catvalente

Do you spin yarn with a project in mind ahead of time or do you just spin for the sheer love of spinning?

I find that I lose myself whilst spinning. I don't realize how long it's been until my spindle is full and my arm wants to fall off.

Unfortunately I am still super crap at spinning and am waiting for someone to have time to come up and teach me properly. I really want to use my wheel!

Hello Apex team member!

I uploaded a few blog posts there. Checked out the news. Visited the golden arches for lunch - late as usual. Conducted day jobbe stuff. Listened to a storm roll in. It's a good day.

I halfway joked that it was the end of the world since we got an earthquake here in Buffalo, NY, and there's a tornado watch in Chicago. The only thing that gives me hope is that I assume there would be many more zombies if it was, indeed, the end of the world. Do you concur?

Yeah, I don't think you've got anything to worry about. But then I lived in Japan with weekly earthquakes, so they never seem like much to me.

Sibyl wants die, indeed. I am in my office right now, with ~4.5 hours to go before I can go home, and I am tired and my intestines are being rebellious and I just want to crawl into bed with my laptop and my Glee DVDs (which, not so coincidentally, is how I spent Monday night).

HOWEVER, I am also excited for upcoming Game Night, long-delayed hang-out with best friends, and upcoming camping trips and beach trips. (Well, one of each, actually.)

Can Moffat redeem himself with the DW season finale, or is he beyond saving and should we be wishing for a different producer?

If the finale is good, and ties it up, and no one is in purgatory or anything, he can redeem himself--but he will still have a lot of extremely shaky episodes behind him. This season didn't have a single stand out episode on the level of Blink or Midnight or The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. That's tough to swallow, but if he doesn't biff the landing, we can hope he'll improve next year.

What are some of the things you want to knit when you get the chance? I'm still learning lace making because some of the things on the LYS Tour up here over my birthday weekend were beautiful lacy shawls. You can find one or two of them on Ravelry: Alabaster and Weldon't Vintage Scarf. I'm almost done with the scarf.

I want to knit this: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cherie-amour but I can't find that beautiful purple yarn anywhere!

WE HAD AN EARTHQUAKE TODAY!

We (meaning Ottawa in general) are all fine, though some pictures fell off of walls and we lost some bricks and a few windows. As far as I know, no people were hurt.
It was a short earthquake.

In other news: My sweetie and I saw Avenue Q last night (and enjoyed the music a lot, but also thought the script was Rather Problematic on the race and gender fronts).

Also: What's this I hear about you possibly being in my neck of the woods in August? (I will message you about this).

Maybe, though I'm not at all sure it'll actually work out.

I'm finally reading Winter's Tale (only took six months of it sitting on my shelf to guilt me into reading it). Having some freaky everything's-going-19 moments with it but I like it.

Have you ever read a book where you were pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised to find that it had many strange, random, and not necessarily large elements which seemed so much like your life?

The Iron Dragon's Daughter was like that for me.

Botcon is this weekend! :D Sadly, however, I won't be attending this year. Kind of disappointing, since it's one of the only times of year I can see some people. But unemployment last year means I can only swing one con this year, and Dragon*Con is too important to me to miss. Need the destressing it provides before Hallogivingmas.

. . . can I steal that term? I think I kinda <3 it.

*wanders around muttering 'Hallogivingmas' to herself occasionally*

So my girlfriend and I picked up Feed and we both ended up warring for it because we both got addicted like whoah. (I gallantly ceded control of the book even though I was 3/4ths of the way through).

Oooh, ducks? What sort of ducks? I like ducks! I have a creek behind my house, but sadly no duckies there.

Re) spinning - have you ever used a Turkish spindle? I acquired one shortly before I shattered my knee last year, and I've never actually used it. I have NO CLUE how to get the fiber started on the bloody thing.

I started with a Turkish. I don't know if it was the actual spindle or me who couldn't get it figured out very well (I wasn't pre-drafting at the time).

There is a great tutorial on www.joyofhandspinning.com regarding turkish spindles.

Anyone have opinions they'd like to share on the concept of abnormal hair and eye color for characters? Sometimes it feels natural and sometimes it seems like a gimmick. For contrast, think L.K. Hamilton's sidhe/fae and S. McGuire's sidhe/fae. I like McGuire's fae with a smattering of odd traits (apple-green eyes, calico-patched hair, etc), but sometimes Hamilton's fae with their matchy-matchy (royal blue hair and eyes, Christmas-red hair with green and gold eyes) feels a little far-fetched or, I don't know, lurid?

And should laws of genetics apply to fae, or are they exempt by virtue of being supernatural to begin with?

I wrote the melody of a crapload of Decemberists songs for sheet music. If you want I'll send you the right hand of some of them, so you can learn them on the accordian. =D Or the left hand, if you want the harmony.

Have you ever seen Podcastle, or Pseudopod, or the Drabblecast, or Escape Pod? They're free short fiction audio podcasts. And they're awesome. Podcastle 20 and Drabblecast 129 are especially awesome.

Also, Guild of the Cowry Catchers, which is an entire novel being podcasted. And it's one of the best fantasies I've seen. It's a dark nautical fantasy, about religion, and politics, and a pansexual fox creature.

You graduated from high school at 15? What is the story behind that?

Best
~Jonathan

Also, if I'm interested in submitting to Apex now, what should I do?

Today is the first day of sun in so long in Oregon. Even longer than our normal long. It has severely impacted mood & energy.

I feel frustrated with how full of tasks I am when so little of it are things I want to do. As if I am hungry even though I'm full enough to burst.

Your comment prompt reminded me, I have yet to ask you to draw on my skin. I would really like it if you would some day. Name or sigil or doodle, any would be lovely.

I'd love to! Christmas is gonna be so awesome.

Our air conditioning has been out for 2+ months and the heat is destructive here in central Illinois. Once again we had to flee the uninhabitable house. The repair personnel do not comprehend the urgency of "air conditioning as life support" for some people. I wish them ... enlightening experiences at their own expense rather than someone else's.

This is not helping me get further on my summer writing projects, it being my busy season. I have my assignments for the Llewellyn annuals and hope to be able to work on more of them soon.

Ugh, that's awful! We finally broke down and got a window mounted one for our bedroom and I might actually marry it.

If you had to pick one fairy tale to read over and over again, what would it be? I was also looking at the garden pictures with jealousy-drool coming out of my mouth. Which section of the spiral has the sunflowers? And last, but not least, are you ever in New Hampshire? Its completely unheard of for a writer I admire to be in the same time-zone let alone the same area of the country

- Sean

Hee, I live in southern Maine! So yeah, I'm right in your neck of the woods.

The tale that comes to mind is Snow White, which has so many variations, but I never seem to tire of.

The whole spiral will be sunflowers!

We had ducks and chickens when I was growing up. Of the two, I vastly preferred the ducks - they seemed to have a small sense of humor, and no dignity. Plus water rolls off them, in a mesmerizing kind of way when it rains or when they swim.

The eggs are comparable, a little larger than the chicken eggs we were getting, but fresh eggs are lovely no matter the size and species.

I am at dayjob and trying to stay conscious due to sleep deprivation.

I wish I could knit. I've tried to learn four times now and I suck at it, hardcore. No patience for it. I am full of admiration for all of you who both spin *and* knit.