From Pain to Equilibrium: Part 2 1 Aug 2019 8:17 AM (5 years ago)

From Pain to Equilibrium: Hardcore Heat (Part 1)
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I booked an appointment at the yoga studio. When I arrived, I discovered that for all its Finnish-style prettiness, the sauna is set up in a large walk-in closet with tall ceilings to mitigate its, um, closetness. The room also functions as the studio's laundry sorting space, to give you a sense of the true functionality with which this experience is treated. I observed that it was not customized. If it had been, it would have fit the dimensions of the room more elegantly. Point is - this experience was decidedly "urban real" - not like the sexy downtown spas that assume you're in it for half the day because, what else would you be doing otherwise?

Despite this - the sauna wood of the unit I've used is in perfect condition (so much so that I wonder if anyone else uses it - though apparently it's popular). And - cuz I've done lots o' research on saunas in general and on this particular brand - this one is made in a very soft wood (Ontario basswood) that's chosen for its eco-specifics. All things being equal, I'd prefer the durability of a hard wood. But it is formaldehyde free (unlike most wood, including expensive cedar which also contains other natural toxins to keep bugs away from the trees). It's not "chemically treated". Of course it is inasmuch as everything is a chemical, including the non-toxic wax this vendor uses, it is chemically treated but these peeps make toxicity (or non-, as the case may be) their primary point of focus. And trust me. When you are in a sauna, the wood is everything. You inhale it. You become strangely connected to it for that 30 minutes. Despite the softness of this wood, it has enough durability that there isn't a scratch on the studio unit. Plus, it feels and smells awesome.

I've posted a couple of photos of this sauna on Insta, should you wish to have a look. With any infrared (and in this post, when I say infrared pls assume I'm referring to FAR infrared, not near) one can turn it on and warm up with it, or pre-heat - like when you make cookies! I prefer to warm with the unit though it's generally a less "hot" experience to do it that way.

It's challenging to explain in what way the sauna "works" for me and by work, I'm referring to pain mitigation. An additional bizarre side-benefit is euphoria?!?! (Note: not mania! The sauna will not make you bipolar :-) though if one is bipolar, I wonder if it would have some impact on the brain state, particularly if the person in question were unmedicated.) In retrospect, I think what I experienced on that walk in Quebec City after my days of sauna in the Charlevoix, was the residual energy and mood-boost - an amazing corollary impact of "healthful heat bathing" as the Europeans might say (or not). Truly, no one would suggest I have a lot of energy right now. It's much better than it was over the winter, but it's still pale in comparison to my former energy levels, or those of my youth. But for about 24 hours after "saunaing", I am strangely bouncy and fearless in my body, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

At first I assumed this was because my pain is reduced by the heat process (and it definitely is though, natch, with chronic pain one's mileage will vary). But, on balance, I don't think that's the full story. I think the energy and the pain mitigation are separate experiences. And they're both awesome!

On the topic of pain management: We all experience chronic pain differently and, as I've harped on endlessly, the reason why the pain-haver is wise to utilize an integrated approach is that chronic pain is a brain-groove inasmuch as its a physical experience. Your brain, if it likes to spout pain, will find ways around the one or 2 mechanisms by which you may regularly reach for relief. That's why you need a minimum of a dozen. I recommend that as few of those as necessary should be pharmaceuticals (just based on the likelihood of long-term damage and side effects). But that's my bias.

Apparently, the average person with chronic pain uses fewer than 3 approaches to mitigate pain - and not because (s)he's tried a multiplicity that didn't work. I find that impossible to believe. How can one linger in misery and not search for the answer continuously?? I have an arsenal of 20 plus mitigation methods that I modulate weekly. When I write on this topic, I aim not to be prescriptive because pain is personal but, if you have chronic pain, this is not a "nice to have" approach. It's the only one - because, if your two mechanisms worked, you wouldn't still be in pain.

Back to the experience of the sauna as it relates to the pain I have experienced... The minute I step into the pre-heated sauna (or as it heats up), pain disappears. Yes, I know. For that reason alone, it's worth a fortune. I begin to feel a strange sort of seal (this is a term we sometimes use in yoga). What I mean is that the density of the air in the sauna (and I'm speaking as a user, not as a science professional) seems to increase, as does the feeling inside the muscular/fascial layer of my body. It feels like they click or suction together. It's difficult to articulate. And in that suction, a kind of normally-absent equilibrium is found. The outcome of the equilibrium, for me, is pain reduction.

After a few minutes, my body seems to "lighten". The skeletal compression I often feel, the internal puffy sense, the nerve-shooting sensation, the ridiculous fascial tightness - these all disappear for the duration of the visit. It's totally bizarre and I can't explain it. For this reason, staying in the (less hot than traditional sauna) heat for 30 minutes is very easy.

I turn off the interior light because, for me, it's about sensory deprivation. In a zillion years I would not go into one of those water floating gizmos to relax. But I believe they work on the exact same premise: remove all stimulus. The sauna is like a vacuum, an eraser (like one of those 70s toys where you write on a tablet with a plastic front and a cardboard back coated with some black substance. The minute you're done with what you've drawn with that ink-free stylo, you lift the cover plastic and it's all gone).

Whether you practice meditation or not, you will effectively meditate in a sauna. It's a function of the brain state that heat and sensory deprivation provide.

How long does this last? I don't know - I don't have enough data yet to say. I'm going to estimate about 24-36 hours. But that's in summer - both the cool version and the heat wave kind. Note: I don't find taking a sauna in a heat wave to be problematic. But I like heat.

Now, can you imagine me - a constantly cold (in body temp) person - getting home after a day of work, in the dark, via massively overcrowded public transit, followed by a walk on treacherous, un-salted ice or in freezing rain or in miserable dampness (all things that do nothing to help pain that I experience), being able to hop into a gorgeously hot, intensely quiet space to "reset" before dinner? Peeps - the Nordic people haven't been doing this for centuries simply cuz it's fun.

Note: I don't do a cold shower after-treatment. For my biochemistry, that doesn't help. When I get out of the sauna, I feel so tremendously cold (just in interior air) that I consider this to be my "cold treatment". As cold is a pain trigger for me, I avoid it to whatever extent I can.

Also, it goes without saying that saunas are not for everyone - and one kind of sauna may be better for you than another. Use your brain while you experiment on yourself. And no harm in consulting a doc if you have concerns about heat therapy for certain conditions like blood pressure - though don't assume that he or she will know anything about saunas and how the body interacts with them.

Do saunas remove toxins from your body, cure cancer and cause you to lose weight like a celebrity? Um - I really can't say cuz I'm in it for the pain and mood management. I've read many conflicting documents on these accounts and I can tell you that you lose water and salt when sweating (toxins are a tough thing to calibrate), if you're in cancer treatment you should definitely be talking with your oncologist, not a sauna sales person, and if you want to lose weight you should stop eating sugar and processed food, get tons of sleep, do healthful exercise, remove all stressors from your life and eschew fun. Or come by it naturally. That's why those celebrities are thin.

On the topic of choosing a sauna: The average far infrared sauna is meant to heat the individual at 40-60C vs the much hotter traditional temp range of 80-100C. Infrared heat is actually light - as is all heat from what I can tell from 5 seconds on the internet. Moreover, all saunas work on the basis of radiant heat - from what I've seen. My limited understanding is that the main difference is the frequency of the waves that create the heat but, seriously, if you're a scientist - please chime in!

The specific unit I've tried is, I believe, a 2-person sauna. (No one seems to be able to give me intel about the model at the studio though I'm sure both SaunaRay and the studio have the deets...) Presuming I'm correct - and next time I "sauna", I'm bringing my tape-measure to confirm - there's no way it would fit 2 humans. It's as small a space as I'd like to be in all alone and, if you are a tall or large person, it'll seem smaller still. Note: I'm not claustrophobic.

Secretly, I hope the studio unit I'm using is the 1-person version because I intend to buy the 2-person one. It would be thrilling if the unit I buy is bigger than the one I'm using as I would like a bit more room to move around without being concerned about hitting the ceramic heaters.

Those heaters are well-placed in the studio sauna and "caged", to prevent burns. When one is seated and still, in this particular unit, there is no concern. But I would be mindful about trying to sit horizontally with legs up on the bench.

On the topic of budget, cuz who doesn't want to know the scoop: for a high-quality, small, non-customized sauna (the kind that is installed by the people who have made the sauna but to specifications that are consistent from unit to unit and not altered to suit specific spaces), you're looking at about 5K. It will likely cost more than this if you opt for additional features. If you go custom - whether infrared or traditional - it's going to cost about 10-15K.

I'm not here to recommend any particular brand. One must do research and consider the relevant factors but what I can say is that you should avoid buying one from a big box store. There's a lot of inaccurate info provided by the conglomerates that sell flat packs, as proven by peeps who buy them to independently test for things like wood toxicity and the quality of heat being emitted (and what's used to emit that heat). At the wrong end of the spectrum (no pun intended), the sauna becomes more like a toxic oven than healing treatment.

As soon as I realized that the cheap Costco ones are more harmful than they'd have you believe, I had to switch gears. For my money, buying Canadian - and better still local - is a strong preference. But buying the best and safest model I can afford - Canadian or no - is a stronger preference. I'm really happy that I love the brand that the studio uses (SaunaRay) because all of the saunas are handmade 2 hours away to very stringent specifics.

You do need two things, other than money, to bring a sauna into your home: the correct amperage in your house (Scott says most modern houses have this) and space. I've not seen a non-custom sauna that's shorter than 6 feet and, over and above that, you need a certain amount of clearance. Also, it's very small on the inside but somehow quite large on the outside. I can see how this would not work optimally for those in a condo or a small, old house.

If this gizmo appeals to you on any level - I recommend that you find a place that's easy and quick to get to, and that charges a fee you can get with because you'll want to do it reasonably often. Try a bunch of options till you find your preferred brand and style. If it improves the quality of your life and you have space, money and the electrical specs - buy a freakin' sauna! Sure - you may think of this as a stupid, urban, rich girl prop - Lord knows, I did. But if it makes you feel excellent, who cares what people think?

PS: If you don't write about it on your blog, no one needs to know that you intend to buy one!

From Pain to Equilibrium: Hardcore Heat 31 Jul 2019 12:13 PM (5 years ago)

You may recall this post from last year. I've dwelt on this moment of peaceful interaction with my body on so many occasions, there's a veritable shrine to it in my mind... It took a while to parse out the components, but on (ceaseless) reflection, it occurred to me that the one novel feature I'd added into my life last summer - and entirely accidentally - was a sauna.

Did I mention that they comped me the water spa at the Germain Charlevoix (formerly named La Ferme, though the ownership has not changed)? I'm ever grateful that they did, not cuz it was a 250 dollar value (per person) and I do love being comped, but because there's no universe in which I'd have purchased it.

That's not cuz I'm cheap (though I am very frugal about some things - shipping anyone?). It's because the idea of sitting in water with other people (or even by myself) totally creeps me out. No children are allowed in the spa - or there's no way I'd ever have gone, free or no. Also, it's a silent space (something I freakin' love). And it has one of the most spectacular views I've ever seen.

I tried it out for the view and the opp to knit on a chaise. I mean, it's practically freezing in northern Quebec in August (vague hyperbole). So that's how it happened. I was sitting there in a bathing suit with a stiff 18C breeze and I didn't want to stop looking at sheep and alpacas. And there was no one else there (I went early to avoid others, even silent others). And somehow, I put my toe in the hot water, which turned into my leg and then my ass and then I swam over to the centre seating. It was fucking delicious.

I stayed until I freaked myself out. There was no universe in which I was going to the cold pools. And hell would freeze over before I'd go into a steam room. Which left one option to try (other than a green smoothie): the sauna.

To clarify, this sauna was a radiant heat version (aka "traditional"). It uses (a whack of) electricity to heat up a bunch of rocks in a custom built wood room. It was approximately 1000 degrees. OK, I don't know what the actual temp was but it seemed like I was turning into a roast as I sat there. Mercifully I was also alone in this room. I struggled with my mind - was I actually cooking?? - and I left after 5 minutes. Then I went back 3 more times that day. For 5 minutes max, each time. And then 3 times each of the next days.

Scott said: You sure do like the sauna. I responded: No I really don't. I just find it very strange and vaguely compelling. Like it's too hot for germs to survive. We left the hotel few days later, on the train (described in the post linked to above) and then I had the awesome walk around QC. And then the next day we went home.

At some point, over the following couple of months, as I descended into the most challenging time in my life (ok, let's just cut the crap and call it a nightmare), I occasionally turned my mind to the gorgeous Charlevoix countryside and the spa pools and the sauna. As I sat, numb and practically endlessly in front of a fireplace I own, for the first time - under multiple blankets plus heating pads plus tea - it started to occur to me that the sauna heat might have been germane to my momentary vacay pain-free euphoria.

When I had energy (ha!), I would research saunas, at which point I determined that the far-infrared kind were my jam (were I ever to purchase one) because of the way it conserves energy (in the scheme of things) and the therapeutic lower temps. I tried to find them in TO, to give a few brands a go, but every option I could find was far away (ok, 15 minutes by Uber but I was practically homebound) and, all in, would cost me 100 bucks a shot. I really didn't feel that was sustainable. OK, technically that's a lie.

I was so consumed by horrific anxiety brought on by dysregulation of my central nervous system - constantly tachychardic, frozen with pain, vomiting routinely from intractable nausea, exhausted in a way I cannot describe. Truth is, it took more wherewithal than I had to get to a spa 15 minutes away. Not even when my friends offered to take me. The idea of interaction was beyond my capacity at that time.

Cut to 7 months later, warm weather and increased capacity. I knew I had to get my ass to the sauna to see what it would be like. I googled again, to see if I could find a closer option and, to my great shock, I found one - private! - at a yoga studio near my house. It's one of the few studios I'll visit. I know the owner. She's quality. The place is clean. Um - this sauna had been there all along. I just hadn't found it. Moreover, the sessions are 30 min (not 60) - a timeline which suits me better - and the cost is outrageously reasonable.

I can see this post is going to go on indefinitely if I get into my next batch of details but let me leave you (vaguely) hanging with the assurance that I'll write the rest of this narrative asap and that, if you are a person managing chronic pain, you may be interested to hear the punchline...

One Year On... 23 Jul 2019 5:45 AM (5 years ago)

We recently had our first year renoversary - the date on which we returned to our improved home from the rental where we lived for 18 months. In case it warrants articulation: the work is not "complete" - though I now understand that completion is just a continuum. I imagine that interior work will be finished within a year, though it doesn't pay to speculate. If you take one thing from this post it's that it doesn't pay to speculate - that attachment is the root of all suffering. Who would have imagined that renos come with a free side of Buddhism??

Unquestionably, we're getting there. If you came over for dinner, you'd think it was almost done because, frankly, one can stop at any time and we're the only ones I know who've ever gone this far. See: Continuum.

The word recreation is one I often consider. I love what it connotes, especially when you put a hyphen between the first and second syllables. The notion of shaping my environment (environmental plasticity) has never been more appealing as I manage systemic health challenges, transition back to the lifestyle of the child-free and become ever more aware of the temporality that binds us all (the gift of age). Inasmuch as everything is metaphor for something, this house is the metaphor for my Self. For years, it was close - beauty dimmed by darkness and decay. But I found my voice - or should I say my vision. I exercised every facet of my free will to affect profound change. Now it is haven in chaos. Something rebuilt for strength and longevity. A space of artful introversion. Uncluttered and encroachingly serene. And goddamn sexy.

We have a new rule in this house. We're not talking about the reno-past. Note: we often break the rule and catch ourselves but it's our yoga. In the words of Scott, talking about it is like pulling a scab off a third-degree burn. When your body is critically injured, you do everything to heal it because, if you don't, it may lead to serious repercussions. What do you do when your consciousness is injured? Do you run from the awareness? Do you entrench in it?

I can't run, but I won't linger. Every day, I pay attention to the merciful beauty around me - the floor boards that actually shine from the reflection of light streaming into the vertical windows, the shards that glint off the brick wall. Green subtones in the greige walls reflect nature and the sky, in every weather. When I see what we've saved, what we've loved, what we've gained, what we've released, how we've collaborated in the most natural fashion - I am tremendously gratified.

But enough philosophizing.

