Nesten...

Okay. I admit to being thoroughly sick of knitting the green cardigan now. I finished all the knitting, and am well underway on the finishing. I just need to steam block one sleeve, sew on one button, and then inset the two sleeves and the whole thing is done. But now I'm at that listless stage where I'm no longer excited about the project and am skeptical that I'll like the end result. I didn't realize when I chose the pattern how short it would be, and it seems really wide too, so we'll see. It doesn't help that we don't have a mirror that reaches below my neck here in this house either!

I figured out what to do with the left over Knitpicks Merino wool I bought in December. Interweave press has a free pattern for a shawl in DK weight yarn, and I think what I have left is just the right amount. The pattern is called Little Arrowhead. All the knitters here in Norway seem to be really into shawls, so I'm being tempted to try one, even though I kind of doubt I'll really wear it. But at least I'll use up the yarn!

I'm also starting to get interested in maybe knitting a pair of Latvian mittens out of my leftover Finull. I saw a woman with some on the bus the other day, and they were totally spectacular. I've never been able to get very excited about Selbu mittens, but these Latvians with 3 or 4 colors and a much denser pattern are very tempting to try to knit.

Beyond that, I'm still excited about the NaKniSweMoDo project for the year. Next up will be finishing KE's Islender, then a sort of dressy jacket from Sandnes. I will use the Elsebeth Lavold silky wool that I bought back in the fall. I think the rich indigo color will work well for the pattern.

In TV news, we have so been enjoying watching the 2006 British police drama Life on Mars. The premise is that the protagonist is injured in a car crash in 2006, goes into a coma, and wakes up in 1973. The retro factor is very high, and the manipulation of the two narrative time planes is very well done. Sounds from the hospital and dream images break into the 1973 reality, creating strange interferences.

Watching the penultimate episode last night got us thinking about all the films and shows we know that play with narrative, point of view, artifice, and time, and how much we love that. Here's an incomplete list:

Memento
The Truman Show
Matchstick Man
The Sixth Sense
Time Code
Sliding Doors (which we haven't seen)
The Crying Game
Rebecca
Run Lola Run (which we also haven't seen)
Back to the Future
Time Bandits
Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Persona
Night on Earth (another we haven't seen)
D-Day (the Dogma 95 television experiment, which we haven't seen either)

I'm sure we're missing other important ones... (ETA: Being John Malkovich and Vantage Point)

Urolig

I woke up with a start from a terrible dream. In real life our neighbors across the street have had two loose dogs since we moved in. In the past couple of weeks they have also acquired what appears to be a pit bull. They are also allowing this dog to run totally loose. I dreamed--of course--that it mauled E. Horrible and terrifying. It made me feel like we can't leave this place soon enough.

But on the other hand, it feels so surreal that we will be leaving in a month! I have been having flashes of emotion--not sure whether to call them panic, anticipation, excitement, or what. I think that at least on some level I've wanted to move to Europe (and Norway in particular) for good since I was a teenager. It never appeared possible to stay for anything but limited stints, even after I married a Norwegian citizen, oddly enough. I always dismissed the thought as impossible. And now, suddenly with this postdoctoral position, it's happening! I am emigrating. I don't know why, in all the flurry of the job search and preparing for the move this fact has never struck me before. My identity will shift to that of an expatriate, rather than just a sojourner abroad.

I guess I've felt all along that my primary motivation for the move has been A) KE's desire to return home, and B) what I perceive of as a better society for E to grow up in. I know that I can do okay in Norway, since I've lived there for what amounts to a little over five years, spread out over many stays varying from eight weeks to two years. I guess I really haven't had time to think about this in terms of my own trajectory in life. My feeling this week has been an intense set of gratitude for the opportunity (along with the panic). I don't know if that means that I've really wanted this for myself all along (but somehow didn't/couldn't acknowledge it) or whether my pragmatic nature just worked out an attitude shift. If I'm really, really, really honest, I think when KE and I first started discussing moving to Norway, and even after I agreed to the move, I still sort of secretly harbored a hope that we would decide not to when the time came. It's funny to look back at that.

I guess I feel that my future here in this town, this house, this job, would be really pretty bleak. I have been happy here, but only in the company of my immediate family--husband, son, mother. The satisfaction and challenges I have received from my job have been fleeting and could be found in a different work setting. And I have been terribly, terribly lonely here in terms of developing friendships. I seem to go in cycles. If I look back at my moves and the social networks that I develop, it appears that every other major move produces good social networks:

1. left home for college -- humiliatingly awkward attempts, no lasting friendships from that time
2. moved to go to graduate school -- developed real, lasting friendships who are still my closest and most beloved friends
3. Fulbright to Norway and then a year of teaching -- again humiliatingly awkward
4. postdoc. in Finland -- sort of in between -- one good friend and some good professional contacts (a temporary thing, so it doesn't really count)
5. job in Arizona -- a wonderful network of friends (in a place I hated and a horrible job)
(5a. sabbatical in Norway -- this doesn't really count either since I met KE within the first week, and subsequently spent nearly all my time developing a relationship with him. I did strengthen some relationships with people I knew from before, though)
6. job in Oregon -- again humiliatingly awkward

Case in point on my inability to relate: The other night I saw the most ridiculous thing on Fox TV's new FBI drama "Fringe" (a show that attempts to be cool and freaky like "The X-Files" and fails miserably). The lead character went to Germany to interview a prisoner incarcerated in--get this--Wissenschaft Prison. Yeah right! It's almost as bad as the absurd episode of "The X-Files" that took place in Norway and featured a certain "Mr. Trondheim." Here's a screen shot to prove it:

So, I got all excited and thought, "Hey this is something my colleagues in German will find amusing, so I'll email it to all of them." Silence. Only one person even mentioned it out of the 10 colleagues I said hello to yesterday. Oh well, I still find it hilarious.

Don't heckle the hekler

I need a purse. I had a very expensive leather Coach purse that I carried for about 5 years. I kind of liked it, but not really since the straps always slid off my shoulder. It started getting worn looking, and I jettisoned it during part of my decluttering this summer for our move I had a great crocheted basic sac thing that I always used for travel since it was light weight and easy to pack, but that has disappeared. I have an ancient (I bought it when I was 16!) small leather purse that I can't quite fit enough in. So, I need a purse. I decided that I could possibly crochet enough to make one for myself. I started out trying to make one out of "grannie squares," and it was a disaster. It turns out one of the fundamental things I enjoy about knitting and the like is the continuous process of knitting (or crocheting) a long strand. Both grannie squares and the knitted mitred squares that some people use (I also tried that) entail all the things I don't really like about knitting, and very little of what I actually like. I was about to give up, but then I found this! It is the exact duplicate of the great travel purse I have misplaced, and what's more, it is super fun to make! It's just one continuous spiral of 50 rows of single crochet stitch in a big loop. I, who thought I couldn't crochet, am actually having fun and making an acceptable creation. It's so cool, and I'm so excited!

We have accepted the bid on the house and it's in escrow now! Yay! It was low I suppose (2% less than what we paid in 2005), but all things considered, I think we're very lucky to have an offer, especially even before we officially put the house on the market. We'll be doing the transaction without a realtor. We really like the couple who wants to buy the house. Here's hoping it all goes through...

P.S. Note to self: in honor of the upcoming season of Survivor, I'd really like to get myself one of these, the "pre-pixelated t-shirt produced by Ironic Sans.