Just because

I may or may not have mentioned a friend of mine who is just... odd. In the way I am odd but those who know me know that my intellectual je ne sais quoi comes with an additional baggage of self esteem of a dead lab rat, depression, social phobia and no people skills to speak of but for wishing less than nice things to people.
While Pete is suave. Well-dressed, well-behaved, at home in every company, going to events, meeting people, not screaming at them, omgwtfddt, meeting people and going places with them and enjoying it. Somehow, we get on well together, which is a proof that the gods, or random movements of Universe, or whatever may be the reason why the world exist, is pretty wicked. So, this guy chooses to hang out with me from time to time although he could get better company by crowds even though he's already been subject to my outpours of nastiness.

He's a language freak, too, which is a thing we hold in common. Well, he has an actual degree in assyriology while I only got as far as to professors wondering why the hell I speak Florentine when I'm not a natural born one. As Pete would say, there is the special theory to it and the general one - the special one being the actual circumstances: I landed in Florence of all places without any prior knowledge of Italian, his department had too much funding so they opened a course of Yiddish just the semester when he had nothing better to do on Thursday afternoons. The general theory is general for both and all other cases: just because.

Hear hear, there is another person in the world who doesn't wink at my acquisition of tidbits of Catalan, Provençal and other Romance languages by howling along with Jordi Savall's Hespèrion (by means of which I learned of the existence of Cantigas de Santa Maria and other things that rock), and who actually considers it as perfectly normal. Compared to fellow Medievalists back in school who snarked at me for actually reading Medieval Latin poetry because I found it nice, or to muggles who don't know a thing and don't care... and no, I'm not being Captain Obvious. Just now, I could use some nice Fennougric curse, as Pete graciously sent me a textbook of Ingrian and double-sided printing decided to be my Nemesis. I have a colour printer in my office, because one of the ex-idiots ranted that it would be pretty if we could print our flyers, Teh Boss went off to buy a colour printer, then I threw some of the graphic art created by ex-idiot and said This or me, Teh Boss agreed that this would not work and I ended up with a colour printer I don't need at all. Asking me whether I could use some gadgets would result in saying Duplex printer, NAO, but nobody asked so I turn papers around to find the same page printed on both sides, and Fuck it all just doesn't cut it. But, I only ruined 40 sheets of paper, could be worse, pages 120 - 258 are just fine. The thing is, Pete sent me an Ingrian textbook and instead of doing my things, such as throwing objects at underlings or hiding under the table and crying, I'm printing it out. It's written in Russian which is another language I'm not fluent in, but one grows with their tasks. And finally, I'll have a greater joy in reading the Nykysuomen etymologinen sanakirja, known as That would be a cool blue doorstop. Because, comparing words to other words is fun. Hey, Amazon says it's out of print. Guess it was 60 euros well spent. Back in the day when my brain was turning inside out while being poked and prodded by Finnish, because language and thinking are one, and because I'm bound to think Indo-European, I decided that there is certainly more to it. And that I should learn more and observe how it gets learned, for the sake of science.

Another digression: I wonder how many people observe themselves thinking. Not many, regarding how many people are not thinking at all anyway.

And because Estonian is too mainstream... and then I mentioned it to Pete who is even worse hoarder of things and data, got the .pdf thrown at me. Well done.

Huh.

During the journey from Italy, I was slightly bored. Mom decided that I may get sick and pushed me to the front seat which prevented me from knitting (dad doesn't like seeing me knit in the car and driver decides about music and general ambiance) so I stared at the mountains, made a few mental notes, such as getting a book about those castles around Brennero, and taking the old road sometimes, and kept inventing curses.
The latter proved a productive... what's the right word again? Well, thing. Bear with me, I hope I'll be the old eloquent self again. First, it's a great fun to get the starting point at Let the fleas of a thousand camels feast in your armpits and go on. It's not as easy as I kept cursing the whole area so the curses had to be inclusive; Let your wife run away with someone cooler than you someplace cooler than where you live means that the runaway wife had some fun - and that's not the way to go. It has to be locusts and plague for everyone. Second, one can use the odder bits of one's vocabulary, but dear readership needs to find their own examples as I can't think of any.

