Starkers on a warm boulder

A while back I wrote a fantastic (not really) piece about addiction.  It was a prompt given to me by my very good friend Matt. My flash drive ate the essay; bad flashy, bad!  Here is the setup: I was bored.  Matt told me to write (he is always telling me to write- he has better faith in my writing abilities than I do) and I asked him for a topic. And the topic was addiction...  Huh.  That was a stumper for me. I don't do drugs, smoke cigarettes, or drink copious amounts of alcohol.  I don't have any addictions; obsessions, yes, addictions: not so much. Despite this, I will still call it an addiction.


I have an addiction to fantasy.  I'm not talking about the genre of entertainment- books, movies, games, etc.  Yes, I enjoy those, but the fantasy that I am talking about is of a different nature. 


It is the fantasy that can turn a person on.  I suppose the easiest way to say it would be: sexual fantasy.  Now to be clear, I am not currently sexually active, so fantasy is just that, fantasy.  Will I ever want to act out one of my fantasies, you may ask.  Well now, I don't really know. I suppose that if the right individual- read: male- came along I might just consider it.  But there is a comfort zone that I would have to breech- and that takes a lot of courage and guts for me.  I am not the most comfortable with men. I've had some very bad relationships that were damaging to my psyche. Due to these bad relationships, I have trouble opening up to men.  It is a failing, and I am working on it.  This blog is part of my therapy.  Emotional scars are not sexy, so lets move on, shall we.


My addiction: fantasy.  You might be wondering why I chose fantasy as an addiction.  It is because it is the one thing that I can't seem to leave behind me.  It is the one thing that weasels its way into my mind every day.  I could be doing the most banal chores, such as folding towels, lets say, when all of a sudden my brain will fire and there in my minds eye is a hottie standing there dripping wet from a shower, with a towel slung low around his hips so just a hint of pubic hair is visible, his chest and stomach glistening with drops of water and his belly button...oh God, his belly button... and then the towel drops... 


I challenge you to not continue this image in your mind. See what I mean.  It is addictive. 


This addiction can lead to bad things...  As I said earlier, it can be very intrusive in my life.  For example, in my past life, I used to drive an hour and a half one way to get to a store that I worked in once a week.  During that drive, since I did it so often, my brain would begin to wander.  Next thing I know, the fantasies creep in.  Flirting turns into heavy petting, into hot, hot foreplay and then full on sex. I could very nearly feel Hottie's hands in my hair, his tongue on my skin...   It could be very distracting. It possesses me; I am mesmerized and pretty much hypnotized by the full color images that flash through my mind. There were days where I would be driving along and all of a sudden I would come to and say, "Huh, how did I end up here already?  I don't remember going past the Dunkin Donuts."  I was so drawn in by the fantasy that I was lucky that I didn't end up in a accident. 


Some of my favorite fantasies circle around water.  Shower, pool, ocean, pond and most recently, a river. Up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire there are a lot of rivers that have large boulders in them.  After two visits to that area, and a very boring four hour ride home, my brain conjured up many different scenarios concerning these rivers.  Hot day, laying starkers on a smooth boulder warmed by the sun with cool water running over my feet and a hottie cradled between my legs... Mmmm.


Yeah. That one kept me occupied for the long ride home.


I have attempted to break myself of this addiction. For a while, every time a fantasy popped into my mind, I would push it away, hide it in some dark corner of my mind.  This worked, but with an unfortunate result. I became super bitchy and irritable and when the fantasy inevitably broke through the confines of the box I had put it in, it would disrupt my entire day..  Instead of working, I would find myself sitting there and fantasizing... sometimes, I could multi task. But most often, I would surface to realize that I had rearranged the same bookshelf four times, or find myself sitting or standing there frozen in the process of doing some trivial bit of work. I'm lucky that the powers that be never caught on...


