tongue and groove

Tom the Knitting Trucker

At the end of my La Salonniere interview with Brenda Ponnay, I mentioned her dad, Tom McConnaughy. Tom is a trucker with a fun hobby...he knits! He specializes in slippers and has an Etsy shop. When I talked about Tom in that interview, I mentioned that he was knitting me a pair of slippers in World Champion San Francisco Giants colors, orange and black. The slippers arrived last week and I love them! Now I'm all set for Opening Day on March 31. And guess what, Tom is a Dodgers fan. California baseball fans will take you that the Giants and Dodgers are arch-rivals. Just goes to show you what a great guy Tom is.  ;)

Tom's knitting was featured in a Wall Street Journal story on truckers who've taken up stitching. You can read the article here.  But I have a scoop that the Wall Street Journal doesn't have: Tom's story about how he came to be a knitter. Here it is, in his own words:

My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was about seven years old. Once you learn something you don't forget it. 

I guess about six or seven years ago Brenda decided she was going to learn to knit so she could make a handbag. She bought a kit from the craft store and brought it out to our home on a weekend. I said to her, "Get me some knitting needles and I think I can show you how to knit." We have a picture of Brenda and I sitting side by side. I have this half-finished yellow blanket that my wife found in her fabric closet on my lap. I said to my wife, "I'll take this yellow blanket with me on the truck. One of these days when I don't have anything to do I'll finish this off and the grandkids can have it for a dolly blanket." I found that after a long day on the road there was no better therapy than to just sit in my seat and let my mind relax while I knitted awhile. I soon started knitting scarves for anybody who wanted them. I made them for my students' wives.

One day my wife Sue said her feet were always cold in the evenings and could I make her a pair of wool slippers. So I started looking at slipper patterns and made a whole bunch of really goofy looking somethings. It took me awhile to get it right, but I finally produced a couple of slippers Sue would accept. Now several years later she still wears them to bed, kicks them off during the night and we have to go looking for them the next day. I look for lumps in the covers and sure enough I might find two pairs under there!

Thanksgiving two years ago we were at Bethany Actually's house in San Diego and I was experimenting with this Fun Fur, trying to make some slippers for Bug and Annalie. Brenda said, "Dad, you have to get that in brown and make bear paws!" So I started making them. Again, many pairs before they even resembled anything close to a bear paw. Sue suggested making claws on them, so I took some white yarn and now all the bear paws and grey wolf slippers have claws. My student suggested double thick soles.

Brenda and CC set up my Etsy shop and last Christmas I sold over $150 worth of slippers of all kinds, including to a lady from Mississippi who wanted a gold and black pair. Apparently she or her significant other are fans of the University of Southern Mississippi Eagles football team. So the orange and black aren't the first fan slippers! I sold a pair of bear paws to a lady that works at our Werner terminal in Denver. When she got home her husband took them away from her so I had to make another pair.

While my students are driving, I have to log a bunch of hours observing them. I tell them, "If I'm over there knitting, you know you're doing just fine!"

If you'd like your own pair of slippers from Tom the Trucker, head on over to Etsy.

Thanks again, Tom. I'm looking forward to rocking my orange and black slippers through another successful Giants season!

P.S. And guess who the Giants play on Opening Day? Yep, the Dodgers.  ;)

expertise is overrated

"I just kind of started doing it...My lack of knowledge in the beginning really helped and really just made me refine what little I knew."  ~The Sartorialist

whatever it is...that secret idea you've had squirreled away for someday...take it out, dust it off, let it see the light of day. breathe some life into it. don't wait for permission or for someday...just start doing it...now.

