play pick up sticks? did they always have the balls at the end, or did they once have pointy ends that could poke your eyes out?

every one you think you know, you don’t: you know a sliver of them. Some people, that sliver may not even be large enough for you to really notice. Others, the sliver is so large and has worked itself so deep that at times it is all you know. The true qualities of these slivers are rarely understood until they are gone. The small sliver may leave you wishing it could have been larger, that the absence of it could have ripped the skin a little deeper. The large sliver, ripped from your body, leaves you wishing it would have torn you in half instead, finished the job so that weren’t left with the burden of this gaping wound that refuses to be filled and will not close.

traditional photography is silver based. Light brings about a latent image in a silver solution that is realized through development. Fixing then stops the oxidation and allows that sliver of time to be caught. The moment when the light fell on the lake that way, or when you fell in the river, or when we were happy. Some pictures are strong for the absence of the person that really should be there, that would have been there, if you had asked.

i used to express emotions through drawing: graphite and charcoal. I do not know if i am up to the task with photography. Photography gives me a wonderful, safe, role as a spectator. It is time for the quiet spectator to dig at the slivers, however, and not be so afraid of which slivers turn into silver.

EDIT: I took this post down, but then my horoscope said that, while i am not typically one to expose myself emotionally, i will feel like it over the next few days and i should just go for it. As uncomfortable as it is, maybe this is part of the fear that i need to get over? Who knows (not i, that is for sure)? In any case, my horoscope is very occasionally dead-on, so i might as well go for it.

i originally set out to knit Odessa. I was up in Ogden and went into the Needlepoint Joint and walked out (probably an hour later, they have so many things! It overwhelmed me) with a ball of Rowan CashSoft Aran in slate grey. The trouble is, the pattern calls for CashSoft DK, so i adjusted the stitch count for the different weight yarn and pulled out some beads. But, the beads i had would not work on the aran, so i decided to knit it without beads also. But then, as a approached the end, i ran out of yarn. There may have been some swearing at this point and perhaps some needles were thrown, one of which i still cannot find, but i’m not really talking about that now am i?

I had been thinking that it would be nice if the ribbing on the hat also went in a spiral, so once i picked up my needles and rewound the yarn, i started again, creating a slanted rib. When i went to start the main pattern, i felt that the Odessa stitch pattern would not work with the ribs i had created, and so i changed the main stitch pattern as well. Then, of course, the center decreases ended up being totally different from the original, too.

Which leaves me with - The Spider Hat:

maybe you can see where the name comes from?