Embarrassment
I’m starting with the man in the mirror / i’m asking him to change his ways / and no message could have been any clearer / if you wanna make the world a better place / take a look at yourself, and then make a change ~MJackson
I am a snob. I’m not proud and thrilled to say this – it goes against my ethics and values, snobbery. There are small ways I’m snobby that don’t produce such shame: I’m snobby about good literature, I’m snobby about good writing, I’m snobby about movies (all together, I see that I’m snobby about storytelling). I go back and forth in judging myself about this; on the one hand, life is too short and there are too few hours to waste them on stuff that feels insulting to me. On that hand, it’s not an issue of snobbery as much as it is an issue of selecting what I like. No problem there. But on the other hand, the bad hand (let’s say it’s the left, sinister hand), it’s not ok when I think I know something about people who like books and movies that I judge poorly. That is NOT ok. So I struggle with this, but I wouldn’t say it keeps me up at night.
But I’ve had to face the fact that I am a terrible class snob. Class in America is weird; it certainly exists, obviously, but we all pretend it doesn’t (unless we’re discussing it academically). I have a terrible attitude about wealthy people; I’m sure some of it comes from a place of envy, since I’m sure I’d be so darling at being rich and I wouldn’t be nasty about it and it wouldn’t spoil me and I’d be so generous and I don’t want a palace, just a place that’s big enough for me to have a library room of my own. I’d travel and write and read, and I’d be a nice person. Some of my terrible attitude is political, when I see how our society is structured by the extremely wealthy to reward the extremely wealthy and punish the poor. But envy and politics aside, my terrible attitude is more personal. I just don’t like them, I think they’re silly, superficial, trivial. (Note: I don’t personally know any wealthy people, so this is an untested belief I hold.)
And then I got a new client. She’s in the society pages, she and her husband attend events and balls that don’t even register for me. She’s beautiful, in a society way, and she wears a giant rectangular diamond, clothes that are probably designer (I favor Express and The Gap sale rack), boots and bags that people in her set probably recognize immediately (my bag is from the sale rack at Century 21, and I love it). When we first met, I kept our class differences between us and I interacted with her in a particular, probably overly-formal way. But as we’ve continued to interact, my snobbery has broken down and I see that she’s funny, and kind, and warm, and uncertain about herself, and sensitive to slights by snobby people in her world, and very sweet.
I struggle with myself, and try to retain my snobbishness by thinking, “yeah, but she’s probably just one of the good ones.” GOOD GRIEF LORI.
Our class differences do exist, and we’d likely never become hanging-out girlfriends. I doubt our relationship will ever exist outside the work we do together; what would we do?! But when we see each other, we chatter, and we share our lives with each other, we confide – to a still-shallow level – our worries, and we hug when we part. I really like her, so much, and so I face myself in the mirror and wag my finger, and give myself a good talking to.
“I’ve a grand memory for forgetting.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson
“I’m really good at forgetting.” ~my daughter Marnie, age 5
Curses — foiled again by my age-related failing memory. I just received four skeins of The Plucky Knitter Primo MCN (fingering) in a gorgeous red shade she calls Barn Door, and I can’t remember what sweater I was going to make with it.
1540 yards of fingering weight -- for the perfect sweater if only I could remember
I know it wasn’t a pattern I’d made before, and I think it was a cardigan. I think I actually wrote it down on a little notepad file but didn’t save it. Curses! Foiled again! Dadgummit! If you have a favorite cardigan knit with fingering, please let me know!
It’s c.o.l.d here this morning; it’s risen to 14 degrees and heading up to 29. Perhaps its because of my flu, but I just cannot get warm. I’m wearing a long-sleeved thin undershirt, a turtleneck, a cardigan, and a fleece jacket on top of it all, and I have a scarf around my neck and thick socks on my feet. I’m covered with a hand-knit blanket, and another blanket, and I’m still cold. I had a big bowl of very hot oatmeal and cups of steaming tea, and I’m still cold. I think the flu must be ramping up the chill.
On that shivery note, back under the covers for me. Don’t forget to suggest sweater patterns if you have a fave! Stay well y’all.
getting old is the pits, but it’s better than the alternative!