Here's what I said I was going for back in 2017:

Cleanness - I need a space to be actually clean-seeming but also visually undistracting.
Colour - I like neutrals and wood tones but they usually don't cohere without deeper or brighter colours, IMO.
Warmth - Cuz Canada...
Architectural Intrigue
Practicality - Show me some kind of ingenious, attractive space-saver any day...
Elegance
Light

Well - I didn't waver, though I couldn't begin to remember what I'd said (though I remember I'd said something) and it took me 10 minutes of looking through previous posts to find the details. I might as well have just said - and yeah, I know this makes me sound SO basic - I want to live in a boutique hotel / spa:

The kind you find in urban Europe that is so chic and is so impossible to get into that you throw caution to the Visa card and stay there for two days cuz fuck moderation.
The kind in that restaurant-dense, boho neighbourhood that defies homogeneity in the spirit of staunch individuality.
The kind with the yoga studio that has all the best Iyengar props and an onsite teacher to whom you have unlimited access.
The kind with multiple terraces that overlook some sketch - but endlessly interesting - domains.
The kind that you take 37 photos of, per hour, because every surface is so appealing that you cannot stop yourself.
The kind with the heated bathroom floors and the sauna and the gorgeous grounds, set like a jewel in the most beautiful ring.
The kind that comes with the best espresso you've ever had and the warmest, sexiest fireplace to sit in front of as you drink it.
The kind with excellent towels and bedding and a ceramic essential oil diffuser to set up every space by scent.
The kind with an awesome in-house restaurant that produces profound meals from the simplest of natural ingredients, rounded out by confident service and capability.
The kind with the downstairs sitting space where you can read quietly, knit or engage with others at your own leisure.
The kind which, when you check out on the morning of the third day, you feel a pang of loss over, and the impulse to rebook immediately.
The kind with timeless architectural reminders that the past is in the present and the present drives toward the future (but can never leave the echoes of the past).

Reader - I've done this. And in the process I've gone from being stuck in the darkest recesses of myself to being nurtured by the strength that bounces, like radiant heat, from restoration (another word I like to put a hyphen in, for kicks).

Do I wish it hadn't been so difficult (to understate things entirely)? Oh, you have no idea. Do I wonder about potential long-term impacts across the board? Often. Do I sometimes look more at the imperfections than the big picture? Counterproductively, I admit that I do, but I'm learning to see the forest for the trees.

Everything is imperfect. Nothing even strives for perfection because the underlying premise - the intelligence of this universe - is that it's unachievable and one is maladaptive in its pursuit. The thing that remains unfinished is not wrong, it's in play. Another metaphor to add to the mix.

I intend to spend as many moments as I can in play - and to enjoy the big-picture beauty I've created.

Spinning 16 Apr 2019 8:34 AM (5 years ago)

In a bid to embrace the privileged urban middle aged white woman stereotype that I appear to be indulging of late, I've embarked on my most outré craft pursuit to date - spinning. Like with a spinning wheel. Like Hans Christian Andersen-y. Scott, who gets with my every creative endeavour has continued on his trajectory of support (he helped me to finish the pieces and he put the wheel together) but even he thinks I'm on the edge. Of course, he has to listen to me natter incessantly about this new pursuit; I don't really talk much but when I do I can't seem to stop and it's all about yards per pound and grist and twist angle. He advises that this is only slightly more tolerable conversation than that during the "giving up sugar" days of 2016.

While it may seem as if I conjured this up in a moment of wine-fueled joviality, I've been thinking about spinning for a long time. My favourite aspect of knitting is the tactile joy I obtain from fibre. I'm that person who researches everything about yarn properties and spinning mechanism (worsted vs woolen which I've recently come to learn take on the most amplified denotations in the spinner set). While I don't have much interest in dyeing anything (strange given my love of potions, I realize), I know all about the dye methods of my stash yarns. I'm that silly hobby-farm wannabe to whom they could market yarns from named sheep (as seen on the label!).

But I also love working with my hands. My hands are like my eyes, when I craft. I see with them. Brief sidebar: I've often looked at my hands with concern for their ever aging appearance and occasional, but significant, pain challenges. Let me formally apologize to my lovely, wonderful hands for this ungracious behaviour. They facilitate much of what gives me meaning in my life and I am eternally grateful for them.

At any rate, over the years, I've spent a strange amount of time on YouTube watching spinners in different parts of the world - each having a different lifestyle, background, fibre preference, drafting* techniques - spinning yarn on one crazy wheel after another. Those Saxony-style ones are wild! Given that I am working very actively to develop neuroplastic solutions for biochemical challenges, I'm amazed that it took me so long to realize that this could be my equivalent of a therapy animal. Moreover, though my body/mind is exhausted, my intellectual brain surfaces every once in a while and it needs something to which it may apply itself. Oh, friends, the topic of spinning is effing vast.

Spinning is political, social, economic, feminist, scientific, folkloric, mystical, religious. It encroaches ever-closer toward the beginning of the food and manufacturing chain of which commercial yarn is the end result. Just what it takes to scratch the surface about sheep, their fibre and animal husbandry is hours and hours and hours of internet "fun". Spinning technique is polarizing, in some ways, inclusive in others. It is a solitary endeavour in today's world, at least in person. You think it's hard to find knitting friends? Spinning wheels are rather an investment, so cut that pool by a factor of 100...

By way of deets: I deliberately bought a bobbin-led wheel. Not to spiral down the drain of spinning minutiae, but you know the tools make the artist. I wanted a wheel that would rely more on my emerging skill than the technical capacity (tensile mechanism) of the machine. Also, commercial spinning is bobbin-led. If it's good enough for them... I don't love fiddling with machines. I'd rather know my own capacity and achieve my outcome by calibrating my interaction with the wheel. The bobbin-led mechanism is good for beginners and good for experts. This wheel is one I can use indefinitely, skill notwithstanding.

I also prefer the compact-quality of a castle-style machine (one in which the bobbin/flyer mechanism is placed atop the wheel). Finally, I required a modern-wheel design to suit the style of my home and my own (strong) personal preference. Oh, and I wanted to buy something good - but to spend less than the 1200 bucks and upwards that the fancy wheels cost (to say nothing of the extra kit one must purchase to be set up optimally to learn this skill, see more below).

Meet my Louet S17. It's got the functionality of the pricier S10 but you buy it flat packed, finish it and assemble it:

View this post on Instagram

Not gonna pretend, I'm very overwhelmed today, like a current between live wires. I mean, books are overwhelming me as they sit quietly on the table?! I've gone out "a lot" in the past few days and another doc appt tomorrow first thing. Also, while I LOVE this beautiful machine that Scott just assembled for me, it's a lot to process.

A post shared by Kristin (@kristinm100) on Apr 10, 2019 at 9:33am PDT

For this effort, you save about half the price.

But you know I don't do set up by half measures. I've done as much internet research on spinning tools as I could undertake in 3 weeks - which is quite a lot, as it happens. And I determined that, in order to make 3-ply fingering yarn (my end-goal - and I'm happy to meander there as it's meant to be), in addition to my gorgeous wheel, I would require:

Stand-alone lazy kate
Extra bobbin (so I have 4 large bobbins)
Twist angle, TPI and WPI cards
Card tags (for sampling) / hole punch
Niddy noddy (for skeining and one of the methods for estimating yardage)
Magnifying glass (to see the angle of twist on tiny singles)
A subscription to Ply magazine. If you are thinking of spinning but haven't yet taken the plunge, invest in an issue of this mag. Just from ads alone it will point you in many interesting directions and it really is a fascinating publication.
Combed top! (This is worsted-prep fibre). I got some super fun wools of different qualities - long staple, medium staple, low micron count (merino), higher micron count (BFL), dyed, undyed, etc. Peeps, this is the wild west of spinning. I note with interest that spinning high-quality fibre is as expensive as buying high-quality yarn - only you don't have to spend hours making the store-bought yarn?!

These are in addition to things I already own:

All the digital scales in the land
Swift
Skein winders
A bobbin winder - cuz did you know a bobbin-led machine is also a bobbin winder??
A couple of good spinning books - just make sure you don't undertake this sport without Yarnitecture by Jillian Moreno
A good clothing steamer

For posterity, allow me to advise that, as of this moment, I have no interest in preparing a fleece. That task is replete with bugs and grossness. Moreover, I currently have no interest in dying fleece. There are so many fantastic dyers out there - and they put together beautiful rolags (woolen-prep fibre method) and top (worsted-prep fibre method) that are gorgeously, expertly, dyed. The idea of bringing that degree of mess into my house (and potential for staining things) is not appealing.

What is appealing? Moving into the meditative trance that is spinning. You don't need to be able to make usable yarn to have an awesome time undertaking this activity. To date, I spin, learn and discard my handmade ~~yarn~~ rope. It is every bit as gorgeously enjoyable as you would imagine having observed spinners on the internet. It really is magic. Also, bar none, it's the best biofeedback tool I've ever come across. There is a universe to understand in every draft and draw. I know that sounds extra, but I say it without hyperbole.

I have barely scratched the surface of my own entry into this topic - itself so vast that I have not the slightest idea of where I might find the next crevice, a foot-hold. One thing I did a bunch of research about (before determining that treadle spinning is where I'm at right now) - is the exciting world of e-spinners. These come in many price points and designs. They do not require treadling because electricity does that part for you. I opted for a standard wheel because, in treadle-spinning, mine is the energy - the current - imparted in the fibre. Having said this, I love the idea of electrical spinning too. The method is portable, exceedingly compact, requires less full-body coordination and it can make very consistent yarn, even as you lounge on the couch. Also, for people with mobility challenges, this may be a viable alternative when treadling isn't in the cards. Alas, I'm the kind of lady who will be inclined to purchase, should it come to pass, a fancy-ass e-spinner. Because, if I do end up buying one, it will be cuz spinning has taken as primary a role in my art. And, at that point, I'll buy the best - and most attractive - tool I can afford.

But today's questions: Do you spin? If yes, what's your wheel? Do you e-spin? If you do both, which do you prefer? Do you feel that you could not live without your flyer-led machine (Scotch tension)? What motivated you to choose the wheel you chose? Are you a "technical spinner" or an "intuitive spinner"? Note: I believe you can be both - this is more to ask about whether you do all the mathy things that come with spinning or just let yourself spin something, the details of which are not interesting to you. I wanna know! Also - what was the best piece of info about spinning that you learned, as a beginner? Oh, just tell me anything!

* Drafting is the art of lengthening the fibre (in accordance with the staple length) to ensure, along with treadle speed and twist, that the yarn is of the grist desired. Grist is a measurement of density / amount of fibre in a length of yarn.

In Which I Describe How I Became an Artist 2 Mar 2019 10:10 AM (5 years ago)

When I listen to music, I always find the harmony. It's a strange (and beautiful) thing that my brain does - it hears the alternate melody every time. To make matters more fabulous, I can sing the shit out of that harmony. When I listen to music, I'm confounded by the mystery of everything - as every musician is, I have to assume. Because everything is right there, being pulled from the ether by one's connection to subtlety. This is why music can bring you to the edge of all feeling.

Not to dwell - though if ever I were going to dwell, wouldn't this be the perfect topic, what with its innate optimism? - but when I listen to music I hear math. Never in a zillion years did I think I could ever make such a statement because, truly, I'm still so scarred by Grade 13 calculus that I swear to God, if you paid me, I couldn't tell you what one uses calculus for. I cannot remember a damn thing about it except that I cried through my entire exam. Quietly. And all of my classmates (all 17 of them) felt terrible for me because they couldn't understand how I could be so far from connecting the dots - interpreting logic. I couldn't understand it either.

When I learned to knit* (for the second time, 8 years ago), I started to feel math in my fingers. Allow me to restate this, to belay any confusion: I'm not that girl who grew up "getting" math and seeing numbers metaphorically scribbled in the air. I avoided math my whole life. Math found me and it found me in the form of art.

Admittedly, it muscled its way in there. My father is a math person. I studied piano, 'cello, voice - all numeric on some level. Cooking and baking are mathy arts (and I have never spent 3 seconds being concerned by this - if that's the price of pretty food, math away). I was always making things, things you could eat or read (ah, cadence). I wanted a chemistry set so badly - until I realized baking was a chemistry set you could use for eating purposes. I'm nothing if not practical. (Also, it didn't freak out my parents the way sulphur would have.)

When I listen to music, I'm enveloped in the vast buoyancy of the creative spirit. It's like when I go to the art gallery. I look at a painting and I feel the brush strokes as they were applied. Don't ask me how I know. I am frequently driven to tears, feeling what the artist felt in her fingers (esp when I listen to piano and 'cello), back-pedaling through the history of human emotion. You may say: Kristin, you have no fucking idea what that artist felt. I tell you, I do. Because it's not a timeline, it's mindline. We've just tapped into the same well, momentarily.

Artists connect with a place that's hidden from many. The reason I love The Mists of Avalon so much is because it explains my relationship with art as magic, magic being its own art. Artistry is a deep, remote plane. I knew I was an artist from the get go. Words would form in pattern. Textures would call to me in a strange language. It's what I imagine "healers" feel. They connect with a vast well of human reckoning. That's what I do, only the energy I reckon with is the beauty of form.

I was out for lunch the other day; you know that Scott is monitoring me carefully and we sometimes go down the block so that I can achieve my daily exposure to stimulus. We went to our place that doesn't stress me out, down the block, a place that we've been frequenting for 20 years. While talking with our server, the convo gradually turned to her life. She's a student at OCADU (our art university in TO), a painter, and she showed me some photos of her work. I was blown away, btw. She's got talent (and I don't go out of my way to say this). I'm going to buy one of her pieces, though I can't say when. Eventually, she asked me what I do. Natch, this is a strange moment for me to be confronted by that question, but - with nary a pause - I said: I'm a textile artist.

I don't where it came from but I was not horrified in the moment when I said this. It was the truth. I no longer feel that calling myself an artist is nervy. The universe has been holding a special space for me in the plane of art and I've refused to inhabit it because, on the one hand, how can I be something if I don't earn money doing it? On the other hand, artists are so very special. How can I put myself in that elevated domain?

Let me tell you how. I work constantly on my art. It starts off mediocrely. I improve it via research and reading and deep observation and becoming, on some level, its form as I make it. I start with an idea and I refine it into an object. I feel it in my fingers before it becomes something. It is a part of me and a part of something much beyond me. But when I make it, for a brief moment, I touch what's beyond me and it fills me with spectacular joy.

I have no idea of what to make of this, but when we talked, we talked the language of art and I was authentic. I will leave parts of myself behind in my work as the women of Shetland did. I will continue to cast spells in all of my garments as I have since the beginning. I will continue to sing the harmony.

* In a huge irony, the woman who taught me to knit when I was 12 - my next door neighbour Judy - was a brilliant high school math teacher?! She also happened to teach at the school where my (longest-standing) friend Hilary's mother taught drama - all the way on the other side of the city. Judy told me about Hilary before I met her at French summer school (our public school learning on the topic was not adequate and we were both joining SCS in Grade 7, so extra school it was). While intense education upended my knitting options in adolescence, I have so much gratitude for Judy who, in retrospect, taught me much more than I ever could have imagined at the time. In another irony, I found myself working with her daughter-in-law 10 years ago - the partner of the baby I looked after in my teens. And this was determined, bizarrely, because my name was written on a piece of paper than France (the DIL) brought home from work and Judy saw. I haven't seen Judy in 30 years. This is what I mean when I say TO is a village!

Why I Don't Like Knitting Top-Down Sweaters "In the Round" 23 Feb 2019 12:27 PM (6 years ago)

Unless you're new to knitting sweaters, you've probably considered multiple reasons why the seamed versions may be preferable to the ones one knits in the round - particularly the top-down raglan kind. Having considered all of the factors, you may still prefer to knit a lot of top-down raglans in the round and, if that's the case, round-away. Every time I knit one though, it does not spark joy (and btw, neither does that stupid term that is now so deeply embedded in my mind, I appear to use it conversationally?!). It actually sparks irritation. Like, from beginning to end. So why have I just done it again??

Allow me to elaborate.

For starters, I think we can agree that knitting any sweater is a worthy project and one should feel very good about giving it a go and learning and completing it and wearing it and taking all the credit while wearing. However, I do believe it's clear that the knit-in-the-round sweaters (KITR from here on in) are technically "easier" than the worked-flat sort, all things being equal. FWIW, no one is going to argue that knitting any sweater - even the chunkiest thing, done in the round in stockinette with no embellishments of any type - is a quick win. For a new knitter (or one who loves the fit and style), KITRs are great. But in my personal experience, things generally look complicated when they are complicated.

