Nikol‘s katamari earmuff pattern (as featured on boingboing.net!) is now available for download on Shojo Beat’s DIY Page.

Nikol’s Naughty Needles book (featuring Laurenn and OAA and Angie and Gina and Etta Vendetta and me and and and — ) comes out December 19th. Pre-order link in the girl farts Amazon store.

Edited to add: Naughty Needles Knitting link.

• Talk at dinner last night largely revolved around the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind drug that was featured on 60 minutes the night before. Interesting ethics issues. (Ellis blogged about it back in January.) More on the idea (from 2004) here.
• This blog was Michael May’s link du jour yesterday. Sweet.
• More on my work plate than I can handle right now, especially with the holidays ramping up. It’s my own fault, but that doesn’t mean I can’t freak out a little. So I’m freaking out. A little.
• Looks like they got the whole Peace Wreath fiasco worked out. Free speech, anyone? Jesus.
• Kinkless caused — may have caused? I was never able to determine what happened exactly but my system went boom in a big bad way that involved iCal, and Kinkless is our best guess even though Fraction’s not had any problems with it — Kinkless may have caused me some problems a while back that almost ended poorly, so I switched to Thinking Rock while I wait for OmniFocus. It’s been… maybe three weeks? I’m loving TR thus far.
• Bethany Padron wrote me a while back to take me up on a discussion offer I made in Sensual Phrase Vol. 9. She’s taking a Japanese Pop Culture class and wanted my thoughts for her term paper. My reply went as follows:

Oh, no! Bethany, how could you?! You’re calling my bluff.

Le sigh.

You’re a peach to think of me, but alas, I’m not qualified to have a truly academic conversation on the topic as I can’t back up my opinions with… oh, say, facts. Or research. Who has the time?

Hm. Well, perhaps you do? If you’d like to have a conversation on the topic, let me spew my half-baked ideas, then run off to do actual research on the topic, by all means, let’s set up a call. But Kitten, I beg you not to confuse my opinions with expertise.

I am not worthy.

…We didn’t end up having a call, but she did send me a bunch of questions that I think you might find as interesting as I did. I’ve asked her permission to repost them (and my responses, which I don’t suppose I need her permission to repost, but they won’t make much sense without the questions now, will they?) here and I await word. Keep your eyes peeled, I guess.

Ideally, what do you want your life to look like five years from now? What are you working towards?

Think in terms of your work, your income, your family, your lifestyle, your health, and any other markers of achievement that are important to you in the years ahead.

Edited to add: Question cribbed from here.  (Don’t let yourself be put off by the corporate speak.)

Dr. Sears Tip:

Exercise is not only nature’s smart drug, it’s also nature’s Prozac. By stimulating the release of endorphins, exercise beefs up the body’s own “feel good” hormones. Endorphins are most stimulated by exercise and laughter. And the good-feeling effects of these hormones last about as long as a pill, four to six hours after exercise, and without the unpleasant medical side effects. Therapists have long prescribed exercise to pull people out of the pits of depression. So, exercise not only burns fat, it burns stress, too.

Got back on the workout horse this morning after an embarrassingly long lay-off.  (There’s one unrecorded run in there between the 4th and the 20th, but as it wasn’t successful enough for me to feel like recording it, I’m not sure it should count.)  I swear to you I could feel extra weight on my hips.  I think I’m retaining water.  I hope I’m retaining water, else I’ve done crazy damage in under 3 weeks.

Confession: I ate an entire tin of anchovies yesterday.  I must be retaining water.

From mattfraction.com:

This Wednesday at ELITE COMICS– (that’s 11842 Quivira out in the OP)– I’ll be signing CASANOVA #6 and PUNISHER: WAR JOURNAL #1 from 11 AM until Question Mark Question Mark Question Mark.  I will be there with a suit and my Stilt-Man HeroClix. Come by! Bring your weak asses on!

Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963):

I met, not long ago, a young man who aspired to become a novelist. Knowing that I was in the profession, he asked me to tell him how he should set to work to realize his ambition. I did my best to explain. ‘The first thing,’ I said, ‘is to buy quite a lot of paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen. After that you merely have to write.’

From today’s AWAD.

I swear I’m not as fruity as I’m about to come across, but I also swear to you that I go through these periods where I cannot say the right thing to save my life and (because my mother is really, really into this sort of thing) I can’t help but think to myself, “Is Mercury in retrograde?”  And… it is.

Three of my most dearly beloveds are going through some crap right now — all work-related crap, oddly enough — and though I think for at least two of my three beloveds, I’m usually a pretty good person to talk to about this sort of thing, I’m clearly not right now.  In two instances, I’ve clearly stepped in it.  In the third, I’ve avoided saying anything since the initial phone call, as I’m certain I would have made things worse.  (Do you know this about me?  I have the bedside manner of Dr. Spock.  I always mean to be helpful, but apparently the whole, “what would I want someone to say to me in this same situation” tact isn’t a universally clever approach.)

Anyway, the good news for the fruity is that the Mercury thing ends tomorrow and I ought to be entirely returned to my charming and helpful self by November 23rd.  Mark your calendars.

Quick and dirty:

• I put up an amazon store here. (It’s very pink and green — I’m not so good with the subtle color choices.) Take particular note of the first featured item: Luxuria. Use that link to pre-order the first Casanova trade paperback, collecting issues 1-7. I’ll try to change out a few of the featured titles monthly.
• PopCultureShock’s Katherine Dacey-Tsuei picked up on Johanna Draper Carlson‘s interview at PWCW and articulated my points better I did – and with far fewer exclamation points, which is always a plus.
• I’m going to try and put most of my knitting posts on Vox in the future (until Casey and Jess get their knitting community up), but I’m here now and lazy, so: the Studio called this morning to tell me that my goa order is finally in and as soon as I pick it up I can finish knitting Tigerlily’s Japanese pinwheel blanket. Poor thing’s gonna be fifty by the time she actually receives it.
• I still feel like crap, but not nearly as crappy as yesterday. I’m wearing my flannel gnome pajamas, I’ve got Puff’s plus with lotion stuffed in my pockets, A&D ointment smeared on my bright red schnoz and a neti pot close at hand. Mm, sexy. I don’t expect to accomplish anything worth a damn today. If I’m feeling really ambitious, I may take a hot bath.

I’b thick. By nothe ib all clobbed up an I cand breabe.

You get the idea. I’ve got a bajillion things to do today and a throbbing headache that urges me to curl up with NyQuil. Send pity.

Quick Miscellany:

• Currently working on Black Cat v.10 and the 30 Days project with Niles and Randall. Ivan, I haven’t forgotten you.
• Got a lovely inquiry/blast from the past off the PW interview. Cross your fingers for me; this could be cool if I can find a few extra hours in the day. (Who needs clean laundry?)
• There’s a preview of Fraction and Brubaker’s Iron Fist up on Newsarama. Go check it out.
• Speaking of clean laundry, the newly-established girl farts book club is reading and discussing House Works this holiday season. If you could use a little help around the house, pick up a copy and join our thread on the girl farts vox page. If this works out well, maybe it’ll be an ongoing thing.
• Hillary wrote to ask me where the uberlist central page was. It’s right here.
• Theron Neel sent me this link from You Tube-esque metacafe: Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva Masterpiece. Gorgeous. Thanks, Theron.
• I’m off to make myself some soup.

Edited to Add:

• Nikol added some of her bonus patterns to the Naughty Needles site.  Don’t forget the book is available for pre-order and comes out December 19th.  (And I’m in it twice!)

I feel the need for confetti.