Rambling: Blah de blah

Um.

We went to a theater event, as we tend to, and talked to various members of the theater staff, and as usual after such events I had a sustained spasm of creative jealousy. Creative jealousy tends to make me stop, rather than ramp up, my creative efforts. I'm trying to keep it from doing that.

Said creative efforts remain unfocused. 

In the garden realm, I've received my Blacktail Mountain watermelon, my Armenian cucumber, and my Bountful bush bean, seeds. I was pleased to read that watermelons are a desert plant and are suitable for dryfarming. Who knew? Other websites are encouraging about cucumbers as well. 

I don't know if snap beans are a good choice for dry farming or not. When I check Gardening Without Irrigation by Steve Solomon, he's distinctly unenthusiastic about bush beans, saying that they have "puny roots'. He recommends pole beans instead. But building supports is one of the things that I am not doing this year. So no pole beans.

We're growing Blue Lake bush beans, even if we have to irrigate them.  But it might also be good to grow several other kinds of bush beans, as a test, in either the "freak vegetables" or "more vegetables" rows, and just watch to see if they live or die. If they all fail the same way, that tells me something. If they have varying responses, that tells me something else.  I could grow, oh, five blocks, two kinds per block, nine (wait, no, six) plants of each kind. Ten kinds of beans. That should produce some decent preliminary results.

Of course, there are other experiments I'd like to run. I want to taste some dry farmed Early Girl tomatoes, to see if they're as glorious as rumored. Yes, Early Girl--it's supposed to be one of the best, or perhaps the best, tomato for dry farming, despite the fact that I don't like its corporate parents. Joe Schirmer from Dirty Girl Produce is supposed to be working on an open-pollinated version, which would free it from that parentage. But Googling tells me that seeds aren't available yet, only a very small number of starts if you're in the right place at the right time.

I keep debating growing Sun Gold tomatoes, too, despite the fact that the two or three times we grew them, we didn't eat them, because we're too darn lazy to pick all those itty bitty things. I must restrain myself.

Another candidate for space in the Freak/Other Vegetable rows is zucchini, probably Costata Romanesco.  I have no use for the squash themselves; I want to eat the blossoms. But maybe friends would want the squash. Or the ducks. Not our ducks. Friends' ducks.

Quack.

Yes, I am sober. I'm just writing in a slightly more free-associationish way than usual.

In sewing, I'm working on my Liberty Shirt pattern. I already did a narrow shoulder adjustment and shortened the sleeves to be three-quarter length instead of too-long length. I'm planning to do a forward shoulder adjustment and lengthen the body. And after that, I may make an alternative sleeve with an inverted pleat, just as an experiment, to see if it gives me more arm movement or looks good or both. Starting at the sleeve cap and gathered in again at the "cuff". The shoulder would be much like the sleeve on the dress on this page, but the sleeve would be three-quarter length.

Writing? I had an idea, one that I'm chewing over. But otherwise, this blog is the extent of the writing.

That is all.

Rambling: Focus, the lack thereof, and a lot of landscape fabric

I garden, sew, and write. And cook some. And eat a lot of chicken. I don't have much focus.

Writing is the one area where I'm at least under the illusion that I might have enough talent to go beyond pure hobby. Might. Maybe. Not inconceivable.

But not if I don't work on it. On the writing forum where I hang out, I occasionally discuss the idea that you need to write a million words before you know if you can write. That maps nicely to someone's (I can't find the link) statement that you need to write ten novels before you can write a decent one. Ten novels, a hundred thousand words apiece, there you go. And then there's Malcolm Gladwell's idea of spending ten thousand hours to acquire a skill. A million words divided by ten thousand hours is a hundred words an hour. That's really pretty paltry, but maybe if you include the editing time...

Anyway. I ought to write more. So naturally I spent most of my spare time this weekend farming.

Well, gardening. You remember the farm? It's the roughly seventy by seventy foot vegetable garden that we've been battling with for the past few years. This year, I have accepted (I think) the reality that a garden that cannot be managed on erratic and small chunks of time is a garden that will fail. Fail if I'm the gardener that is. So we planned the garden, this year, accordingly.