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if you missed it earlier this week, i hope you'll check out my La Salonniere interview with the very talented musician and filmmaker Eric Shiveley.

there's a brand-new interview--and a surprise--coming on Monday!

playing the part

the other day Jamie wrote a lovely post called The Vulnerability of Desire. she referenced the line from poet Mary Oliver that says, "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." in that post, Jamie talks about fearing that she might be judged as not being down-to-earth if she's honest about some of the things her soft animal craves. it's a spot-on post and i encourage you to read it.

following up on that idea, today Jamie asks us for Wishcasting Wednesday, "What does the soft animal of your body wish for?" i read that prompt very early this morning and then spent some time thinking about what i crave and truly love.  i thought about places i love. i thought about activities i like to do. i thought about locations and things that make my heart sing. and then i drew inward and thought about something very, very basic...about my physical self. i thought about how over the past several years i've allowed circumstances and some unpleasant experiences fuel an urge to be invisible. i thought of how i often leave the house to run errands without so much as brushing my hair. (granted, i have a cut where you can't really tell, but still.)  :)  i thought of how i have a jewelry box full of cool stuff, most of which goes untouched most of the time. i though of the great, funky handbags i own and those leopard-print stilettos that sit most of the time gathering dust in the closet. i thought of how now that i'm at home all of the time, i can get unbelievably lazy...wearing the same, comfy items over and over. 

part of the problem is my current environment. we live in a college town that feels uptight to me. i have often felt most like myself when pounding city streets...San Francisco, Portland, L.A., New York, New Orleans, Paris. and yet i love a good road trip, especially through the wide open spaces of the West. i love kitschy small towns. i love the Caribbean. i'm a mass of contradictions, but the bottom line is that i love to travel. i love to go. 

but no matter where i am or what i'm doing or where i'm headed, one thing is a constant:  i have a certain basic wardrobe that makes me most feel like me. give me skinny jeans (even though i'm not 'supposed' to wear them, given my age. f*ck that, i still rock those babies!)...a long white shirt...flat ankle boots to pound the pavement or flip-flops in warm weather...leopard print heels...newsboy caps (i own several)...a big, slouchy shoulder bag...a long black coat...beaded bracelets...when the weather chills, long scarves and long slouchy sweaters.

i've often read interviews with actors where they've talked about how the right wardrobe can often help them to truly inhabit a character. i think that applies to everyone, even if we don't realize it. i'm not talking about artifice...about using clothes to fake an identity. i'm actually talking about the complete opposite...about putting on that which feels so right that we can't help but feel comfortable in our own skin.

so in answer to Jamie's prompt, i wish to start loving myself enough to wear the wardrobe that feels so utterly right that i couldn't possibly play anyone except myself.  ;)

rocking YOUR style

when we moved to St. Thomas, i got rid of most of my (Portland and before that Bay Area) clothes. i was moving to a tiny, humid island in the middle of the Caribbean where the average yearly temperature is 85 degrees. i whittled things way, way, WAY down. i went on one little shopping spree at the Gap in downtown Portland before my early summer departure where i picked up a bunch of tank tops and shorts because i wasn't sure what the shopping would be like once i got there...not to mention that i didn't know when i'd work again and have disposable income to spend on clothes. island shopping options turned out to be limited. one could either over-spend in boutiques geared toward tourists or try to find anything remotely stylish at K-Mart. i lived in flip flops for five years...even wore them to work. my work attire was mostly sleeveless sundresses and thin cotton drawstring pants. at home i lived in tank tops and shorts. weekends were spent in a bikini and cover-up because the majority of the time i was at our neighborhood beach. my employer's sister volunteered at a thrift shop benefiting a non-profit...she'd swing by my office with bags of stuff available for 50 cents or a dollar and i was able to add some fun pieces to my wardrobe that way. about a year ago, i bequeathed a stretch cotton sheath to my niece Kayla...i laugh when i see her wearing it because i think of it as "our $1 dress."

