, that’s a lot of books, more than I’ve read in any year since I started keeping track in 2003. We can blame/credit the pandemic for that. Funny how much reading one can get done when all of one’s other customary activities are abruptly curtailed. I have to confess the library’s e-book catalog has been a godsend the last couple of years.

Many, if not most, of those reads were forgettable, to be truthful, but I did run across some gems worthy of mention in a blog entry.

First up, I discovered Martha Wells and her remarkable Murderbot series. Oh my fucking God these are SO MUCH FUN!!!!!! Our nameless protagonist (who refers to themself as “Murderbot”) is a cybernetic security bot with a faulty governor — in other words, they are self-aware and self-governing. To stay under the radar and preserve their autonomy, they continue to act like all the other security bots, mostly, but they conduct a hilarious (and hilariously foul-mouthed) internal monologue about the stupidity of humans and other bots in all their interactions. So far there are six books in the series. The first one, pictured at left, is All Systems Red. I’ve read all six, and eagerly await the next installment.

Redshirts by John Scalzi filled in another humor slot on ye-olde-SF-bingo card. As you may expect, its jumping off point is the trope in ST:TOS that the red-shirted crew member on the away mission dies first, often horribly. In this instance, the crew members are aware of the trope and go to desperate lengths to avoid being assigned to an away team. Fun, funny, and filled with geeky inside jokes and “easter eggs.” Scalzi is quickly becoming one of my favorite SF authors.

The City and The City was like everything else by China Miéville I’ve ever read: mind-blowingly excellent. In this case, we have sociopolitical commentary disguised as a police procedural. Inspector Tyador Borlú investigates a murder that takes him from his decrepit city of Beszel to the modern gleaming metropolis of Ul Qoma, both somewhere in eastern Europe. Here’s the thing one must understand, though: both cities occupy the same physical space, and inhabitants of each are trained from childhood to “unsee” the other city. If one sees and acknowledges an inhabitant of the other city, this is a breach, and breaches have serious consequences. It’s a mind-bending concept made completely plausible. And it’s a damn good murder mystery too.

The last one I want to highlight is The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab. In exchange for immortality, a young woman gives up the possibility of being remembered by anyone. When she is in the presence of someone, they recognize her existence and interact accordingly, but forget her entirely within moments after losing sight of her. It’s made for some awkward morning-after conversations when her lover has completely forgotten the evening before. But throughout history, she has been the mysterious unknown muse of one artist after another, and that is sufficient. Then one day she runs across a young man who recalls a previous encounter. A sweet and heartbreaking story of love and loss and memory and art. I loved it.

Honorable mentions: Piranesi by Susanna Clark, the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik, The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland, Gideon the Ninth (and its sequel) by Tamsyn Muir, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (and its sequels) by Becky Chambers, A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel.

For the complete list of books read in 2020, click here. For the complete 2021 list, click here.

Pandemic Year 3 begins

Last blog entry was over 18 months ago. At that time, I still had some energy and optimism about the world. Later, not so much, as evidenced by letting an entire calendar year (and then some) go by without so much as a peep into this blog.

Oh no. There goes Tokyo.

*sigh*

At least Trump is no longer in office. Although with the current Republican obstruction in the Senate, I’m not sure how much more good Biden can actually accomplish. It’s frustrating.

Some optimism has crept back into my psyche, regardless. Thus, the return to the blog. So, to catch up.

As with most other sane individuals, spouse and I stayed home and minded our business throughout 2020, barely venturing out except to the grocery store. Before the shutdown, we had contracted to have our master bath remodeled, so we kept that contract but avoided the construction guys and only spoke to them from across the room while masked. The bathroom was beautiful when it was done.

New shower

We voted in November 2020. We watched aghast in January 2021 as the insurrectionists stormed the Capitol.

Reminder

We got vaxxed in Spring 2021. I continued to work from home until I retired from my job in November 2021. We got boosted in December 2021. I went on a trip to Boston to see the Titian Exhibit at the Gardner in December.

