identity crisis

Let's talk about the elephant in the living room. Which is the identity crisis that this little blog is having these days. Because I'm operating it as a knitblog right now, even though for years, my diary-X writing had little or naught to do with my knitting. Oh yeah, I'd talk about it. But it was also a forum for tarot musings, my day-to-day activities of the mundane sort, a log of my pagan spiritual pursuits, and a rant site. To-do lists, grocery lists, recipes and dog agility training also got in there. I want that back. I think I'm suffering the cognitive dissonance that comes with a change in writing audience. Back in the day, I wrote first, for myself, then for a small circle of online journalers (let's face it, I've never had a huge readership, not that I cared about that kind of thing) and later, for a tiny handful of people who knew me in real life. Now I feel so...EXPOSED. I know people who read this. They aren't people like Clary and DJ, whom I can tell my deeper, darker secrets. I mean they might be, but that's for another day. So bear with me readers who want to hear about something besides the damn knitting. And bear with me, knitblog readers who might have had it up to here with the dogs already. I'm just trying to pull it all totether.

That said, I feel better.

Today, Confetti and I painted faces, er, bodies, at a party at Sand Island. Very easy work, consisting mostly of painting dragons on people's arms. It's funny how motifs come in waves. At one party, everyone will want butterflies or abstract faces. At another, we'll get requests for full face designs, tigers, devils, pussycats, puppies. This was a dragon kine party. With spectacular, outstanding, lip-smacking homemade Filipino Hawaiian food. Lumpia! Adobo!! Laulau!!!These sweet birthday people fed us, and plied us with icy sodas in the heat. We were happy, me more so than Confetti, who had another gig right after that. So walking back to my car, I found that the parking lot had been taken over by some car club, who were using the space to showcase their out-of-this-world lowriders, all pimped up with glitter flake paint, and tippy pumping hydraulics, and all kinds of craziness like that. Of course I was tempted to whip out the digital camera and start shooting away, but then I thought it might be just a little too, um...invasive. And touristic. Still, it was a sight to see, and it made me recall, fondly, the days when Beamer School used to host a car show each year. Confetti and I strolled around admiring the rides, and the fascinating diversity of the lowrider culture. I do love me some weird cars. My CRV stood out like the sore thumb it was in that lot, though I must say, Confetti's minivan was also a bit of an eyecatcher.

The other elephant in the living room, on the coffee table, to be precise, is, of course, Miss Hourglass. I tried her on. It seems I can't decrease that neck area enough, so I'm gonna decrease a little more. I don't care to expose my bra straps at every turn. Maybe if I were 20, but people don't want to see my bra straps, even the fetching ones. I find the sisik yarn to be a wee bit itchy, with all the mohair. It is a fairly flattering sweater, but I'm not really feeling the love just yet. I was relieved that it does fit, more or less, and even in a flattering way. I'm gonna have a lot of sisik left over after this project's up, I think. Who can fathom the mysteries of how much yarn a project takes, and how much to buy? I'd rather have too much than too little, goddess knows.

Tracking this morning was sort of a mixed bag. I'm told by my instructors that I'm doing well, but at the end of the lesson, I was also given so much "you need to improve" kind of feedback that it makes me just want to bail on the whole project. Ella is progressing rapidly, tracking turns, now, though shakily, so, and I started Cricket, who had this whole attitude of "what the fuck is it you want me to do? I've got a better idea." as he jumped around tried to tear treats out of my apron pocket. It seems counterintuitive to ask him to sniff around for things, after 6 weeks of working to get eye contact and rapt attention from him. Still, I'm told I can track and obedience train at the same time.

So all day, I've been walking around with the funky shroud of the unfinished knitting (which I no longer want to work on) hanging over the cloud of "must improve dog handling skills" layered upon the feeling that I'm living on a shoestring here til school starts up again and I can see some cashflow. All this is mixed up with an intense longing to travel somewhere, anywhere off Oahu. Arrrrgh. I need a shot in the arm. Or a ticket to Bali.

Off to go decrease some more.