Creature of Mad Enthusiasms

I've been offline all day going through boxes of books and decanting them back into the library. I've punted on some boxes, with the intent of going through later (such as my Mother's Nancy Drews and a boatload of Star Trek novels).

There are 10 Xerox boxes of books going to The Book Thing.

And there are several boxes of books set aside for that auction-for-Doctors-Without-Borders idea I mentioned a while back. The "the more you bid, the more you get" one.

However, since I'm going up to the Book Thing anyway, if there's stuff I've set aside that nobody wants, I'm going to haul it up too. What's one more box? So you tell me: what sort of book would tempt you?

[Poll #1745579]

There is a boatload of mystery books to go. Some are first edition. Some come in series sets (as in, I will offer much/all of the series). Some are signed. (One or two are signed to me; I will tell you before you bid.)

Old Fandoms - You can be the first person on your block to own a copy of Han Solo At Star's End! You can be the first person below the age of 40 who knows there even was a book called Han Solo At Star's End! Old fandoms in this case are Beauty and the Beast, Alien Nation, and Quantum Leap. (When I go through the "punt" boxes there will also be Star Trek TOS offerings if there's sufficient interest.) Not fanzines; the professionally published paperbacks.

The next two categories speak for themselves.

Oddities are things that don't fit other categories: Voices of War (which is interviews with soldiers from WWII on), signed by the editor. An anthology of medieval book curses. One or two audiobooks. (I am seriously considering a Murder Most [Stereotypically] British basket - yarn, knitting needles, mystery audiobook, teacup & saucer, tea. Bath salts and trashy romances are also an option, but right now I'm not worrying about theme baskets so much as which type of book I should keep on hand.)

The background: I miss knitting. I've been way too wrapped up in the rest of my life and deadlines to seriously think about picking up new projects or even starting something that requires much brain and yet at the same time I want to be working on something, and more than that, working on something that has a purpose.

Lacking knowing what *I* want, I figure I can start cranking out things that will aid other people.

I've found my charity knitting project. AFAICT, it can be light lace scarves or heavy winter scarves or (depending on the group receiving it) more of a shawl/mini afghan/not-baby blanket than a scarf, so it won't get monotonous. There's an in-state branch, although not an in-county one, and I am STERNLY telling myself that attempting to organize anything of the ilk is strictly out of my purview until the house is in order and the yarn-and-fabric swap has been set up for Team Wench... although I now know one of the yarn charity boxes that will be set up at said swap.

No pity, no shame, no silence... two needles. Yeah. This is what I need to be doing.

honorh is starting a new meme: fandom-based Lyttony aka "Do the Bulwar-Lytton Contest for fanfic."

Not that fanfic tends to need help in this area (oh, don't look at me like that; the longer you're in fandom the more you know that Sturgeon's Law applies double) but her entries are hilarious and you know you want to play.


Apparently I will be knitting scarves for a while. Coates & Clark is having a drive to get 5000 scarves for the athletes in the special Olympics. You have to use their yarn, but it's not that expensive. I do need to find out if it's hard to get those colors or not. There's an official pattern, but they say you can also do freestyle as long as it hits the same size.


bookmarked for future reference: trying to decide if I want to buy Thursday's Atlantis stole pattern or not.

I've already mentioned Katie Greenberger's yarn raffle drive for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in honor of her stricken brother. The response was so tremendous that she has raised the bar from $500 (which came in 12 hours) to $1000 and then $2000, which is coming up fast.

She now has pictures of the yarn she will give away on her blog. It's not too late to essentially put in a $10 bid on a chance of winning some very expensive handpainted, mostly woolen yarns, and all for a worthy cause.


(Although I do note with some amusement that Katie is probably resenting being called "Katie" instead of Kate, as she tends to call me "old" when she thinks I'm forgetting that she's more than 4 feet high these days... one of the perils of establishing adulthood among people who remember you at age 12.)

Geekery and Charity
How rich are you? Six of the original Doctor Who costumes are being auctioned off... including Chris Eccleston's jacket. Also Star Wars costumes, including one of Alec Guiness' robes.

Excuse me a moment, I have to wipe drool off the keyboard and monitor.

Handcrafts and Charity
A page one article (even in the B section) of the Post plus top billing on the website is going to ensure that these charities get swamped, but I'm going to do my bit too:
With Gratitude in Every Stitch: Washington Post article on quilts for wounded soldiers
Quilts of Valor Foundation
Operation Kid Comfort
Home of the Brave Quilts
Marine Comfort Quilts

Cooking Geekery
From the food section of today's Post, the Baker's Edge, a baking pan that uses channels to maximize the "edge" of baked goods. More information at the article, the maker's website, or the Baker's Catalog.

Sheer Geekery
There will be a line of Sarah Jane Smith Adventures toys. To include action figures (I have no doubt that in the hands of fans, Sarah Jane will finally be getting a little something-something with Action!Jack and any/many variants of Action!Doctor) and sonic lipsticks.

Yes, I want a sonic lipstick. Badly. Yes, I am sad, sad little femmefan geekgirl. Nothin' wrong with that!

archived here for my use, public for everyone else's use:

Charities that Take Handicrafts, particularly:
- Warm Up America (I've talked about this before)
- Project Linus
- Prayer Shawl Ministry (started Christian, now skewing a tad new age)