I’ll set the scene. It’s 9am, I’ve had my scrambled eggs and cups of tea, and I’m at my desk finishing some paperwork before I start working. It’s a beautiful day outside. I’ve been awake since 5am.
Endorsing some checks, I suddenly get up because I have to go to the bathroom. All that tea, you know. I take a step away from my desk and think where was I going? Oh yeah, to the bathroom.
I walk down the hall and think why was I going to the bathroom? I think maybe I’ll remember when I get there.
As I enter the bathroom, I say out loud, Now why was I coming here? Was I going to get something?
And then I laugh out loud at myself. Oh yeah. I had to use the bathroom.
Today I’m so grateful for having a sense of humor about things. Otherwise this would’ve been very disturbing. Happy Friday, y’all!
Gloom, despair and agony on me-e!
Deep dark depression, excessive misery-y!
If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all!
Gloom, despair and agony on me-e-e!
(bonus points if you know the origin of this lyric!)
What in the world is wrong with me. I imagine my knitting friends never do this, just as they always put in lifelines on lace, and always do the things they should do in their knitting……but I can’t seem to learn. I have no idea where I am on my traveling woman shawl. I didn’t make any kind of note about what row and repeat I stopped (in the middle of), and the last time I touched it was before I went to Turkey, back in May. I’m on a wrong side row, so that’s probably just purl across, and I imagine I can figure it out, but that’s precious knitting time lost! WOE IS ME. 
Seriously. Why can’t I learn this lesson. If you knew how many times this happens to me, and how each time I smack my forehead and say “from now on, I’m making notes about where I stop!” and yet here I am, you’d just shake your head and walk away. Hopeless, I seem to be.
I’m halfway through one sleeve on my gorgeous little red featherweight cardigan, and itching to start Kty’s new scarf, but decided (a) I needed a brief intermission knitting something heavier than laceweight, and (b) I ought to work a couple rows on the traveling woman shawl every day so I can just get it done. And then I go and pull something like this. I’m sure y’all never do this. If you know some neat trick (other than the obvious….”make a note, Lori!”) I’d love to hear it! I usually just open the pdf on my laptop and set it aside so I can refer to it as I knit and watch tv, so I don’t have a paper copy nearby.
I think I’ll go drown my sorrows in a gorgeous garlicky lemony anchovie-ey homemade caesar salad. And maybe a little white vino. Yeah.
leave me alone, droid. i’m just fine on my own. really. pot favor.
I know this isn’t anything new — there are even blogs about it, I think — but WHY does my phone have to “spell check” my texts? It’s almost never right, and anyway, don’t we expect there to be typos when we type with our thumbs? If words can be brutally abbreviated, what’s so wrong with the occasional typo. Good grief.
This morning I was texting my son – the only way to reach him, apparently – and I was trying to figure out his schedule for the weekend, because Marnie’s coming to town and they’ll get together. So I texted him, and I typed:
what’s the schedule, por favor?
A perfectly reasonable sentence by any estimation. Here, however, is how my Droid believed it should be written:
what’s the schedule, pot favor?
I just don’t know where to start. If you got the “corrected” version, I’ll bet you never would’ve suspected it was a “typo” correction, you would’ve just wondered what the hell was I talking about. Pot favor. Good grief.
This conversation brings to mind famous typos I have made, typos that were NOT caught by spellcheck because they were spelled correctly. Like the paper I turned in that discussed “seasonal shits” in something, instead of seasonal shiFts. And the one about “pubic awareness.” For want of an L, my humiliation ensued.
thanks for the lyrics, WZevon: poor poor pitiful me. Lord have mercy on me. Woe is me.
It’s such a cliche that men are babies when they’re sick (which doesn’t mean it’s not true, of course). Well, let me say for the blog record that girls can be babies too.
1982: I’m TOUGH. My first child, Katie, was born at midnight (and I had several hours of pitocin and not one bit of painkiller, no demerol, no Tylenol, nothing). I went home 8 hours later, vacuumed the living room, made a pan of lasagna, and made a birth day cake for Katie. Sure, I kind of felt like all my insides might fall out on the floor while I was vacuuming, but I’m tough. I can do that.
