Elegantly Random

It sounds rather agreeable...

Tomorrow night, Jay and I are heading to a dinner party hosted by my friend Brigette and her husband. Two other couples will also be in attendance. The plan is that, after the meal, the guys will play poker while we ladies have a stitch 'n bitch; all four of us are knitters and we regularly meet up to chat and knit and sip coffee or tea. Also, I'm told there will be gin and tonics. Sounds pretty great, right? (The answer is yes.)

I was describing this get-together to a friend today and I realized, with great amusement, that the evening sounded a lot like the sort of parties you'd read about in a Jane Austen novel. You know, a bunch of friends gather for a meal and follow that up with several droll activities - perhaps the ladies take turn playing the pianoforte for the amusement of the others, or there's a card game for the men while the women gossip. Y'all know how much I love me some Jane Austen, so I can't say that I wasn't DELIGHTED at the realization that my Saturday evening would include a Jane-approved dose of the droll.

On a whim, I did a Google search for Jane Austen Dinner Party - and, as luck would have it, I got several results, the most intriguing of which was the Jane Austen Dinner Party Mystery Game. Holy bajesus, people! Where do I sign up?! I want to host one of these RIGHT NOW! The description reads:

Travel back in time to Regency England 1814. A time of stark contrasts, and of gossip and scandal. A crime of great proportions has rocked Rosings Park. As one of Jane Austen's beloved characters  you are a guest of the estate. Tonight all will be revealed. Once the perpetrator is discovered he/she will certainly be ousted from good society if not run out of town! The details are forthcoming, as well as clues revealed. Things are not what they seem, even the lady Catherine's not above suspicion!  Game for ten players.

WELL! I don't know what YOUR idea of a rockin' Saturday night is, but me? IT'S THIS. Secret letters and documents? 1814 wine labels? Cucumber sandwiches? SIGN ME UP!

And yes, I'm an 80 year old in a 30 year old's body. Don't worry, the tea would ABSOLUTELY be spiked.

Calling in the troops.

I know I have a designated space for talking about handmade stuff, but bear with me, because it's rare I get such an opportunity to display the full range of my geekiness for you all to see.

Perhaps you've noticed the frequent photos of yarn on my Flickr sidebar. This may sound foreign and crazy to most of you, but there is a whole community of yarnies out there - those obsessed with yarn - spinning it, dying it, knitting it, crocheting it, weaving it, whatever. One of the biggest underground communities is dedicated to finding and obtaining gorgeous, hand-painted yarns by indie dyers - usually not sold in stores, many times only available through dyers' personal Etsy shops or websites, often by subscription (pricy!) only. We're talking about skeins of yarn that cost $25/each. To put this in perspective for you - one skein of a fingering weight (re: thin, for lace and socks and etc) will get you one pair of socks. Twenty-five dollar socks, people. It's insane. Oftentimes, if you want to make a sweater, you're going to spend a hundred dollars for three or four skeins of yarn.

So - thanks to the awesome yarn community Ravelry, I have fallen in love with a whole bunch of indie dyers and developed an addiction to really high-quality fibers in gorgeous colors. It's kind of sick. A few (in case you care) are Mama  Blue, Sundara Yarn, Sunshine Yarn, Madeline Tosh...I have a problem. I'm currently subscribed to two of Sundara's yarn clubs at more than $50/month. *sigh*

Last night, Mama Blue had an update on her Etsy shop. For days, people were talking about it on the Ravelry message boards - strategizing how they were going to get their hands on some of this gorgeous stuff. Last time she updated, there were fewer than 150 skeins of yarn available, and the entire sale was finished in less than 7 minutes. I had four in my cart, but by the time I checked out, three had gone and I only ended up with one. It's a crazed, frenzied adrenaline rush made up of tons of F5-ing, hand-waving and cursing.

When I saw how quickly this yarn was flying out of the Etsy shop, and then the aftermath of people trying to trade and swap or even buy it from each other on Ravelry, I realized this is an opportunity for me. I vowed that next time that stuff was for sale, I was going to buy as much as I could without even bothering to peruse the options - I would just grab it and then trade what I don't want, or sell it for an inflated price (I've seen these skeins go for as much as $40/each - that's $15 profit!).

