Stemming the Tide of Wussification

I was born into a world of leisure suits, men with perms, and Alan Alda.  Clearly, the wussification of man had already begun.

Had I been born one hundred years earlier, things might have been different.  The rules for collegiate football were adopted that year, and Susan B. Anthony was fined for trying to vote.  Obviously, the wussification had not yet taken hold.

But the sad fact, is that even if wussitude were not the norm for American men today, there would be little opportunity for the kind of sweat-reeking machismo of years past. 

Take my own situation, example.  For the rest of my foreseeable life, it is highly improbable that I will have the opportunity to participate in any of the following historically masculine activities:

• Killing a bear when I am only three
• Drinking myself to an early grave
• Discovering a lost civilization
• Losing an ear in a bar fight
• Starting a global conflict

Honestly, it is a bit depressing when one considers how limited one's prospects may actually be.  Deprived of expressing my manhood in one of these traditional avenues, I can understand why so many of my colleagues have begun trading their historical scent of partially burned hydrocarbons for musk-scented AXE body spray.

But I say no more.  I refuse to bow.  I will not be diluted.  I will wear my stubble with pride.  And yes, I will do the crossword in pen.  For in the absence of marital permission to run with the bulls in Pamplona, doing the crossword in pen is nearly the most foolhardy display of testosterone-addled insanity I can muster. 

And not the Monday crossword, mind you, but the Friday and the Sunday puzzles as well.

And not just any pen.  But a bold, bloody red pen at that.

To paraphrase Kennedy, who may have been our last undomesticated President:

I choose to do the crossword in pen. I choose to do the crossword in pen in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of my energies and skills, because that challenge is one that I am willing to accept, one I am unwilling to postpone, and one which I intend to win, and the others, too.

Heady stuff, this.  And of course, this is not my only salute to the greatness of the unwussified man.  For I choose to do one other thing, harder even than the Sunday puzzle. 

I choose to knit lace without using lifelines.

And because I choose to knit lace without using lifelines, I choose also to unknit lace.  I choose to unknit several rows of incredibly complicated lace.  Lace made from Filatura di Crosa Centolavaggi in a crimson red that would make your eyes ache even if you wore your reading glasses.  Which of course I refuse to do because I am a man.  And men don't wear readers.

But - Men do wear comfy vests.  Like this one, which I recently finished.  Manly.  No?

~TSMK

A nice way to start the week

I arrived at the office this morning and found this on my windowsill.

It wasn't yet open on Friday.  This makes for a nice start to the week.
~TSMK

The Long Dark Night of the Sole

I sleep soundly. In fact, I’ve slept through a great number of loud and calamitous events. Archimedes is credited with saying something along the lines of “give me a long enough lever and a firm place upon which to stand, and I can move the earth.” Myself, I’m more of a “give me a decent pillow, a science channel marathon about the pyramids or UFOs and a flat place to stretch out and I can lose an afternoon” kind of guy.

All of which makes what I’m about to tell you just that much more troubling. For recently, my sleep was interrupted. Not just once but multiple times. In one evening. Let me explain.

Last week, I had the good fortune of heading south. Like a sloth-afflicted sparrow, I boarded an Alaska Airlines flight – bound for San Diego. As is my habit, I was heading for a three day conference on securities law, held every January at the Hotel Del Coronado, on Coronado Island.

The hotel is a hauntingly beautiful old structure, perched right on the edge of the Pacific. And though my conference keeps me in a conference room all day for each of the three days, there is always some time to spend poking around on the beach before or after the sessions. I like the beach. You can find sand dollars if you’re lucky. And if you’re really lucky you won’t step in the ick that seems to wash ashore from Tijuana just across the border.

Well, this year, I had no time for the beach. When not in class, I was on a mission. Mrs. TSMK had sent me with specific instructions. And, unlike her mission of choice the last time she accompanied me on this trip, my mission did not involve long hours spent observing the nearby Navy seals playing shirts versus skins football on the beach.

No, this mission was more important. I was going ghost hunting. For in my carry-on bag I had brought all the tools of the trade. A K-II device to measure electromagnetic fields. A fancy thermometer to help me identify hot or cold spots. And, of course, a digital voice recorder to help me capture any electronic voice phenomena.

[Note: if you decide to fly out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport carrying the foregoing items in your carry-on bag, be prepared to have an interesting conversation with the TSA agents at the security checkpoint.]