Danae by Titian

My father had several serious health crises over the last two years. I lived in fear that he would (a) catch Covid, which would kill him; or (b) not be able to get a hospital bed due to Covid patients, which would kill him. Thankfully, none of that happened, and he’s finally on the mend.

Since my oldest girlfriends and I couldn’t hold our annual get-together, early last year we started to have monthly Zoom calls. I don’t participate in all of them because, frankly, Zoom exhausts me. But I’m on the call every two or three months.

Live theatre recently resumed in the Atlanta area. I did one show in October 2021, and have an audition for another coming soon. I only audition for theatres that have strict Covid protocols and require cast and crew to be vaccinated. As an audience member, I’ve been able to attend a few shows and redeem some tickets that had been held over for two years. Saw Hamilton at The Fox for the second time. Saw The Nutcracker with the Atlanta Ballet for the first time. Went to the Shakespeare Tavern for the first time to see The Comedy of Errors. Still hoping to see Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro in March (it’s been rescheduled three times) and Santana/Earth Wind and Fire in August (it’s been rescheduled twice).

I had a major milestone birthday in the fall and celebrated that and my retirement by singing karaoke with my friends at a bar in Norcross. It was awesome. Someone has the video of my song. As soon as I get it, I’ll post it for all to see.

Spouse and I are planning a trip to Las Vegas for our anniversary in the spring. Yes, tourist Vegas is tacky as fuck, but I’ve never been, so that’s what we decided to do: stay at a gaudy casino on the Strip, eat buffet food, feed the one-armed bandits every now and then, maybe play a hand or two of blackjack (neither of us is any sort of gambler). We’re looking at shows to see — Blue Man Group is a possibility — and things to do. A helicopter ride is definitely on the agenda. Maybe the aquarium. We’ll see. It should be fun.

Yarn and book stuff occurred. I’ll address those in another post.

Things are looking up. Really.

2019 in review: Yarn

2019 wasn’t a terrifically productive year for finished projects, probably due to the fact I did four plays. But I did get some things made.

First thing finished was the Lochlan Cardigan in February, briefly blogged here.  I wear this cardigan a lot.  It’s really warm; I often throw a sleeveless vest over it, and away we go on weekend errands. No heavy coat needed unless the wind is really sharp.  This was my first project with zipper installation, and it was easier than I expected.  Fear of zippers will no longer restrain me!  It’s also the first time I doubled a fingering weight yarn instead of using a DK as the pattern requires.  My gauge was a little off, but math fixed that, and the fit turned out great.

After getting home from Stitches United in June, also briefly blogged in the link above, I made a swimsuit coverup from a pattern I’d had in my queue forever.  The blog entry for this project is here.  As I suspected it would, the coverup shrank in the wash, and now fits much better through the neck and shoulders. When I wash it, I tumble it until it’s damp-dry and then lay it flat and block out the length.

I took the coverup to California with me in August, completely forgetting how cold Northern California beaches are.  I wore it with my swimsuit, shorts, and a denim jacket against the chilly shore breeze.  Although we didn’t get a picture of me wearing it, the coverup actually got used in the way it was intended when the spouse and I went to Sandestin (Florida) for Labor Day.

The Cabled Yoke Cardigan, finished in July, was part of a Vogue Knit #19 in 2019 Challenge. The Vogue Knitters group on Ravelry does this challenge every year: knit the corresponding pattern number for the last two digits of the year out of any Vogue Knitting magazine.  The blog entry for this project is here.  I was still mildly unhappy with the size after wearing the cardigan several times. So the other day I ran it through the washing machine in a mesh bag on the handwash cycle, and then laid it out flat to dry.  The sweater did exactly what I thought it would do: felted just the teensiest bit, just enough to make it fit better and not be so loose and long.  Yes, I was gambling.  Yes, I got lucky.  Don’t try this at home, kiddies.  Now I need to re-sew the buttons.

My mother’s pullover was the final project for the year.  We picked out this yarn last Thanksgiving, and I gave her the finished sweater this Thanksgiving.  I haven’t blogged about it yet, so here are the details.