SO - last night, I called in the troops (re: Jay) and we set up two computers, both logged in to Etsy. Between the two of us, we nabbed three skeins of yarn (that's nearly $100, fyi). We barely even looked at colors - we just shouted to each other what we were getting and did it. We could have gotten more but I was starting to feel bad because people were crying about not getting any on the message boards. Next time, I'm not going to be so merciful! And already, I have had five people message me on Ravelry to see if I'll trade or sell them some of what I scored. Seriously?! It's like finely-dyed crack!

I feel a teeny bit ridiculous for having forced my husband to help me score in a yarn auction. But remember what I said about embracing our inner geek? So don't you dare judge me - we all have geeky pastimes and hobbies and interests!

And after the sale was over (in less than 6 minutes), I logged back in to World of Warcraft so that my human rogue could meet back up with Spragg's paladin and resume slaying bears and wolves.

.........................

The definition of fun.

I did it. I downloaded the free 10-day trial of World of Warcraft. And guess what, haters?

It. Is. Awesome.

I can't remember the last time I felt so glad that I didn't make fun of someone for something. Because for all her claims to geekery, Spragg isn't so much as geeky as aware of the definition of fun. Go ahead, look it up - fun means "to play World of Warcraft."

You see, my character is a gnome! A giggly, cute, thick-bodied little gnome who shoots fireballs and casts magical spells! And she dances! And you get to attack things! Like boars, and wolves, and snow leopards and wraiths and I don't know what all! And when you die, you have to retrieve your body...ok that's not so much fun as creepy. And there's awesome music a la Lord of the Rings, and sweet graphics, and enough crap to do to last you years and years and years - and that's before you even get to the expansion packs...

...I see why marriages end over this stuff. Not that mine's gonna, of course, because I have self-control. No, really, I do.

What's hilarious is that ever since I downloaded this my husband (and everyone else) has been teasing me endlessly. However, it's clearly because he so badly wants to play. He has WoW-envy (don't even try to deny it). I've been trying to irritate him by throwing WoW references into my everyday speech.

You'll be impressed to know that although I enjoyed a marathon inaugural WoW-session with Spragg on Saturday night, I limited myself to two hours on Sunday and didn't play at all last night. So I DO have restraint. I can't get too addicted anyway - I have to save time to knit!

But damn it, that giggling gnome is just too much. And the jumping! Did I mention the jumping?

Just toss me a vodka tonic and a gnome hat.

My bosom friend Jen is addicted to World of Warcraft (among other things). She's told me that World of Warcraft is everything she always hoped for in a video game, which is pretty high praise coming from a geek as huge as she is (and she knows that's a compliment).

We've had a lot of fun conversations over the past 18 months or so that she's been addicted to WoW about how awesome it is to embrace your geekiness. You need only click over to my side-project blog, i make stuff, to learn about just one of my many nerdy obsessions. I have an unhealthy addiction to yarn that cannot be sated. Jen and I kind of act as each others' nerd support systems. I encourage her role playing games and fan fiction writing, and she listens to me talk about yarn and needles all the time.

About a week or so ago, we got to talking about how I actually have always enjoyed a good video game, and had a few computer games in high school I enjoyed, and Jen suggested that I do the free 10-day WoW trial. Since that conversation, I've been gearing myself to give it a try.

I think gaming gets a bad rap. You hear stories all the time about people who become so addicted to video games that they retreat from the real world, hiding alone in their messy hovels surrounded by empty Coke cans and Cheeto fuzz. People whisper about "that couple" whose marriage was destroyed by one person's gaming addiction, but I think that's kind of a crock of shit. If your marriage is wrecked by gaming, chances are it's a sign of some bigger issue going on under the surface. And to those who think violent video games are the source of all crime in this world, I laugh at your stupidity. People committed heinous crimes far before we had video games.

And the more I think about it, the more I actually kinda want to do it. I want to pretend to be someone else, run around in another universe as a gnome or something with Jen, forming a drunken, giggly girl guild and combating evil minions and such. Awesome. Especially since in real life, I'm a wimp who kisses her dog on the mouth.

My biggest question at this point is not "will it ruin my marriage", or "how much will it cost me per month" or anything sensible like that. It's "will I still have time for knitting? can I knit while I play?" Which just goes to show that there truly are hundreds of thousands of kinds of addiction in this world. I really may as well just continue to fuel the fire.

So I'm on board for the free trial...as soon as I finish knitting this sock...