Several Random things.

Knitting
My current knitting obsession:


DK-weight hand-dyed self-striping socks. Yarn is from Twisted Fiber Art and is yummy, thick, and beautiful. I started these barely over a week ago. If this week hadn't been insane, they'd be each half finished. As it is, one's there. Stockinette was good sick knitting. And it was incentive knitting over my grading weekend.

Banned Books Week
Julie mentioned Banned Books Week yesterday, which sent me off to the bookstore that afternoon. I didn't know where my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird was, so I got a new one. And an awesome new bag (dollar reuseable bags are hard to resist, especially when they have the First Amendment on them).



I think I may have done a paper on banned books back in Freshman comp. Half the stuff we covered in the rest of my lit classes had been challenged or banned at some time. Most of the time the reasons people have for challenging books are hooey. And they often prove that people don't actually read.

To Kill a Mockingbird is an old favorite. My eighth grade English teacher gave all of her students who read outside of class a copy. I had well surpassed whatever goal she had, mostly because I read about half a million Star Trek: The Next Generation novels that year. I read it every year through high school and college, but have let the practice lapse. I find new stuff in it each time. It's awesome, and to me it's a bit of home. (My Alabama is not really like the one in the book, but there are things about it that resonate for me.)

Another challenged favorite is A Wrinkle in Time. People get cranky about that one because they don't like the way it talks about Jesus. I love the way L'Engle writes about faith, and even though Wrinkle is fairly secular, it's similar to me to the way that people think Lord of the Rings is satanic. Whatever.

Multiple Myeloma
Four years ago my father-in-law was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, which is a weird, scary, fairly rare blood cancer. He has gone through treatment including an autologous bone marrow transplant and several rounds of chemo. Steve's case was caught early - in an eye exam. Currently he's doing well and the cancer is not a threat. His doctor does a fundraiser every year in which he runs or bikes across the state. This year he's biking from Evansville to Indianapolis. The event is Miles for Myeloma. Check it out.