We got and installed a gazillion square feet of high quality (I hope) weed barrier, covering the whole thing. We're using it un-mulched, entirely violating the warranty, with the sun beating down, eagerly trying to make it dissolve. I've used this weed barrier before, so I'm hoping it doesn't dissolve it too soon.

The weed barrier is covering a dozen rows, four feet wide, sixty feet long, with two foot paths in between. Each row will be ten six foot long blocks. Plants will be spaced at eighteen inches (twelve per block), or three feet (two per block) or six feet (one per block). I'm treating the path as part of the spacing. That's kind of wide spacing. That's because I want to dry farm (which requires wide spacing) and because I want to limit the number of holes I punch through that nice weed barrier.

Twelve rows, ten blocks per row. The plan for those twelve rows, at least as of at this moment, is:

1. Pumpkins. Ten plants, one per block.
2. Roses. Same thing. Yes, I will be trying to dryfarm roses. The roses are probably not pleased.
3. Flowers, at varying spacing. Maybe one dinnerplate dahlia in a block, versus twelve zinnias, versus two Oriental poppies. Actually, probably no dahlias; they need lots of water, right?
4. Shrubby herbs, at varying spacing. One rosemary in a block; twelve thyme in a block. And so on.
5. Blueberries. One per block. I'm still working out how to amend the soil to make it acid enough to keep them from dying the way they did last time.
6. Perennial and freak vegetables. (Artichokes. Chives. Rattail radishes. Like that.) Varying spacing again. 
7. Strawberries. Twelve per block, ten blocks. We like strawberries.
8. Shrub berries--currants, raspberries, that kind of thing.
9. Copra onions. I'm not sure of my spacing, but right now I'm thinking three onion seedlings in each of twelve holes per block. This will be interrupted with about fifteen feet of preexisting weed-infested strawberries. 
10. Bush beans. Twelve plants per block. 
11. More vegetables. I'm not sure what kind. One tomato plant per block, that kind of thing. Possibly more onions, because I just realized that I ordered too many onion plants.
12. Melons (Blacktail Mountain?) and cucumbers (Armenian). One plant per block.

I'm trying to maintain a nice calm task. by. task. pace in developing the farm. And trying to suppress my desire to do crazy things that I won't maintain. And trying to get the ground ready well ahead of the time that I'm ready to plant.

For example, I want to get the pumpkin row manured (with the bags of manure that have been lying around for two years waiting for me to do something with them) and fabric covered and marked off and ready to insert the seeds before the first of April, because the seeds don't need to go in before May. Or maybe June. And the melon and cucumber row is already fabric covered and could be marked off any time I have ten minutes to do it. And also doesn't need to be planted until May or June. And the strawberry row is covered and marked and ready for me to transplant strawberries.

Right now, the living things in the garden are the weed-infested strawberries, several healthy currant bushes, several near-dead blueberry bushes, one block of twelve fava beans that have sprouted nicely, one block of twelve Sugar Daddy snap peas that I just poked into the ground, and a little scrap of dirt with lettuce seedlings waiting to be transplanted.  I want to add new plants slowly. Calmly. I want this year to be a nice low-key success.

We'll see.

Rambling: Rambling

Er...

See, I want to blog more often. That's going to result in a fair number of "Er..." posts.

Er.

Also, um.

And hmm.

See, my brain is largely empty. It has thoughts of chicken. And it's pushing away thoughts of work, because it's not work time. And again the chicken. Milk too.

Mmm, chicken.

In my head I can hear Leloo from The Fifth Element, making happy noises about the platter of chicken.

That makes me try to think of Great Chicken Moments In Film.

Like the guy in My Cousin Vinnie who stripped the whole chicken drumstick in one motion.

And "four fried chickens and a Coke" in The Blues Brothers, though we never got to actually see any chicken.

And.

Um.

Surely there must be more?

I tried searching for more, and instead learned that fried chicken for Christmas is a big tradition in Japan. Who knew?

Again, um.

That may be all.

Rambling: Weekend!

Bwa! Ha! Ha! Weekend!