When I checked in to the Hotel, I asked to be placed in one of the haunted parts of the hotel. The desk clerk narrowed her eyes slightly, and after a few keystrokes, told me I would be staying in the western side of the oldest part of the Hotel, on the third floor.

I trudged up to my room. I wanted to hunt for ghosts immediately. Unfortunately, I’d been at work from early morning to midday, and had then been traveling for several hours. Unless my paranormal prey was holding a hoagie, I wasn’t going to be satisfied. I needed food.

[Note: As far as I could discern, the pizza place was not haunted.]

I made my way out of the Hotel, onto the main street. After a brief walk, I found my objective: pizza. I placed my order – a small pizza with bacon, onion and mushrooms – and telephoned home to learn the news of the day. Then, while waiting for my pizza, I got out my equipment and did a bit of looking around.

I returned to the hotel, pizza box in hand. After eating a slice or two too many, and working on a sock for Mrs. TSMK, I collapsed in a heap on the bed.

The sock is an interesting pattern – and by interesting I mean maddening. It is a toe-up design, and every fourth row has a twisted rib, requiring you to cable (forward or back – depending on the row) every other stitch. I’m doing it on two size 1 circular needles.  On every fourth row,  I've got a cable needle in the mix as well.  This way lies madness.



I woke the next morning, mouth tasting of garlic from the night before. Showered, dressed and properly caffeinated, I dutifully attended the conference.



[Note: As far as I could discern, the conference room itself was not haunted – although there were some truly disturbing sounds coming out of one of the stalls in the mens’ room during one of the breaks in the program. I chose not to try to debunk those sounds.]



After finishing my classes for the day, and a fair amount of work I’d brought along from the office, I set about investigating my room. I found no unusually high electromagnetic fields. I searched in vain for inexplicable temperature anomalies. I heard no unusual noises.

Slightly discouraged, I dressed for bed. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. The light clicked on as I entered – part of the Hotel’s “green” initiative – like not washing the towels every day unless requested. I washed my face, left the bathroom, and settled down to find something on the television. Something that would keep my mind off the fact that I was trying to knit tiny cables with fat fingers. After working for about an hour, I set the sleep timer on the television, turned out the light, and proceeded to drift off while listening to the history channel interspersed with ads for what I understand is a revolution in home fitness – the Shake Weight.

I awoke at just after 1:00 a.m. The television was off but the room was illuminated. Confused, I sat up to have a look around. The bathroom light was on. I rolled out of bed, convinced I’d forgotten to turn it off. I stumbled to the bathroom and pressed the button to turn it off. With the room now properly dark, I got back under the covers.

I awoke again at just after 1:45. The light was back on. Again I trudged to the bathroom to turn off the light. Again, I climbed back under the covers.

I awoke again just before 3:00. The light was back on. I left it on, and tried to sleep.

At 6:30, my alarm went off. The light was off in the bathroom. I stood near the bathroom door. I jumped up and down on the creaky floors, trying to get the door to sway. I looked for air vents in or near the bathroom that might cause the door to move or the shower curtain to flutter. I could find nothing. Try as I might, I could not debunk my experience. I could not account for the behavior of the light.

Excited about my encounter with the inexplicable, I called Mrs. TSMK. Halfway through the conversation I realized that she would never again accompany me to this conference – at least not if we stayed in the same Hotel.

I dressed and rushed downstairs for the conference. The day flew by, and soon I was back in my room. I had made a plan. This night, I would set my digital voice recorder to record any noises that might happen during the night. I was so excited I could barely sleep. But sleep eventually came after innumerable rows of that blasted sock – which was finally nearing completion.

The night passed without incident. I slept soundly, disturbed only briefly by the sound of what I can must assume were two consenting adults in the next room. I woke in the morning, turned off the voice recorder, dressed, packed my belongings, checked out of my room, and attended the last day's sessions at the conference.

When I arrived back home, I check over the voice recorder.  I was hopeful that the recorder would have picked up something, anything, that might explain the strange events of the prior night.  But what I found made my blood run cold.

After reviewing the audio footage, and filtering out some of the background noise, I found I had captured three distinct messages.  Messages, it would seem, from beyond.  The first is simply mean spirited. 

The second was confusing and, it would seem, irrelevant. 

The third, well, it would prove prophetic.

I finished binding off the cuff of the sock, and fearfully approached Mrs. TSMK.  But the voices from beyond were right.  The gusset is too narrow.  The sock doesn't fit.

Damned spooky if you ask me. 