Here's the thing - I do like complexity and I cannot lie. I don't think I've ever made a KITR that I've worn in the end. I've given them away or ripped them back to reuse the yarn. As I rarely make sweaters using needles that are thicker than 3mm with any yarn above sport-weight (and that's slim yarn, for the non-knitters who may be reading), that means I have spent a considerable amount of time in my day making sweaters that I then rip out. And, yeah, I do feel bad about having wasted hours and hours of time.

Moreover, here's what I generally dislike about the KITR:

In its standard format, it's a "one size fits all" construction methodology, assuming that the body is equally dimensioned on the front and back.

In order for the neckline to sit well, the front body needs to be "lower" than the back body, which requires short-rowing of the sweater just below the ribbing. It's super hard to do this well when knitting stockinette, IMO. German short rows (or maybe Japanese) are the best way to go...

I like seams! They give structure but they also delineate the garment. The KITR feels a bit like an eel when you wear it (to me). Where are all of the lines?

KITR construction is boring. Even when you shake it up - and I've thought long and hard about how I'm going to do my next KITR (yeah, I'm not going to pretend it'll never happen again - these patterns are popular!) such that the angle of the raglan sleeve will be very acute. It's still apt to be a massive amount of stockinette (not that it needs to be, I suppose). Knit stitch forever is not as fun as breaking it up with lace or cables or colour work or even a freakin' increase/decrease every once in a while. I didn't think I'd ever say this but, there you go.

Depending on whom you talk to, the raglan sleeve calls attention to a proportionately large bust. I actually believe that a raglan worked well need not do this, but I agree that the "standard" raglan proportions can have this impact. Changing the angle of the raglan can mitigate this, as can knitting the body at diff inc ratios than the sleeves. But then this method becomes less simple.

I have slim arms. And proportionately large breasts. The kind of raglan that fits me is so "unequally worked" that I can only increase evenly (aka 8 stitches per row) for part of the time. Add in the fact that my shoulder to armscye dimension is very short (6.75") and it's a bunch of crazy going on that I could totally avoid by using just about any other sort of sleeve construction. If I'm going to do math, why not go fancy?

You can see where I'm coming from.

I made my most recent raglan (the Party Top) because I was in the mood for a palate (palette?!) cleansing quick knit with a fun painted superwash yarn that's reminiscent of Madeline Tosh. Yeah, it did occur to me that I should find a raglan-sleeved pattern for fingering-weight yarn but the DK-weight party top seemed (dare I admit it) faster.

If you don't like "robust" yarn for a slim-lined sweater, don't freakin' use it (says Kristin to herself, having used it). Note: While many will suggest that DK-weight is fairly slender yarn, those who hang out in Thin-Fingeringland tend to disagree.

But this story ends up well. While I may eventually rip back this raglan pullover in DK-weight yarn, I've learned a LOT:

Tubular cast off!!! It's so easy and so fun. I will never bind off a hem without it again. Note: My first attempt isn't perfect but my improvement ratio gives me lots of hope. There are a zillion tutorials for 1x1 rib tubular cast off - or 2x2 for that matter. Find one and try it out. I swear, it is in no way scary.

No part of this sweater has escaped being ripped back at least once. My willingness to do this has yielded some great fit - even if the overall construction doesn't thrill me.

I hate twisted rib. In the round it's bad enough. Knit flat (I did knit my sleeves flat so that I could diminish the too-large upper arm circumference optimally quickly, while trying to avoid too much fabric under the arm) it's a misery. I'm done with twisted rib in any volume because it causes me wrist and thumb pain.

I have really slender arms in the scheme of things. I've got to stop making sleeves an inch to 2 inches too big in diameter, simply because the pattern ratios call for it. The thickest part of my bicep is less than 10" in circumference. Most raglans assume that one has arms of a certain girth when one has boobs of a certain size. This ain't the construction method for me (unless I want to fuss - and who wants to fuss with a purportedly unfussy construction method that isn't even that cute or structural in the end).

I don't actually like the look of any of the hand-knit raglan "shoulder seams" that one can devise - they all seem kind of homemade to my eye.

Should I do this again, I've got some tricks to try that I believe will improve the angle of the raglan (to better suit my frame), change the shape of the neckline and provide a less-chunky-feeling outcome (this involves a raglan made with lace-weight yarn?!!?).

I'm starting to understand that the sweaters I enjoy making are complexly patterned and either thicker than or thinner than DK/sport-weight because, for me, the neckline and shoulder fit are PARAMOUNT. Truth is, if I want a slender, fitted knit, I'm better off buying some jersey and sewing a top OR going to a nice store and spending on a machine knit of slender-gauge.

But enough about me. What's your perspective on this? Do you like the top-down raglan knit in the round? Do you prefer another construction method? Do you like the skinny yarn best? Do you, by any chance, have proportionately slim arms and big boobs but still find raglans attractive? Let's talk!

From Pain to Equilibrium: Resources 18 Feb 2019 9:37 AM (6 years ago)

I've been working my way up to posting a huge tome about best-practice methods for managing chronic myofascial pain but, truly, it's a massive topic that's so close to home, once I'm done living it, I'm scarcely motivated to continue the conversation.

Having said this, I've written at length about this sort of pain, over many years, so I would recommend - if this post is resonant - that you use the handy search field at the top of this page and type in your subject of note. Chances are high that I've spoken about it (at some length) before...

At the end, this post includes a repository of those methods and mechanisms for peeps who are interested to learn about what works best for me. The potential benefit here, from the perspective of one trying to understand how to manage his or her own chronic pain, is that I've tried just about everything - and many things I'd never be able to come up with on my own - to move the yardstick from pain to "normal". So there's a lot to go through in this blog. If I haven't covered the subject - the internet is vast and I recommend that you put on some good music and get googling :-) because knowledge is power, my friends!

Here's the thing: there is no one definition of chronic pain. What it feels like in my body - and what triggers it - is unique. It's that way for us all, though few practitioners will disclose this (they do need a raison d'etre) - and, statistically, few support practitioners wade through the chaos of chronic pain in their own lives. So the first thing I have to say is that your only way out is YOUR way out. While they may support in many meaningful contexts, it's very unlikely that your sports med doc and your GP and your rheumatologist and your psychiatrist (these peeps do know drugs) and your physiotherapist and your massage therapist and your pain clinic and your cardiologist and your acupuncturist and your yoga therapist and your INSERT NEXT DOCTOR HERE are going to provide you with the answer. Just ask anyone with chronic pain.

To drive this point home again... Put 2 people in a room, both suffering from the after-effects of a concussion, and you will almost certainly find yourself looking at 2 totally different presentations of pain and other symptomology. It's just that way with all chronic pain - myofascial, fibromyalgic, neuropathic and so on. What's the common denominator? A dysregulated central nervous system. As a macro, this intel is very useful. On the micro-level, it's almost meaningless.

I will also disclose, at this juncture, what with my being a fully-formed middle-aged person who can no longer be bothered to hide behind social mores, that I have experienced so many bizarre symptoms and forms of pain at this point, I scarcely know how to quantify them - except to say that I hid many of them from most of my medical practitioners for years because - you heard it here first - those symptoms freaked me out so significantly.

I think you'd agree, I don't come off as the kind of person who hides things cuz they're too scary to think about.

Chronic pain is also, 9/10 times, accompanied or defined by a series of co-morbid conditions that overlap - again, cuz central sensitization occurs at the centre - the CNS - spiraling out in a series of metaphoric floral motifs (what? I need to find some creativity in this topic). We might as well call it "one really nasty outcome of CNS dysregulation" because it never is one thing - it's everything. Which is why you can't fix it like a UTI.

But back to my special format: myofascial. In layperson terms, a swirly vortex of pain likes to inhabit various different zones in my body, almost like a poltergeist. That pain can be extremely intense, coming on like lightning and lasting mere moments to weeks, or dull and systemic, also lasting moments to weeks. It can be notably neuropathic (migraines, "sciatica") to utterly muscular (that phenomenon I refer to as "turtling" where every muscle within a certain zone becomes observably as hard as steel). Sometimes it tangos, elegantly, with SVT, producing an otherworldly sensation. I've also got some joint pain due to that lovely, early-onset osteoarthritis and all of the inflammation it brings to the fore. In some ways, the most problematic sensation isn't full-on pain but mass inflexibility. Though no one would define me as anything other than physically flexible, I feel internally stuck in a way that makes me want to tear at my skin so that I can be liberated from its confines.

For me, right now, fascia - that lovely layer that covers everything in the body, so it's got real estate - isn't functioning "normally". The fibers are unyielding, so replete with nerves that, for the "right" person, alighting the nerve response is like shooting fish in a barrel. Hilariously, I'm hyper mobile in certain ways. For example, in my years of fancy-ass yoga practice, I managed to bypass all of the myofascial triggers that warn me of an impending pain flare. And I suffered. Just cuz something looks pretty doesn't mean it isn't causing harm. And natch, just because it causes harm in one person in one time period, doesn't mean that it will in the next. Note: My yoga practice, in as much as it's brought on pain, is likely the thing that's saved me from the very ebb - so nothing is simple.

Believe it or not, while age has given volume to the pain, my management plan is so utterly sophisticated at this point, I'm faring far better than I did a decade ago. Of course, a decade ago, I wasn't having to manage it as constantly or fervently. And a decade ago my life had not spiraled into the complex landscape that it is today.

As I re-read this post, I imagine that you must be thinking: Lord, Kristin must be freaking out about the unknown end state of all of this. In case that's crossed your mind, let me assure you that I am not. I don't have that luxury and - mercifully - I don't have that mindset. Miraculously, I'm able to view this through the prism of experimentation. I believe absolutely in the power of my mental flexibility. To me, everything is a game, a puzzle. Pain management is how I occupy my time when I'm not doing all of the other things (or in lieu of, on occasion, suboptimally). Say what you will, I am incomparably fortunate to have this natural propensity. Other than money and my awesome husband, this is my strongest protective factor. These three things are a worthy triumvirate.

But other things also help immeasurably (and in no particular order):

MELT Method (a type of myofascial bodywork done with a special roller)

Yoga / Bodywork: For me it's traction and therapeutic, for the most part, these days (Note: I'm a teacher with 30 years of experience. Don't try this at home if you don't know what you're doing. Just look up by a couple of paragraphs and you'll see why.)

Acupressure mats and pillows: I call these my head and bed of nails

Body scrubbing: for those with fucked up fascia, this is way more useful than you might imagine. It takes a while though and it requires a certain amount of flexibility.

Massage

Acupuncture: combined with massage, this is extremely effective in a time-limited fashion

Nutrition: I follow a Primal Lifestyle diet and avoid all grains, processed foods and sugar. We're all unique but this particular diet-style seems to work for lots when it comes to pain management.

Supplements: You should talk to your naturopath about which ones are best for you. Magnesium glycinate and vit D are usually good for everyone.

Sleep: improvement by whatever means necessary. Arguably, this is the most important one of all if you read through the studies.

Extremely moderate exercise: (Is that even a thing?) Walking, but not as much as you'd like. Yoga or cycling - but not so much that you hit a limit. Managing pain is all about understanding the parameters. This has been my biggest challenge because I'm not moderate. People have been telling me for years to do weight work. Every time I do it, I end up in pain. For me, the optimal weight work is in using my own body in certain modified yoga poses I've spent years honing. Peeps with chronic pain often produce that pain with exercise not because exercise is bad but because those peeps have a dysregulated CNS, symptomologically exacerbated by certain exercise. Remember, everyone is unique.

Meditation and CBT: At some point, you're going to have to wade into the depths of grief caused by pain that doesn't appear to be going away according to your timeline (or that dictated by your sanity). You're also likely going to be awake for that dark night of the soul. Learn these by whatever means possible. Bonus: Everyone should be doing this so you'll just be extra-sassy and ahead of the curve!

Any functional neuroplastic method you can find or make up: And yeah, you can totally make it up. Seriously, if you can fake knitting, you can fake neuroplasticity until you get there!

Pharmaceuticals: Ain't gonna wade into this topic, which is vast and laden with landmines. But if you've had chronic pain, chances are you've gone down this path. For myofascial pain, muscle relaxants that work on the brain (i.e. cyclobenzaprine) can be very helpful, if they work. Drugs can be long-term or short-term. Aim for short-term because the consequences are usually more tolerable.

Medical cannabis: Another vast topic... One day I'll start a blog on this topic. Note: Most doctors don't know what the hell they're doing on this topic. I have to assume this will change.

Trigger avoidance: Alas, you need to know what these are in order to utilize this method.

Getting the co-morbid conditions under control: For example: If you have anxiety disorder that's contributing to your CNS dysregulation, consider an SSRI. Or, if you have structural TMJD, get a mouth gizmo. If you can't sleep, you MUST figure that shit out. Nothing will improve till sleep does.

Learn by books and blogs: I won't lie. There aren't a ton of good pain blogs out there. This cohort isn't at its snappiest much of the time. I only hope that, if we consider mine a pain blog at this juncture, it isn't boring and it is helpful. There are a lot of studies out there to become acquainted with. Painscience.com speaks of them at length. (This blog is sometimes useful but often strident, be warned.) Also, there's a great book that provides tremendous insight and practical support re: the relationship between CNS dysregulation and pain: The Fibro Manual by Ginevra Liptan. You don't need to have fibromyalgia to benefit from this book. It pertains to all pain and sleep disorders. It's also written by an MD who lives with fibromyalgia so it's got some street cred. It's neither allopathically nor "alternatively" focused. It takes a multi-pronged approach, really, the only one works. I also recommend Healing through Trigger Point Theraapy: A Guide to Fibromyalgia, Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction by Starlanyl and Sharkey.

A collegial relationship with as many of your doctors as possible: Note: When you need them most, that's when your ability to maintain and develop collaboration will be at its weakest. These people need to see you in good times and in bad.

DNA testing, but not if you aren't one of those peeps who likes to learn about gene-coding and then to figure out science.

Friends / Family / Pets: (though not if you need to care for these on your own) Don't discount the magic of community. When you can do nothing else, you can accept love and support from those who care about you - and give it when you see pain in your midst. Pain's one optimistic trait is the compassion that it brings to the fore. May we all leverage this to our advantage.

Knitting: No joke, I am currently sane because of yarn an needles (and not just the acupuncture kind). You can swap in anything that brings you tactile joy, that soothes your soul, that creates beauty and that can be done anywhere. And then do it cuz it doesn't work otherwise.

It's amazing to me that this is just part of the daily regimen that helps me and is by no means an exhaustive list of everything I've tried to date - or will try in the future. Hope it provides a starting off point for anyone who may be able to benefit from my insight thus far.

Fascinating Question, Fun Game 24 Jan 2019 7:50 AM (6 years ago)

I was just lamenting, in email, the ways in which my life is not analogous to Mimi Thorisson's. I've been vaguely obsessed by the idea of going to one of her cooking weeks in Medoc, for years. There's one that's all about drinking wine - no joke. She doesn't even try to make it seem "pairing-oriented", just about getting one's wine-on at 10am. I appreciate her honesty.

She's also 40-something with 8-ish kids (many of which she's birthed), 100 dogs and a kitchen with a massive hearth. She looks twenty-something with the figure of a sexy elf and her house has bones, people. Like, it saw action in the second world war and the first world war and the revolution.

Effectively, I read her cookbook when I want to feel bad about being me, I mean, be aspirational.

So my smart friend, replied to my envy-laden email, with something to the effect that I don't like children, I don't like taking care of anything living, I don't like to leave the house in bad weather (and let's face it, Medoc ain't known for its sun) and I can't stand having my photo posted unless I'm in control / may choose from 100 versions of my profile, but then I'm also too lazy to go through this process.

And I was like, OMG. That is beyond true. Even if that woman is living the dream (her husband is Icelandic in a hot way), she has to deal with more children and dogs - even if she has lots of help - than I could possibly get with. Even more than you could get with. Be real. Can you imagine how many creatures are touching the walls in that chalet?!? I'd be losing my shit.

Then my friend asked me to consider, if I could twitch my nose and have all the money I would ever need and more, how would I actually change my life. That's a strangely fascinating question. And it's not that hard to answer.