Pattern: Delsea Pullover by Lisa Shroyer (click here for link to project page)

Size: 56

Yarn: Universal Yarn Deluxe Worsted Tweed Superwash, colorway 917 Steel Cut Oats, 1143 yards

Needles: Addi Turbo Circulars, US size7

Mods: None, except for giving the bottom ribbing the same number of rows as the ribbing on the sleeves.

Satisfaction with end product:  My mother loves it.  She plans on wearing it over long-sleeved tees and turtlenecks to keep her toasty warm throughout the winter.

This pattern is easy television knitting, and I would have finished it much sooner had I not gotten bored with the endless endless stockinette and taken time out to make the swimsuit coverup and cabled cardigan mentioned above.  No matter: I always intended to give it to Mom around Thanksgiving and that deadline was met.

In the acquisitions department, 2019 was a year of extreme stash enhancement.  I’ve blogged about a lot of the new pretties, but not all of them, and I’m not going to take the time now to chronicle everything I skipped writing about.  Suffice to say, between January 2019 and December 2019, I added 86 new skeins, and a total of 23,468 yards, to stash.  A few (a very few) of those skeins were gifts or prizes, but most of it was purchased. I know I’m lucky and privileged that I can afford to buy yarn of such quality and in such quantities. Believe me, I’m grateful.  And I refuse to feel guilty, but dang, I really need to get to work on reducing this stash.  It’s damn near unmanageable. Especially considering this year I used only 7,122 yards in completed projects.

So, without making any resolutions, because those are doomed to fail, I’m going to set a 2020 goal of using two skeins of yarn for every skein I might buy in the coming year.  So far I have used four skeins (I’m making a cardigan for my sister), so that means I can buy up to two new skeins.  A secondary goal is that any skein I buy will be something really special — like cashmere or silk or some other luxury fiber.  The cost of such yarn will be a secondary deterrent to willy-nilly fiber acquisition.  We’ll see how it goes.  Wish me luck!

2019 in review: Acting

2019 was a good year for acting.  The coolest thing was taking part in a web series called “Black on Both Sides.” You can find it here.

I’m seen briefly in Episode 2 (uncredited, but I’m the person taking notes while standing next to the CEO — played by my friend Scott Piehler — in a meeting).  I’m also seen (mostly from the back) at a party in Episode 7, and I even have one line!  Woo!  Okay, what all that means is don’t watch this show looking for me; watch it because it’s good, and my brief appearance is a bonus. 🙂  I hope to work with Alonge again in the future.

Side note: filming that party scene was an adventure. It was done on a Saturday afternoon after I had just gotten out of the hospital, having had surgery five days earlier.  Due to a reaction to the pain meds, I kept running off the set to throw up. Every twenty minutes. Between takes and trips to the loo, I laid down on the sofa and tried to nap.  God bless Shani Hawes, one of the producers, who made sure I had ice water and a clear path to the bathroom.

Stagewise, I performed in four plays in 2019.  I just realized that. Four plays.  In one year.  No wonder I’m exhausted.

First up was The Vagina Monologues with Bad Seed Theatre (partnered with Out Front Theatre) in February. This was an extremely limited run, three performances, all proceeds of which went to Camp Cadi. We did really well, raising over $7000 in support of their programs.  I had the monologue “Hair.”

It was a fabulous experience, being in a show comprised entirely of a cast of women, speaking frankly about our bodies, our lives, and our experiences.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

From TVM with its HUGE cast, I went into a play that was very nearly a one-woman show.  Staged Right cast me as the lead in their production of A Round-Heeled Woman, based on the book by Jane Juska about her sexual adventures after posting an ad for, um, companionship in the New York Review of Books.  This show starts out with Jane (that is, me) having phone sex and proceeds from there.  I went on at the beginning of Act I and never left the set — and nearly never stopped talking — until intermission; lather, rinse, repeat for Act II.  The other five actors bopped in and out of the set according to the needs of their multiple characters; and some of the scenes (and much of the dialogue) were rather explicit.