I have mentioned how my fantasies can be a problem, but to be truthful, I enjoy them. They are a fun, relaxing break from reality, and honestly they keep boredom away. And besides, since I am single, I've got to get off somehow, right? Lately though, the fantasies have become stale and uneventful.  I think I need a new hottie. Any applicants?

Chris the cuddly cat!

hee, hee... so cuuuute!

Isn't he a good sport?

Blue Waffle hat

I  would like to share with you the blue waffle hat.  I made this for a customer of my Mother's.  It took me about three hours to make. Here are the directions to make a baby sized hat.


Start by casting on 64 stitches on a size 8 circular needle with worsted weight yarn. (Standard Crazy Eight)
Connect without twisting and knit straight for 9 rows.  The hat brim will roll.
Row 10, Purl all stitches
Row 11, Knit all stitches
Row 12, Knit all stitches
Row 13, K1, P3, around


Repeat Rows 11-13 until work measures 4".Measure from where hat stops rolling.
The decreases are a change from the norm of a Crazy Eight hat: Place a stitch marker every 4th stitch- after purls always.
Decrease as follows. Following pattern as set, K2Tog before each marker every other row. Be sure to follow the K1, P3 pattern on the pattern rows. As the stitches decrease, Purl fewer stitches, eventually there will no longer be any purls. Continue until there are 8-16 stitches left.
Finishing.  Break yarn, draw tail through the stitches on needle and pull tight.  Weave in ends.


Ear Flaps:


Along inner rim of hat- find the row of knit stitches.  Pick up 10 stitches. Knit in Garter stitch for 5 rows
Row 6: knit across until last 2 stitches, K2tog.
Repeat row 6 until there are 3 stitches left on the needle. Knit one or two rows- ending with the right side facing.  Transfer stitches to DPN or Circular and use remaining stitches to create I-cord eight-nine inches long. For directions, I am linking you to a website I reference fairly often. You will have to scroll halfway down to see the directions here.  The video is fantastic.  There are several other very useful videos on this page for general knitting tips and techniques.


Here is a pic of the finished Waffle hat:

Cat ears make people happy

So, this past weekend I went to AAC (Another Anime Convention) with two of my girlfriends, and a guy friend Chris.  We usually have an artist's alley table and sell items of ours that we have made.  Kate makes buttons and badges with pithy sayings, Kerry makes papier mache boxes, chibis, and drawings and Catherine- who could not join us- also does drawings and chibis.  I  pull my weight by providing cat eared hats and earrings. Along with the selling of stuffs, Kate and I hosted a panel on why dressing as a Nazi is a bad thing.

We ate out at a nice restaurant in Nashua, NH called Lui Lui; I had very good ricotta stuffed eggplant. There were six of us all together (Adam, Chris, Zach, Kate, Kerry, and myself), and we were very loud and boisterous and had a great time.  We were also the last customers of the evening and, for the first time in my life, we closed the restaurant.  Dinner out was one of the highlights of my weekend. Oh, and the all you can eat pancakes that we had at IHOP on Friday night around midnight.  Oh, so yummy.

As I am a knitter first and a beader second, I will share the hats I made with you.  All of them are based upon my crazy eight method and just have cat ears attached to them.   I also knitted up Jayne hats.  My Jayne hats are inspired by a TV show (Firefly) hat that a character named Jayne Cobb wore. Seen here:




Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb

 If you haven't seen the show, I hight;ly reccomend it.  The easiest way to explain the theme of the show is Space Western- Think cowboys in a cool spaceship.  It sounds tacky, I know, but it really isn't.  It was brilliant and short lived, like a shooting star in the night that only lasts a moment.  *sigh*

 Here are the happy hattees (purchasers of Happy Hatter hats):

Happy Ed from Full Metal Alchemist
cosplaying Jayne Cobb

Aww! Doesn't she look happy?

Happy Canada
with her Jayne Cobb cosplaying Polar Bear

Happy, Happy, Happy!


And, lastly, a camper that wasn't so happy with this hat:

Aww.  Poor Loki!  We are so mean to you!