Who Needs a Man as Long as There are Art Supplies

 My uncle's immortal words live on.

 As you all may recall, I like Janomes. One of the things I have never liked about them is that they have a pretty small throat space (which, if blogger weren't mysteriously blocking random photos, you would see from the earlier post).

So about three years ago, Janome released the horizon 7700, which featured a colossal 11 inch throat space. It was also red and featured a wiener dog in its ads (which I'm pretty sure were made especially with me in mind cause I was like OMG it's stretched out JUST LIKE A WIENER DOG. Yeah. Janome's ad team FTW there).

Anyway since that time, I have repeatedly broken the 10th commandment over it and rued the day I decided to go to school instead of buying sewing machines.

So now that I am done wretched school, I can buy things that aren't tuition, textbooks or food. Just happened to decide to covet it again online a week ago and discovered that Northgate Sewing has it on HUGE discount and were also throwing in its special table. I think the model is probably being retired to make way for the 8900.

Anyway, I went down there on Monday morning (yes even though I worked that night) just to SEE IT. They originally had three machines and a display model. Of them, the display model alone remained. I bought it anyway. The sales rep was like oh you're interested in trying the machine? And I was like no I just want to buy it. Prolly the quickest sale they ever made. Because the table was already assembled the sales rep said he would deliver it for me that afternoon. Then I went home and tried to sleep but mostly laid in my bed squealing with delight.

Isn't it perty?? When he delivered it, the sales rep insisted on setting it up in the table. So while I was working, it basically occupied a third of the centre of the living room.  I had planned on putting the table in storage so that I could set it in the store room where it could sit forlornly with the other machines, but since he set it in the table mama decided to put it back against the wall, which I guess is its new home.

Yay its spot. Yeah it's basically sandwiched in there. What can I say, it's the crapartment. Space is at a premium. Between it and Gigantor, there is a lot of competition for attention.

The thing that the throat space facilitates is of course free motion quilting. So the first thing I tried today was a sampler of sorts. I definitely have to get a tension that works for me (it's on auto right now) but it worked okay. One thing I like is that the machine OPENS (the old Janome didn't). 

I already know that I don't like how squat it is; the working space is really short. I think that's a minor annoyance, but I used to quilt with my head on the machine occasionally (yeah, ergonomics pheh). You can see the shortness here. I have to have the presser foot down to change the foot because there are bars in the way otherwise; it's that short.  It'll take some getting used to; it feels like the machine is in the way of the visible space a little. I think it might also be the height of the table. I can open the machine and eliminate some of that, but no putting my head on the machine anymore.

Anyway fun times playing (less fun having the money come out of my account, but hey it's less than some other things...). And it's the same colour as my new phone. :) Holly suggested names and I am leaning towards Shemar. :P

On from the Emerald City

Pantone has declared emerald green to be the colour of 2013. It happens to be one of my favorite colours (and after a few years of blech colours like honeysuckle and tangerine, it’s about time to bring jewels back).

Coincidentally the Christmas play put on by the globe theatre this year was The Wizard of Oz (which as most probably know was originally titled The Emerald City). I read the stories when I was younger (it was a surprise to find the slippers were silver and the winged monkeys significantly less horrifically terrifying than in the movie--also getting PTSD again from the fact that the Broadview school library probably threw them AWAY without even making them available to book vultures Moores). Anyway, emerald was the colour of hope--the Emerald City in which the wizard resided was twice a destination of the original story, ostensibly the only way to get what one really wanted or needed. Or where people thought they got what they wanted or needed. As in real life, sometimes we find we’ve put our faith in a lot of humbug when the answer was ridiculously simple all along. Maybe it's just that we have a few extra things to learn by taking the scenic route a couple of times through Oz.

Given all of that, 2013 has been the emerald year for me long before Pantone decided to make it official. It is the final stop on a journey through a strange world full of the bizarre and sometimes scary; pressing on with the hope of something precious at the end of the road. And now I’m finally here, ready to find out what “arrival” really means.

