Sneak sneak, giggle giggle

Soft and Squishy

Hooray! I finished a pillow. And I think it's quite lovely. We actually threw away the old pillows that went with our couch, because they were pretty nasty. The couch used to be Regis's grandma's, and it saw a good amount of service, which is why it's got a slipcover. We decided the pillows were too gross to just cover up, though, so I chopped up an old pillow and here's the finished product!

Foiled.

My sister is the muse of domesticity. Having spent many years in her company, I have developed certain of the domestic arts: I cook, I knit, I sew, I quilt*. I made an egregious mistake a couple years ago. My mother asked if I thought I would need a sewing machine, because she'd found a great deal and was buying one for herself and for Amber. I said no, I didn't think I had a place to put it. This was a stupid move of epic proportions. Those machines are awesome. Instead, now that I have need of a sewing machine, I have inherited Mom's old machine, which, as I recall, stutters and shivers when it is used. I have to reach back in my memory, because although I possess the machine, I do not possess its power cord, and therefore cannot ascertain whether it still shivers, or even if it still works. This is depressing, because a few weeks ago I paid an enormous sum for some gorgeous fabric, thread, and fluff in order to create drapes and a quilt for Abby's room, and pillow covers for our couch. All that good stuff is now sitting on various pieces of furniture, being clutter instead of couture. So now I must wait for the cord to arrive in the mail, and then I must plead for the muse's indulgence so that I can finish my crafts.

*This reminds me of Spanish classes. Cocino, cocinas, cocinamos . . . :)

The Frumious Bandersnatch

Well, this is a little embarrassing. Not long after I wrote the previous post, I opened up the Word file with my story in it, just to look it over. To say goodbye, maybe. I should have been on my guard, but thinking of it as I did, as a terminally weakened and feeble creature, I blithely clicked on the file. It pounced. With all the indignation of a jilted prom date, it gnashed its teeth on my feeble excuses. Declaring its place as a legitimate child of my brain, it insisted that if I couldn't place it in its proper seat in the pantheon, I at least had the obligation to shape it with enough strength and suppleness to allow it to claw its way up as best it could.

I babbled agreement and retreated, shaken, leaving it to prowl filepaths and snarl at the occasional typo. Every time I opened my laptop, it would slink in the background and make sly, suggestive gestures. Whenever I gave in to temptation and tentatively typed a snatch of dialogue or a dribble of description, I felt better knowing that I hadn't yet consigned my story to the limbo of unfinished tales. It's coming together better than before. Maybe all I needed was a break.