1985: My 2nd child Marnie was born at 12:30, just after lunch, and I went home at 6pm that day — too much to do, needed to get home to Katie and throw a birth day party for Marnie after all. I made her a birth day cake, made dinner, and got busy. I’m made of hearty pioneer stock, remember.
my great-grandmother (2nd from the right), Lottie Ribble Askew
2004: I didn’t see that patch of black ice at the end of my friend’s driveway in Boston. I was there to give the keynote speech at her university’s Darwin Festival (why??) and I hadn’t written it yet, bad, bad form. So I hit the ice,
yikes. that hurt.
and fell and broke both bones in my right wrist so severely that my hand was hanging like a limp bag of bones off the end of my arm. We went to the ER, I got a cast, went back to her house and typed a speech, made my PowerPoints. The next morning I gave the speech and drove myself back to Rochester NY — a 7-hour drive in snowy icy conditions in a stick-shift car, no less, how did I do that? (The better question is why did I do that…) The breaks were so severe that I ended up needing surgery to have an external fixator screwed into the bones.
There’s obviously a very thin line between being tough and being a moron, and I don’t seem to know which side of the line to stand on.
But boy, give me a paper cut or a cold and wah, wah, wah! I’m the most pathetic miserable person, and you will know about it. Yesterday morning I got an email from a friend, a social psychologist who became one of my authors at OUP, and we just clicked so well we developed a wonderful friendship (we call each other bro and sis). In my response to his email, of course I mentioned just how very very sick I am, and how much a baby whiner I am despite being so tough otherwise. He got it, and wrote me this hilarious response:
So I feel sorry for you and wish I could return you to your normal wonderful self. I agree that this cold shouldn’t have happened to you and it should go away immediately. You’re too good a person to have to suffer this way. Plus, there are so many things you want to do and now you can’t do them. And, you have to stay inside, perhaps even in bed, when you want to be out in the world. Pobrecita.
Isn’t that hilarious and wonderful?! I think my favorite crazy line is “you’re too good a person to have to suffer this way.” That makes me laugh every time I read it or think about it.
I think there’s something about the very mundane pedestrian unimportant aspect of colds and paper cuts that gives me the freedom to wallow. With bigger concerns, I have to armor up, woman up, DO IT. But a cold? wah, wah, wah. Poor poor pitiful me. Bring me some tea. And Kleenex. And feel very sorry for me.
Bali Ha’i may call you … “Come away…Come away.” I wish my knitting would call me. 
The post title comes from my daughters; Katie did a series of posts in December and we were so thrilled to get such regular posts from her. In January, the series was over and unfortunately so were the regular opportunities to hear from our Katie-girl. So Marnie suggested a few series options, one of which (since Katie is a new and enthusiastic knitter) was called “Knitta, please!” Katie actually wrote a post with that title, and showed her Habitat hat, by Jared Flood (her project page on rav, but she’s well into the cables now…..new picture please, Katie!)
So I loved that title, knitta please, but had no thoughts of co-opting it until it seemed such a perfect fit with what’s on my mind. So with gratitude (and apologies) to both daughters, I’m saying Knittas, please. Insight requested.
I don’t know what’s happened to me. I have fallen off the knit wagon and cannot seem to climb on again. It’s not the oft-reported loss of “mojo” one hears about so regularly, it’s something else. It’s not a sudden dislike of the endeavor. It’s not disinterest in what I am working on. I know what all it’s not, but I don’t know what it is.
Some of it may be due to the shift in my work life. Up until last July, I worked Monday through Friday, very clear division between at-work and not-at-work. When I was at work, I was daydreaming about knitting, and when I was not at work, I was knitting. Not-at-work meant whee! I can knit! I have this couple of days and I’m going to knit knit knit! OR, I’m home for the day, I’m going to [finally] spend the evening knitting! The time not-at-work felt like a reward, like the time that was FINALLY mine to spend however I wanted before I had to go back to work so I’d better get. on. the. stick!