There was some usual stuff. The chef not reading my email and deciding that he doesn't know what to do - he conjured up something entirely different from the first line and didn't bother to go beyond so the holiday aftermath was screaming about damn illiterate idiots. Parents said that I was overdoing it... and today morning, chef signed a mail with his name misspelled in a bad way. And the Ministry of Education shall send their special units upon thee; they will descend like angry and particularly angular hailstoneson you and beat you with hard-bound literature until you cave, you lazy morons. Those who will fail to get edumacated will be sold to North Korea.

And then I finally started writing the book of my hotel stories. The guys from the publishing forum had prompted me to, offering to actually pay for that. I'm on page 1 and it will be hard to assemble all the fragments I spread over the internetz, in my notebooks and wherever as I forget everything but things don't do themselves and one has to start somewhere. I may or may not keep you informed.

Jailtime coming to an end

Been saying it for quite a time that I'm not suited for the job. That, accidentally, I'm doing a job of 3 or 4 people. That it's not possible to do contradictory things, such as have the paperwork done the way it's required (takes at least 6 hours a day most days) and supervise people at the whole workplace all the time. That 100+ hour workweek is fine when it's one week but it's impossible on the long run (I'm not discussing that earning less than the gal with bucket and washrag is getting twice as much money for the regular 42,5 hours which include lunch break.)

Been saying it again and again for months. Been told that all I need is a bit of experience and patience, that I'm just overreacting, that it's not that bad.

Then, the last straw came. I was still being told to suck it up, it's not that bad because it can't be that bad, it needs a bit of experience and patience but in a less self-confident tone.

And, yesterday, I heard it said: Maybe you're just wrong person for the job.

The human mind is bizarre. So many people fasion themselves as logically and rationally thinking persons but when they're told things like Hey, I'm a sociophobic chickenshit with no people skills and I have papers from several generally recognized mental experts, unaffiliated among themselves, it's brushed away. I needed to scream hysterically that the gods better do a good thing and send ugly rashes to the faces of the filthy scum. Filthy scum being employees, clients and basically whoever work-related. Apparently, my series of eloquent and elaborate curses spiced up with a f-bomb here or there worked much better.

Powers that be admitted that my strengths lie elsewhere and agreed that things will be arranged otherwise, my last task being to instruct the newly hired filthy scum employees.


I served my time, release imminent. No idea what I will do later but that doesn't matter.

Stash

SABLE is an acronym for Stash Beyond Life Expectancy - with something for A which I can't remember now.

The last time I counted, I had ten years' worth of yarn if I counted one sweater per month and 800 g of yarn per sweater. The last time I counted was a long time ago and meantime, things got ripped and restashed, gifted, bought, spun, knitted up or generally shuffled around so at this point, I totally don't know. Which means:

Inventory time

Two hours later, I emerged from the attic covered in cobwebs and nothing much is accomplished. I threw away a few balls of yarn that sustained carpet beetle damage - attics contain dead insects and things that eat dead insects and other keratin so this is just inevitable. I'm keeping the bastards at bay by airing and bug sprays but they just happen.

Not finished doesn't mean that there are no results. I fished out several balls of lace yarns - I decided that I need to learn new things and since I got the book of Estonian lace patterns, I have a starting point. There are few bags meant for future sweaters. And a heap of stuff to spin.

Thinking of it, I hardly ever throw anything away, worn sweaters are ripped and recycled as long as it's possible so I might actually have stash beyond life expectancy.


This is not the whole stash, it's 10 percent at maximum. The storage method is however pretty characteristic.

I think I promised some actual knitting content the other day. Or not. But, I'm a knitter and this is my playground for displaying idiosyncrazies so, finished stuff. There you go.
I started the sweater back in 2012.

Sometime back in 2012 I scored one of my best buys on fleabay EVAH. 20 hanks of Japanese cashmere for the total of $50. The downside was the colours, mustard puke and weird hunter green. Two overdyes later, it's mostly black but there's still a way to go. And yes, it's black, not dirty grey, with mustard puke specks where the yarn was knotted and faintly green where the dye caught badly. The rest is dust and my lack of mood to play with camera and Photoshop


One of the points of digging in the depths of the stash was to kill some dermestids better known as carpet beetles or the fucking vermin that eats my cashmeres. Fucking vermin feeds on keratin, where there are dead flies, there are other thing that eat them, flies are made from keratin, animal hair of all sorts is made from keratin, attic is one big buffet table waiting for the feast. Well, I threw away one ball of organic fairtrade wool gathered by vegan maidens at full moon (or wtf. I just needed grey wool that would certainly felt) and some mohair of suspicious origin, other damaged stuff was kept in open air and full sun because dermestids prefer dark and calm places for their snacking. This mission was accomplished as much as it was possible.
The more important point was to go through the stash, bag the yarns by by type and to find out how much actually I have. This failed spectacularly but I at least bagged some of the yarns for the future projects.