As expected, it turns out the arrival is the beginning of a new journey. Suddenly possessing the spoils of the victory means you have to use them. What does it mean to realize one has what was wanted and how does one move on from victory to the realities of what that victory brings? Don’t really know, but I have a feeling I’ll find out--and I’ll probably be back again some day. Besides, though the “emerald” was originally a trick produced by wearing green glasses, eventually the stories spoke of it as a reality. At some point we really do arrive in the place we think we’ve been going all along. Little arrivals always remind us of the final one.

I called 2009 my silver year, not realizing that silver shoes may take you anywhere you want to go, but that means you have to go. It was all so simple and so difficult at once. And now here is my emerald year, the jewel to set in the middle of it all.

Now I just need a golden cap to control those winged monkeys. Mwa HAHAHAH...okay nevermind about that.

Nerdpocalypse

Open letter to everyone in the world:

Hai. As you're probably aware, this week is the turn of the 13th baktun in the Maya calendar. This date has been the subject of much excitement and unfortunately many errors about the Maya civilization have been propagated. Which is sad because Maya civilization was totally wicked and cool as it is and needs about as much help as Psycho needed to be remade.

As most of us know, the Maya had a pretty accurate set of calendars. The long count is one of these. It contains measurements roughly analogous to our day, decade, century etc.  A baktun is a kind of like a millennium and lasts about 400 years. There are 13 of them (or possibly 20) in Maya calculations.

At some point someone decided the Maya just stopped counting time when the 13th baktun occurred because they thought it was the end of the world. Except some calendar dates actually contain higher units of measurement than a baktun (the next unit is called a piktun). That means it doesn't end on the 21st, rather the date rolls into the piktun. Even if there weren't higher numbers, there is no evidence baktuns aren't cyclical.

Some people think that because the Popul Vuh contains a number of creations that they were expecting the destruction of this creation and the next creation to occur. That however is conjecture, and there isn't any solid evidence that the Maya actually believed this.

The turn of the 13th baktun was seen as a time of great change and the end of an era (possibly the Maya era)--it is a very significant date in the Maya culture, kind of like y2k was for us.  Maybe even a time when gods came to earth and made things happen. But not necessarily the end of the world.  Sure there were probably a few nutters planning to skulk around in the jungle and live off the ceremonial grid, but those people are everywhere.
 
Many people also like to post the Aztec calender stone when they are making these assertions about the Maya long count calendar.  Now the Aztec calendar stone does look really cool and stuff. Only problem is it's not the calendar in question. This is what the Maya long count date for the 21st of December basically looks like (with roman transliteration beside):

I drew that cause I'm awesome at being a nerd. But notice how it looks NOTHING like the one everyone is posting? Yeah. The stone is actually a representation of the Aztec version of the 52 year cyclical calendar. NOT the long count. Besides Maya and Aztecs aren't the same people. They have many aspects in common but still are distinct cultures. It's like posting a picture of the Canadian flag every time you talk about USians. Weird and makes you look dumb.

Also "Mayan" refers to the languages of these cultures. The people are known as Maya.

I could go on (for HOURS) but I'll cut you all a deal: I submit that we place a limit of one glaring error per reference to the Maya, their calendar and what it looked like (I would prefer none, but I'm willing to compromise because I'm benevolent like that). That way you're only making ONE mistake to make my head pulsate. In return I'll try to resist forcing you all to play a round of cosmic ball game.

 By the way the loser gets killed in that. And you would lose.

Thanks,
your friendly nerd.

EDIT: saw a new one that said something to the effect of "if the Mayans could predict the future there would still be Mayans"Three strikes, DEFINITELY A BALL COURT OFFENSE. I'm wondering who the hell these people think LIVE in the Yucatan region these days, fricking Egyptians???

Providence

Continuing on in the vein of my last post, I ended up writing a long and melodramatic tome on the providence of God. Watching the patterns emerge was hard; in some ways writing about it was almost as difficult. But also instructive in the way I've learned only hard lessons can be.

Anyone who has read a lot of Dickens knows he had an affinity for connecting everyone and everything in a nice loop at the end of his books. There were no coincidences and if you wondered what the hell was the point of discussing Jerry Cruncher’s grave robbing excursions, you just had to wait til the end of the story and you’d find out. Sometimes you have to wonder if God isn’t writing a Dickens novel and telling you the end would spoil it.