Now, I wake up whenever I wake up, I drink some coffee, maybe have some toast, poke around on the internet, brush my teeth, and settle into working (notice that “get out of my pajamas” was not on that list ). I sit on the couch, my corner of the couch where I used to knit all the time, with my laptop on my lap. I’ll sit there for long hours at a stretch, focused and working hard. At some vague point — either when my mind won’t do it any more, or when dinner is ready, or when I have an appointment — I’ll kind of stop working. After dinner, after the cleaning up, I don’t seem to be picking up my knitting, and on the weekends, I sometimes work (sometimes a lot), but I don’t seem to be spending every spare moment knitting.
i miss you!
I’m at the last cuff on my Dark & Stormy, I want to finish that tonight, weave in ends and do a little finishing task and get it blocking tomorrow. I don’t have buttons, and the weather is so dismal I don’t feel like wandering around the button district so I don’t know what I’ll do on that front (ha, front, get it?). I absolutely love this sweater and cannot wait to wear it. It fits very well, it’s comfortable, the color is amazing (especially in dismal old winter), and it’s my birthday sweater. What’s not to love?! And I’m very close to finishing Eve’s Rib, if you remember that one from so long ago; I could easily have two new gorgeous sweaters like *that.*
I know it’s not a race — ravelry and blogs can make it very clear how much/how fast/how whatever everyone else is knitting. I know, who cares! In the time I’ve had Dark & Stormy on the needles, other people have started and finished two sweaters. OK, maybe they knit faster, maybe they have more time available to knit, and also see the “I know, who cares!” line above. But the thing that gnaws at me is the knitting ennui** I’m experiencing, the knitting malaise**. And there are two reasons I’m so troubled by it:
- I want it back! and
- This is, after all, a knitting blog and I worry that you’ll get fed up with the very clear lack of knitting that’s going on around here. It’s just that I like you, and really like having you around.
So if you have any advice for me on this situation, I’d really love to hear it. Has it ever happened to you?
** ennui, how often does one get to use that word?
an ode to myopia.
I got my first pair of glasses right before kindergarten started, at Texas State Optical on south Ben White Blvd., in Austin. There was a flagpole in the parking lot, and a giant oak tree, and I remember walking out into a whole new world of amazement. There’s a flag at the top of the pole! I’d never seen that. The tree had individual little leaves! Wow, I could see that! I wish I had a photo of them; there weren’t so many options for kids’ glasses back then (that would’ve been the summer of 1963), and mine were powder blue cat eye glasses with little rhinestones, like these but more rhinestoney and less cool:
Aside from the very real thrill of being able to see things, the other thing I remember very clearly was worrying about where people in other states got their glasses. The place you get glasses is Texas State Optical! Do they come from wherever they are to Texas? (I was 5.)
Through my life, I’ve had dozens of pairs of glasses, including these charmers. I don’t think they’d have been so bad if they weren’t crooked on my face. They were permanently crooked because I fell asleep every night reading, lying on my side with my glasses on. And to complete my truly awful ensemble, the blouse (buttoned all! the! way! up!) was red, and that ponytail was decorated with yellow yarn. Sigh. My school picture in 5th grade, 1968. I think I was wearing my yellow striped bell bottoms (with blue and maroon stripes) and a nasty old pair of moccasins. And I think I wore that outfit too often each week. And I thought I was styling. Sigh. I was a book nerd, what did I know from styling. (But I could quote long passages from The Hunchback of Notre Dame! Just ask!)
I’ve had octagonal shaped granny glasses, pink glasses, white glasses, blue glasses, black-framed glasses, rimless glasses, and currently I have a pair of apple green ones I love and a pair of brown Danish ones I love. Well, I love them but I can’t see out of them. Last week I learned that yes, my eyes have 
gotten substantially more near-sighted….like, substantially. I’ve been seeing bright orange glasses on people lately and just love them, and I’ve loved my apple green ones, so this time I chose red, despite my dread and horror of (a) reminding people of Sally Jesse Raphael, and (b) becoming one of those old ladies who wears red glasses to seem young.
Y’all will tell me the truth, right? Please? If either (a) or (b) comes to mind (or both!), you can tell me, I want to know. OK, with no further farting around, here they are, taken with the always unflattering (on me anyway) “hold your arms out as far as you can and shoot” pose:
hi! I have new glasses! And I can see!
I can see! I can see!
i fell down AGAIN but this time my computer also took a spill. dammit.
