Twinknit

I’m back from Pittsburgh, where I had a lovely time.  The conference was “eh.”  While I write about American music, the Society for American music isn’t really my society.  I’m an ethnomusicologist by method and theory, and SAM is a little… well, historical for me.  We’ll leave it at that.  My paper was on the last day, which was also kind of a bummer — all that energy and anxiety building up for the very last panel of the conference.  My paper was good, but controversial, and so I spent most of my Q&A defending myself.  That’s ok, I guess.  I just wish people had been a little less condescending.  It’s hard to be a woman studying bluegrass — it’s a male dominated genre, both in practice and in scholarship, and I find that people often don’t take me seriously.  It doesn’t help that I’m pretty young.  I know the day will come when looking so much younger than my age will come in handy.  But this was not one of those times.  Highlight of the conference?  I had my first face-to-face with another knitblogger.  Minty mentioned that Jessica had written on her blog that she was in Pittsburgh for a conference the same weekend I was away.  Turns out we were at the same conference (Jessica is in MLA, and it was a joint conference between the MLA and SAM).  So we e-mailed and made plans to meet up.  How did I recognize her?  By her sweater, of course!

Anyway, complaining aside, Pittsburgh was awesome.  I was pretty busy at the conference, but managed to spend most of Saturday trolling around.  The highlights?  Going to the Church Brew Works (unfortunately, I left my camera in the hotel.  When I get copies of the photos from my friend, I’ll post one or two), the Duquesne Incline:

The Cathedral of Learning at Pitt (especially the Nationality Rooms!!):

And, of course, Fallingwater.

And the famous angle (in the snow):

I love Frank Lloyd Wright, Arts and Crafts and early modern architecture, and the simple, functional beauty of Fallingwater.  I took a lot of pictures.  See how excited I was?  (I had to snap a million of these before I got one with the house appropriately aligned in the background.  I visited with two friends — why I insist snapping arm-out photos is beyond me).

The trip was great, but have only three days now before I move.  The reality of this has set in and I spent most of the day packing like a mad woman.  It still feels like I have more stuff laying around than in boxes, but I know it’s getting better.  Have I mentioned how much I hate packing?  It makes me want to throw everything away (everything, that is, except for my yarn).  I don’t have any significant knitting to show.  I knit a few inches on the tube of my EZ sweater.  But that’s about it.