Yes, self-imposed sweater club. This year's goal is to knit one sweater per month, as every year, and this year, I'm actually on time, it's March and three are already finished. Regarding that it takes me around two years to actually knit a sweater, which may or may not include ripping half of it five times, and that I seem to be running out of half-finished sweater, I guess I'll stall soon.

Another day in the woods

I called my psych doc last week, asking when the hell will I go to the hospital. He said that he doesn't know, that he just sent the paperwork and now it depends when they have a free spot

I feel like calling the psych ward directly. Not that I'd scream Take me NAO but... I have this week to sort out my papers and stuff and then... I don't care. I know that it will cause problems and I would be worried but I don't care. I've said that the job is killing me. Powers that be said that, well, underlings are bullying me and it's wrong. I can't do anything about it, my people skills are zero - which is why this happened, first of all, because I wrongly assumed that people are generally playing fair.

And, no, if I talk about things that could/should be done to make the hotel work better, it doesn't necessarily mean that I want to see and organize it in person. I'm able to analyze shit this way without any implications and since I play fair, I'm still working here so I'm doing my feeble best.

Yet, I'm still worried that I won't be able to hold back and I'll throw objects or cry all the time. It's not practical for many reasons and, well, mom is here. She's unhappy that I'm apparently distressed but she refuses to believe how deep is the problem. In fact, both parental units think I'm fine, just a bit distressed, and that I should keep calm. Yesterday mom saw my bottle of clonazepam and asked what for and continued ranting in ominous tone that we both know what's this all about. I said To make me sleep, to which she replied Ah, so there's where your moodines comes from. I shrugged and concentrated on poking my kefir grains around, there is no point to explaining psych meds to someone who doesn't believe in them and in psychiatry in whole. The blog, for some reason, works in Pacific Daylight Time, but I live in GMT + 1, blog says it's 23:33 but it's 07:33 in here and I should go to bed. Add 8 hours to see that my last blog post was written around 3 am, and that was because I was so agitated that I couldn't sleep. That's where clonazepam and zolpidem come to help, and if I have 10 hours, then there's one nice old-school allergy med that actually makes me sleep. I'm not just a bit distressed and I can't overcome it by breathing deeply and concentrate on joys of life.

I should get up and do something, which, unfortunately, doesn't involve jumping on the first bus going anywhere.

Breakfast or Tuesday afternoon

The other day, I spent half an hour rummaging among my craft supplies and tools, because the Lunéville hook would be either somewhere with the beads and embroidery stuff, or in that jar that contains mostly knitting needles, along with a few other elongated tools.

And then I stood in the middle of the kitchen, with this somewhat strange instrument, wondering what I was up to. No train of thoughts went through my head, nothing along the lines of If I intended to embroider, there would be tulle and frame. I just stood there, puzzled. Mom came to save me saying that there's TV to watch, I went around the corner towards my chair and there it was, my yellow throw with edge unravelled. I sat down, fixed the edging - machine done with a hook thingy but I don't have that tiny crochet hooks - and finally, after half a year of whining at the thread, I fixed it.

There it is, I'm barely able to decide what I want to eat and whether I want to eat or why the steaming hell I'm standing by the kitchen counter. Normal people would go and get a sick leave but the charm of a family business is that there're various emotions and other crap intertwined with work and as it happens, work of any sort gets usually more complicated than fixing a sandwich.

The other day, after a thousandth last drop, after I found and fixed further of the same mistakes caused by people ignoring my orders and instructions, I just started crying. I've been saying it round and round for at least half a year that I lack people skills and facing the horde of semi-literate morons, I'm just lost. Because, having the brains of three dunces doesn't mean that I'm able to fruitfully communicate with one. Especially if said dunce doesn't want to. So, they've been lying to me, ignoring assigned tasks, fucking things up and when I said something, the response was Oh, really, I wouldn't have thought so.

