I live in this place...

Bonnaroo was great. It was a whirlwind of greatness. Being with my best friend, listening to great music, not having to work, not looking at a computer all of it great. I'm not going to tell the whole story (... and then we got off the bus, walked to our site, pitched our tents) because I don't have the attention span for things like that. However, I will give anecdotes.

• The impact of the American consumer culture on me became clear when we decided to leave our new, $30 tents in TN rather than lug them back. You sleep in a $30 tent for 4 nights and it costs $7.50 per night. That is lower than any hotel room ever.
• The effect of aging on my body became apparent last weekend. Now, I will first give a disclaimer that I in no way think I am old at 28. However, it took me three days to recover from Bonnaroo in terms of sleep. I also wanted to ask all the kids to please stop smoking so much pot around me. They seriously need a non-pot-smoking section at this thing.
• The Nashville airport is the most boring place I have ever been. It is especially boring when you spend a total of 16 hours there. In Nashville airport Holiday Inn Express, I had the best shower of my life. I washed 4 days of camping off my body and out of my hair. Unfortunately, that Holiday Inn Express took the money for my post-Bonnaroo facial.
• I didn't get sunburned.
• No Rinse shampoo is not designed for people with 1000 pounds of hair like mine. I would have had to use 3/4 of the bottle for one complete wash, and one incomplete was left my hair gross.
• Houston's heat has left me practically immune to other place's heat. Most of what I remember from my first 2 Bonnaroos is being hot; however, I was only unbearably hot once during this trip.
• I am not allowed to wear natural fibers at music festivals. Last year, at Lollapalooza, I almost had a heat stroke in my cotton capris. This year at Bonnaroo, I almost had one in my cotton pedal pushers. My nylon blend pants however, are the best. things. ever.
• Fried food isn't good for four days. You start to crave things like fruit and vegetables.
• Funnel cake isn't good when you have been dieting for 4 months.
• Anu is the most wonderful person in the world. She is so fun. She is so caring. She is wonderful. If I liked tits, I would marry her.
• Sonic Youth is the best band in the world. They almost made me cry when they played a song from 1983 in their encore.
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is cool.
• Gomez is wonderful live.
• Picking Les Claypool over Beck was a wise decision in the end.

I've lost 26 pounds, officially. Unofficially (the difference being naked at home vs. dressed at gym... dressed at gym is official), I've lost 28. I'm starting to get some unwanted attention from people. Being fat is a nice way to insulate myself from people. Or men. Now, I'm not thin enough to get attention from the kind of men I want attention from... not that they won't give it as a rule, but I as a rule, am unwilling to entertain the thought that they will give any attention, thus low self image negates any attention giving potential . Last night, I got a beer at a bar while I waited for the restaurant I was treating myself to takeout from to open. A creepy guy followed me around the bar. Our conversation went like this:

CG: "It's a hot one today." KH: "Yes it is." (I keep watching track on ESPN2). CG: "It's a hot one today." KH: smiles and nods. CG: "So do you come here often?" (I'm not making that up) KH: "No, I've not been here before. Have you?" CG: "No, this is my first time here. My name's George" (that's not his name unless by some freak coincidence it is. I am completely unable to retain people's names. They tell me, I repeat it, I nod, I forget it. That's my life). KH: "Mine's Kristen." CG: "Do you come here a lot?" KH: "No." I managed to say no in a way that indicated I was done answering his questions twice cause he left.

But Creepy Guy is a step up from No Guy.

I've found this not angry assertive side of myself lately. Most of my assertiveness in life has been more like aggressiveness born out of the fact that I was really mad shit didn't go my way. However, in the past week or so, it's been changing. This makes me happy. I asserted myself with my boss by telling him what I wanted from my job. I did this before I was in a desperate and hopeless place of self/job hatred (when I wait until then, I always cry, and I didn't cry this time). I asserted myself with the manager at the massage place without yelling after my massage was not satisfactory. This probably doesn't count, but I was ready to assert myself by saying to the creepy guy: "I'm sorry; I don't feel like talking. I'd just like to sit here and drink my beer." I asserted myself with my now ex-therapist. This is a great new power.

I donated my clothes to Good Will yesterday. 2 bags of clothes sizes 26 to 22. I had to practice some slow breathing afterward: Don't panic Kristen, you will not need them again. Yes, I am admitting in public my dress size. I wear an 18 right now; however, I don't own but one pair of size 18 pants, so I'm sporting size 20s most of the time. This act of telling is causing me great angst, but it's time. In a few more pounds, I will say how much I weigh and how much I have weighed. When I hit 33 pounds, you will know. My two major goals right now are that 33 pound marker and buying a pair of pants at the Gap (probably in another 20 pounds or so). When I hit 33, I'm getting my ear cartilage pierced. My conservative bosses will love it.

Oh, the title. I live in this place: Houston, Texas. Where it will feel like 100 degrees at 7 tonight due to the humidity.

we each get our OWN tent...

The anticipation of Bonnaroo is building. Last night I had to talk myself down from the complete excitement frenzy I’m reaching: “You have to sleep now because you will not sleep for four nights… oh my God, I can’t wait, my tent is good, should I bring the tarp, where will I put the baked goods, should I bring a pillow, will the airline accept my duffel bag… Kristen, you HAVE to calm down. Go to sleep.” And so on.