….ARGH. I was typing this post and got up to put my coffee cup in the dishwasher and somehow my feet got all tangled up in something, wires, footstool, pile o’ shoes, and I fell down hard. And this disaster caused my laptop to go flying, and land on an angle, on one of its corners, and as I hit the floor (hard) I was thinking “oh no! not my computer!! not now!!”
I now smell like coffee, my hands are shaking, my knees are all bruised, and my laptop is a bit out of whack. The top closes, and it seems to be working, but it’s kind of wonky. We always take it when we travel, because we upload the day’s photos and tell the day’s stories on our travel blog, so the timing of this little accident sucks. So far so good, though, so I hope the indestructibility of my ThinkPad continues.
Anyway, I’d written some of the post already, but now I’m kind of shaky so instead of reconstructing it, I’ll just leave this photo of where I am on my new birthday cardigan – the “52 is not dark and stormy” Dark and Stormy sweater by Thea Colman:
1 skein of yarn
Except for the rows where the cables do their biggest crossing, I cable without a cable needle now. The little twists, the easier crossing rows, it’s just me sliding stitches off the needle and rearranging them. Cool. Quick and easy, and no longer scary. I love the yarn (tosh vintage), the color shadings are fun (baltic) and make me happy. The design is simple and great fun to knit, and not boring — we’ll see what I’m saying when I hit the sleeves, of course.
So I’ll leave it here, at this point, and pick it up when we return. Off to put fresh sheets on our bed, put away the laundry, run the dishwasher, and pack. We’ll leave at 5 in the morning! WHEE!
Oh, John.
you can click to enlarge, if you can't read it
Oh, John.
i wouldn’t be bragging about that if i were you.
This was posted on the facebook page for the little town of Graham, TX, where I was born. There was no other information posted with it, so I don’t know the date, but geez Louise. My stomach clenched when I saw it.
Yeah. See what I mean? Graham’s terrible history is much more focused on slaughtering the resident Native Americans; in fact, I don’t remember seeing any black people in Graham. Then again, maybe that’s due to meetings like the one advertised above.
“Realm of Texas.” I don’t know if that’s a Klan thing, or a Texas thing. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it’s a Texas thing; we do like to think of ourselves in a grandiose way.
If you’ve never heard of the Austin Lounge Lizards, I highly recommend that you listen to this song – it’s so hilarious.
do i dare to eat a peach?
No one likes to be a stereotype. I can probably state that unequivocally. But let’s talk about me: I don’t like to be such a stereotype, but there you go. I am. I wasn’t as sophisticated as Prufrock, wondering if I dare to eat a peach; when I moved back to Austin TX in 1998, to begin graduate school (I’d lived there from 1964-1971, then 1977-1985), I was one of ‘those’ people, one of the old Austinites. I’m sure they have the local version in your town. Everywhere I went, it was like this:
Over there, that used to be X.
That restaurant? Oh, that used to be Y.
This whole area used to be considered out in the country.
Even I got tired of hearing myself say those things! I couldn’t seem to stop myself, though. Used to be used to be used to be. I guess it’s a hazard of aging.
So I just realized that two of my favorite places on Facebook are Does you ‘member when? Austin, TX version and Young County, Texas History. The Austin link makes me feel kind of pathetic, like I should just get over my aging self. But the Young County history link is amazing! I was born in Young County, which is in north Texas. Some of that history is really fascinating…. from long before I came along, in 1958. For example, recent posts:
L.P. “Uncle Pink” Brooks took the job as second Sheriff of Young County in 1876 when the first Sheriff, Richard Kirk was killed. Since Graham didn’t have a jail at that time, “Uncle Pink” would take the prisoners home. Sheriff Brooks never had a prisoner escape.
”The White Man” was a newspaper published in 1858 at Jacksboro and 1860 at Weatherford, Texas by John R. Baylor and H.A. Hamner. The newspaper led the anti-Indian movement for three years inciting local settlers against all natives, even attacking peaceful Indians. The papers are incredibly scarce, but can be found in the area.
