I’m feelin’ the music tonight. And going to bed early. I have to be up rather early tomorrow. So here are some country/alt-country/country-esque songs.

Starting with some genuine country from Bobbie Gentry. I knew she had an interesting background and Wikipedia informs me that she was one of the first female country artists to write and produce her own material. I particularly enjoy her seminal (and best-known) song, referred to as a Southern Gothic - “Ode to Billy Joe”:

Then, a country-esque cover of Howard Jones’ 80’s hit, “No One is to Blame” performed by Emile Millar. I have to admit that I just heard this on the soundtrack of the movie, “Waitress” and the entire movie as well as the soundtrack surprised me. I honestly didn’t expect to like it as much as I did/do:

And finally, alt-country fun from Neko Case and “Hold On, Hold On.” This is one of those songs that crept into my head without my knowing it; the chorus would often repeat in my head during crap times (cheesy, I know) but I never consciously paid attention to who was singing it. At some point last year, I heard it and looked it up and said to myself, “Moron. You also love ‘Deep Red Bells‘ and it’s obviously the same woman singing. Moron.” These things happen:

I really love singing all three of these songs. In the car. Because that’s how I roll.

And now I will set about the nighttime rituals so I can get up early and set about snow removal. We’re supposed to get a couple of inches of snow overnight and then icy rain tomorrow morning. Yippee!

For the next month, Neil Gaiman’s novel, American Gods, will be available in its entirety to read online, for free.

This free book would’ve beaten the Oprah/Suze Orman free book to the punch (in terms of availability) had it not been for the fact that readers actually voted to select which of Neil Gaiman’s books Harper should make available online. Democracy in action.

American Gods is a good one. I voted for Neverwhere, but this would’ve been my second choice if that was an option.

Check it out. It’s good stuff. And here’s the post announcing it on his blog with a few words from Mr. Gaiman about the whole idea.

Tomorrow is my catch-up day - for running, reading, knitting, RSS feeds, and blogging.

I’m woefully behind in all things of this nature. But I will share this comic from xkcd. I sent it to my expectant friends and they enjoyed it.

The rollover caption reads:  We are sexy, sexy Von Neumann machines.

I’ll admit - despite my geek status, I didn’t know exactly what a Von Neumann machine was/is. I extrapolated/inferred from the context that it had something to do with a machine for making things. Well, I was sort of right; a von Neumann machine is also known as a self-replicating machine. According to your friend and mine, Wikipedia, a self-replicating machine is:

… an artificial construct that is capable of autonomously manufacturing a copy of itself using simpler components or raw materials taken from its environment. The concept of self-replicating machines has been most notably advanced and examined by, Homer Jacobsen, Edward F. Moore, Freeman Dyson, John von Neumann and in more recent times by K. Eric Drexler.

That struck me as pretty cool. So, I think one thing I’ll have to do is go over to spreadshirt.com and create a t-shirt that proclaims the wearer (who will be a pregnant woman) a “sexy sexy von neumann machine” and get a copy made up for my friend. I think that would be geeky and awesome.

This will be the first time since my surgery that I have functional and pain-free wrists AND a pregnant friend for whom I can knit a baby blanket.

I got some super soft Bernat Bamboo yarn in Dill (light green) and Wicker (warm beige). The color balance on my olde digital camera doesn’t quite do it, but I did what I could in Photoshop to convey the true colors… shining through.

Apologies to Cyndi Lauper.

I’m going to rock out a moss stitch - which is still easy enough for me to do a larger piece like a blanket without my wrist getting too tired. Generally speaking, I’m well into functional territory and I think that’s a great thing for a wrist lacking three bones. Proximal row carpectomy -ha!

But when the weather is rainy (as it is tonight) I do feel some stiffness and swelling in my left wrist. It gets tired far more quickly than my left wrist. And it’s still way weaker than my right wrist… but I think that the rock-climbing has helped it quite a bit in that arena.

Knitting is therapeutic in several ways, when all is said and done.

So… I just imported my blog archives (from Movable Type) from 2005 through December 2007 into WordPress. And then went through all the entries from December 2007 back to December 2006, tagging them as archived and deciding which ones to leave unpublished in this iteration of the blog.

That was something along the lines of 537 posts. So almost 1 a day for those two years… except the last few months of 2007, I wasn’t doing much writing.

But now there’s lots of old stuff to plug through. I might have to add an actual archive widget to the sidebar. Yup yup.

Target is selling Converse sneakers.

I now own a pair of sparkly silver One-Star skimmers. My friend Sara may be getting a pair and then we can be sneaker sparkle twins!

Yes. I think it’s perfectly appropriate to call ourselves sparkle twins even in light of the fact that we’re not 25 anymore. Or 27. Or 28. Even 29 will be a thing of the past sooner than I’d like. Focus on the sparkly sneakers. FOCUS!

I also think it’s OK that I wore them to work today. It was raining and icy - I couldn’t risk wearing heels and possibly slipping and breaking my ankle. And the other flats I own are too flat to wear through puddles. These were my only alternative.

I’ve been home for about 90 minutes… and I just want to watch a movie and go to sleep.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll write about Michel Gondry’s “Be Kind Rewind” and the new yarn I bought to make a baby blanket for my friends and upcoming cool craft projects and ideas for Caribbean travel and Trader Joe’s citrus-y hair products and how much I love colored tights and sparkly shoes.

(in response to Sarah’s video…)

A few years ago, my friend Michelle gave me this gorgeous tea strainer which I break out when preparing a cup of double bergamot Earl Grey (of the loose tea variety).

If you’re not familiar with this method of preparing tea, the top portion with the “wings” rests on the rim of your teacup and you put loose tea in the basket portion.

Pour hot water over it, let it steep for a bit, and then remove the strainer and rest it in the accompanying base until you want to perhaps pour yourself another cuppa.

It’s beautiful and elegant and stylish and I love it.

(I also love the digital macro feature on my sister’s camera, borrowed for this purpose.  It’s not bad at all and makes me wonder whether I would even need a digital SLR to get some good macro action. This was taken with a Canon Powershot SD600 and then photoshopped to produce that ethereal glow.)

My mother and sister got me this silver ring on a trip to Poland a few years back. While I’m not a butterfly-loving hippie, I really like the way its been wrought.

I need to dip it in some silver cleaner because I can’t get into the crevasses to polish up the tarnish. For the purposes of the photograph, though, I think it’s OK. It gives it depth.

And just as a matter of dispelling myth, the original name for a butterfly was not a flutterby. From a handy-dandy etymological dictionary;

From Middle English butterflye, from Old English butorflēoge : butor, butere, butter; see butter + flēoge, fly; see fly2.