Tonight, on Tales From the Laundromat! Sensitive knitters with no connection to Anacortes, WA may want to look away from the following pictures.

I do my laundry at the laundromat on Commercial Avenue in Anacortes. Among many other thrilling features, this laundromat has a carpeted (?) island in between the row of regular-sized washing machines. This island serves as the Lost Sock Department.

When I stopped by to do an emergency mid-week load of laundry, I spied some interesting socks sitting on the island. Then I did a double-take. Wait - are those hand-knit?

Aw, the poor things. They are hand-knit. As you can see, the cuff is worked in entrelac - different colors, no less - then it appears that the stitches were picked up along the edge, and the rest of the sock was knit down in the normal fashion.

Aren’t they lovely? Don’t think I didn’t briefly entertain the idea of swiping them. But oh, the bad knitting karma!

At any rate, if you recognize these socks, please rescue them from the laundromat. They miss you.

Comments (3)

About six months ago, I picked a walnut off a scone and ate it. Five minutes later, my face and tongue swelled up, my throat got tight, and I started having trouble breathing. (I list these symptoms in descending order of likelihood caused by walnut, versus likelihood caused by FREAKING THE @#$& OUT BECAUSE MY FACE WAS SWELLING UP.)

I was under a tremendous amount of stress at the time (stress can do some seriously strange things to your body), and also standing in an area that was partly under construction (fumes, dust, solvents, who knows). But I blamed the walnut.

For the last six months, I’ve avoided all nuts, yea, even unto items that were manufactured in a facility that processes nuts. Even peanuts. I know, peanuts aren’t the same as walnuts. But if your eyes swelled up when you ate a nut, you might tend to overgeneralize, too.

I know that it is common for people with a history of other allergies (20 years, seasonal allergies, plus detergent/perfume sensitivities) to develop a cross-reaction with nuts. This is called Oral Allergy Syndrome. So a person who starts out being allergic to alder pollen may later in life develop an allergy to almonds, apples, celery, and so forth. The key factor being that the shapes of the proteins are kind of similar, according to your body’s immune system.

Most people would have gone straight to an allergist for testing. Most people are not truly phobic about the doctor, in a clinical sense. I am not nervous about going to the doctor. I am not uncomfortable with medical procedures. I am not afraid that something will happen. I am phobic about the doctor, the doctor’s office, and anything that happens there.

This is something that I always have to clarify for people, because they’ll be all like, “Oh, I hate going to the doctor, too!” and I’m like, “Do you CRY when you go to the doctor’s office? Like, just sitting there before the doctor even gets into the little room, do you start bawling? Because I do. I got a flu shot last fall, and I broke down and started sobbing right there in the grocery store. In fact, if we talk about going to the doctor for long enough, I will start crying right now, so shut the hell up about your hating to go to the doctor.”

Put simply, for me, going to the doctor is like being on Fear Factor. Like being dumped in a tank full of spiders. We tend to accept that some people get hysterical at the sight of snakes. It’s like that, okay? Do not tire me with your “I get kinda nervous.” It is not the same.

Having said that, there are some of you reading this who are thinking “OMG ME TOO!!!” For you, I have one word:

XANAX.

On Xanax, you will be just like you are right now, minus any scrap of fear or anxiety. IT IS AWESOME. You will be able to drive yourself to the doctor and back. You will be able to go to work afterwards. You will not be impaired in any way. You’ll just be able to go to the doctor without, you know. Crying.

Okay, now, I realize there’s a chicken-and-egg problem, here. One has to go to the doctor to get a prescription for Xanax. However, there are ways around this. I suggest that you, you know, ask around.

I know that this is not a savory thought. I would not recommend it for any other situation. But if you cannot go to the doctor without breaking down, then I’m guessing it’s been a while since you’ve been. Personally, I am 34 years old, and I have had exactly three - 3 - PAP smears. Counting the one last week (on Xanax). Under that sort of circumstance, then yes, if that’s what it’s going to take - ask around.

So I made an appointment. They warned me that it might take 2.5 hours, so I brought my knitting. Boy am I glad that I did, because it really was a 2.5 hour ordeal. Gosh, was that fun.

Incidentally, learn from my mistake. If you do obtain Xanax by asking around, and you bring it to the office in case you need more, I suggest that you put it in an empty pill container. Just something to give it a little, you know. Respectability.