Here's what I came up with:

I'd quit my job. Not because I don't love many aspects of my career (and I do) - and not because I don't love having a job to go to, with so many amazing friends and colleagues - but it's a vortex of stress by anyone's standards and it's probably the most implicated factor in my pain condition challenges.

I'd buy a couple of apartments out of Toronto - one as a base in Europe, the warm and sunny part, one in Mtl. I'd have them renovated perfectly but I'd have money to throw at those renos. I'd have people for that shit! Of course, I would keep my TO home. There are few more fab places to live between June and October than Toronto.

I'd give fun gifts to everyone I know or to people I hear about who need some TLC. You tired? Have a week in Barbados. Wanna see Easter Island before you die? Check. Is there a cashmere sweater you can't walk away from? No need to. Wanna eat the best meal ever? So do I! Note - I'm adequately selfish to do this on my own terms. Peeps aren't going to bamboozle me.

I'd give money to all sorts of causes - including chronic pain researchers and those who work to make the world safer for everyone.

I'd have an entire room dedicated to the best yarn - like my own shop (and I'd give yarn away to those who need it which, let's face it, is everyone!) - and I'd have a super-modern spinning wheel that's utterly chic and I'd have my own alpacas on a farm that sends me the roving and photos of my cute alpacas and when I chose I would visit them.

I'd have in-home saunas everywhere - the custom kind.

I'd have a housekeeper and chef and body work therapist of choice, onsite at whenever I need them, but they wouldn't be in my space or cause me anxiety. (I'm pretty sure you can buy this, somehow.)

I'd go to health spas whenever I felt like it. The kind in Germany that double as fancy spas.

I'd have a good wine cellar. I'd fully give into my snobisme du vin. There would only be "weekend" wine. (Hell, there's only weekend wine now. This is a no-brainer.)

I'd travel first class. Everywhere. Not business class. Not private plane. I want first class and I regret to tell you that it's because I'm so small-minded that I LOVE to be the first on and the first off and to be sure that there are no double-bookings of my seat and to have access to the washroom that 800 people with a cold aren't also eligible to use. And to have glasses and dishware that isn't plastic. And to be able to use the fancy lounge at the international airports. And to get ice cream mid-flight. OMG - and I'd book the first 3 rows of non-first class so that I'd be sure no babies would be allowed anywhere near me. (And then I'd give the seats away to those who had been overbooked on the flight - as long as they don't have small kids. Sorry people with babies on a plane. I'm not your friend. But if you want a good bottle of wine...)

I'd start a couple of "foundations" aka Kristin-funded projects that are enjoyable and that improve the world (IMO): One would be a bra-fitting and sourcing outfit (pun intended) where those who need gorgeous bras but can't afford them could go to learn more about fit, and/or gain access to good products. I'd have one rule - everyone gets matching sets and I would ensure that my fave vendors got tons of press (Broad, I'm looking at you.) The other would be a medical cannabis network wherein I could use my years of experience (and I'm not overstating it when I say that I know more about this topic than just about anyone else I've ever met), both cannabis- and pain-related, to give people actual, discrete and detailed info that may improve their lives. Cannabis doctors are a bizarrely uninformed lot and I am a bizarrely data-oriented pain-haver. I've got charts.

I'd run knitting retreats for people with chronic pain, teaching them how to knit ergonomically and with a yogic/meditative philosophy. There would be sheep on hand (but in a barn!). There would also be indoor pets (that are perfectly clean at all times) for people to cozy up next to that would be walked magically, and not by me.

But never mind me. I'd love to know what you would do to change your current life if, all of a sudden, you were financially all set. You get to choose! No rules! Please come up with some fun tales because I'm in the mood to imagine.

Resolute 8 Jan 2019 1:37 PM (6 years ago)

Perhaps you can relate to this: a scenario in which there is much to say but no earthly way to say it in a blog post (or a memoir, frankly). I've hesitated to write because there's no sassy vignette to relay, just the deeply chaotic part of transformation. It's dull on paper. It's brutal to live through. What I can say is that, if you are (un)fortunate enough to meet your limit, chances are your identity is swimming in the dark realm of Hades.

BTW, no one has accused me of being light-hearted these last few months. To give a brief overview of the situation, I've been on medical leave since mid-October for a variety of reasons, the prominent ones being arrhythmia and horrendous pain. The arrhythmia is now under control, though it took a good month (fwiw, I barely leave the house, so loath am I to encounter stimulus). The pain has thrown me for a loop (not that I have that degree of flexibility lately).

You will rarely find a person having chronic pain that doesn't also have a very high pain tolerance because the pain is untethered. Centralized, chronic pain is a different beast than the standard-issue (also potentially intense) acute variety. I think we can all agree, what with science confirming it in recent years, all pain comes from neural interpretation. And when your brain decides to turn everything into a platform for pain, well, it can be torment. The very instrument that defines me, that creates and justifies my identity, seems intent on driving me to near madness. Actually, I don't think it cares if I come near the madness or surpass it. It has a mind of its own which I am handcuffed to. That mind is called fear. Don't kid yourselves, fear is to pain what munchies are to the stereotypical pothead.

What I've learned this time around - and it's taken me almost 3 months to get to this stage (three months of navigating the health system when I could barely function), is that there is no way beat central sensitization without becoming someone new. And it's very hard to become someone new at the best of times, much less when you can't think straight - literally. My very way of being predisposes me to live with something untenable. My style has always been to power through - to be bigger than the discomfort - because, frankly, that's how I ~~define~~ used to define capacity. But that response is as culpable for pain's entrenchment as my genetic make-up or the chance-y spin of the wheel that makes me all of the things I am.

Not to dwell on my symptomology because it's both boring and quite enough to fucking live it, but I manage a variety of co-morbid conditions, which is proving to be a serious pain-provoker in concert with my ruminative brain. On any given day something is bound to hurt - that's just how it goes. But nothing has ever hurt like the pain I started to experience about 6 weeks ago. (Not even broken bones or traumatic childbirth with no meds.) Mercifully, while doing everything non-medical to move out of this phase, I'm on a cocktail of drugs that's masking the pain* but every once in a while it breaks through, even as I sense the inflammatory cycle is running its course. What is left in its wake is fear. Fear of pain that I will not be able to manage, though ironically it's likely the inability to manage fear that's amplifying pain.

This bout has been partly neuropathic, partly muscle-based. Bizarre muscular contraction sensitized nerves which then gave ballast to additional muscular contraction. While in spasm, my left upper leg feels as if it's being stabbed with a knife, routinely. I'm not being dramatic. Note to all: I am also using every non-drug methodology at my access - which is really where I excel in pain management, but Lord, this run briefly brought me to my knees. Fear is the ego of the autonomic body. It will be heard at unspeakable volume, if that's what it takes. And till you dig through the debris of fear, the pain has free-reign. FWIW, this moment is likely being "caused" (inasmuch as chronic pain has known cause) by those delightful osteophytes that line my spine - those unattractive little bone sprus that, statistically, half of you have too, to some degree, by the age of 50, and that you don't even know about because you've never experienced pain as a result.

I recently read the comment of a chronic pain-haver, on describing her unending conditions, symptoms and reasons for said misery, as giving her "pain street cred", a term with which I can relate all too well. I'm kind of an expert so I recommend that you listen to me when I say this: There is no exit until you can identify in what way your bodily pain is the biophysical interpretation of everything, including perceived** (if not actual) non-physical trauma - because your body's perception is all that you require to put you in this dubious club.

By its own estimation, my body has been running daily marathons for years - hypersensitized in just about every way because my inbred response to any fucking stimulus (for example: someone walking quietly into a room where I am sitting) is over-activation of my central nervous system. And just about nothing in my life (which I have created - it's on me) is "stress-lite". You can't hope to eradicate perceived trauma until you can observe it consciously and physical pain is a worthy distraction, in addition to being a learned, ruminative, biochemical response. It's my job to find some way to make it clear to my body-mind that perceived trauma transmuted into pain is no longer a necessary, nor is it a desirable response. I really don't like to admit this. I don't want to believe that my physical pain has any psychoemotional subtext because I'm fucking strong. My brain is powerful. I accomplish.

Pain makes me weak because it scares the fucking shit out of me. It's the final unknown, like death - but probably worse because death is a moment in time. Pain is the encroachment of death in the form of fear. I say this not to clinically depress us all, but to remind my potent sensitivity of its culpability in this cycle. I'm not casting blame, though I definitely judge myself and, yeah, I know that's counterproductive. I'm reminding my sensitive self that its biggest obstacle is also its greatest strength.

I've said before on this blog, generally when referring to New Year's resolutions, that I'd be wise to cultivate some compassion. It's like I didn't get that chip when they constructed my emotional motherboard. Instead, I got a triple of the critical eye. My ability to criticize, specifically analytically, is pivotal to the work I do professionally. It's also pivotal to the way I conduct myself everywhere cuz girl likes her groove.

I am working constantly, on this leave of absence, aka the least fun I've ever had in my life, to become neurochemically and behaviourally different (thanks meditation and CBT and 'script cannabis and traction yoga and pharmaceuticals and supplements and acupuncture/cupping and cold-pressed juice shots and my GP and the specialists I've been seeing and my husband and my mom and my friends and lots of books on the topic and bad Netflix which is sometimes the only thing that keeps anyone going, let's get real). I have no manual for this - engaging with myself under new parameters, working all the angles to find compassion for myself - my original victim - so that I can let go of the relentless grip. I'm hovering in the stratosphere of fear, where the air is paper thin. But I'm also at a moment of great transition, an opportunity for nervous reconstruction - an overhaul. I'm to be reassembled without instruction but according to a noble plan. And as always, my money's on me. I'm a worthy project.

*Alas, these are not drugs that one can take indefinitely. My work these last 6 weeks has been to find a way to decrease the pain (via non-drug formats) while tapering the medication. Note also that I have never before inferred that pharmaceuticals may be a desirable long term solution - which is evidence of the degree of pain I have found myself in of late.

** There are many who have experienced actual physical trauma or who have been harmed by internalized psychological trauma but I use the term "perceived" deliberately. There are some who have lived through war and abuse who do not have chronic pain, perhaps because they haven't somatized it - probably because that's not how they're wired. Or perhaps, credit where it's due, because they've done some hard fucking work.

Trigger Warning 9 Nov 2018 10:34 AM (6 years ago)

No one is ever going to accuse me of being hardy. (Note: I routinely spell this word hearty, which is a delightful pun as I grapple with the existential meaning of arrhythmia.) If I were an artist, I'd be a consumptive poet (long have I felt this deep within). If I were a bug, I'd be of the potato variety, stuck on the rigid shell of my back, flailing my legs. If I were a flower I'd be night-blooming jasmine, fragrant but consigned to the time when everything sleeps.

I've spent my whole life grappling with my differentness - how I think, how I feel things, how I struggle, how I excel. And yet, I pass. I mean, in every way. I'm a person of Puerto Rican and Italian heritage who's as WASPy-looking as they come. (Actually, ask anyone and they'll tell you that, if I were a cultural sterotype, I would be a WASP.) I'm an introvert who somehow manages to present (as if without effort) like Auntie Mame. I'm a person who feels physically bereft at the sight of clouds, living in a place that (admittedly due to climate change) comes off like a cross between Ireland and Vancouver but with ice storms and bitter, damp cold - and without any of the charm or good geography. I love, love, love people and community and I am all too often limited in enjoying these things up close and personal - though as infrequently as possible - because the constant stimulus can start to feel like the singe-ing of hair on the back of my neck. Weird sidebar: I used to have the worst time having my hair cut because I could feel the energy of the scissors (and the holder of the scissors) tickling me and poking at me, even while each was still a foot away (and even if I didn't even know they were behind me).

But my most masterful play, dare I say it, is in my very normal affect given that I am often in excessively irritating to utterly extreme physical pain which (mercifully) cycles from place to place. Let's not dwell on diagnostics here. They don't matter.

Make no mistake - stuck with pain and given the choice, I would much rather appear entirely unphased, totally healthy, robust, energetic and carefree. But I imagine it's challenging for people to understand how, given that I always finish the job on time and generally with a smile, I'm nonetheless on one specific plane falling apart. Lord knows I've been wondering this for as long as I can remember. And the bitch about planes is that they all end up intersecting at some point.

It's never been an easy time to be a sensitive person, but I do think today presents its own array of terrible obstacles - particularly if you live amongst millions. I'm not here to define sensitivity. It's everywhere - dust in the corners. It's as you see it, as you feel it. Some people - we might call them lucky - can push it away at will. In my anecdotal experience, those peeps seem very hardy. They're the ones who can, unhindered, run marathons, lift heavy boxes, work 20 hours straight. The stimulus bounces from them (likely ricocheting to me!) Some even thrive in the fray. Of course, in my anecdotal experience, I don't know how many of these people are also passing, but I've done my "research" (via a casual little conversational questionnaire I've devised) and most of the ones I see as hardy actually are. Or they're lying. These people can push themselves to the physical limits without pain, not that they necessarily do. When a noise goes off without warning, they're not the ones who jump a foot and then spend the next minute doing self-devised, vagus nerve stimulation exercises.

I've been given the opportunity (and I'm not being entirely glib) of pain for years, in all kinds of places, pain that comes and goes like the cycles of weather - but less predictably. Why? Because it has revealed to me that sensitive people of a certain sort have limited filter separating sensation between body and mind (that's a hardy person thing) and you can't begin to manage things if you don't see them. Spoiler alert: Most likely, management doesn't involve powering through which is rather unfortunate since, to date, that's been my primary MO.

I love to compare things. Everything. It's the basis of whatever envy I have, my natural curiosity, my pattern-seeking way. But I'm not here to compare the hardy to the sensitive. We look the same but we might as well be dogs and cats. The world doesn't show itself to us equivalently. We live harmoniously in the same domain but we are not in the same place.

I am not inferior because I am physically weak. I am physically weak because I'm intercepting every fucking feather-brush of stimulus in my proximity. My brain gives me something that others don't have. Sure, most wouldn't take it, but it's still a grand experience - the beauty and depth of which they may never be able to appreciate. By my nature, IMO, I'm also expressing generational epigenetics - and probably actual crap genes. This is neither science nor magic - it's the convergence of the two.

In the way we are physically changed by music when we hear (or better yet play) it, by the patterns of numbers in code, by the stitches of fabric being formed, I am changed by the slightest flutter. I'm your canary in the coal mine. I have something big to give. I just don't know how to do it.

Retail Therapy is a Thing 30 Sep 2018 7:14 AM (6 years ago)

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I had a bad day yesterday. It was bad on a number of fronts: my BELOVED sewing machine's stitch length lever broke (I thought we were supposed to buy the vintage mechanical machines cuz this doesn't happen!?).

Then Scott, who wasn't in the mood to fix it, expressed his ambivalence by breaking off one of the knobs that doesn't come off (this is very unusual for him - he's excellent at fixing everything).

Then, the utter shock and horror brought on my period, which has suddenly decided to happen whenever it feels like it (though sometimes not for 2 months). It came with hideous cramps, something I don't have routinely, which still have me close to throwing up at any moment, 24 hours later.

Then the kid came home for 1 night, on a furlough between Calgary and QC (don't ask how on earth it makes any sense to stop in Toronto on the way) and proceeded to lose her wallet, on the train, which contained her health card and 300 dollars, among other things - just as she goes out of province for another 3 months (and one's health card is necessary to obtain medical treatment). You know, I'm on a 6-month vacation from parenting which is every bit as pleasant as you might imagine (actually, way more pleasant) and the anger and anxiety I feel towards her right now (and on her behalf) is intense enough to make me want to throw up independent of cramps. It finally dawned on me that the only difference between an 18-year old and a 6-year old is that the 18-year old can cause infinitely more chaos with the same degree of selfish nonchalance.

All of this is to say that I was extremely grateful for a) Cava b) cookies and c) knitting and continue to be so - but not the cookies since I'm pretty sure they've amped up the cramps big-time.

One of the things I love about my current crafting space is that I get to keep my knitting swift and winder up all the time, attached to my makeshift shelving unit (from IKEA, 20 years ago). Man, that furniture is practical. Sure, I could have kept them up in my last craft space but things would have been so visually cramped. There's so much to be said for ceilings that extend indefinitely. Also, note, I sense a really gorgeous wooden ball-winder may be in my near future (though not if I have to spend hundreds of dollars replacing my sewing machine. UGH. Seriously, it's the destruction that overwhelms me - that it was broken again on top of being broken...)