The truth is, if I hadn’t just done The Vagina Monologues and overcome some acting inhibitions that I wasn’t aware I had, I never would have had the gumption to tackle Jane. As it was, the three-page monologues nearly killed me: I was still calling for line on the Wednesday before we opened, but come opening night, we were good. Okay, truth time: I blanked briefly in the middle of Act I on opening night, but muddled through and got myself back on track; and the rest of the performances had no blanks.  A few skipped lines, but no blanks!  I am forever grateful to director Starshine Stanfield for trusting me with this character.

When Round-Heeled closed in late May, I decided to take the summer off (except for a dance class). Come August, I was ready to go again.  Act 3 Productions cast me as Juror 9 in their production of Twelve Angry Jurors.

Let me tell you, after Jane’s line load in A Round-Heeled Woman, I was immensely grateful for the fewer than 50 lines my character required in Jurors.  That’s one of the bonuses of large casts and short plays — the speeches are divided among many more characters, making it a little easier on the actors.

And this was a fun cast, too: most of the other actors were in their 20s, far younger than me, and it was sheer joy to spend so much time with people in that age group. I don’t get that opportunity very often. As a group, they had an attitude of wryly cynical hopefulness, an outlook that will likely serve them well in the future. As far as the play went, we had decent audiences and were well-received.  I got paid, too. That’s always a bonus.

As soon as Jurors closed, I went right into rehearsal for my final play of the year, 20th Century Blues with Live Arts Theatre.  This was my third production with Live Arts, and I’m always happy to work with Becca and the gang.

Much smaller cast, much larger line load, lots of fun.  I’ll steal the synopsis from the theatre’s website: “Four women meet once a year for a ritual photo shoot, chronicling their changing (and aging) selves as they navigate love, careers, children, and the complications of history. But when these private photographs threaten to go public, relationships are tested, forcing the women to confront who they are and how they’ll deal with whatever lies ahead.”

I played Sil, a New York real estate agent who is reluctant to have photographs showing “forty years of her gradual decline” exhibited publicly.  This was another show where the cast was primarily women — all of us playing someone very close to our own age, for once, and discussing issues we actually related to in our personal lives.  Kind of cathartic, in a lot of ways.  It was a good show that, due to its timing, didn’t get seen by too many people. Unfortunately, we were competing with all the Christmas-themed shows, like It’s A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol, that were being presented at many of the area theatres; 20th Century Blues was most definitely not a Christmas show.  But the people who did see it really liked it.  We closed the Saturday before Christmas.  (And I got paid again, hurrah!)

I don’t know what show I’m doing next.  I have a couple of auditions coming up this month; and expect more to be scheduled soon as theatres start casting their spring shows.  I doubt I’ll do four shows this year; but I didn’t plan to do that last year: it just worked out that way.  We’ll see what shows up in the audition notices.  I’ll keep you posted.

2019 in review: Books

Last January, I set my usual annual goal of reading an average of a book a week, or 52 books in a year.  I met that goal with 67 books read or attempted.  10 of those books went into the “didn’t finish” category, so 57 books were read in full.  Some of those were reviewed, but not many. I also included the plays I read or performed, because in my life, that counts.

One of my unstated 2019 goals was to read more non-fiction.  Of the 67 books, six were non-fiction. Two of those were left unfinished: one was character research for a play, and the other was Women Rowing North by Mary Pipher. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Pipher’s book; I did, but I also felt like I was not the right age to read it yet. I got halfway through, and then turned it back in at the library. I’ll come back to it in a few years.

Of the rest of the non-fiction, two were standouts.

First, Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat is hands-down the best cookbook I’ve ever read.  The spouse and I were introduced to Ms Nosrat and her cooking through the Netflix series of the same title.  We binged all four episodes in an afternoon, and I ordered the cookbook the same day.  Ms Nosrat is utterly delightful in both the show and the book.  She thoroughly explains why and how the four elements of her title are critical to good cooking, and how they all work together to create sumptuous savories and sweets.  My cooking has definitely improved, thanks to this book.