But let me tell you, I wish you could have seen the nurse’s face when she was working up my chart, and she asked what kind of dosage I was taking for medical appointments, and I reached into my messenger bag and pulled this out:

… And said “Um… I dunno… they’re blue? I take half of one.”

In my defense, I was just trying to be helpful. Also, I was a little high.

At any rate, I was doing pretty well with all the testing until one of them scooped up a huge handful of hypodermic needles and set them down on the table beside me, and I burst into tears. But the second dose set me aright, and we continued.

What happened is, the nurse drew numbers and dots on my arms in felt-tip pen, and then poked each one with a little ampule, and then stuck in a hypodermic needle, and then set the timer for 15 minutes and left the room. We did this 10 times. Sigh.

As you can see, I was tested for allergy to HB, YJ, WPH, YH, and W, and came through with flying colors. Actually, this is the series of bee venom tests (I won’t bore you with explaining all the acronyms) and you could have knocked me over with a feather. The “allergic to bees” thing is a sort of received wisdom on my part, because I don’t even remember the bee sting which occasioned the trip to the doctor. Turns out, I am not allergic to bees. Who knew?

However, I am quite allergic to grass, as you would be able to see from this picture, if the autofocus had worked properly. The grass test occasioned a huge, silver dollar-sized welt, and it took every ounce of strength I possessed not to scratch the hell out of it. Also pictured: sock in progress.

In hindsight, it seems a little demented to take pictures of yourself in the doctor’s examining room. In my defense, I was bored. Also, I was a little high.

And finally, the results you’ve all been waiting for! Skin tests seem to indicate that I am not allergic to tree nuts, but they took blood samples*, and will let me know the definitive result next week.

However, I have been cleared for peanuts! I ate a Baby Ruth as soon as I got back to the office. Then I went to the grocery store and bought Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Nutter Butters, and a big ol’ jar of peanut butter. Now I feel ill, but happy.

In case you were wondering, this is how long it takes to get a full allergy workup:

Also pictured: Kidd Valley milkshake. I felt my experience deserved it. Actually, I felt my experience justified like a DOZEN Kidd Valley milkshakes, but I wanted to save room for my dinner of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, followed by an aperitif of Nutter Butters.

I’m just going to go have a lie-down, now.

* I had warned them that I get a little faint at the sight of blood. Everything was going well, and then she said “Okay, we’re done,” and I glanced over and saw three vials of my own blood and, as promised, got a little faint. I wanted to say, Lady, what part of “I faint at the sight of blood” didn’t you understand?

Comments (11)

1. People Don’t Read Anymore

Oh, so much writing! Blogging here, blogging there, communicating via Instant Messenger with friends and coworkers all day long, email - I sure do cobble together a lot of typed words in the course of a day, considering the oft-stated, “People don’t READ anymore.” If people don’t READ, then what the frack am I doing, writing so much? And why is the internet so popular? With a few obvious exceptions, the internet is mostly words.

You could translate the statement to mean “People don’t purchase books anymore.” I suppose this could be true, but then how do you explain Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code phenomenons? (Phenomena? Phenomenii? Forgive me, it’s early. I need more coffee.) Not to mention icons like Neil Gaiman and Stephanie Pearl McPhee, both of which are juggernauts in their own way.

Mostly, I think “People don’t READ anymore” should be translated as “I am a pompous ass.” People read plenty, believe me.

2. Flash Fiction

Escape Pod (”The science fiction podcast magazine”) publishes flash fiction on their blog. “Flash fiction” is a bite-sized story of 300 words or less. I’ve been browsing through these little niblets of fiction this morning, and I am astounded. I can barely write about how I had a sandwich for lunch in 300 words or less, never mind telling an entire story, fer crying out loud.

Given that people don’t READ - but they do - but they have short attention spans - I think there’s a real future for flash fiction. For one thing, flash fiction is perfectly suited for reading on a cellphone, smartphone, or other WAP browser. One could also subscribe to a flash fiction service, and receive a flash fiction story emailed to your account a few times a week. If I was both retired and wealthy, I would attempt to set up something like this. Since I am neither, I release these ideas into the ether. Go, little ideas - fly free, with my blessing!