Anyway, I started by winding a bunch of yarn...

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I admit that everyone was right. Gas fireplaces are the way to go. I burn some pressed cedar at the same time and it's freakin Xmas. But maybe I need a woodstove too?!😉Unlikely to transpire but a woodstove in the living room would allow for the real thing when one intends to stay indoors for 8 hours. I'm allowed to imagine. Also, yarn. Let's just say I did some retail therapy yesterday.

A post shared by K-Line (@kristinm100) on Sep 30, 2018 at 7:17am PDT

Let me take a moment to praise the virtues of a lovely little workhorse yarn: Cascade Heritage Sock. I've been making socks with this superwash/nylon combo for years and I have to say, it's pretty well the only yarn of its sort: thinner than most other sock yarn (it's a fine fingering), in no way superwashy in feel or wear. I HATE superwash yarn. I will not use it other than on socks which I will NOT hand wash under any circumstances. You want to be a pair of socks I wear? You're going in the freakin' dryer.

This stuff fits the bill and it lasts and it's freakin' budget priced and it comes in hanks of 425 yards (that's great yardage) in every colour in the land. I have nothing bad to say about it except that I wish it could do all of this and not be superwash (given that I'm really opposed to the chemical process involved).

I've not used it on shawls or sweaters but it's just a matter of time. This yarn retracts, unlike most superwash yarn (maybe it's the nylon?) so I feel it would work just fine on either of those project types.

But this post is not to praise the merits of the yarn I've already bought. This is to tell you about how my love of that Classic Elite Adelaide is so fast and furious that I am basically traumatized by the closure of the brand. Look, I've used CE yarns on occasion and I loved them, but this is in its own category of perfect.

It's squishy in a worsted-spun way, beautifully plied (two strands), the colours are stunning. It's springy. It glides through the hand in a gorgeous way. Knitters, you know what I'm talking about. This craft is kinesthetic first. For those who struggle with tension (admittedly, not one of my challenges), this yarn will be your spirit guide. It's also totally affordable if you buy it on close out at WEBS.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about it and about how its departure leaves the world just a little bit bereft. (Yes, I'm dramatic.) And this yarn ain't even my gauge jam. It's light worsted and I tend to look away once I get to the robustness of DK.

So here's the thing. In lieu of killing Scott - which would have been short-sighted - I decided to buy some closeout yarn. But not till I bought pretty well all of the rest of this yarn at EweKnit (my LYS, where I purchased the original batch on Thursday - the batch that started this all...). Alas, while EweKnit told me online that it had 7 balls in the oatmeal colourway, the SA could only find 5 of those. What can I accomplish with 5 balls / 625ish yards?! (Don't answer that.) The other colourways, still in stock, are in limited numbers or shades I'm not into.

So natch, I decided to check out WEBS, an awesome resource for getting large volumes of yarn at very good prices (unless customs gets ahold of your yarn, in which case all bets are off). I managed to score 5 skeins in the camel colourway for 50 bucks CDN all in (inc shipping). That's a FUCKING steal. Note: I spent 65 bucks on this yarn at EweKnit and it was on sale and I had to walk up the block to get it. Effectively, the shipping cost was the exact same as the tax and the balls of yarn at WEBS are $5.70 (no tax) vs $11.15 (then add 13% tax) at EweKnit. (In full disclosure, I could have had this shipped for free because EweKnit ships orders over 75 bucks without charge. But that would be so wasteful of human energy that I couldn't allow it even if I don't want to leave the house. And I don't.)

Look - I get it. I buy at my LYS because I want it to be there (literally up the block). I mean, my yarn store moved to me. Take a moment to consider this ridiculous luck. Also, it's a beautifully curated space that anyone would love (really, go visit!). But even with the exchange rate (and prob even with customs), buying from the US costs less buying locally. I feel that's wrong.

But, let's not devolve into a convo about domestic manufacturing and international trade...

You know I have the yarn box. That's my stash box into which every last bit of my yarn must fit so that I don't become a crazy yarn hoarder*. Recently, I upgraded to a larger box. (It's really adorable and fabric and it fits the IKEA furniture in the sewga room perfectly.) It also allows for some lee-way but, really, there's only so much lee-way before it too is full to the rafters.

I actually have to cast on 3 projects now so that I will have enough space to house my new yarn when I pick it up / it gets delivered. I'm okay with that. Because the Adelaide is going to be nowhere to be found in about 10 minutes and I will savour every minute knitting with it and/or wearing. Sometimes one has to take the long view.

Now off to wind some yarn. After all, it's not like I'm going to be sewing anytime soon.

* Please note that I take this seriously. In all of my years of knitting, I have adhered to this rule and it's made me a more focused knitter who has learned the necessary skills to utilize every last yard, theoretically. Sure, the fact that I keep needing to buy more yarn to use up stash yarn is both questionable and entirely the way it goes. Trust me. It's a kind of "spend to save" paradox. It makes no sense but it's true!

The Great Divide 27 Sep 2018 4:01 PM (6 years ago)

So this post will be about knitting - which may intrigue you or bore you to tears. Here's my level best to up the excitement-factor for those of you who understand the lure of shopping more naturally than the lure of shopping for yarn.

For those of us who knit... There's a special kind of joy in using up one's stash to make something new. Like knitting for free! And if you add to this equation, some masochistic inclination to unwind a sweater that already exists (see below), then you are very rich indeed!

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Say goodbye to this sweater I never wear. And hello to some new yarn I can use to make something else. Shopping your closet for raw materials is so vegan-seeming😇

A post shared by K-Line (@kristinm100) on Sep 23, 2018 at 6:04am PDT

Note to reader: Had I known that this sweater's unwinding process / rewinding process was going to take 5 hours (I weave in ends with satanic precision), I might have just put this thing on the lawn. Especially since this colourway is so challenging. It's not grey and it's not blue and it's not clear and it's not warm. Such are the outcomes, on occasion, of buying yarn online. But it's Quince and I have 1040 yards of it and that yarn costs money, and takes energy to create and I'm not ready to chuck it because Chickadee is a lovely yarn to work with, and super-affordable, even if this colour doesn't really thrill*. And I want to find its worthy project. Also, stash-busting.

But the unwinding didn't leave me with quite enough yarn to make this sweater. And now I really want to make it - having already made an Emily Greene design that was SO enjoyable to knit. And, natch, I have to bust the stash. You can see where this is going.

No worries, I thought to my (naive) self: I'm sure I have enough of another stash yarn to do the hem bands in a contrast colour. Um, no. Quince in the Storm colourway apparently goes with nothing else I've ever bought in the history of my lifetime.

Add to the conundrum - the sweater is knit bottom up so I have got to commit to a contrast colour from the get-go. Sure, I could reverse the pattern instructions but, ahem, see the para below.

Sidebar: OMG, people. This pattern is 39 pages long. It's a 5/5 on the skill scale, something I rarely consider when I'm buying patterns (until after all is said and done). But my impulsive self rarely goes above a 4/5, just on instinct. I don't know what it says about me that it didn't even occur to me that this pattern - designed by an architect who works with the Brooklyn Tweed group - wouldn't perhaps be on the sassy side. Perhaps it says of me: I just built a fucking house and that's a 100/5 on the skill scale. And I didn't even have any fucking skills. So I think the stakes are relatively low. But here's the thing, between two yarns of two different gauges (I'm getting there, read on pls) and the most challenging pattern in the land (theoretically), I'm not freakin' reversing the order of operations. (Nor, for what it's worth, do I intend to modify the sizing. That would be insanity. The proportions of this sweater in the second size seem more or less aligned with mine. If it doesn't work out, oh well.)

Did I mention that of those 39 pages, 10 of them are charted cables (even though this sweater looks deceptively like rib). You don't like charts, you don't knit this thing. Oh, and also, there's a whole technique section that tells one how to cable without using a cable needle (something I've tried on occasion without a lot of success). I think I'm about to nail it because, apparently, the alternative is untenably slow. I've said it before and I'll say it again - don't bother to spend your money on Brooklyn Tweed yarn but never resist their patterns. BT patterns are amongst the best you will ever find, in just about every way - particularly in terms of clarity of instruction.

But back to the hem band yarn.

It would appear that even the knitting store, full to the rafters with all the kinds of yarn, had but one yarn that met my hem band colour-scheme needs, Classic Elite Adelaide:

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There's a story that goes with this additional yarn purchase. Isn't there always? Will be writing a post this eve.

A post shared by K-Line (@kristinm100) on Sep 27, 2018 at 2:22pm PDT

(How adorably meta that the Insta caption references this post!)

I don't know how there was only one option. I looked at everything. Three times. But the kismet of this choice, aside from the fact that the yarn is utterly gorgeous and Quince-complementary in colour, hand and drape, is that the yarn was on sale for 25% off?!?! It cost about 50 bucks, all in, for 4 skeins (~500 yards) but the skeins were heavy and I scored an additional 25 extra yards, truly for free. Is this yarn straight-up budget? No. Is it very reasonably priced given the quality? In my opinion, definitely. And I'm in it for an enjoyable knitting experience. If I don't love the yarn, what's the point?

Alas, it was on sale because the entirety of the Classic Elite brand is being shuttered. This is not because its yarns aren't incredibly popular, cuz they are. I think the designer is looking for a new challenge. File under: Why didn't I find this yarn years ago?

But all of the problems of the world have yet to be resolved. These 2 yarns - Quince Chickadee and Classic Elite Adelaide - are of differing weights, which is, theoretically, sub-optimal. I still can't predict how much yarn the hem bands will utilize. I can't imagine that it could be more than 300 yards. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that many of the small-looking things take up the most yarn. In practice, I have faith. And I'm not rushing this. Do I need a new sweater next week? Nuh-huh. Can I let this sit quietly at any moment, in lieu of expressing compulsive behaviour? I believe I can and that I will.

Frankly, I love to knit. I love everything about it - even the bad things (which are barely bad). If I start and don't finish, who freakin' cares? It won't be the first time. And if I do find my way through this well-written maze, then I will have learned so much. And I'll have a super-cool sweater.

Thoughts?

* I note with interest that this is my second time in a row knitting with a Quince colour that I don't love - and once again I'm applying it to a complicated sweater pattern designed by Emily Greene. Admittedly, if I could find this yarn in store, I wouldn't have an issue. But, to date, its affordability (and the great adventure of online purchase) have superseded my disappointment. Having said this, in future I'm sticking to the colourways I know unless I can see the skeins in real life and touch them.

Thoughts or Feelings? 15 Sep 2018 9:05 AM (6 years ago)

I don't know what epitaph they'll inscribe on my headstone (or if I'll be cremated, more to the point), but I really hope it's not: Nothing was ever good enough or If you want something done right, do it yourself. But honestly, I'm either stuck in a strange astrological vortex wherein everyone is seriously phoning in quality or I'm pathologically fussy. And, btw, I've ruminated on this for a couple of years now so I'm going throw my take into the ring: I'm in the vortex.

Now, you might not agree - which is actually why I'm writing this post. Sometimes, when one is so fixed in one's on place, one can be misguided (I suppose). So, in full disclosure, I am compulsive about order. What this means, for my brain, is that everything needs to be positioned in a certain way (no need to explain the specifics, it's boring enough to live through) and smudges, scuffs and schmutz are the very bane of my existence. Sometimes, when I notice disorder as I define it, and other people are around, I cannot stop myself from starting to clean or reorganize, while simultaneously apologizing for the hideousness we've all been forced to look at. I've spent many a dinner party pruning the back yard.

I'm semi-regularly advised that I must relax, that no one else notices these things, that I'm distracting in my distraction. The reason I didn't invite people over for the 5 years before we did the reno is because there was so much imperfection, like everywhere, that I couldn't subject people to it.

I realize that, while my reno has re-established a sort of glory that this house may never have seen previously, that doesn't fix my compulsiveness. One of the hardest elements of my particular psycho-profile is that I am magically drawn to all evidence of disorder and non-negotiably compelled to assuage it. This is not a tendency I have developed. I was born this way. As mentioned, my long-term memory is not my strong-suit, but memories I have all share disorder as a sub-theme.

My post so far is somewhat prejudicial, I realize. Of course, I imagine, you must believe that I'm the issue here. But I truly don't think I am, not that my nature is helping anything.

My (custom, which is to say, not cheap) kitchen was largely remade because it was shoddily put together the first time. The cupboard door edges weren't beveled (?), the clasp openers (I don't like handles) were inferior and constantly disconnecting so they had to be replaced. The drawer rollers were like something out of IKEA circa 1978. In a misguided effort to fix cupboards onsite, an uncareful kitchen guy broke one of my absurdly expensive quartz countertops, which then had to be replaced (and not on my dime).

We spent 2 hours cleaning a wall of windows today because, though we've had professional window cleaners in - and our house cleaners have taken a run at them every time they been - said windows have been so ineptly destreaked, they continued to be a blight to behold. I know, post-renovation, one's windows continue to accumulate dust. But that's not what I'm referring to here. Part of window-cleaning involves recognizing that casings are part of the freakin' windows, no?

I could go on for pages but every time I look at something I'm distracted by the need to fix it. To wit: When readjusting the doors and improving the slightly asymmetric structure of my fireplace built-in, the peeps left silicone crap all over the quartz at the hearth. How can I read a book while that's going on?? Also, I'm not going to apologize for expecting perfect symmetry in that built-in. If it was good enough for the medieval Italians, it's good enough for me.

But enough complaining. I know - it's unattractive.

Though I'm conflating issues (work done by others and desire for "things done right" according to me) I'm curious to know how you manage your need for order. For starters, do you have one? If not, please tell me your secret - and I really hope it's not "my brain just works this way"! :-) Do you find it difficult to enjoy your space because you're compelled to improve it, rather than just to be with it? Do you have any "be here now exercises" which you apply so that you can just sit there on occasion and not feel like everything is falling into decay? How do you have people into your home to do things / clean things / fix things and not feel like, in lieu of paying them for their service, you should actually be lecturing them on the inferiority of their work.

Please know, when someone does something well, on the one hand I'm amazed and thrilled - and incredibly complimentary/grateful. On the other hand, it's as it should be. I would never provide you with less than I expect for and of myself. Isn't that the way the world should work?

Thanks so much in advance for any insights you can provide.

Sincerely, That Girl Who'd Prefer Not To Feel This Way All the Time

PS: FWIW, my husband completely shares my ire re: the ineptitude of much work done, but he's less traumatized by disorder than I am. So some things actually bother him as much as, or more than me, while others irritate him in a way he can completely ignore.

Flight Path 1 Sep 2018 10:08 AM (6 years ago)

No doubt, Toronto's most knowable weekend for good weather is this one. I know this because I await it every summer, partly with ennui, partly with excitement. It's the air show weekend and I LOVE the air show. By and large, this city is wasted on me because I don't much like interacting with strangers for the pleasure of culture and entertainment. Call me excessively lazy (I am). Call me overburdened with lots of stuff that makes me excessively lazy on my off-hours (also true). The air show, however, that one comes to me.

I don't know if I will be able to impart the strange magic of this scenario but I'll give it a go.

Inevitably, the sky is blue (if sometimes hazy). On the Friday before the long weekend, the planes come to town and undertake their rumbling practice runs so that, for 3 hours per day, over each of the three long weekend days, I am treated to a spectacle of incomparable proportions. It's like God put my house in their flight path. All I have to do is go up to my third floor balcony, which is as high or higher than any house around me (though not commercial buildings, of course), and wander from side to side, taking in 180 degree views and an unobstructed sky. I truly cannot put a price on this.

The Blue Angels open the show in stunning formation, twisting in a triangle of 6, their wings glinting in the sun as they swerve by overhead. At first, it's impossible to tell the difference between the dragonflies and the planes because they come into one's frame of cognition at the same size and proportion. The vapor trails sometimes give it away, but not quickly in the haze. The afterburners always get the point across.

Unquestionably, the most amazing moment, the most affecting, is when the F18 flies by. It comes so close, so extremely low (like 500 feet above my balcony), and the impact is unparalleled. I don't know how it is that I'm ok with noise so loud it shakes the windows - with a scary-ass war plane in my own personal theatre. But it puts one in mind of another theatre, one wherein life and death hashed it out, and on any given day there was a winner and a loser.