~TSMK

The Importance of Being (an) Earnest

Some decades ago - almost three decades to be exact - I got an unusual gift.  I didn't really want the gift, and when I was asked whether I'd like it I didn't respond well.  I'm told that I objected to the gift.  I'm told, in fact, that I said I'd rather have a puppy.

The gift was a sibling.  And though I didn't know it at the time of the question, it turned out to be a sister.

As I'd been an only child up to this point, I really didn't have much experience with babies.  She was loud.  She was smelly.  She turned herself purple when she cried - which she did rather a lot. 

Over time, she got bigger and louder and, for a time, smellier as well.

We lived together for eleven years - give or take - and then my folks moved across the country.  I was in college when they moved, and seeing as I was very enamored of a young redhead who lived across town, I didn't feel particularly inclined to move with them.  So I stayed.  And they went.  And that, as they say, was that.

All of this brings me to a very important fact.  Although The Empire Strikes Back is viewed by many critics as the best of the Star Wars films, it has never been my favorite. 

Seeing Han Solo immersed in carbonite makes my skin crawl.  Now in large part, this is because the idea of being unpleasantly thrust into some form of suspended animation is just, well, creepy. 

And yet, for my perception of my sister, carbonite and California are synonymous.  It is as if she stopped aging the moment she got in the car and rode away with my parents.  She stayed locked in carbonite at age eleven. 

I don't know how many years passed between the day Solo was frozen and the day a Leia thawed him out.  But I do know that in the tender scene in Jabba's palace - Solo emerges from the carbonite temporarily blind but looking like he hasn't aged a day.  I like that.  It is comforting somehow. 

But that hasn't been my experience with my sister.  No, she has stubbornly refused to stay frozen in time.  In fact, she grew up.  She got considerably less smelly.  Although, truth be told, she never did get much quieter. 

In fact, in a sense she got much louder.  Because now, where there was once just one person - my sister - there are now three people.  My sister, a wife, and a mother.  Weird.  She went and got married.  And then she had the audacity to have children.  Several, in fact.  Including a set of twins and, most recently, a cute guy in a goofy hat. 

Now I understand that I may be old fashioned.  But I just don't think that an eleven year old should get married and have children.  And in my mind, she is still eleven.   Never mind the fact that it has been many years since she was eleven - that's irrelevant.  Seeing her with her husband and beautiful family is for me like trying to watch a television marathon of Bewitched.  You can't just switch Dick York for Dick Sargent without explanation.  It doesn't work.  Are we really not supposed to notice?  Because we do.  A lot.  They're two different people.




York



Sargent



But that's my sister. One minute she's York and the next she's Sargent. Both are cool, I guess.

And that's why I made her a scarf this year for Christmas.  It is a nifty drop-stitch pattern that I found online, and I knit it up in some seriously soft alpaca. 

I don't know what an eleven-year-old will do with such a scarf.  Hopefully she won't lose it on the playground at school. 

~TSMK

Thoughts on Love

I'm a bit of a reader.  Not voracious exactly, but there are usually a few things on the nightstand by the bed.

Sometimes I read well-regarded literature.  Sometimes, I even read it successfully.  But other times not so much.  I've been stuck on the same page of Ulysses now for the better part of a decade.  Every time I pick it back up I can't remember where I left off - maybe I just don't drink enough to understand Joyce.

Other times, my choice of literature leans more toward the unusual or the technical.  At the moment, The Art of the Catapult is sharing space on the nightstand with a book on how to conduct paranormal investigations and a hand-held device for measuring electromagnetic fields.  I had an awesome Christmas and my family knows my tastes well.

Within the last year, I've read quite a number of books that could be characterized as either philosophical in nature or relating in some way to comparative religious studies - or some measure of both.  I enjoy these books, as they often make me think about the world, and our place in it, in ways I hadn't before. 

One relatively thick volume that I've been reading lately is an Osho commentary on The Sutra of 42 Chapters - a Buddhist manuscript dating to the first century.  Although I studied philosophy in college, my studies were limited solely to works of Western authors.  The thought reflected in this work is, as they say, an entirely new breed of cat.  Or, well, they would say that if the particular cat wasn't actually many millennia in the making.

One aspect of the work that I find especially intriguing is the concept of love.  Osho suggests that just as we can dance without being observed, and we can sing without someone listening, we can love without an object of that exercise.  In Osho's view, love is internal.  And only by cultivating love within ourselves can we share love with others.  If we try to share love without first developing it within ourselves, we share instead our misery and our suffering. 