When BossDad returned from his skiing trip, and there have been phonecalls when I was screaming that I'm totally not going to put up against this so he was warned, I just said I'm leaving. That the guy was hired as an executive something so he can manage half a day in the reception with ten guests around. The guy wouldn't manage a chicken coop, by the way, I caught him writing to clients once, when it was too late, and had to made an idiot of myself explaining that the cook, against all instructions or permissions, had an urge to act, and that while his writing skills, especially when it comes to punctuation, are horrendous but he cooks reasonably well. Which was not very exact description, and after having seen the pots overflowing with strange sauces, I'll never eat out. I mean, nothing wrong with sauces but when he told me that sauces are the bestest and the more the better and everyone likes a nice thick sauce in large amount, om nom nom, I said 'xcuse me, I hate sauces of this sort you describe, sauce is a thing that comes by spoonfuls at max, and not necessary with everything. Then I ordered him to cook things that don't float in goop and was halfway ignored. Yeah, and he can't calculate a price of a meal, excellent if someone is to manage a kitchen. Semi-literate morons, I say.

So, since dear staff decided to ignore me, I guessed that the jerk of a receptionist won't be working on Saturday, I hung around, fixed his further fuckups, cried, threw some beer glasses and other things around, cried more, BossDad said to come in the morning so at 2 pm he appeared, I cried more, yelled at him that everyone should be shot in their knees, with particular attention to some people and that I want the fuck get out of there. After he asked who will be in the reception in the evening, I said that I don't care. I told The Guy - can't call him a chef as he can't cook beforehand so this was a bit of the show, bleeding pure adrenalin doesn't mean that I can't make a better point.


Haven't really talked to BossDad since. Actually, I've been avoiding him like plague. I'm probably acting silly but I just can't go on. I'm a sociophobe and I've had problems with strangers, phone calls, too many people in too little time... so no way I'm calling anyone I haven't encountered in person. Don't care who will do it, I won't.

I always fondly recall someone back at the Arts department claiming: Them managers. What an easy life full of fun. They drive their fat capitalist asses in Mercedeses and make phone calls all the time. Phew.


I don't know how to recognize nervous breakdown but I suspect that throwing things around and not caring is pretty close.

Speaking of Ukraine

Warning: My knowledge of current events is fragmentary at best and my reasoning capabilities are seriously lowered by various circumstances so there may be factual mistakes, misinterpretations and such. Feel free to correct me, I didn't bother with detailed fact-finding and it's 3 am and I should sleep. Nor am I an expert in politics of any sort. This is emotions speaking. You've been warned.


I generally don't discuss politics on the blog. I actually don't even say where I'm from or stuff like that because it's mostly irrelevant to my random pursuits in fibre or flora. Hear, hear, then. Somewhere deep in my heart, I'm an occupied Czechoslovak. Across the street where I was growing up, there was the university hospital and a military base and one of my less cherished childhood memories is the fear of fighter helicopters that nested there - the Soviet Army didn't bother to respect air traffic limitations with regard to inhabited areas. I know that an average Russian wants to live their normal life devoid of cold and hunger but as far as the international politics go, I don't trust them. Use google to understand the reasons, and there are the same reasons for the same distrust in half of Europe.

Now the matters are growing increasingly sour. European Union is politely hinting Tsar Vovka that it may be nice to reconsider the Russian involvement, if he'd be inclined that way. The Czech govermnent.... ewwww. Been increasingly ashamed of this country lately. Our dear President, sponsored by Lukoil, the Russian state-owned oil company, a renowned drunk, arrogant jerk and general asshole is worried that if someone said something in support of anything Ukrainian, it would be a disaster because the trade relations, the trade relations, and we the Czechs might lose some money on that. The former president, well, I only read the first three lines of that newspaper article before I stopped for my own safety and sanity, said that it's all the fault of the EU because they (meaning morons) sent a few lines of support to the Ukrainian opposition which made the street rabble go berserk and now poor Mr. Putin and his ilk has to act. If I wanted to show mercy, I'd say that he's a demented old man but I'm afraid that it isn't entirely true - and regardless of Mr. Klaus intellectual capacities, he's the same attention whore as he's ever been.