When I work with food, I never fail to think the same thing (every single time, even if I don't follow my own edict on occasion): I cannot waste any of this. And at the next moment, a subtle, but deeply ingrained sensibility comes to me, the consciousness of people in death camps, in war time, struggling to survive with next to nothing. It is my function to treat my fleeting privilege with unyielding respect.

When I watch the air show, I'm put in mind of that privilege yet again - in the largest, reverberative, most palpable way. To observe the silver elegance of battle planes overwhelms me with the glory of human innovation, and to hear their deafening, rumble brings a momentary, visceral awareness of the chaos of violent, senseless death.

I don't mind telling you that I cry my way through the air show every year - all the more reason that it's perfect I don't have to travel to see it... I cry because I am transported to a time and place where that sound would have been pure joy and relief - or utter terror, the worst awareness imaginable.

The air show is the way we allow fortunate, peaceful first-world urbanites to tremble in fear momentarily, to be reminded of the perfection of good-fortune in the guise of entertainment.

As the F18 stint comes to a close, it is joined by a P-51 Mustang, a single-seat fighter, introduced in the deep days of WW2. They fly in formation, directly in front of my terrace, maybe 20 feet apart, their black underbellies sucking in the light, wispy smoke trails of different consistency behind them. They are beautiful symbols of victory and the prevalence of human intervention. I hope I never hear such planes in action, but I hope I always hear them on the last weekend of summer. Wishing you this kind of experience over the upcoming days... xo

Brief Enlightenment 26 Aug 2018 5:46 AM (6 years ago)

You may know that I just returned from a week in Quebec and I'm compelled to reiterate what I've pummeled home on Instagram: it was a magically restorative event. There are so many fascinating (to me) tales to relate, and I'm sure they'll come out in time, but one stands out this morning...

On Friday, we returned to Quebec City from Baie St Paul, on a train that goes so slowly that we like to joke that both cyclists and boats both beat it to town in an imaginary race. From there we took a navette from the Chutes Montmorency to the main train station and then we walked 10 minutes to the hotel. This is Scott's annual opportunity to bitch about the cobbled streets (he wheels the cases) while declining, 7 times, to take a cab because who wants to get into another vehicle when you can have some exercise.

Usually, at this point I am very out of sorts. I've been on a zillion forms of transport over 3 hours, my bizarre form of competitiveness has long since set in and I become freakishly determined to "win": I will be first in line (despite that I have assigned seats - cuz who hasn't seen oversold seats?!), I will find the navette's new waiting zone before the little old ladies from the back of the train, I will get the last "bottle" of wine in the cart (though there's a full fridge of them at the back, I suspect). It's tiring. Moreover, of recent years, I am generally also managing some sort of discomfort, if not flat-out pain.

Look, I know myself, which is why I book this vacation down to the very last detail. I know which rooms I will be sleeping in, the minutiae of their views, what the beds feel like. I know the restaurants I'll visit for dinner. I know the routes to all of the fun things, the best way to trespass in all of the places I like to trespass (cuz I am a badass that way). I know the freakin' servers by name at this point.

In case you think this is the most boring form of travel ever (and then you'd be in good company), you should be me for a few weeks. Not only do I loathe excessive stimulus of the type I feel I cannot control (and that's technically most of it), but my day-to-day life is like something out of a film set in insert big city here, all about the chaos of urban mid-life - endless meetings one really shouldn't fuck up, decisions one also shouldn't fuck up, constant activity, stealth parenting, expenditure of every sort, regularly shitty weather. It's like the inverse of a movie set in rural England where the peeps live in a bucolic home, with a trail of fireplace smoke coming from the chimney, looking at their sheep graze the well-tended grounds at sunset.

I'd like to clarify - things are getting much better (and I banked on it that they would - I'm nothing if not calculated about risk). They are changing. I am changing. My home - the backbone of this lifestyle - has changed and continues to do so. I know this is a moment in time, if one that feels never-ending. I also realize that I'm creating a framework that will sustain me, hopefully exceedingly competently, for the rest of my life. Carving out one's reality is a bitch sometimes. I get it. The reason so few people realize their potential, however they define it, is because it takes super-human effort and it's much more palatable to do less now and worry later. I don't want to worry later.

But I digress excessively...

We arrived at the hotel. The room was available. We freshened up, snacked at our local, and started the adventure.

Two things: Walking in a town where you know a lot of things, but not everything, is very adventurous. Everything that deviates from the norm is utterly exciting. Every subtly distinct view. Secondly, my lunch consisted of shucked oysters and good Cava, two things that seriously moderate how I feel like nothing else. When I eat oysters I feel the life of the creature descending within me. It's sacred. I say thank you to each oyster as I ingest because it gives its life to me palpably.

Here's where it gets good: The weather was actually perfect. I have been in the most mercifully low-pain moment over the last couple of weeks (ameliorated still more by my new fave thing, more to come in another post!). Honestly, I felt relaxed and at ease in my body - like I remembered it, before it became so clamorous for attention.

We started to walk up the cobble-stoned streets, up and up and up interminably (as it goes), and I just felt better and better and better. Lord. I felt like Jason Bourne mixed with a superhero whose fingers grow long and sticky to scale buildings. My reflexes became insanely sharp. I was able, as in days of yore, to slice my way through insane crowds without even trying. My spatial reasoning was amazing. I felt totally strong and secure in my body. At no moment was I out of breath and I was bounding up a freakin' hill in a crowd in full sun.

I turned around and Scott, with whom I'm paced well in general, was nowhere to be seen. He couldn't keep up. It was magic! What followed was an hour of walking amidst perfect beauty, qualifying every detail of the profound, almost hallucinogenic, experience I was having. FWIW, Scott did not resist. It was infinitely more enjoyable than listening to me dwell on the nature of pain and existence.

What's amazing about this is that it actually upended my récit de la décennie: that I'm exhausted beyond measure, stressed, over-worked, traumatized and rickety.

I know that, if I experienced this, I can experience it again. It is not beyond the realm of my current corporeal state. Sometimes, when one lives with a lot of pain, it's challenging to remember that one is not broken. It just feels that way.

I don't know who to thank for this amazing moment in time but my gratitude is excessive. I could dwell on the factors that produced the outcome: raw nutrients, a week of quiet, the end of two years of torment, elements of the heat spa, some complement of my 8000 methods for managing discrete styles of pain, 5 of which are always in some form of play. There's a universe (though I don't know how, given the number of potatoes I ate hourly) in which my walking high might have been an outcome of fat-adapted exercise. I've read numerous accounts of this phenomenon and it's always seemed like a suspect state of ecstasy to me but, hey, if that's what was happening, then fat-adaptedness for the win!

I don't really care right now. Cuz when I look back on this trip, I'm going to remember the joyful embodiment of my elegance and strength. And I'm probably going to eat more oysters, natch, cuz one must experiment!

The Calm During the Storm 9 Aug 2018 2:35 PM (6 years ago)

Tuesday night, it poured dramatically. We got 130 mm of rain in 2 hours and my basement (situated on an underground creek) remained dry, unlike practically everyone else's in this entire town. Here's to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a refinished basement! Scott and I decamped to the sewga room, lay over bolsters with the lights off, and (with amazement and awe) watched a vast sky show us a lightning storm of impressive proportions. The sound was enjoyably tinny and dense, an auditory representation of security. After 90 minutes of communing with the deluge from the inside, while conspiring about all of the house changes we've made and will continue to make, I suggested that our time there was the home-reno equivalent of staring, love-drunk, over one's perfect baby in a crib. Full disclosure: I don't remember ever doing that with the kid but we sure are high on ourselves for creating this home.

The sewga room is, on balance, a cathedral. Strange for a girl who doesn't much believe in organized religion. The windows are crosses within crosses, dare I say "crucifixesque". Patterns repeat in 3s and 4s. Four scalene triangles (or are they obtuse?) bound by 3 linear rectangular beams, each dropping from the structure's 18 foot apex at different angles. Three spherical pendants. Four panes of windows with sub-panes - square or rectangular depending on how you view them. It's a love letter to geometry - much like sewing or yoga.

This place is still so much a work in progress. We've got to get the kitchen insufficiencies sorted. There's nothing in the living and dining rooms but furniture destined for the basement and furniture in the basement destined for the upper floors. My bedroom has yet to cohere. Ditto with the bathrooms which are now looking more lived in since we hung some pics and added some plants. The back yard, which was really coming along, amazingly, has stalled this week. (Note: I don't much care at this point as long as it's done by mid-September. It's not like I was ever gonna have a vista by the fall...) Don't get me started on the front-basement demo that slated for early October.

But last night, when we looked out that window - an arguably unlovely urban view, now so redeemed by an endless expanse of sky - it was brilliant. Scott disclosed that he has "really enjoyed" the process of designing and decorating with me which, if you know either him or me, is absurd. Lest you think this was a romantic gesture (and, in its own strange way, it was), what he actually said was that he anticipated the experience of working with me would be horrifyingly miserable and, to his great surprise, it was vaguely fun. So take from that what you will :-)

Secret note to reader, there are 2 tricks to that: 1. It finally clicked, all in a rush, that it doesn't matter what Scott doesn't like or what I don't like - only what we can agree on. And it seems, given all of the options in the universe, we're likely to find, whenever required, design that we can both appreciate equally. 2. I'm an awesome online shopper and Scott HATES to shop. So I've found all kinds of items (from numerous sources) that I knew I liked and let him decide which of those he liked best. If he didn't like anything, I probed about what wasn't working and what he was looking for, within the spectrum of my own interests, natch. And then I found it. And ordered it. And then it was delivered. So far, so good.

I'll have you know, this isn't my natural sweet spot. I prefer to get exactly what I want, with no negotiation, and I'd rather search in real shops (when it suits me). But I also like to be married.

To live in this place is a kind of ridiculous fortune. I am sandwiched between 4 desirable food zones. I walk to work in 35 minutes (or take one of 4 types of readily available, affordable transport). I have 4 "real-sized" bedrooms, 2.5 baths with radiant heat, a spectacular kitchen layout which - while compact - is impressively functional. There are 2 terraces, two gardens. The front of my house is an elegant testimony to the past while the back is a modern rendition of our needs and desires. It's cozy. It's delineated. Imagine watching movies and knitting, while snow falls quietly, with the two-sided fireplace lit, food cooking on the (sexy) stove. No question, this is a winter house. Which is cool, cuz I live in a winter culture.

But more than that, it's finally cohesively well-made. Sure, most of it was remade a few times over the last few months before it became well-made, but now this house is SOLID. Noise is vastly reduced due to a) new triple-glazed windows, b) acoustic sound insulation pretty well everywhere (including ceilings) and c) a newly-brick wall. The HVAC is good (if not stellar). No floors creak or bow and they won't for the next hundred years. The newel post and railing are stability itself - and beautifully wide, taking advantage of breadth created by removing the wall between the stairs and the dining room. It's tiny grandeur. The dining room and living room have been restored (wherever possible) and renewed with an eye toward restoration (when necessary). Old and new collaborate. To my eye, it is a feast.

Though I may be fussy, this house is not; it's awesomely pragmatic. It will be enhanced by its next phase of habitation. It will follow our lead but, in truth, the house knows that it's a vital functionary, that it has been for 130 years. We may be the elusive party in power but it is the bureaucrat that will outpace our tenure.

I'm not all here yet, but I'm more here than I was - and I'm game.

Flashy 6 Aug 2018 6:02 AM (6 years ago)

One of the more interesting things that's happened in the last 3 weeks - not that I'd call it enjoyable - is that I have learned a thing or 12 about the perimenopausal hot flash. You know this whole midlife hormonal shift thing can be kind of miserable. So many things, that work just fine for so long, all of a sudden, just flip the fuck out. Look, I'm no stranger to night-sweats, which I've been having monthly, for 3 days before my (still clock-like) period kicks in, probably for going on 2 years now - but the hot flash is its own special thing that, till 3 weeks ago, I'd all but not yet experienced. I just assumed that a hot flash is a night sweat that happens in the daytime but apparently that's not the case.

Today I bring you (my younger readers or those who are fortunate enough to miss this) a primer of perimenopausal symptoms. Let's start with the diff between the hot flash and night sweats: Night sweats, causing one to wake in a panic of perspiration after having (seemingly) maintained a nice and normal temp under covers, are really unpleasant. You wake up disoriented, freezing, soaking and feeling gross. Often, the active fix is enough to wake you up for a couple of hours potentially just before day break. And, if this phenomenon happens to you (as it does to me) deep in the PMS hate-on phase, well, it's not so fun for those around you.

Hot flashes, a crystalline metaphor for midlife, are entirely different. For starters, you feel them as they come on (day and night and day and night), not simply in retrospect. FWIW, I asked approximately a zillion women to explain them, prior to my own encounter, but no one has been able to do so to my satisfaction. Here's my kick at the can: What happens - at least to me - is that my interior starts to feel like the molten centre of the earth and then that feeling manages, through some unknown conduit (I mean, maybe it's knowable but I've only been having these for 3 weeks so give me some time!) to make its way to every surface of the skin. My feet - always freezing little blocks - are the harbinger. They heat up as if cozied by coals. It's pleasant until they get so hot that I have to rip off my socks and step on tile. Gradually, I also feel an emerging heat sear in my torso, chest, neck and head. It's a bit like cooking from the inside out. And natch, there is sweating but it's more of a dewy kind than the deluge of sweating at night. Again - you can experience these numerous times, all through the night. They just wake you at the onset (or if they don't, you're unaware on the flip side).

Not that I'm much in favour of either but, on balance, I'll take a hot flash.

When my mother was going through this life stage she was tormented by a few specific things: flashes, mood swings and brain fog. Honestly, the hot flashes made her miserable but, for my money, the brain fog was the most challenging. At one point, my sister and I were vaguely concerned about a diagnosis of early-onset dementia (sorry Ma!). (Note: in the years following menopause my mother's brain resumed its previous and spicy sharpness so I can only assume it was hormones. Also, my sister and I were young and hormonally chaotic in our own right when we were making this assumption, so take from this what you will.)

One of the beautiful gifts of intermittent pain is that it puts everything into perspective. My mother was so unhinged by the hot flashes (she really suffered) and I suspect I might be too if I weren't managing what I hope to be the most significant of my own perimenopausal boulders: pain. Now, my pain is definitely more knowable than it ever has been, but pain is not particularly knowable. It's strange to say this but I am so grateful to have experienced many types of pain on multiple occasions because now, at least, we are acquainted. Pain is miserable but it's ignorable (to some extent) when you disassociate it from the darkest well of fear.

The first time I had the right knee issue, the left foot issue, the left hip issue, the right shoulder issue, the migraines, the searing ear thing (that brings the tinnitus), the myofascial grip of my entire torso - I was fucking afraid. Now when I meet these, and they have all recurred a minimum of dozens of times (if not hundreds of times), I send them my compassion. We're in this together but I have nothing to gain from defining myself by my pain and so I have to accept its presence while fundamentally rejecting it. This sort of mind-fuck is apt to make one quite adaptive.

Youth may be wasted on the young but middle-age gives what it knows we can take. I'm incredibly grateful that, though my memory is not good (never has been, but def it's worse now), my mind is agile. Even as I go through a phase known to unmoor far greater minds than mine, I'm with my self. I know myself.

Other than the night sweats, the hot flashes and the pain, I'm coming through this life phase rather well. Sure, it doesn't pay to get cocky. This post is about expressing gratitude - not poking the bear :-)

I didn't feel, when I was young, that hardship was a force for good. I grew up in a family with a deeply entrenched narrative about luck and worth and I have to say, now I don't believe that good fortune is anything other than just that. It's not a sign of one's familial primacy. You are lucky until you're not and, if you're really lucky, the day you're not does not appear. The next best option is to experience things that throw you into chaos - things that make you think, feel, consider - things that make you stronger and broader and deeper than you were. When you start to understand that this is "good fortune", then you are wealthy beyond measure.

Hard and Fast 4 Aug 2018 10:14 AM (6 years ago)

Today I woke up, drank some coffee and - before I could talk myself out of it - I went to my bedroom to unpack. I got through 6 boxes, marginal by anyone's standards, but my room is 6 boxes less crowded and (OMG) I found my bra stash.