The other knockout non-fiction title actually scared the pants off me, as its title might suggest: Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward.  Now, it’s no secret my politics lean leftward, and I have always thought Donald Trump was an asshole, dating from wayyyyy back in the 80s when he made such a splash on the gossip pages with his marriages, affairs, and failed business dealings, but I think anyone who approaches this book with an open mind and a respect for Woodward’s reporting will come away absolutely terrified that such an unqualified, incurious, hate-mongering, self-dealing, anti-intellectual, prevaricating dipshit currently holds the highest office of the land.  But it’s 2020, election year; maybe the rest of the country has learned its lesson by now. We’ll find out in November, if the Senate doesn’t remove him from office first (not holding my breath on that happening, though).

Okay, fiction-wise: I read some good stuff, but honestly, not many lingered in memory once I finished them.  Here are the few that did.

My friend Alice recommended The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss to me several years ago. This year I finally decided to act on that recommendation, and picked up the book at the library.  Wow.  In a tavern in a quasi-medieval society where magic (of course) is real, over a period of one night, or maybe two, the bartender and owner of the establishment tells a scribe the story of his life, starting with his wretched childhood and then his unlikely enrollment at the local university of magic.  Along the way, we are given some hints as to our hero’s, um heroic past, and vague references to how he wound up as a humble tavern owner in hiding.  This is the first of a series. As soon as I finished this one, I read the second book (and the series companion about a secondary character) in rapid succession, and currently await the next installment. However, I understand Mr Rothfuss is struggling with writing Book 3, and thus it is delayed.  Hopefully we won’t wait as long for Book 3 from Mr Rothfuss as we’ve been waiting for Book 6 from George R.R. Martin.

As I’m sure you and the rest of the English-speaking world know by now, The Testaments by Margaret Atwood is the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. As I waited for my turn at the top of the library waiting list for The Testaments, I re-read The Handmaid’s Tale for the first time in probably 20 years. It’s still as horrifying as when I first read it back in the 1980s.  The Testaments is equally as horrifying, albeit it a tad more hopeful.  Telling the tale from the perspective of everyone’s favorite villain, Aunt Lydia, some 15 years after Offred got into the back of a van and vanished from the narrative, we dive into the inner workings of Gilead and learn, among other things, how Aunt Lydia came to her position of power.  Things are not always as they seem in Aunt Lydia’s sphere of influence: even the Aunts play politics.  I saw the twist coming, eventually, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

David Mitchell is on his way to becoming one of my favorite authors.  I’d previously read and loved Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks, so when Slade House popped up on my radar, I grabbed it at the library at the first opportunity.  The titular residence either exists or doesn’t exist, and is inhabited or abandoned, all depending on the time of day, the year, and one’s unique personality.  Those who permitted to enter the grounds are forever altered.  A fascinating take on the haunted house trope.

My friend Jenny says Black Swan Green is her favorite David Mitchell novel.  Since I’ve yet to be disappointed in anything Mr Mitchell has turned out, I think I’ll put that one on the list for this year.

Speaking of “the list,” for 2020, I’ve again set a goal of 52 books.  This will include plays, of course, because I read a lot of them. In fact, I’m taking part in a challenge to read Shakespeare’s complete works this calendar year.  The organizer has come up with a schedule that gets us through all the plays and the poetry between January 1 and December 31.  Epic!  Twelfth Night is up first.  If you care to join in, visit The Shakespeare2020 Project and sign up.

And if you’re interested in the complete list of books read in 2019, click here.

2016 in Review: Yarn

Last January, I proclaimed 2016 as the “Year of Knitting Selfishly”.  Out of a total of seven projects completed, five were for me, so that’s a win.  On the other hand, only seven projects were completed, so that’s a blow to the Ravelry queue.

The two gift projects were for babies:  Kaysen’s Blankie for my newest grand-nephew; and Davi’s Stocking for a girlfriend’s baby.

Both were knit projects and took far longer than I expected.  The two months it took to knit that baby blanket — size approximately 24 inches by 34 inches — gave me pause to reconsider tackling a couple of other knitted blankets I have queued.  I can crochet  blankets far faster than I can knit them.  I may stick to crocheted blankets in the future, especially for babies.

