About six months ago, I decided to get better at making small talk with strangers. The first thing a geek has to understand is that small talk is not, as someone once said to me, “a retarded waste of time.” For non-geeks, small talk communicates something along the lines of “Hello! Although you do not know me, I am a distant member of your tribe. I mean you no harm.” It is important. Not offering small talk freaks people out.

If that’s your goal, then by all means, go for it. Give them that boggle-eyed stare that we all know so well. (I’m not kidding about this. There’s no law that says you have to pretend to be someone other than who you are.) However, if you want to work at “passing” in normal society, then you need to make with the chit-chat. Think of it as a game, think of every encounter with a stranger as an opportunity to polish your skills. (That way, by the time you’re ready to try them on someone you’re interested in, you’ll be in fine fettle.) Level up, baby!

The first rung of small talk - the best place to start - is a compliment. Pick something about the other person, and say something nice. You’ll be shocked at how well this works.

At first, I often found myself flailing to find something to compliment. Thus some notable early failures such as “I like that pen! Does it click?” (Eesh.) Finally I hit on solid gold, and I will now share it with you.

You’re probably staring at the ground anyway, right? Compliment their shoes. This not only kicks off small talk in the right way, it also explains why you’re staring at the ground in the first place. You’re not pathologically shy! You’re just smitten by their footwear!

Here’s the rule: Shoes are either “pretty,” “comfortable,” or “sturdy.” Thus, depending on the shoes, you will say one of these three things:

1. “I love your shoes! They’re really pretty.”

2. “I love your shoes! They look really comfortable.”

3. “I love your shoes! They look really sturdy.”

Then make eye contact (don’t hold it - just a quick glance - it won’t hurt you) and smile.

Tada!

They’ll take the ball from there. Probably tell you something about where they bought the shoes, or how much they cost. Just nod. Then… you’re done! 9 times out of 10, you can just drop it there and you’ll be golden.

Speaking of footwear, the first 24 sock is finished, as are the first two discs of season 4.

The color made a LOT more sense after I learned that it was named after a lion named Mombassa. Presumably he looked a bit like this handsome fellow:

I can totally see it now! Thanks to Lisa for clearing that up for me.

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You know how people are always posting their playlists, and trying to impress you with how clever and erudite they are? Yeah. Not me.

I freely - some might say “willfully” - admit that I have terrible taste in music. Oh, I listen to a lot of different kinds of music (most people do). Good music is like Portland - I can point you in the right direction, I like it, spent a lot of time there myself. But I don’t live there.

Case in point: you know that really terrible, cheesy dance music? The kind of stuff that 14 year-old kids play in the basement of their parents’ home in Wisconsin and pretend that they’re at a rave, because they don’t know any better? Love. It.

Love it so much that iTunes, based on my recent purchasing history, thinks I’m gay.* Keeps suggesting collections like “Top 50 Cheeseball Gay Night Club Anthems,” or whatever, with a rainbow on the cover.** I don’t half think iTunes is going to send me a greeting card on the anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

I tell you what, though: if loving the Numa Numa song is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Nine Songs I Bought or Imported Into iTunes This Week

1. “Sick and Tired (Jason Nevins Electrochill Remix),” Anastacia
2. “Everybody’s Free (Original Mix),” Andy Whitby & Matt Lee remix, originally by Rozalla***
3. “Somnambulist,” BT
4. “Blue (Da Ba Dee),” Eiffel 65****
5. “A Little Respect,” Erasure
6. “Dragostea Din Tea,” O-Zone
7. “They Say Vision (Bastone & Burnz Remix),” Res
8. “Free Me (Dr. Octavo Seduction Radio Edit),” Emma Bunton
9. “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” Kylie Minogue

I love this stuff for (I think) the exact same reason that everyone else hates it. I love its indestructible, relentless, teflon-coated cheerfulness. I love it for the same reason I love Hello Kitty. I love it because it makes me happy.

I love it because Everybody’s… FREEEEEEEE!!!

* For those of you who may be new to this blog, this is probably a good time to point out that I say this with love. I would totally post one of those “gay-friendly” buttons on my blog, except have you SEEN them? All the ones I’ve seen are kind of hideous, with the Gay Pride flag all chunky pixellated, like someone slapped it together in about five minutes with MS Paint. Surely something can be done about this? If you know of a tasteful “gay people are kewl with me” blog button, please let me know.

** You know what? I know people who are gay, and I know people who like this music, but I don’t know anyone who’s gay and likes this music. (Unless one of you wants to cop to it, right here, right now, in public for all to see. Go on, you know you want to! I’ll still love you, I promise.) Really though, I don’t half suspect these rainbow-bedecked compilation albums have more to do with the public’s need to make gay people less “scary” than it does with Teh Gay itself.

*** Venture Brothers, Season 2, episode 1. *snif*

**** I think it’s safe to say that I’ve spent more on this song than anyone else in the entire world.***** First I bought the album (yes!). Then I bought three different iterations of the ringtone, as I replaced one cellphone with another (which could of course play “Blue” with even better fidelity than the one before). Then I bought it on iTunes, because several years ago I gave the album to a friend who gushed over it. So far I’ve dropped about twenny bucks on “Blue.” How scary is that?

***** I have now fulfilled my quota for footnotes. Blame Lala, I picked up the habit from her.

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After a long, difficult week, yesterday was one of those days when drinking coffee qualifies as an activity. Like, if you had called me and asked what I was doing, I would have said “Drinking coffee.” (I keep hoping the dishes will take pity on me and wash themselves. We’ll see how that works out.)

This is my “24″ sock.

I knit the most boring socks in the world, because I fit socks into that “mindless knitting” niche. I stuff them in my bag (in case of emergency/traffic jam), take them to the laundromat, and, yes, knit them while watching “24″.

This is my season 4 sock. Season 4 is really good, which means that this sock is really awful. I dropped stitches and picked them up poorly, split the yarn, knit when I should have purled, mis-centered the calf decreases, and forgot to ktbl on the stitches I picked up around the gusset. And it’s not even done yet!

I deliberately picked an unloved skein of yarn out of my stash - Lisa Souza’s Sock! in Mombassa. I first knit with this yarn back in September, surprise! Tiger stripes!

To be fair, it looks much less tiger-y on the cuff and heel. On working with it again, I think it looks more like African wood carvings. I also choose to believe this because otherwise I will go mad with thinking There aren’t any tigers in Kenya! (Except in Weebl’s video, and I’m prepared to make an exception, there. It is just too cute.)

SLIMEWATCH 2007

The slime is still there. It has not changed significantly, although I fancy it looks a bit more rubbery than wet.

One commenter suggested it might be fungus dripping from an infection in the tree above (ew). The slime is situated below a red cedar. Unfortunately, I am unable to confirm or deny this theory, because the lowest branch is at least 25 feet above the ground. Could be, though!

SAY WHAT?

One last thing before I go. I often hear proponents of the toe-up sock cite “You can try it on as you knit it!” as a reason for their preference. Now if you like knitting toe-up, more power to you. I don’t have much of an opinion either way, personally - I maintly knit mine top-down because I have the pattern memorized.

But this thing about not being able to try on a top-down sock as you knit it. This is baffling, because it is so obviously untrue.

I mean, the needles are going to be around your foot, regardless of whether the knitting goes up or down from there. Am I missing something?

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