I wish I hadn't gone out and bought 2 new bra sets, which almost 3 weeks later have yet to arrive from UK, because if there's any human who never needs to purchase another piece of lingerie, I am she.

For starters, by shopping my ~~closet~~ boxes, I now own 10 "new" sets, most of which are fucking GORGEOUS Empreinte styles. Note: I can only fit into 1 size of Empreinte bra (because they don't sister size and the difference between cup and band sizes is so bespoke that it fits or it doesn't). My Empreinte moment, which lasted near a decade, came to an end a few years ago when my body shape changed. Due to a reversal of shape change - I mean, I do not have the shape I did at 35 but I prob have the same general volume - I've got me some fine new bras!

Y'all know I'm more of a minimalist than average (if not at all a true minimalist), but I am SO not down with Marie Kondo. I did not read the book (who needs to, every article on the planet has precis-ed it into oblivion) because I do not like being told what to do. Do I need some lady who's likely half my age to tell me that if something doesn't bring me joy I should chuck it immediately??

Today I put practically all of my clothing at the back edge of the closet because none of it fits. I have suits I spent a thousand bucks on gathering dust because they're a couple of sizes too big at this point. There is no fucking universe in which I'm going to ditch that clothing because I may need it again someday and it's a) very well made and b) stuff I'd prefer not to replace on the basis of potential short-sightedness.

Be mindful of your wardrobe because you are an evolving being and it's every bit as much fun to find new things in your closet as it is to go out and buy or make them. In fact, in some ways it's more fun cuz it's free.

After this energetic spurt, I went to do some yoga (man, that room is a beautiful studio), hand-washed a bunch of things (how I missed my 2nd floor, flat railing that doubles as a clothing rack) and put together my week of supplements (albeit a truncated version of the old regime).

When I went to the rental, I opted not to do any of the regular self-care things I had done prior to the move, which was counter-productive in many ways but, hey, I was struggling. Of course, to counter-balance this, my diet changed radically (which no doubt, has helped my inflammation in the ways that all of the sacrificed elements of the regime do too), but I must be vigilant to side-step pain, and that, my friends, I most certainly have not been.

Since returning to my real house (construction zone though it is), I am back to body scrubbing, supplements, yoga and making my own potions. I did cook in the rental house - and I had a lot of fun re-engaging with that skill. But, not-fun fact, the cabinets in my new kitchen are my greatest reno disappointment - though I'm confident it will be set right, one way or another - because, while the kitchen's super well-designed (by me, I might add) and gorgeous to look at (superficially), the finishing is shit. It's awesome till you try to open the cabinets and drawers and then the flaws become entirely evident. I'm not going to dwell on this because dwelling is my kryptonite, but cooking has been challenging because it means I have to, well, open all the cupboards.

To switch gears, a few posts ago, Barb told me about a new book she read that changed her way of eating. The marketing-forward title didn't grab me - it's called The Obesity Code and it's by a Toronto diabetes specialist named Jason Fung - but I listen to my blog friends so I went out and bought it. People - you have to get this book. If you are the skinniest mini in the land, you still need to read it cuz it's not about obesity. It's about blood sugar stabilization and hyperinsulinemia. Obesity is only one of the many fun symptoms of blood-sugar disease - and all of these symptoms are manageable by getting rid of the highs and lows of blood sugar spikes (caused predominantly by eating fiber-free carbs, straight-sugar and processed foods).

Look, I know, this is an impossible sell. You need to do this when and if a) you perceive you need to do this and b) you are ready, potentially, for one of the worst interim periods you can imagine.

But here's the thing. What I got from this book wasn't all the good intel about hyperinsulinemia. I knew that already. What changed my relationship to food, on reading this book, is that I am no longer afraid of forgoing it. Fasting - a concept you know I loath - has become my friend. I'm now able to understand why I've always hated breakfast, large volumes of food, why I've always felt controlled by eating. The less you eat - and the more those meals are stabilizing by being high in fat and protein - the less frequently your blood sugar rises. Sure, we all need food but we need a fraction of what we generally eat, and 99 per cent of us do better eating that food in specific batches i.e. no grazing, within specified windows of time. Once you get rid of the delicious, delicious, druggy-delicious carbs, you don't feel compelled to eat. And you don't need to eat that much to live very happily, without shaking or feeling sick or hungry.

Never say never cuz I've introduced intermittent fasting into my life - corroborating the way I used to want to eat (cuz food made me feel sick, but I didn't understand that the carbs were fucking up my instinct by fucking with my blood sugar), but never managed to achieve.

And it's so not hard. Really. (Well, it's so not hard cuz I've already done the incredibly hard part.)

I eat between noon and 8pm. I generally eat 2 meals. I do not snack. Snacking just raises blood sugar and makes me feel bad. I don't stress about it when this plan doesn't work out but it usually works out. One of the meals may be a large salad with protein and fat. The other is often straight protein with a side of fat. I drink as much booze as I want (wine, natch) and I don't really want that much lately. Coffee and wine are fine, in moderation, cuz they don't spike insulin. It's easy to cook for this diet. There are many gorgeous meals to be had. It is not in any way restrictive. I mean, I eat a zillion calories of fat per day and it all tastes great.

But again, this nutritional overhaul has happened in phases for me. It's had to cuz I'm so freaked out by change. I do not recommend intermittent fasting (of the many different varieties which the book explores) until and unless you ditch the carbs. With carbs, it's impossible.

I love not having to think about food the way I used to. I love not being compelled by my appetite. I love not having to spend as much time or money or energy eating (I know that sounds weird. I wouldn't have expected this from me.)

I have no idea for how long I'll do this. I'm a human being and my life will no doubt introduce things that may require me to manage my diet differently. I may ditch this altogether and "relapse". Addiction is addiction and, while it's hard to come by fentanyl (for example), we all have to eat and everyone's doing it, out in the open, constantly. My relationship to food is profound, non-negotiable, sometimes joyous and other times horrible. It's an expression of who I am, of where I'm at, of what matters to me at any given life-stage.

That's all I got today.

In Which I Bury the Lede (As per Usual) 29 Jul 2018 8:20 AM (6 years ago)

I should be doing many things right now, namely: unpacking my clothes (which means I have to find the majority my clothes), massive clean up of M's bedframe (that was somehow removed from under protective plastic at the beginning of the demolition and can't be moved till "de-hazmatized"), reorging a basement that's so full one requires gold-standard tetris skills to manage it (and till this is done, furniture that isn't supposed to live upstairs is piled in a corner of my living room) - I could go on...

The thing is, I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted on pretty-well every level. I'm about to go back to work tomorrow (after a two-week "break") and I don't even know how my intellectual self is going to resurface. I'm trying to find the spark but I'm like a lighter at the end of its fluid.

My nature is compelling me - I'm scared shitless that, if I don't get up and work on everything right fucking now, I'm going to lose my will (already rather non-existent) and I can't bear to spend the rest of my life in this state of chaos. In case you're wondering about the veracity of one's mind being a bad neighbourhood that one shouldn't visit alone, I'm the very instrument of this misery. I'm the bomb I need to detonate. Scott keeps promising me that he won't lose his will and that, if we do even two hours a week, things will get done eventually. I just didn't think that things would continue to be so challenging, even though Scott warned me constantly, in an effort to prep me for ongoing stimulus.

On the flip side, I'm sure I'm learning many excellent life lessons I'm going to appreciate next year.

But talk about burying the lede. This post is about how - despite the flaws in my brain-state - my broken faith in humanity is being restored - in large measure because I am the most fortunate person on the planet when it comes to friendship.

Let's take a moment to dwell on that: I have awesome friends who show me love and acceptance and support at every turn. They call me to check in. They lift hundreds of pounds in boxes and furniture. They manage my work portfolios when I'm on vacation. They buy me dinner and dessert and listen to me chatter incessantly. They give me beautiful bottles of pink bubbles (that are real Champagne!). They inspire me with their diverse experiences and philosophies.

I have always said that, when it comes to friendship, I won the freakin' lottery. They should write on my gravestone: She reveled in friendship because she had the best friends.

Which brings me to the most fantastic experience I had yesterday. Gillian - who truly is as adorable in real life as she is in your blog feed - made a point of it to invite me to a sewing meet up (despite my not having looked at a machine in 18 months) and sweetened the deal by a) picking me up / taking me there, b) making me a NEW dress that actually fits (Lady Skater, my fave design ever) and a gorgeously-fitting new black T-shirt, c) cutting me out a Camino Cap T pattern plus fabric while d) standing by me with confidence-inspiring words while I serged it together amongst a group of utterly lovely women. And then she gifted me a copy of the "dress of the summer" pattern: The Fiona Sundress. Can you imagine such generosity?

Not only did Gillian take me away from the overwhelming in my own environment, but she guided me through an experience that might have been differently overwhelming, but wasn't, by making it normal. That's the mark of a terrific teacher and an excellent friend.

But let's go back to the part where she made me a dress and a top. I freakin' need that dress and top! They fit so beautifully. She chose perfect fabrics (I will post photos soon, I just have to take a shower before anyone sees me in anything). The dress is in animal print! What I learned yesterday, what metaphorically smacked me in the head, is that I have to stop with the goddamn fitting perfectionism. Lord, people - Gillian didn't even have my body there when she cut out these patterns, and the clothes fit.

Let me say this in front of an audience so I cannot back track in the future: Perfection is the enemy of the good because there ain't no good once you slice it to shreds - 3/8 of an inch at a time.

My goal as a sewist, over the coming months, is to go slowly (I don't need to make a capsule wardrobe in a weekend - not that this ever worked, given my natural pace) and to make the assumption that I'm not so much a special snowflake on the fitting front that I can't make a change or two to the vertical dimensions and call it a day.

If I want to be different - and I do - if I want to grow as a person and as an artist - then I need to see things through a different lens. If I can sever myself from perfectionism when it comes to the things I make - the things that are supposed to bring me joy - then I will be able to transfer that awareness to the other areas of my life.

Yesterday Gillian gave me a wonderful gift that I will not forget, one in lieu of the beautiful clothes that she made for me. She brought me closer to myself, and for that I am very, very grateful.

Just Right 24 Jul 2018 7:33 AM (6 years ago)

Let's shake it up today, let's go light...*

Let's talk about how, when you go through a big experience or 5 (like a couple of moves, a reno, transitioning a new government or having a kid grow up and go away for a while), your body may change in any number of ways. And when it changes, chances are none of your clothes, namely bras, will fit. And if you've just moved, your stash of bras in every size may be nowhere to be found.

No joke - I have spent the last few months looking increasingly unglamorous. But I don't judge. For starters, I don't have time. Then there's the whole energy thing. I mean, I've gone to work without makeup. Multiple days in a row. My work bestie Michael loves to say to me, whenever feasible: Hey, you washed your hair! (I feel compelled to confirm that, whenever I have fancy meetings I find my best fitting garments, wear makeup and do wash my hair. But the rest of the time...)

Here's a thing that I haven't had a lot of exposure to in the past: shrinking size, NO fucking tone. I mean, in all of my past, even if I was unhappy with the dimensions of my shape, I was toned. Tone was kind of my thing. What with massive over-training (I now understand) and a tendency towards tautness, I've sometimes had a layer of fat I disliked, but it was nicely held in place by a few muscles and firm skin.

I've done approximately no yoga in 6 months. In truth, I've done relatively little to maintain fitness in the last 18 months (I mean, practically nothing by my standards), but in the past 6 months it's been a non-starter. I've also been walking less than usual because I'm always late for something - work, inspections - or in pain. (Ain't gonna get into this topic now, but be assured that pain management is a constant.) Unquestionably, if you want to maintain your health in the face of a degenerative but remitting condition, you should not be leading my current lifestyle.

Then there's the fact that I've been nauseated for 6 months. When I say I can't eat, I'm not joking. I'm actually starting to wonder if my hideous 7-months of morning sickness wasn't caused as much by pregnancy hormones as by stress hormones. I routinely have to stop myself from throwing up by any means possible. I'll go days only able to eat one food - like a toddler. Hot dogs and custard win by volume. If hot dogs are actually poison, I should be more worried than I am. Sometimes wine is the only thing that I can stomach. I know this is not optimal. Honestly, its tangy, astringent taste turns off the sick-feeling so that I can eat a few bites of food. Alas, at this point, wine has also started to turn my stomach so I can't use it as leverage. My urge to mood-alter is stronger than just about anything. Thank God for design shows and knitting.

All this is to say that I have lost some weight (on top of the weight I lost when I stopped eating the SAD). I can say from first-hand experience, when you wear clothing that's too big, it looks bad - every bit as bad as wearing clothing that's too small. But it's not uncomfortable (cuz all is delightfully loose) and it creeps up and all of a sudden one looks rather frumpy. Mind you, worse than ill-fitting clothing is an ill-fitting bra.

I am embarrassed to tell you that I have been wearing bras that are 2 sizes too big and they look horrid. Seriously - in case you think that a too-big bra isn't a big deal (I mean, it's not like your boobs don't have enough space), think again. I should post photos (which I'll never do) just to show you the ughness of it all. Middle-aged, projected breasts that are proportionately large, have a tendency to look so sad floating around roomy cups. Something I've learned: at a certain moment (esp when one has lost weight in the breasts in middle age), you need the bra that fits to produce lift.

Sure, this is a silly bit of blog fodder. I have more than enough body fat in my stomach and boobs to keep me going in a famine. No one ever died from eating little, because of stress, for an interim period of time. I'm confident that my new sewga room - the ceiling of which is my own modernist Sistine Chapel - a collaboration between height, angles, wood, spheres and pink light - will encourage me to regain some tone. And mercifully, bras exist in all the sizes. Which is why I have bought these sets, of late, in the correct dimensions (I hope). In full disclosure: I haven't even been wearing matching undies these days because I can't find the will?! but this is about to change.

All I'm saying is, peeps - wear the clothes that fit! Things that fit highlight the beauty in every silhouette. Things that are too big are as unappealing as things that are too small. They glare. They call attention from what matters - the body they sheath.

PS: I will never stop harping on this idea.

*...because I truly can't bring myself to talk about the current prevalence of violence in my city - violence that - in the last month - has impacted my own neighbourhood and those adjacent, violence that yesterday killed two girls that could have been my child or yours). We've got to make it near impossible for everyone who's neither a legit farmer/hunter nor a police officer to access guns. People who experience serious mental health issues, gangs - these are two of the cohorts that use guns to willfully shoot and kill children (and other people whose lives are just as important). Violence is going to happen but it should be much harder to achieve than it currently is.

Delving 21 Jul 2018 11:18 AM (6 years ago)

Perfectionism is a bitch. FWIW, I do not consider myself a perfectionist, 90 per cent of the time, but this reno is bringing up all of my big-time issues. It's is like sugar addiction - relentless in its drive to consume and to be consumed.

It's pretty safe to say that, at this point, the reno is not about the reno. It's about me. It's about how I acclimate, how I accept, how I engage (or do everything feasible to avoid engagement - because engagement is so fucking all-encompassing and it sickens me).

While I do what I can to forget about parenting, early or otherwise - I mean, right now I have 6-months of child-free living (as the kid is at Katimavik) - I'm continuously reminded of the moment my daughter was born and it's incisive.

The circumstances of Miranda's birth were traumatizing. No question, we were blessed with good-fortune in that she made her way here robustly, nervily. But, as a person who (only in retrospect) understands the sickening push-pull of stimulus, that was a mind-fuck to end all others.

I don't have many regrets - and even those I have seem unnecessary, anachronistic - but I wish that I had found a way to engage with M when she was born, not to have blamed her for the chaos that unmoored me, but to have been joyous for something I had created with love and effort. I wish I had not sent her away with Scott and my mother and the midwives. I wish I had not said: Get that thing out of here. Sure, I was legit half-dead and tortured by the idea that she might die, but I'm certainly not the only one who's found herself in these circumstances. I mean, all you need to do is watch Netflix to get that. Those mothers still embrace their babies, despite shock and pain and the unknown.

This may seem absurd, but I want to feel about my home the way I couldn't feel about my daughter: I want to accept it, despite associated imperfections and momentary, if incessant, discomfort. I want to feel confidence relating to it - willing to acknowledge its fundamental beauty, recognizing that perfectionism is an illness because it is the barricade of contentment.