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival season is starting. We just went to the first preview of Much Ado, and it was fabulous. Just, well, fabulous. In all sorts of ways. And it solved The Problem Of Hero. I might explain what I my by that later in the season, but right now it feels like explaining would be a spoiler. But you want to see it. Really you do. It blows the Branagh/Thompson movie version, among others, out of the water.

Tomorrow is Fingersmith. Sunday is Guys and Dolls. By the end of the weekend my brain will be full of new images and characters.

I'll also be dealing with creative jealousy, which really isn't a healthy reaction to witnessing world-class creativity.You'd think that it would inspire me, rather than making me look at my own creations and say "blergh." I'll work on that.

Right now, my creations don't have a lot of creative. I'm still working on getting The Farm ready for next year--covering a lot of square footage with weed barrier, in anticipation of a low-maintenance mostly-food garden with most things planted at a very wide dry farm spacing. Like beans eighteen inches apart in all directions rather than three inches apart in the row.

I'm also planning some fairly prosaic, rather than creative, sewing. Slips and tap pantsesque things from Bemberg rayon. Skirts to replace jeans--two in denim, two in two different types of chambray-like fabric. Pajama pants in cotton voile in gaudy patterns. For those, I already have the fitted patterns; I'm ready to just cut and go.

My next sewing priority is to get a  loose summer top pattern fitted to that same cut and go point. We'll see if that happens.

As usual, I should be writing fiction. As usual, I'm not. Characters are wandering around my head in a satisfying manner, but that doesn't really count. In-head movies don't translate into words in any straightforward process. I've said more than once that I don't like writing fiction, I like having written fiction. But I do love having written it. Even the itty bitty blog bits. So I really need to kick myself and write more.

I remember explaining, somewhere sometime, that I have trouble getting past the expectation that I should be able translate from the movie in my head to words, like taking dictation. And it doesn't work that way. I have a movie in my head, I watch it for a while. I write words that are "inspired by" that movie. The words are a sort of black and white cartoon pencil sketch. Then I push those words around and rearrange them and buff them. Then I come back later and read the words, and the words make a movie in my head. Which may or may not have any resemblance whatsoever to the original movie they were inspired by.

If I analogize it to sewing, it's a little like imagining a velvet beaded cocktail hat and ending up with a corduroy cardigan. But they're both red. And they have pile. So it's the same thing, see?

Um.

That seems to be all.

Rambling: Dinner

White bread.
White cheddar.
Chives.
Melted butter.
Toasted sesame oil

Build sandwich with cheddar, bread, and chives.

Fry in a puddle of butter and sesame oil.

Tasty.

But I got my keyboard buttery.

That is all. At least until my hands are clean.

Rambling: Hah!

They're back! They're back!

The characters wandering around my head, that is. They needed a little nudging, but they finally came out. And acted out plots that might conceivably be worth writing up, though that's not the point. The point is that my brain is no longer uninhabited.

I feel as if I really haven't explained this phenomenon properly, and I probably can't, but in any case: They're back! Cue happy dance.

So what drove them out and what pulled them back? Diet? Weather? Stress? Milk? The migraine that kept stalking me? All of the above?

They're back!

Rambling: I want my brain back!

The theater in my mind is still empty. I find this dismaying. The only thing that my mind wants to get absorbed in is worries. I feel as if I ought to be able to reach and flip a channel knob--"Worries", "Fictional Daydreams", "Hobby Daydreams", "Thinking About Fried Poultry." But the knob is stuck.

Whine.

Do brains need to be absorbed, all busy with sustained spinning thoughts? Even though I perceive the worrying as unpleasant, does a part of my brain seek it out? Is it a craving, like hunger when your blood sugar is low?

That's often been my theory. The fictional daydreams often seem to provide that absorption. Without them, the worries win.

Oh, and that leaves out the migraine stalking me. Aura. Countermeasures of caffeine and darkness. Headache retreats. Three days later, repeat.

Whine.