The five remaining projects were for me.  I’ve blogged three of them:  Ribby Striped Cowl; Wildflower Cardigan; and the Lacy Moebius Cowl.  The two remaining projects, a shawl and a pair of socks will be blogged shortly.

2016 Technical Accomplishments

I  designed and knitted three projects: Kaysen’s Blankie, the Ribby Striped Cowl, and the Lacy Moebius Cowl.

I made my first pair of toe up socks (to be blogged).  That same pair of socks also included my first short row heel.

I made my first real colorwork project with Davi’s Stocking.  Learned a lot about intarsia by muddling through and juggling bobbins.

2016’s Stash Accomplishments

I used 3,743 yards of stash yarn.

I acquired 5,576 yards of new yarn for a net addition of 1,833 yards.

I refuse to feel guilty.  Look at this one.  Look.

Silk Traveler by Meadowcroft Dyeworks

Fingering, 70% Merino, 30% Silk

*drool*

2017 Goals

I make no plans whatsoever to avoid acquiring new yarn because that’s a silly idea doomed to failure.  In fact, I’ve already doomed it by buying four skeins in January alone.

What I plan to do is:

• Make a baby blanket for my nephew and his wife
• Make more socks
• Finally tackle a Fair Isle project — probably a hat that can be knit in the round
• Continue to knit from stash as much as possible — the baby blanket for my nephew and his wife may be the exception because I don’t have much yarn suitable for that purpose
• Continue to knit through my library of patterns
• Write out and publish the patterns I’ve designed

Everything else is on a wait-and-see basis.  I’m dropping weight fairly rapidly (down approximately 17 lbs since surgery), so I don’t intend to make any cardigans or other  garments until I’m much closer to my goal weight.

What are you going to make this year?

2016 in Review: Books

As the end of January approaches, it’s time to get on the ball with the wrap-up for the previous year.  Normally, I write these entries in the first week or so of January.  I plead that late December surgery as my excuse for the delay.

So.  Books.

I managed to finish 49 books this year, three short of my goal, but acceptable nonetheless.  Of those 49, three were re-reads, so 46 new-to-me books completed. Two were non-fiction, one was a collection of essays, and the rest was fiction from a variety of genres.  Like last year, the majority of the books I read came from the library or were books already in my personal collection.

Of those 46 new books, a few were standouts, and a couple that I expected to be standouts were disappointments.

My chief disappointment was Gregory Maguire’s After Alice.  Maguire’s prose is clever, but the story itself was uninspired and plodding.  Click the link to read the full review on WordPress or click the book cover to go to the Goodreads site.

Another disappointment — the fault for which I lay at my own feet rather than the author’s — was Neil Gaiman’s A View from the Cheap Seats.  This was the book that finally convinced me to avoid essay collections, because they just don’t work for me, and it doesn’t matter who wrote them.  Sorry, Neil.

Happily, one of the standouts this year was another Neil Gaiman collection, this one of short stories.  Trigger Warning was fabulous.  Go read it.

Another collection of short stories I read this year was also stellar.  Kelly Link’s Get In Trouble is filled with the kind of short stories I love: weird and off-kilter and a teensy bit disturbing.  Plus they’re exquisitely written.  I’ll be looking for more Kelly Link in the future.

David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks  cemented this author’s position on my “favorites” list.  What an amazing, far-flung, rambling, glorious story of youthful passion, mistakes, and greed.

A few other books worth mentioning:  Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank is a wake-up call for the progressive movement that’s especially relevant considering the unqualified narcissist this country somehow elected in November 2016 and who is being sworn in as POTUS as I type this blog entry.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff is an intimate look at a marriage wherein neither individual is exactly who they appear.

And finally, I Am No One by Patrick Flanery is as much a love story to the city of New York as it is the story of a man who reaches middle age and wonders how he got there.

Looking ahead to 2017, I set the same goal of 52 books, but I may reduce that number due to lifestyle changes and a few other priorities.  Or not.  We’ll see.

Happy reading!