Powerful thoughts.  I suspect the Echidna would approve.

Love is a funny thing.  It can lead you to do things that you might not otherwise do.  Like, for example, knitting a highly cabled lap blanket. 

This one took me the better part of a month.  The pattern is Serenity by Laura Wilson-Martos.  The yarn is Lion Brand Wool-Ease - recycled from a friend's abandoned project. 

The recipient is a lady I've known my entire life.  She is goofy, with a quirky sense of humor, a talent for beating me soundly in Scrabble, and a penchant for calling me every year on May 29 and singing when I pick up the phone.  I love her dearly.   She is my mom.

~TSMK

Of Millinery and Men

I like hats.  In fact, I like them rather a lot and have quite a few.

I'm not exactly proud of it, but if I'm honest I have too many hats.  I haven't ever counted the total, but can say with certainty that I have eight in my office alone.  Well, eight on the wall.  Three or four more are on bookshelves, with a handful on the coat rack and maybe one or two just lying around.  Then there are the hats at the house, and the hats that live in the car. 

Did I mention I like hats?

Well, this year I decided to share my love of millinery with a few relations and make some hats as Christmas presents.  In each case, I started with the same basic template, a wonderful felted beret pattern that was developed by my favorite LYS.  But, with each hat I made a few specific changes to reflect the needs or characteristics of the recipient. 

For my one and only brother, I wanted to stay relatively simple - so far as I knew this would be his only beret.  And seeing as how he lives in a part of the country that isn't exactly cosmopolitan, I didn't want people seeing him to think he was getting too uppity. 

So I went for basic black in Jamieson Shetland Spindrift - but with a single thin stripe of white to set off the band. 

The photo isn't great, but I'm hoping he will send me a shot of the finished item being worn.  And if he does I'll post it here.

For my middle son, I scaled down the pattern.  He, like his mother - Mrs. TSMK - has a head roughly the size of a peanut.  But in addition to scaling it down, I knew I wanted to do something that would just be fun for the sake of fun.  So for him, the beret received a very small ornament, a very small amount of i-cord at the top.  When felted, it makes a very slight nub.  His is in  Spindrift as well, but in his (and my) favorite color: blue.

Although there are three years between my youngest son and my middle son, their heads are almost the same size.  Yes, that means what you think it does.  My youngest guy has a melon perched atop his neck.  He gets that from his dad.  So I didn't need to scale down the pattern any more for the little guy.  But he has almost no hair - so I was thinking that the warmer the better.  Rather than using the Spindrift - I went to the Shetland DK for this one.  I don't know if it is his favorite color, but do know that it works well with his complexion and the blue in his eyes.

Of course, all this hat making had me feeling a bit left out.  And seeing as how I had recently given away one of my favorite hats, I felt like I could use another.  True to form, I used the same pattern for my hat.  And I went back to the Spindrift.  But I've never been particularly worried about people thinking I'm too uppity and so mine is a bit fancier than the others. 

You just can't top a great hat.

~TSMK

All Good Things

In my line of work I am occasionally heard to opine that "past performance may not be indicative of future results."  But in one particular context, past performance will almost certainly prove accurate:

The TSMK-family Christmas tree will come down this week. 

Once the presents are unwrapped, the tree serves only as a mechanism to help perfect your needle-sweeping technique.  And from that point on it is dead tree walking.

I'm sad to see Christmas pass, but at the same time pleased as it means that my Christmas knitting is officially complete.  And even though I have one project left on the needles, I'm feeling good about my productivity.  The total isn't too bad.  For this year, I made:

• Three hats;
• One small blanket;
• Five scarves;
• One sweater; and
• One (and one quarter*) pairs of socks.

*I'm at the heel of the first sock of the second pair.

All told, 11.25 gifts knitted in time for Christmas. 

In the days ahead, I'll be posting some photos and brief descriptions of most of the items.  In the meantime - here is a pic of the pile of a few of them before we mailed them out.

~TSMK

My Wish

We are just getting acquainted, you and I. And I fear that you know me far better than I know you. Perhaps you disagree.

Even so, there are a few words I would say. Wishes for you that I might share. It is presumptive, I know. But since it is the holiday season, perhaps you’ll indulge me.

May you know that you are cherished.

May you learn to see the beauty in the world that surrounds you.

May you find joy in stillness.

May your eyes remain open to wonder.