this morning on Twitter, i saw a tweet about the newly-redesigned MySpace Fashion site. i'm seldom on MySpace anymore, but i've been on there for years so it surprised me that i didn't even know MySpace fashion exists. but then, i'm not their target demographic. :) one of the things i've been acutely aware of the past few years is how since moving back to California, i've almost completely let go of my sense of style. i know why i did that...as i felt the need to make myself smaller and smaller in work settings where my creativity was discouraged, i started trying to make myself invisible physically. but i'm ready to embrace my style again. one of the things i've always liked to do is take fashion ideas and see if i can manifest them on the cheap. with that in mind, i was tickled to watch this video with Rachel Zoe from the MySpace Fashion site where she features a sweater that looks very similar to one i saw at Target a few days ago. one doesn't have to spend a lot of money to have a sense of style...it's all in the mixing. just because one's middle-aged doesn't mean one can't rock their own sense of style. if i were really smart, i'd present myself with a style challenge that i'd force myself to document visually...but i'm not sure i'm ready for that just that. ;) anyway, thought you might like to watch this, too. be forewarned though...acid wash is back (UGH). love her idea of using accessories to make a bold statement with an otherwise, everyday casual outfit. happy dressing! ;)

The Fit - Rachel Zoe

The Fit | MySpace Video

dreamboard

i'd been afraid to look at my blog to see how long it had been since i'd posted.  (a couple of months.)  i keep meaning to post, but given what's been happening in my life, silence sometimes seems the best option.  i saw a tweet yesterday that sort of sums it up...

    "say nothing often."  ~Liturgy

(seems ironic that it would have been said by a New Zealand pastor, since i'm not remotely religious.)

depression is a demanding taskmaster. she constantly seeks your time and energy and attention.  selfish bitch.  i'm not down about any one thing...it's that there's been a constant stream of things over the last year or so.  it all just sort of piled up. until the next thing you know, you feel like a blog-mute. like maybe it's best to just not say anything at all...especially since so few know what's actually going on.  a few close friends know large chunks of the story, but almost no one (even family) knows everything. 

i had good intentions about November.  there's a smorgasbord of stuff to choose from to get one's ass in gear.  i could do NaNoWriMo, but knew i wouldn't because even though i like to write, fiction's not my thing.  i could do NaBloPoMo.  i could post daily--hell, i did that a lot for years before someone picked a month and gave it a name.  but i didn't post on Sunday and then didn't on Monday and by Tuesday i thought, oh, screw it.  i could do Leah's Art Every Day, a fabulous project from someone i adore.  Leah's one of my oldest blog pals, going back six years.  surely Leah could inspire me.  but...art?...every day?...when my productivity level lately on any front has barely registered above zero?  i'm not saying i won't participate at all this month...just that i don't feel up to committing to it by adding my name to the list.

on Monday Jamie posted on Facebook that it was time for full moon dreamboards.  I left her a comment that that might be just what i need right now...a dreamboard.  she commented back that great, she'd look forward to seeing it.  then i thought, oh crap, now i really have to do it.  :)  but Monday morning brought news of a death...and after we heard the news, J and i began rifling through old photos to see if we had any pictures of the man who'd passed from a tour they'd been on together.  next thing i knew, hours and hours had gone by...with me tumbling down the rabbit hole of memory lane.  so no dreamboard got made on Monday.  but i was awake very early Tuesday morning and saw that big bright moon outside, so while the coffee was brewing, i stood at the kitchen counter at 4 am and made one. i didn't have any poster board and didn't feel like going through a whole stack of magazines...so i used one issue of SOMA (which had been in our room at Hotel Lucia) and used the heavy card stock of the cover for my board.  it dawned on me while i was making it that i used to make them all the time...before anyone knew to call them dreamboards or visionboards. my bedroom walls were covered with them decades ago. and i thought about this pattern i have of letting go of things that bring me pleasure...collaging, dance, listening to music, fashion, writing, photography, poetry.  it's like i feel like i must let go of those things as some kind of punishment...yet i'm still not sure what the crime is. 

one of the best things about being a long-time blogger is the joy i feel witnessing bloggers bloom over the course of years.  it makes me genuinely happy when i see people really take off...Leah and Jamie fall into that category.  i think the mark they're making in the creative community is fantastic.  so this is for Jamie...she'll wanna know what i'm saying here...

see that tiny "love" in the upper right corner?  there's a reason it's small...love is always #1 in life, but i've spent a good 15 years doing almost everything for the love of others...so that's a reminder to me, as is the "M ONE," to put myself first for a change...to begin with self-love.

