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Things, various and sundry:

- Today is the first day of the winter session of chorale! Hooray! I don't know what we're singing yet but I am excited.

- On a vaguely related note. So my dad and sisters and I do this thing where he plays the guitar and we sing and then we make cds to send to my aunt. (We pretend we are a band. Collectively, we are Quinn and the Eskimos because my dad's name is Quinn and really, there aren't that many songs you can reference if that's your name.) This time, I got him to play a Mountain Goats song with me. So, if you've ever wanted to hear me and my dad doing a Mountain Goats cover, here is your opportunity. (It is Woke Up New, because that one's easy and doesn't involve monsters or drugs or death. Because, y'know, singing with my dad.)

- Last night, I watched the first episode of the Raffles tv show, which I got from the library. I spent at least half of it going, "Oh, Bunny!" Which is pretty much my reaction when I read the books - he's such an adorably hapless little rabbit - so that bodes well for the series. The actors don't quite fit right for me - Raffles is all right, but in my head Bunny is a good bit shorter and also much blonder* - but I think that they'll work. Today is a crafting day, so probably I will be watching more of that.

- Or the Going Postal miniseries, which I downloaded because I have been listening to the audiobook at night for the past week or so and have been reminded of how very much I love Moist von Lipwig and Adora Belle Dearheart. I should look for fanfic, because I want stories and stories of those two having wacky adventures and Miss Dearheart not putting up with Moist's nonsense and also kissing. The actual books are all right for the first two, but they fall down a bit on the kissing front.







*Making Bunny one of the very few people who I have ever pictured in my head as being blonde. Fictional people are never blonde in my head. It's not that I don't know that blonde people exist or anything, but their presence in fiction always comes as a bit of a surprise. People in fiction have dark hair. Except for Lucy Westenra, Bunny Manders, and, to continue from above, Moist von Lipwig. But that's mostly because, contrary to all reason, I've always pictured Moist as looking a great deal like the Sixth Doctor.

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Things I have accomplished thus far today:

- Bought a soap dish. (Because, see, I bought these soaps from this place and they are lovely and smell fantastic and thus they needed a place to be near the sink. And my mother was tired of me stealing her ramekins.)

- Watched the Going Postal miniseries. Which I was a little hesitant about, because I didn't much like the Hogfather one. (I have not seen Colour of Magic. I hated the book, after all.) Going Postal isn't perfect, but it's a lot of fun and I quite enjoyed it. After all, there was Moist and Adora Belle and they kissed. And Charles Dance's Lord Vetinari is fantastic and perfect and I want his coat. (I do have trouble taking David Suchet seriously as a villain because, y'know, he's Hercule Poirot.)

- Taught myself to knit in the round. Knitting in the round is ridiculously complicated and requires far too many implements, but it's necessary for socks and gloves. So I am knitting these (the ones without thumbs, because I don't need that sort of hassle yet). I tried very hard to make myself stick to easy flat things for learning purposes, but I am terribly impatient when it comes to yarn craft and with flat things you only have three options: 1) washclothes, which I don't really need more of, 2) scarves, which I don't wear, and 3) large things like sweaters, which I would like to make eventually but not today. Round things can be small and interesting and useful. We should all be glad that I didn't decide to jump straight into cabling.


Pretty good crafty day, really.

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Choir rehearsal was excellent. I always enjoy the first rehearsal after a break - everything is new and exciting and we all have so much energy. The music is pretty good this time, too - several spirituals and folk songs, which I always enjoy doing. We are also doing two pieces from West Side Story, though, which I'm a little less sanguine about. I'll admit that I don't really like singing show tunes as chorale numbers, but I can live with them, I guess. And the arrangement of Somewhere is really very nice. But we're doing America, too and, well. I don't know. I feel awkward about it. Outside of the context of the play, it feels a little offensive. Especially since the Bainbridge Chorale is, with the exception of I think three people, very incredibly white. And, okay, it's not like the song isn't often sung by white people when the play is being performed and I don't really know how that's better. And I don't know why this makes me feel uncomfortable, but I feel pretty much perfectly fine about singing spirituals or gospel numbers. And I certainly don't want to stick entirely to Music By And About White People, because that's horrible. I don't know. It's an odd thing.

Anyway. Also, I took my knitting along with me. There is a definite difference between crocheting in public and knitting in public. When I crochet in public, people ask me if I'm knitting. Then the find out it's crochet and tell me that it looks cool or that they always thought crocheting was hard or that they've never seen anyone crochet anything like that before. When I knit in public, people ask me what I'm knitting and then, when I tell them, they give me advice. Which is not a problem in any way, but I don't expect it. I suppose it's due to the fact that there are a great many more knitters out there. I feel a bit like I'm letting the side down or something by learning to knit, honestly. Which is ridiculous, but there you go.