I’m very unhappy that I don’t know what I will be able to buy at the general store. Both years I went to Bonnaroo, I brought delicious foodstuff and only had to partake in festival food a couple of times. This time, all my luggage space is taken up by camping gear (including the shelter which after the RV shadow hugging/tailpipe sucking incident of 2002, I have included on my essential-for-happiness-if-not-survival at Bonnaroo list), so Anu is bringing non-perishables, and we are depending on the store for the rest. Of particular concern is the water situation; however, I am quite certain that I won’t shrivel up and dehydrate and that there will be a vendor somewhere willing to sell me mass quantities of bottled water so that I am not forced to partake of the well water from the muddy sinks. Ok, so my memory indicates that the sinks themselves are not muddy, rather that the area around the sinks becomes muddy quite quickly.

I’m finding that my age is also adding a new factor in the whole mix. As in, I don’t want to sleep on a sleeping bag; I’d rather figure out how to bring an air mattress. As in: you are my best friend and all, but I really think it’s best if we have some alone time in the form of separate sleeping quarters. As in, I will not sit on the ground at my camp site, and I will not allow you to either, bring a chair. As in, if weather.com increases the forecast for Manchester, TN on more time, I will go over to Atlanta, find the geeky, pasty white meteorologist and personally do him physical harm. The camelbak is becoming more enticing by the minute. In fact, recent camelbak pricing indicates that this might be an ideal addition to my hydration strategy. Yes, I am developing a hydration strategy for the music festival. Fuck off if you think it’s dorky.

Ok. Onto other things in my life. Or the other thing. I mentioned last time that I was going a therapist in hopes of figuring out a way to stop worrying about everything, and I mentioned that this wasn’t really going well. So, as much as I think they are a sad-single-woman crutch, I bought an intriguing self-help book called The Worry Cure. This is so horrible and cliché, but I’m going to say it anyway: this book is changing my life. It’s helping me in ways that no one has ever been able to. It’s straight cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s wonderful. So if any of you are worriers and you are getting tired of it (or are concerned that all that worry will make your hair fall out and cause an early death), go check the book out.

So many people have tried to help me with my worries by either 1) telling me to stop or 2) reassuring me. The first goes like this: Kristen, you shouldn’t waste your time worrying that you are going to lose your job, there’s nothing you can do about it. My response is sure there are things I can do about it and one of them is worry all the fucking time. The second is like this: Kristen, they won’t fire you from your job because you are important to the team, smart, capable and hardworking. They need you! My response is yeah but what if they realize that I am not any of those things and then they tell me that I’m a horrible, lazy, stupid and slovenly person right before they throw me out on my ass and take away my two monitors. So this book is helping me realize that neither of those ways is really the way to deal with the whole situation.

I've been bad

Blogger took forever to open the compose window. It was like: what the fuck you are actually going to do something in this one. And yes I am...

I've been bad. I've started writing about 10 times but then get into my discussion about myself, decide I'm boring and delete the whole thing. Then I end up in a shame spiral of not having posted, wanting to post, not knowing what to post about. The whole thing is terrible. So here's a list. Lists help me, ground me and make me feel good.

1. We are scheduled for a title change. I'm still working out the title, but work.knit no longer describes my life. I work, work out, go to therapy, hang out with friends, obsess about music, and knit on occasion. I'm much more rounded. So, I feel like the title I've subjected myself to is limiting me. Which is fucking ridiculous because its my blog, but whatever.
2. Though I am still knitting and am shaping the armholes on the back of my Salt Peanuts. It is beautiful as you can see.
3. My mom's visit was difficult. It shall be forever known as "The Visit In Which Multiple Emotional Nuclear Weapons Were Unleashed on the Daughter In the Company of Strangers." She and my dad are legally separated. I knew this was coming; I just thought it was coming in like years not months. On top of that, they started the separating process in November, actually separated in March and I found out in April. I was like the second to last to know. So then I got mad and then I got sad and then I was happy for her and worried for him and on and on and on. It was tough.
4. My thumbs are acting up again.
5. I'm been back in therapy for like the fourth time in my life because I have the annoying habits of a) worrying obsessively about everything b) putting enormous pressure on myself to be the best c) completely closing myself of to members of the opposite sex d) having tremendous difficulty facing social situations.
6. The therapy is not helping. So now, instead of getting better, I'm worrying obsessively about being the best at breaking up with my therapist. It goes like this (read with Russian accent): "Kristen, maybe if you just ask youself what is the worst that will happen if you go do the thing you are worrying about, then you will stop worrying." (turn off Russian accent) "Well, I already do that. And it doesn't help." (turn on Russian accent) "Ok, well, what if you just say, I will worry until this time and then I will stop." (no more accent) "Yeah, I do that too. I don't stop." And so on.
7. I am still losing weight. I'm down 27 pounds, many inches and 2 dress sizes since mid-February(I'm not sure how this counting goes, but I'm not counting the odd numbers and that's two I've left behind as in I'm wearing the third... whatever). Since I moved to Houston, I've lost about 50 pounds and 4 dress sizes.
8. I am going to the best place on earth in one week and one day with my best friend in the whole world. That place is not Disney World, it is Bonnaroo.
9. The bad thing about making lists is that I like to have 5, 10 or 15 items in them, stopping at 8 or 9 is very stressful. I think: I must have at least two more interesting things to talk about after 2 months.
10. I meant to blog about this ages ago. Martha Stewart taught me this. If you are ever making pate sucre (which is french for sweet pastry shell) instead of rolling out the cold dough, try grating it with a cheese grater. It works so well and is so easy. Fabulous!!!