If you’re interested in writing flash fiction, Escape Pod is also running a flash fiction contest, with a $100 first prize. I don’t like to make the people in my life uncomfterbuls by talking about them here, so I’ll just say that “a friend of mine” has submitted his story to the contest, and at last report, it was doing quite well.

Here, I would instruct you to set up an account on their forums and vote for “friend of mine”’s story. Except the contest entries are posted anonymously, and I neglected to ask him which one was his. So instead, I instruct you to think winning thoughts in his general direction. Thanks.

3. Advice

I think that for the most part, advice on writing - like advice on losing weight - is futile. There are some solid general rules (write every day - eat less and exercise more) but ultimately, each person has to find their own path. Just because one person was successful with method A, doesn’t mean it’s going to work for person B.

One thing I believe should be a general rule is NOT “write what you KNOW.” I tell people, “write what you FEEL.” Keep experimenting with different types and formats of writing, and don’t be judgmental. There are a LOT of different ways to make money off your writing, but you’re only going to get to that money-making point if you’re giving people something that you felt passion for.

Okay, that’s a little convoluted.

I think every writer has it in their mind that a big book sale is what’s going to make them successful. So they try like the dickens to write a Big Book. When they’re not writing The Big Book, they’re pounding out a shocking volume of words somewhere else - be it blogging, non-fiction pieces, song lyrics, product reviews, what have you. To an outside observer, it’s clear that their passion lies with The Other Writing, but lordy, just try to point this out to them.

Their Other Writing is fantastic - because they have a passion for it. I love reading anything that was written with this passion, no matter how boring or abstract the actual topic is. (That’s why people subscribe to the New Yorker, no?) However, their Big Book sucks, now and forever. They will ultimately finish their Big Book, shop it around to publishers, get a ton of rejection slips, and get their heart broken so badly that it will never really be whole again.

Don’t be that person. Set aside all judgment, listen to yourself, look at what you enjoy writing, and write the hell out of it. You’ll find a way to make money off it, believe me. I understand there are some people who get paid to blog, and have developed a huge audience of kind, thoughtful, and loving readers - all because of one little knitting blog, fer crying out loud.

This rule could also be summed up as “write the path of least resistance.”

4. Resources

Blah blah writing advice is futile. Lately I’ve been enjoying two podcasts:

* Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing, billed as “A podcast by a wanna-be writer for wanna-be writers.” Writing advice and analysis, interviews with successful authors, and blog-style updates on Mur herself.

* Tony and Ciaran’s Starship Sofa, or as I like to think of it, Staaship Sewfer (it’s the accents, you see). Each podcast is a biography of a successful science fiction writer, one writer per episode, including episodes on two of my personal favorites (Neil Gaiman and Iain M. Banks).

And if you’re having trouble coming up with character names, I found a website that uses a cute little trick to display a semi-random list of names. The Baby Name Guide Phonetics Search has you put in the first names of each of the parents - or heck, just two regular words, it’s not picky - and uses these to compile a list of names that include elements of both. The resulting list is both exhaustive and inventive.

For example, if you put in, say, “Erika” and “Jack” (tee hee!) you get about 50 names. You get your “interesting names I wouldn’t have thought of” (Jasper, Emerson, Fergus, Akasuki). And you also get your “that name is unspeakably funny” (Everhard, Justice, Pegasus, Worcester). It’s fun for all ages!

5. On Scarves

When not writing my brains out, I managed to finish my Malabrigo scarf. Here it is, being blocked on my wicked cool blocking board:

Yarn: Malabrigo Merino Worsted, one skein, color “Roanoke”

Needles: OMG I totally forget. Sorry! I’m pretty sure I used the size that the ball band suggests. Unfortunately, I can’t find the ball band.

Pattern: Yarn Harlot’s One-Row Handspun Scarf. I cast on 24 stitches - the amount called for, plus two, for the slipped-stitch edge. LOVE THIS PATTERN.

I’ll be wearing it to Madrona today. I haven’t yet decided if it complements or clashes horribly with the plum-colored fleece jacket I’ve been wearing lately. If you run into me at Madrona, you can weigh in on the topic. I think it depends on the lighting - sometimes I look down and think “Pretty!” other times I look down and think “Ugh!”

Speaking of Madrona, I should be showering. Ta!

Comments (8)