Rambling: Feelings of Dread in your Basement or Attic

You know that Seasonal Affective Disorder thing? I always assumed I didn't have that problem, because I wasn't depressed in winter. But I've realized this year that I do seem to be increasingly anxious as the winter rolls along. Has his happened every year? Is it SAD? Should I get one of those light therapy things? You know, like Walt in Northern Exposure? Did you ever watch Northern Exposure? Good show.

Um.

You can tell that this is one of those "write something!" posts, right? Right. Twenty-odd days since the last post. My verbal creativity seems to be largely nonexistent. And I'm not even daydreaming fiction. I usually daydream fiction. It feels sort of lonely not to have those characters ambling through my head.

Some sewing has been happening, so that's good. I fitted that skirt pattern, in two different lengths, and and made...did I make two? And a slip, with the same pattern. And a divided slip. And I feel like I've blogged all that before, but I don't see it in my past few posts.

I have three more of the skirt planned, one in red wool, one in a nice black and white houndstooth cotton that the bolt called "denim" though it's neither a denim color or a denim weave, and one in a cotton/linen fabric that is a denim color. The chances are respectable that the houndstooth skirt will be done by the end of the weekend.

Oh, and another one in a yellow silk/linen or silk/cotton or silk/something, and yet another one in a sage green rayon. That's...seven skirts? Yep. Will it really happen? My goal--did I mention my goal?--is to eliminate pants from my wardrobe. Pants are Not Flattering on me, in the understatement sense of Not Flattering.

Oh, and I got a length of red silk with yellow-gold polka dots. Bwaha! Not sure yet what I'll do with it. My goal is a bathrobe, but I don't have a robe pattern I'm happy with yet.

I've been doing a surprising amount of hand-sewing on the skirts. Surprising for me. Slipstitching the hem and the inside of the waistband, and pick stitching the zipper. I kind of enjoy it. It's like I'm bonding with the garment.

I still miss all those characters in my head. Sometimes when I'm sewing or gardening or some such thing, I find Columbo wandering up to ask me friendly questions about what I'm doing, like I'm a murder suspect. Wandering up in my head. I don't actually see him. Or hear him. Don't schedule the commitment hearing, please. But he's not talking to me right now. This is sad.

Sometimes it's Quincy instead. Did I ever mention my crush on Jack Klugman? It's also sometimes seen as grounds for that commitment hearing.

Um. That is all.

Firehouse Image: By Phillip Ritz. Wikimedia Commons.
Wanderers Image: Wikimedia Commons.
Columbo Image: Wikimedia Commons.
Quincy Image: Wikimedia Commons

IttyBittyFictionScraps: Bus Stop

(This one was about the difference between summary and scene. This was scene.)

Raining. Of course it had to be raining, on the one day that the car was being serviced. Joe leaned on the post of the bus-stop sign, as if it could provide shelter. And why wasn't there shelter? He'd seen those little glass-walled things in other cities; why not this city? What, the locals weren't worth the money? Probably somebody hadn't filled out the grant application, that was it.

He snatched his phone out of his pocket and made a note: "Complain to City re bus shelters." Rain ran over the phone as he did so. Probably going to ruin it. That would be the city's fault, too.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"What?" Joe turned to glare at--glare down at--the face of the little woman standing next to him. Little woman in a rain coat and a rain hat, little woman looking contented and dry and bleeping friendly. He hated her, just looking at her little contented face and its curls of hair, dry hair, probably warm hair, under the hat. Stupid woman. Didn't she know that she should be angry about bus shelters?

"What do you want? I'm waiting for a bus here."

IttyBittyFictionScraps: Coffee Break

(A tiny sample scrap written elseweb for a discussion of whether you need italics to get into thoughts in third person.)

He sat, thinking, toying with the coffee cup. How to handle this? He could address it with Mom, but Mom was...well, Mom. Mom had that crying jag last Thanksgiving, just because the turkey sat for an extra fifteen minutes. Mom had the brains, but she couldn't handle stress. Sue was the opposite--Sue would have been unfazed by the cooling turkey, but she would have handled it by throwing it in the clothes dryer on High, or something.

It had to be Joe. Dammit.

He shoved the cup to the middle of the table and dumped a handful of change next to it as he stood. Better get the call over with.

Dammit.