I cannot change the past but it's my spirit guide to the future. It is because I didn't have the means to be "better" then that I can find a way to be different now.

When perfectionism prevents joy - when it's the greasy film between what you have made and how you perceive it - well, it's maladaptive. It's challenging for me to accept this. How does one accept anything but absolute perfection? How does one find perfection in the imperfect? It just isn't there.

My new brick wall is the salve of this home. It's chipped. It's paint-splotched. It's multi-coloured in a completely random way. When the morning sun shines against it, one sees the irreverant reflection of reality - different colours and textures and saturation. It defies flawlessness with its mass and strength. It says: If you don't love me, you can just fuck off because this is how I'm supposed to be and, if you don't get that, it's on you.

Perfection is the least perfect thing because it brings pain. Acceptance is perfect so I have to broaden my scope to find it. And I will. But man, liberty is expensive.

The Latest 18 Jul 2018 8:17 AM (6 years ago)

As I write this, 9 trades are working on the house:

The tile guy came back for the 30th time cuz he didn't finish the job on any of the other 29 occasions.
Three kitchen people came back to functionalize the cabinets that look great but don't work (do not even get me started on this because I'm seeing red, no pun intended).
There are 4 painters trying to get through the painting and finishing.
There's the fireplace guy, who's fixing the final glass and showing me the ropes.

Fortunately, there are movable boxes everywhere (and not set-up furniture) because they're using pretty well all of the floor space to fix and finish.

But there's much yet to be accomplished in this phase of the reno. (Note: There's all kinds of additional stuff that needs to begin in the next few weeks - things that were not contemplated as part of the original build, rather, new requirements given that parts of the house destabilized as a result of the new build. When I speak of this phase, I'm referring to the stuff that was supposed to be done before we moved in...)

Since our hardscaper didn't meet the timelines he assured us that he could (the backyard was supposed to be complete by Sunday - instead, he's weeks away from finishing another job and didn't bother to show or clarify until I managed to reach him), I look out my windows at mounds of garbage that should have been long-binned, amidst dirt and encircling wildlife (cats and raccoons abound under these circumstances). I may, in fact, have the pleasure of renting my own bin and cleaning up my own construction site f I don't source a solution somehow- note to reader: that's not my idea of time well-spent i (esp. since I paid people to do this 3 times over). Ever tried to find a hardscaper in July??

Alas, while I'd love to shut my black out blinds and just ignore it all, they're not on the windows because the blinds peeps didn't cut them optimally the first time so they had to refine them and, apparently, this takes longer than making them in the first place.

The lighting also continues to need refinement. I will say, last night some shit was seriously put into perspective when the electrician incorrectly positioned his ladder, while aiming to reach a misplaced pod, and almost killed himself. No joke. It's utterly MIRACULOUS that the worst of it is needing to refinish a part of the floor that was damaged. He managed to jump off the ladder just as it grabbed at his freakin' crotch?! and somehow it didn't crash through a piece of glass / wreck the upstairs railing / destroy walls etc. But really, who the fuck cares about a floor that can be fixed. I am so glad that guy had good reflexes - though his placement of the ladder, in a two-story section over a stairway, was utterly stupid. It's strange when near-disaster becomes good-fortune. PS: The floor held up spectacularly, all things considered. It's scuffed but there's only the tiniest dent. Oak is truly superior wood.

The evenings are the challenging time. That's when I have to look around at everything that's not adequate, though it should be. That's when I can't find any of the things still in boxes, so that I can live in my house like, well, I actually live here. That's when I see the peeps and the feral animals staring into my backyard. That's when I have to shore myself up for whatever bullshit is going to come the next day - and the dozen people who will arrive starting at 8 am (if we're lucky). It's a mind-fuck to, on the one hand, loathe the activity (because it's SO disruptive and I'm so angry about the trades being here largely to fix things they did inadequately in the first place) - but also to be so grateful for it because it's the only way the affronting problems can be resolved.

I'm so out of my comfort zone. My house is generally my best reprieve from over-stimulation - except for now, when it's the sole source of all that stimulation. Tahiti is looking pretty good right now, just sayin'.

No question, this house is not photo-worthy on any level. I know that this end-stage is a moment in time, if one that feels interminable - that it's always darkest before the dawn and all that shit - especially when you have to live amongst it while it all unfolds. Mercifully, we have internet again, after 4 days without (which is a serious issue when you work from home, as Scott does). This means I can, once again, mood alter with the only thing that vaguely undercuts the sickening anxiety - Grand Designs. Somehow, watching the more complex, expensive, visionary and miserable projects of other unsuspecting home renovators really takes the edge off. I mean, those people have it BAD. I'm also availing myself of terrific weather and patios with good cocktails.

I realize my narrative needs to change. It needs to change because I don't want to be the bitter lady who spent 4 years of her life (once all is said and done) realizing something beautiful, only to begrudge the process to the extent that joy can not be found. I used to be friendly and optimistic. Right now I'm brittle and mistrustful. A smudge ceremony is in the near future. As necessary, so will be an appointment with a therapist.

Forgive me for my angriness - I don't do things half-assed, including feeling the feelings. I promise that, as soon as I have the slightest amount of bandwidth, my goal will be to reveal the many beauties of this home - and to appreciate them with the requisite gratitude. I just need a bit of time.

The Eyes of the Home 7 Jul 2018 9:10 AM (6 years ago)

I should not be writing this post right now. I should be packing or shopping or cleaning or confirming something. I know this because my husband is so in my face that he could blow an eyelash off my cheek. So. much. bossiness. I get it. We're at that primal moment when war behaviour is destined to emerge. The kid's gone so he can't control her process. That leaves me.

Just for the record, I know that when you're moving next Saturday, you have to pack all the things before that day arrives. I don't need to camp for a week.

But that's not what this post is about. This post is about my choice of windows. Unquestionably, I knew what I wanted: Crittalls, from UK. They're steel framed, generally single-glazed (esp. in olde days) because they are designed for a temperate climate. I love the skinny horizontal mullions. I love the black frame, the smallish panes. They walk that tightrope of old, industrial and new. When facing a small, green space, there is nothing more beautiful IMO. They're moody but they let coziness shine through.

Crittall Windows

Photo from the Crittall website linked to above.

Alas, the only Cdn vendor that approximates this look is Pella and the cost was going to be about 54K for 2 walls of windows. Yeah. Partly that's cuz I live in Canada and everything here costs much more than elsewhere in NA and prob than most of Europe. We have few economies of scale.

Ironically, had the original builders not fucked me over, I could have bought these windows 4 times and been no worse off. But that's not how this process goes.

In the absence of the Pellas, the architect suggested something unappealingly generic so Scott and I spent a weekend redesigning the drawings and came up with what we call "a little bit Crit". We pulled this look off for 12K (but note the full window budget was 25K and we replaced all windows in the house except for those on the third floor which was renoed 5 years ago):

Small portion of the back wall of windows - only decent shot I've got, currently.
These are vinyl outside (to last through the winter), triple-glazed and wood on the inside, painted black.

Notice the absence of casings. We inset the windows and finished with a U channel (in stark contrast to the fancily cased Victorian windows at the front of the house). We offset the vertical mullion and skinnied up the horizontals.

But until earlier this week, while I LOVED the windows, both Scott and I were vaguely dismayed because they didn't look Crittall at all:

This is the other back wall of windows on the second floor - aka Kristin's sewga room, re-envisioned.

See how un-Crittall those gorgeous windows are? By later this week they'll look like the downstairs ones inasmuch as they'll be painted black.

Here's my point: I looked and looked and looked at those windows all the freakin' time and I couldn't figure out where we went wrong. I mean, I was more than happy to get with the windows I got, but (not being a profesh designer and all) I couldn't understand why they didn't look Crittall. And then it hit me - they needed to be painted black.

I know - really self-evident. Perhaps I seem dim. But till I figured it out, it eluded me.

My other points are these:

You can design whatever you want. Whether you get it in the end depends on many factors outside of the scope of your control but, in theory, you're in charge.

You don't need to spend a zillion dollars - but you do need to be creative. Also, unless you're REALLY creative, you will need to spend to some extent.

Break it down. What do you like about what you like? You really need to see what's going on in a granular way in order to recreate a look.

One other point: As I continue to go back through years of posts wherein I discussed design and what was then the impending renovation, I'm pretty amazed to find that I spoke about doing all of the things I've actually done, to some extent or another. To suggest I don't have a process is flat-out wrong. My process is dialoguing here. You don't need a mood board if that board is already in your mind.

On that note, I can no longer ignore Scott bellowing at me from the third floor. Off to roll up a mattress prematurely.

In Which I Remind You that Renos Suck 4 Jul 2018 2:15 PM (6 years ago)

Lest you think we're sliding into that "reno sweet spot" (what with our move back to the house happening on July 14), please be assured that there is no such thing. On today's laundry list of compelling issues that just slide off one's back (sort of), the motor on our furnace blew and it did something to the gizmo to cause all of my pipes associated with my new AC unit - and the actual AC unit - to freeze solid.

Let's look at the bright side: We're having a massive heat wave so the unit should be thawed by tomorrow morning when our HVAC guy comes to fix the situation. Moreover, our HVAC guy is one of the few trades I can respect - and he's giving us a huge discount on the fix. (He was not the cause of the issue!)

On the less bright side: the heat wave - in the absence of working AC - means my paint is drying at the pace of an actual snail.

Also, it would be good to know when my 12 new doors are going to arrive, like, optimally before I move in - not that anyone can tell me.

Oh, and the counter people (aka the Princesses from Vaughan, as I now refer to them) have advised that they can't confirm our installation date and time until Monday (the day they're supposed to arrive) because the person who looks that up on the computer is away. Also they just don't give a shit about my tiny job. It didn't go over well when I suggested that it must be rather difficult to run a professional business the size and scale of theirs without having, perhaps, 2 employees (out of 100) who understand how the computerized booking system works. Yeah, I know. Not my most strategic move but I'm ready to explode.

Then there's the fact that extreme heat may impact drying timelines for my final floor seal - which could have implications for all kinds of things that I cannot broach right now without becoming vaguely hysterical.

Also, the fix for the stove vent (you may recall 4 separate trades managed to mess this up independently with nary a second thought) is entirely sub-optimal from my vantage point. My husband spent 5 months designing the most beautiful mechanical wall you've ever seen - which is no small feat in a house that's 15 feet wide - because his hate-on for the ugliness and wasted space produced by bulkheads is rivaled only by my profound disappointment in this entire process. The only reason I didn't go full-on reno-zilla is that he swore to me that a 4-inch high valence, coming down from the ceiling, truly wasn't going to bother him and he begged me to let it go for everyone's sanity.

By the way - this is merely a short-list of today's issues. I can't remember them all without looking at a spreadsheet. (Wait - now I remember but I just can't bring myself to write it down.)

Add PMS to this list and it leads to a fun tale about how, today - when I ran out for 5 minutes desperate to find something to eat between multiple work crises while simultaneously having a heady debate about tiles with Scott, on the phone - I had to quickly switch gears to lose my shit on some idiot who decided to cut in the line I had been standing in for far too long. I didn't even start the argument. She had the audacity to imply that I was being rude by not tolerating her breach of protocol (Canadians tolerate) and, at that point, I was done. Oh, that woman didn't know what hit her (namely a barrage of multi-syllabic in-your-faceness, the subtext of which was fuck off bitch). It was quite a spectacle. Unsurprisingly she backed down a) cuz possession is 9/10ths of the law and the cashier was already checking me out and b) when you go at someone without cause and that someone comes back at you hard, you gotta carefully consider how crazy she actually is.

When that was done, I remembered that I was still on the phone with Scott. He confirmed that I was "scary like a lawyer" and then he decided it might be more fruitful to talk about tiles tonight.

Over the past few weeks, I've heard first-, second- and third-hand tales about multiple people who can't get any traction on their renos, currently in play. Like none. They're, 6, 10, 18-months in, living in their basements, eating takeout, bathing their children in a kitchen sink. While I'm incredibly critical of the broken-ness of the building industry - and I will continue to be this way until I find a way to fix it (and I will find a way) - these stories make me understand that I do have traction - albeit builder-grade* (the worst concept ever). Sure, it's taking a veritable furnace of life-energy from two perfectionist overachievers who should probably be more mindful of their health, but I will move back into that house in less than 2 weeks - and I will have bathrooms and a kitchen - if not interior doors. Goddess-willing, I will also have initial backyard hardscaping, blinds, wood beams, a sexy barn door and a bunch of new kitchen gizmos (if no furniture, cuz really, who has money for places to sit?)

*On this topic, is it not sad that this term refers specifically to mediocre workmanship. Like, you can have good work or you can have "builder-grade". Take back the night, Builders. Find the pride in your industry because you're the only thing standing between us and the devolution of architectural value everywhere.

Let's Get This Party Started 30 Jun 2018 8:00 AM (6 years ago)

A while ago, when I was trying to articulate "my style", I wrote a bit about my design objectives and process (which some of my friends refer to as my scary-ass "non-process"). I find it interesting to reflect on these posts because I continue to feel all of those feelings - and to work in this haphazard way - but I also have a much more integrated understanding of my style and approach now, having been put on the hook for (aka given the opportunity to) design at every turn.

So let's have a moment with a Kristin-reno photo that isn't only posted on instagram. And remember, if you want to see house photos, you really should check out that insta link:

Kristin's and Scott's New Kitchen - unfinished but getting there!

I find this space profoundly pleasing. Even incomplete, I see how it's going to look (not generally one of my strong suits, fyi). The countertops are going to be pure white quartz, which goes up the wall a few inches as backsplash (not the cheapest finish I've chosen, admittedly) and my fancy-ass Bertazzoni dual fuel stove* will be on the other side, with a thin sheet-metal backsplash. It's the tiniest bit industrial, but mainly warm and sleek. I live in a horrible climate in a city that is architecturally rather suspect. My interior needs to scream hygge.

I feel I'm at a point that I can articulate what I'm going for and, of course, I'm not one to hold back! I want this house to be sexy. I want it to be the sexiest fucking little space that ever was. I want people to leave my dinner parties utterly hot for one another because my interior is messing with their minds.

No question, there's a way in which this space is the kitchen-equivalent of the midlife crisis sports car. But it's much more than that. It's shiny (reflective), briefly colourful (cheerful), uncluttered (zen), wood-forward (warm). The proportions are beautiful.

On the topic of kitchen renos - this one was rather affordable (in the scheme of unaffordability). I went with cabinets that are obvs customized and of good quality, but mid-range in cost. I'm not replacing my fridge or dishwasher. They both work, I feel they can meld with the eclectic scheme so I'm not changing them until they fall apart. Sure, this place might be sexier if you didn't see the fridge, but that would be opulent. Moreover, lest we never forget, I've paid for this (not cheap) reno twice. I've got to pick my poison.

Yesterday I showed a similar photo of the kitchen to a friend at work. Before she could catch herself, she gasped and said: That red comes off when the kitchen is finished, right? It's not actually supposed to be that colour?! And I laughed with glee! I was entirely unfussed by her admission of horror. Have at it, I say! You don't like this, no problem. Chances are I don't love your kitchen design (except inasmuch as it's an expression of where you live and what you like). It's no one's job to appreciate my kitchen but mine. And Scott, natch. PS: He is SO on board at this point, all pre-installation anxiety is rapidly diminishing.

What I loved about my encounter with my friend is that it was unscripted. And this space got a huge reaction. Sure, I'd have liked it more for her to say it was the best thing she's ever seen, but I am just so happy she had a reaction - that I created something worthy of response.

For me, interior design is art. Beautiful construction is art. Efficient placement is art. But my style of art may not be yours and that's alright!

What I've come to understand about my home is that it really is a little mansion! It's proportions are unbeatable, to my eye. It has individual rooms, all of which have individual purpose, and yet they cohere. It's old, it's modern. It's a little bit rustic, a little bit sleek. As I like to say, it punches above its weight. If it makes you think, even for a second, about what you like and what you don't - about what suits you - then I have been successful. Wait - I have been successful. At this point, it's just a matter of degrees.

*Before you predict that I went stupidly high-style (which one does when buying a fancy-ass stove), I got this baby on sale for half price (the model is now discontinued). It's also the small version, a) because I don't have more than 30" of width to spare and b) because I really don't need six burners and 2 ovens in my household of 3 / soon to be 2.

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