Betsy Phillips's Blog, page 15

My Idea

When I was in Boston a couple of weeks ago, I got an idea for a book series about Nashville. Did I tell you all I’m doing a little acquisitions work again? I can’t remember. I’m doing a little acquisitions work again.

Anyway, today I get to find out if I can edit such a series.

I’m so stoked and nervous and delighted. Like, I literally had the idea two weekends ago and today I might get to start working on it.

When in the history of my job has that ever been the case?

Anyway, my idea is to do 25 books, one in honor of each decade of Nashville’s existence, contemplating some aspect of the city’s existence during a particular time and to bring them out for the next decade, leading up to the 250th anniversary of Nashville’s founding.

The Professor’s Bauhaus Bookshelf Blanket

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I love how this turned out so much.

A thing, too, about handspun yarn is that it felts super easily, which means, when you’re tucking ends that you don’t have to weave them in three or four directions. You just make sure that the ends are in contact with enough of the other yarn that washing and friction can firmly stick them together.

Fall is in the Air

This morning’s walk with the dog was glorious. I had my first nightmare about the book, in which all my photos were wrong and some of them were afghans I’d made. The captions were still right, though.

I have a tiny bit of anxiety about my bank problems last week and then my getting the full gropey search at the airport on Sunday, like maybe I’ve landed myself on the “go ahead and bother her” list.

It’s paranoid, I know. But I think the dream is just a part of that.

The truth is that no one but me really gives a shit, you know?

That’s the sad part of this whole research.

I’m Home

God, Boston was so great. I feel so energized and excited. I’m doing a little acquisitions work now, which is a tiny bit nerve-wracking, but I’m also super excited about it.

I went to a session on New England vampires and it blew my mind. Basically, this dude is able to show that Hessian doctors are to blame. Oh, and also that no one thought it was vampirism until the end of the phenomenon.

And we got to see a picture of a “vampire!” In the grave! With his bones all messed up.

I cannot wait to bore C. and M. to death with all the vampire, er, excuse me “vampire” information I learned. But, basically, it all boils down to “Vampires are a Slavic superstition. How could a specter from the grave even drink your blood? They don’t have bodies. It would just fall right through them. No, this is science. Your undead loved ones suck your lifeforce from the grave.”

But also I had a long discussion with the most interesting of the vampire scholars and he was telling me how German soldiers eventually had encounters with Slavic vampires that utterly convinced them that the vampire phenomena, with the rising corpses and everything, was real, because they went and fought the vampires.

Y’all!

I can’t even tell you. It’s so delightful. He was telling me all about how these German soldiers would go out with the locals to fight vampires and they’d write back these long reports about how they opened the graves and attacked the vampires and the vampires let out these horrible moans and, as they were trying to stake the vampires, they would spew blood or burning liquid at them to get them to back off. And they came away from these encounters deeply shaken and sure vampires were real.

But, really, they’d just caused a decomposing corpse to explode at them.

I am Beyond Pissed

I’m frustrated that I don’t know what effective thing to do with my anger, but this country, man. The lack of shame. The willingness to pretend as if this is all normal and needs no extraordinary response.

And they’re going to get away with it.

We always move past this shit without dealing with it “for the good of the country.” We found ways to bring Confederates back into the fold without them having to face any real consequences. We let the terrorism of the 50s and 60s go largely unpunished.

And so we have to deal with these flair-ups of an old fire we refuse to put out because some of us don’t mind the warmth of it as it burns others alive.

Please Come to Boston. She said “No.”

I’m going to Boston for work, which I’m looking forward to. I’m also having a lot of anxiety about it for reasons that my subconscious is not sharing with the rest of me.

And, like all fun mental health stuff, I can kind of see how I’m pulling back and not properly engaging with the world, but it feels slightly better than having all this anxiety and interacting like a human being with people I care about, so… yeah… it’s not helpful and it’s only making matters worse, but here I am, in my pit of weirdness, just trying to keep my eye on the fact that the pit is shallower than I would have made in the past.

Many Small Things

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My brother, my sister-in-law, Baby Dahlia looking like a giant, and tiny Baby Liam in the hat. I love that Dahlia has the tiniest double chin.

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This is the start of my next afghan. No, I don’t have the ends tucked on the Professor’s afghan. Yes, I do suck goat butts. But I wanted to see how this was going to come together and it’s going to come together real, real hard. But I already am in love.

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And I made a yarn with beads! And now that I know what I’m doing, I’m going to make more yarn with beads. It’s fairly simple and, if you use wooden beads, fairly light-weight. I’m fascinated and confused about how it will crochet up, but we shall see.

Also, I wrote some and my bank card got skimmed and it was a whole terrible thing that I’m sure isn’t over, but I just can’t think about it too much.

Places I Don’t Know

I’m writing an article. It’s not an important article, but the money’s nice. Anyway, the editor was all “Ooo, you should include something about Draper James and Imogen + Willie!” and I was like, “Okay, fine. Those just aren’t places I know anything about. They’re not places I’d ever go.”

I mean, there’s literally nothing I could buy there, so why would I go there?

Which my editor totally got, but it has me thinking about how different my internal landscape of Nashville looks because I just know there are places that are off-limits to me. Or not off-limits. I’m not banned from them or anything. But we have nothing to do with each other. Those places aren’t for me and I can’t find anything for me in those places.

I don’t really mind that, though. Not in this day and age when the internet makes so many things available.

What I do mind is that there’s no real acknowledgement of their decision to exclude me and whether that’s moral.

Anyway, I guess I’ll learn some about these places.

Great Aunt

My brother called me this morning to say that his grandson had been born and so now I am a great aunt. So far it feels awesome, except that the baby blanket I intended for them is still sitting in my dryer.

Oops. I guess I need to get that mailed.

Not Quite Done

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I think it needs a thicker border. I don’t know how much thicker, but you can barely see this and I need the border to pull the sides straighter, which is not really happening yet.

I can’t decide if it’s beautiful or not, because I’m so in love with it. I’m in love with every bit of yarn. I simply cannot believe how satisfying it is to make a blanket from yarn I’ve made.

And it kind of looks like bookshelves. Which I also love and think is perfect for a professor.

But, yeah, it needs a thicker border.