Wild, right? Those stories don’t make me an old fart trying to relive some vague “glory days”…..right?
my NY age is 28? REALLY? (said the 51-year old woman)
No one ever believes me when I say I’m 51. I know, that’s true for nearly everyone, whatever their age. But it’s one reason I don’t mind being 51 – the buggy-eyed response, the NO WAY, the “your kids are how old?” I think if people had no reaction at all when I gave my age, I might not like being 51 quite as much.
I started college when I was 36, graduate school when I was 40, and I finished my PhD when I was 45. What this means is that I spent the bulk of my middle years among people who were considerably younger than me. I thought we were the same, and it usually took a reflective surface to remind me that they probably didn’t. Still, I think it’s one situational reason I’m kind of young for my age, whatever the hell that means.
But I wasn’t prepared for this:
My New York age is “28″
This New York age puts you-generally speaking-into the young category. That’s what you were hoping for, right? Run and tell your friends. Then get drunk (as usual). Then sleep it off. Then pop an Adderall. Then come back and consider experimenting with a more mature type of New York life (just once in a while). Have you ever been to the Village Vanguard or the Living Theatre? Eaten at Elaine’s? Taken a date to Michael Feinstein? Before you laugh, check ‘em out and see what old-school NYC experiences you can add to the new.
What’s your New York age? Take the Time Out New York quiz and find out!
And I answered each question absolutely honestly. Which means I said I don’t even remember the last time I was out until 4am. For example. I get my caffeine from coffee (not cocaine). And still, at the end, I’m a 28-year old NYer.
Who knits a whole lot. They didn’t ask me about that one.
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announcement to texans and new yorkers: nobody likes you if you think you’re the best.
Maybe, in your life, you once had a relationship that was unsatisfying, but there wasn’t really anything wrong with the person. Everyone said Oh, s/he’s so great, such a nice person, funny, etc. I did once, and I agreed with them! Still, “perfect” as he seemed to be, it was not a good relationship for me. Around that time, I heard Joan Baez sing a song that included the line I used as this blog post title: a saint is hard to live with at home. It cracked me up, it felt very familiar and personally true, and obviously it stayed with me.
This line came to mind this morning when I saw the following article in the NYTimes:
we're perfect
Yep – that’s what it says. More city preschoolers are perfect. Test scores show. To me, that suggests that the tests are imperfect, or imperfect for assessing what they need to assess. Had I seen those data, I’d have written an article pointing out the problems with the test. But New Yorkers – you know how they are – instead say that we’re just perfect.
As a Texan, I really get that, and it’s one thing I find dear about New Yorkers. Well, dear and really irritating. Just like people get irritated (or worse) with Texans for their/our grandiose views of themselves (ourselves). NYers and Texans should either get over ourselves, or at least keep our mouths shut a little more often.
And look at this – what do we see in my gigantic knitting bag next to my place on the couch:
peasy and mondo, mixing it up together in the bag
That’s my Peasy sweater (I’m knitting a sleeve right now) and my Mondo Cable Cardigan (also on a sleeve). Two sweaters! But lost in sleeveland, the seemingly endless land of stockinette tubes. Yesterday I did a little Peasy sleeve knitting, then a little Mondo sleeve knitting, then back to Peasy. It didn’t feel like too much of a break, switching to the other. I don’t have a purse knitting project going right now, and I keep thinking I ought to cast on something small and quickly-finishable, but then I know I’d just do that instead of sleeves, and the sleeve-knitting elf hasn’t found my apartment yet so if it’s going to be done, I’ll have to do it.
Everything there is to do in this world has a bit that’s less fun than the others. I read an article by Jane Patrick in one of the first issues of Handwoven, where she talked about how much she hated sleying the reed (I think that was the detail). Then she realized that’s a necessary task, she’s always going to have to do it when she weaves, so she tried to reorient herself to the idea. That happened to me when I took my intro stats course as an undergrad – at first I hated it, but I realized it would be my essential tool so I found another way to think about it, and now I adore stats. So my mission is to find another way to conceptualize the endlessness of sleeves.
Happy Thursday, y’all.
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i gave notice at work, and guess what happened….
So. On Monday I gave notice at my job, and I didn’t know what to expect. I knew they would be surprised – and they were – but beyond that I just didn’t know. I was prepared for everything except what happened.