the street shot reminded me of New York...a place i used to go a lot but haven't been to in a long time...even just walking down the street there can feel like "showtime" to me...i miss that kind of energy.

the label on the lapel says "photographer" because that's one of the things i am...and always have been...even when i don't let others see it.

the boot is a reminder of the style that lives within me...even when i suppress outward manifestation of it. 

the water photo looks eerily like a shot i once took that always make me calm when i look at it.

the list of creative things...isn't it great that they were all right there in a list for me to just cut out?  :)  and check means that, yes, i'd like to be paid for my creativity.

i'd love an iPhone or some type of smartphone.  "book" isn't necessarily pages bound together. i've been encouraged by friends to write a book...but i'm not sure a traditional book is where my heart is.  in jazz, book can mean a band's reportoire. i mean it more like that...i want to create my book through various mediums...more of a virtual book...hence "personal ID."

and that, my friends, is what i wished for on this November's full moon.

paper dolls for grown-ups

Yesterday I saw a "tweet" from Lori-Lyn at Twitter:  "Feeding my Polyvore addiction."  I had absolutely no idea what Polyvore was.  It sounded, I don't know, scientific or something.  So I clicked over to her blog--because as someone who's been reading Lori-Lyn's blog(s) for years, I know that if she's interested in something, there's a good chance I'll find it appealing.  I found this post.  I still didn't get it, even though she said in her post that she'd found a new toy.  Then I clicked over to Polyvore and...ohmygod...it's like my dream site!  :)  It allows you to create your own fashion collages.  I used to spend hours making fashion collages when I was in my early 20's.  HOURS. 

It helped that Jeffrey was conked out on the couch.  We're in the midst of a heat wave, and working outside in the heat kind of took it out of him.  Once we had the A/C cranking and had some dinner, he was toast.  :)  So I sat here in the cool darkness of the living room and got busy...this was my first one...

What I love about doing this is that it never starts with the obvious thing. Even though I labeled this one "brown coat," I actually started with the jeans...and had no idea where I was going with it. Then I went with a black pencil skirt (and I should interject here that I haven't worn a skirt since I moved back to the mainland three years ago)... Then some loungewear...pink's not even a color I'd choose for a robe, but that's my kind of style of robe... Then a 40's retro look, 'cause I do love vintage... And because I'm a gal who owns three straw cowboy hats and loves all things Southwestern, I had to do the urban cowgirl thing (the skirt was the starting point for this one)... At this point it was becoming clear that I could maybe get a little...(cough)...obsessed with playing with Polyvore...but J was still asleep, so I did one more...this is the dancer in me walking the streets of N.Y... It suddenly hit me (and I sent a note to Lori-Lyn to this effect)...it's like paper dolls! And I LOVED playing with paper dolls when I was a kid...almost more than I loved playing with 'real' dolls. It's also incredibly therapeutic, because I've always had (in my own mind anyway) a good sense of style, but have often not had the budget to afford the looks I like. So I'm someone who's scoured thrift stores and vintage shops and sale racks to find a few pieces that make me feel good. But here's the thing:  those five years in the tropics completely un-did my sense of style. When you live in warm weather 24/7, comfort becomes key. For five years, I wore flip-flops...even to work! I was nervous about having to wear 'real' shoes when I got a job here, although they assured me flip-flops were acceptable attire for school.

We went to Reno for two days last week and spent this past weekend in the City. Packing for both quick getaways, I stood in front of our tiny (shared) closet and thought woefully, I have nothing to wear! Seriously, I have no clothes to speak of. I've been wearing mostly the same jeans and pants and shirts since we moved here.  (No thanks to the big pay cut I took to take a school job.)  I haven't worn a dress or skirt since we moved back! (What's that about?) To say that I'm in love with Polyvore is putting it mildly.

Thanks, Lori-Lyn!  I'll just be over here...playing with my paper dolls...  ;)  [My Polyvore profile is here.]