 As my motto says, God often works by contraries. Perhaps that's why James tells us to append "if the Lord wills" to any statement. We really don’t know what his secret plans are. And, as I've said, of all things we can be thankful to God for I think that’s one of the most valuable. We have no idea what he has in mind, only that it’s ultimately for some good. We pray earnestly to be conformed to the likeness of his son, to be used in some way, with no idea how he is going to answer those prayers. When he does, it’s usually in very surprising and sometimes unwanted ways. In my experience the times I see a definite answer have mostly been bone crushingly painful and I think “if I’d known this is what he was going to do I would have taken it all back”.

As I have often said, we go along brokering little deals with God, ignorant to the fact that he isn’t in the contract business and his silence isn’t acquiescence. Until we get to the point where he’s supposed to keep his end of the bargain, and he reneges. As we ride along one way, thinking "the Lord's SO in this" He turns. Hard. It's like how when you learn to ride a bike and take a turn too fast resulting in the bike going one way and you another. It ends with a thudding stop at the ground, a face full of dirt and many tears. The value is in what you learn from it.

It’s been a decade of learning from the fall. I think about the person I was then, and I know that without the falling down, I could never become the person I am. I know that God has been working providentially in all things to answer my immature prayers; they are too coincidental in the Dickensian sense to be anything else. And too painful and hard. It’s kind of amazing how he pushed and pulled me through it all to make the new me.  I would have never been able to do what I am doing now at 24. Would never have been able to be the person I am now. And part of me still laments that it took everything that it did to make me grow up. I know that it’s not all about me, but in the end these little things are how he brings us closer to him. And I want to thank him for all the hell he brought into my life that I could be outfitted for heaven. Working in contraries again.

**Then I wrote a bunch of what turns out to be insignificant details to advance the thesis. Let it be known that it was advanced. "Testimonies" often become hopelessly narcissistic and the forest becomes lost for the trees. But I have to give credit where credit is due, and as James said, know it was the Lord’s will that I would do this or that thing. He had and has bigger plans than me making it through the last ten years. Obviously I am to work for the good of my neighbours in my vocation, and in so doing become a mask of God and a means by which he acts providentially in their lives. He will make the differences through my small gestures of kindness. He will conform others to the likeness of his Son.

It’s pretty staggering when you realize that everything you’ve gone through isn’t just for your benefit but for the benefit of others. That he is going to keep that cycle going and continue to glorify his name in all the earth. And it’s like man. Despite how many times I showed up in the story, it’s nothing but a footnote in a serial. This wasn’t about me at all. I am Jerry Cruncher robbing graves.

I asked the Lord, foolishly perhaps

    It's Thanksgiving weekend here. I'm not averse to giving praise where it's due and I have a lot to be thankful for this time around. More than I can even speak of. I usually start bawling when I think about how much better my prospects in life are now than they were a year ago when the only thing I had to be thankful for was that Jesus was coming back at some point to destroy the world, and certain places with it.

     Needless to say I've had a bit of a reversal of fortune in the last month or so. It feels a little like the epilogue of Job, when the narrator says "don't worry, God gave him all his awesome accoutrements back".  Like waking to hear the birds singing and thinking maybe all that horribleness was just a dream because everything is right again. You have your life back. But as you regain conciousness, there's something different. Like a lump in the throat, a knowledge, a qualitative change in feeling that grows stronger the more you remember.

     I still have everything I ever wanted and needed, but it's not the same. These are different children and a different house; and moreover, I am a different human being. I saw God in the eye of a whirlwind--standing at the very epicentre of the hell my life had become.

     John Newton wrote a dark and plaintive hymn on that experience. The failure of every plan, the destruction of all you held dear by God himself. All is lost and all you can do is trust in the one who slays you. And that's where he meets you--in the pits of death, clinging tenuously to what life you have left, crying with all the pain of your soul. Job himself would have understood so well.

I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.

’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,
Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
“’Tis in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

    When the birds are singing in the morning, one can't help but note how silent they were mere hours before. And you know you're never going to forget what the silence was like. Because God has stepped in and changed you, and in that, everything around you. Just not in the way you ever expected.  To paraphrase Luther, he took you to heaven by way of hell. And heaven seems so much more beautiful knowing what hell was like.

And man. Who the hell writes hymns like this anymore?