May you always remember the warmth of a loving embrace.

May you elude the clutches of cynicism.

May you find awareness within yourself.

~TSMK

An Early Gift

This week, I received something of an early Christmas present. And I have to say, I think it is pretty cool.

You see, a few months ago, the good folks at Yarn Forward magazine contacted me, and asked whether I would object to their mentioning this blog in their monthly “Websites we Love” feature. I was quite flattered, and gave my permission.

But, truth be told, I always assumed that they would come to their senses, and realize that to include this journal in their magazine, they would probably need to start running a new segment. Something like “Websites we Tolerate” or perhaps “Websites we wish we hadn’t accidentally stumbled across while running a Google search for Billy Gibbons’ Hat.” In any event, I never really thought they would run the spot.

Still, hope springs eternal. And this week while leafing through their January edition, that hope paid off. For there, plain as day, in the bottom right hand corner of page eighteen, was a very familiar sight.

I have mixed feelings about all this. First, it is incredibly flattering to get this kind of recognition. Second, Groucho Marx is claimed to have said “I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.” I understand that sentiment – and on that basis I am beginning to question the judgment of the Yarn Forward editorial staff.

But, nevertheless, Thank you, Yarn Forward, for giving me this very nice Christmas gift.

And thank you also for making famous the object shown in the screen shot. It was a Christmas gift to my assistant and good friend, YR. The pattern is from one of my favorite books: Knitted Lace of Estonia. Her scarf is done in hand-painted alpaca, with beads in place of the dreaded nupps called for by the pattern. It came out nicely, and I’m pleased to say she wore it to the office yesterday. It looked lovely on her and I hope it brings her lots of pleasure.

And, since I've been playing with the "Hipstamatic" app on my phone - here is a Hipstamatic photo of YR's scarf the morning I gave it to her.

And a completely gratuitous self portrait of the author in his native habitat and costume.

That's just about it before Christmas.  I've completed all the items I'm likely to complete before Saturday morning.  Unfortunately, that means I only finished one of the two pairs of socks for Mrs. TSMK.  But I'll finish the second pair shortly after the holidays.

Also on the needles at the moment is a hat - this time for me.  I recently ran across a fellow in town who needed some help.  When I told him I didn't have any cash on me, he asked about my hat.  The guy was standing without a hat in the standard Seattle drizzle, and I just didn't feel good about turning him down.  So if you see a guy wearing my his Tam-beret around town - give the guy a quarter or two.  I think he could probably use the help.  And stay tuned for a pic of my new hat - which should be ready shortly after the holidays as well.

~TSMK

My two front teeth?

It isn’t easy being a tastemaker.

In fact, there is quite a bit of pressure involved. What if you make a mistake? What if, in a fit of je ne sais crap you commit a horrible lapse in judgment. The next thing you know, people all over the world might find themselves sporting plaid lederhosen.

And so, I take very seriously my responsibilities as a man whose every move may radically influence men’s interests, fashion and yarn selection.

With that said, I’ve had more than a few people ask me: “TSMK, what would a man like yourself, a man who has everything and wants for nothing, like to receive for Christmas?”

Well, I’ll tell you. But if you follow these suggestions and purchase similar gifts for the man (or men) in your life, well I simply can’t be held responsible.

First, I confess that lately I’ve continued to long for a pair of pants like those worn by the Norwegian curling team at the past winter Olympics. Such pants are available at Loudmouth Golf. In fact, you can even get a matching blazer. Think of the possibilities.

Second, moustache wax. Yeah. I know. I said it. But ever since the New York Gubernatorial debate, I’ve been thinking way too much about the possibilities of truly exceptional facial hair. That, and the fact that the rent is too damn high.

Third, I’ve been mulling over the idea of a computer program to help design knitted items. I know such programs exist, but I’ve never tried one out. It would be very cool to be able to propose a pattern and see a computer-generated model of how it might look when knit.

Fourth, a sitar. There’s been a fair amount of Indian music running through my headphones lately. It is obviously putting bad ideas into my head.

Last, a bloodhound puppy. I saw one a few weeks ago, and haven’t been able to get the image of those ears and that wrinkled face out of my head.

So there you have it. What to get for the man who has everything. But, a word to the wise. Don’t get any individual man all of these items. You wouldn’t really want to see a guy in an harlequin suit with a handlebar mustache, wearing an intricately knitted sweater while playing the sitar and accompanied by the howls of a bloodhound. Would you?

~TSMK