If I happen to watch the TV news, it's NHK World and I overheard something along the lines that Mr. Erdogan, the president, whatever-in-chief or what's the head of state of Turkey called, asserted that Turkey is willing to protect the Crimean Tatars and any other vaguely lukewarm Muslim in the area, should there be any risk of harm coming to them. I do not think that Turkey should be in EU (nothing personal, folks, it's cultural); nor should be Romania but that's yet another matter.

I'll digress from Turkey back to my home turf which is getting disgustinger and disgustinger. The vox populi has it that the filthy Ukrainians are just filthy Ukrainians who are stealing our jobs (especially those that the dignified Czech people wouldn't do as they would need to work hard in inclement weather or get up at dark o'clock or commute whopping 20 minutes a day) and beig as filthy foreigners as all foreigners are and we Czechs are poor enough so why we should send any humanitary help and after all, it's Russia's business on Crimea and if they want it, they should be allowed to take it and why interfere, the economy might suffer or something. Which says something about universal vote and general humankind.

I started to entertain an idea that if the Turks would want to keep their home turf, the Black Sea, reasonably orderly, which I find obvious and agreeable, they would sooner or later clash with the Tsarist army. Or they might go protecting that Crimean Tatar who'd get beaten in a pub brawl by Russians (I envisage that it's how bad conflicts start. Average Joe and Average Bill start fighting over spilled beer and someone says that it was racial, ethnic or whatnot... and there we go, next week we're in war.) and as Turkey is a member of NATO, which is the case of Czech Republic, we'd be obliged to help protect a fellow member. President Pigface Drunkensson I. and his spineless ilk would bow to the public opinion which would say Why should our people risk anything for filthy foreigners fighting against our great economical friend and generous owner of generous sponsors and the next day, we'd be exiting NATO.

In that case, I hope that there's a reasonable country that would accept me. Does Vienna welcome exiles as they did back in Mayor Zilk's time in the late 80's?

A loss

I lost a sweater. It was a new sweater I finished... well, I don't know when I finished it, I barely recognize Tuesday from my arse, to paraphrase Sergeant Colon. I only started wearing it despite those running stitches because a ganpi paper/silk combo is prone to ladders, because it was a light sweater.

I didn't leave the building since... it was Sunday or some other day long ago when I went to the next village to buy me a sausage. I think it was Sunday because the bus schedule was odd. Anyhow, since probably Sunday, I never got further than the employee parking lot to feed the cat. On Thursday I was doing the reception shift, oh my god, how I hate reception, and there were goods to put to storage and reasons to run around and I was cold and then I was warm so I was taking the sweater off, or it was getting in the way, and then it was not. It was a good sweater, with a nice drape.

I told the receptionist asshole that I'm missing a sweater and he said Okay, which probably meant Fuck you, but it's more likely that I've tossed it to a corner of my trash-covered office or my trash-covered room (not so trashed now, the maids did their job. And took all my hair brusings I kept putting aside for further spinning. I hate when people move my things, trash included. My trash, right?) or one of the storage rooms or... just anywhere.

I should probably go around the house and have a look here or there or I could tell the maids but that means I'd have to meet people and talk to them when I feel like, well, not talking to anyone, because everyone and everything irks me by their mere existence, and half of my underlings are ignorant semi-literate assholes which would be less of a problem if they did their job which requires things like reading and doing what they're told. Actually, I'm seriously worried that I'll snap and cause damages on health and property and the las tthing I'd need would be semi-literate asshole who's been driving me up the wall on a regular basis suing me over throwing a file at them.


No, I'm not very nice about my employees. Because, well, if I tell someone Do this thing please and they don't, and when I say it again, and then remind them that it should've been done yesterday and they're all offended that nobody ever told them, it gets somewhat annoying.If it happens ten times a day, and then over and over the next day, if I give it in written, first the paper gets lost, then it's pinned on the noticeboard but I'm denied is existence and when I point out that, excuse me, miss, but the instructions are here on your noticeboard, and since I put it in your hand, you had to pin it there, I get an Ooops, I forgot... I get somewhat irked. After a year of doing a job of four people while struggling with depression, I'm just fed up. And, to add insult to a long list of injuries, I can't find my damn sweater which is €80 worth of yarn.