They cried. They really did. My boss cried when I told her, and came into my office the next day, sat down, and did it again. Colleagues said the most incredible things, things that were hard to take in. Inside, I imagine myself as just slinking around the perimeter, and not registering with people. I imagined that I’d just quietly slip out the door and no one would even know I left for a while. But that’s not what happened, and it has blown me back off my feet. It’s hard to take in, hearing people tell me what they think of me, what I mean to them. (Remember when you were about 12 years old, and you’d get mad at your mom for something and imagine that you died, and everyone was at your funeral, and they were all so sad, they’d all be so sorry then? This has been something like that, but without the death part!)
They immediately started listing freelance work they want me to do, so they can keep me around and also to help me, which is kind. My authors have wailed, and sent me the most amazing letters that I will absolutely cherish.
I think this is true for most people, and we just don’t realize it. We make an impression, we have an impact on people, people in our lives feel all kinds of things that they don’t ever say, because they think they don’t need to, or they’re shy, or they’ll just tell you tomorrow. I think you’re a very lucky person if something happens while you’re alive and you get the chance to hear it – especially if it’s all at once. So maybe the other side of that is that we should actually tell people these good things we feel about them.
One thing nearly every person said in their little lists referred to my sense of humor. Well, I am a dramatic person, I do have a quick and dry sense of humor, and my reactions can be large and hilarious. For example (you can see that I like you, I’m willing to be ugly in front of you), someone snapped this shot at a birthday party they gave me. I was responding to something someone said. Oh the humiliation….
silly, dramatic me
So anyway, I’ve been silent because I’ve been silenced by all this. Plus I’ve been insanely busy. I did finish the wedding dress and today I bought beautiful little Italian mother-of-pearl buttons from Tender Buttons, which is such a cool store. Only in New York, man. We have a button district, yes we do. In the morning I’ll take it to the cleaners for a good pressing, then get it off to my girl, the bride-to-be.
I promise knitting content will return soon. I’m dying to return to knitting…
the fevered workings of my itchy mind
I know what you’re thinking – this post is going to talk about how itchy wool is. Well you’re wrong! Sorry, didn’t really mean to set you up like that. Instead, it’s about how my fingers and mind are itchy to knit with that pink Felici yarn. Or that new soft Noro. Itching, itching, itching. My mind, too, itching. Can’t stop thinking about it. Just want to cast on, see the stripes unfold, feel the softness.
Don’t do it, Lori. Don’t start something new. Satisfy yourself with touching the yarn, looking at it. Keep it on the table next to you so you can …. NO! Put it away! Go put it in the stash bins so you’re not so sorely tempted all the time! Do it now! Just get up, step away from the laptop, and store the yarns out of sight!
But it’s so pretty, that pink, and I don’t even like pink. The caramel colors of that one skein of Noro, so seductive. And the madelinetosh pashmina, bali hai come to me.
NO – finish at least one thing first. You know you have a lot of work to do, finishing the wedding dress, and don’t forget the shawl – not even halfway done with that and time’s a-ticking. The baktus, the blanket, the cardigan. You’ve got your train knitting project, you don’t need another one. Focus Lori, focus.
But just a little bit, just a swatchNO! NO!
help me……
gotta learn this new thing, what’s wrong with me?!
Fear is a funny thing. It’s a good thing if there’s a bear chasing you; fear makes you run fast. But it’s a silly thing if you’re afraid of learning a new knitting skill. Really, Lori? Afraid of Judy’s Magic Cast-On? REALLY? Come. On. It’s knitting, and I am holding the sharp pointed sticks. I can just stop at any time. Nothing terrible is going to happen; the worst thing would be if I got sweaty and was nervous and not figuring it out and therefore feeling stupid.
Is that it? It makes me feel stupid, like I don’t know anything? I already know that I don’t know all that much! But I’ve become comfortable. I can knit top-down socks with no stress. I get it, I know the tricks, I don’t make mistakes. On the other hand, I also don’t have very much time to knit, so when I do get to knit, I want to be knitting, not sweating with anxiety! But on the other hand, I also want to grow, and challenge myself, and learn new tricks, so as soon as I finish the wedding shawl, I’m going to do it: Judy’s Magic Cast-On and toe-up socks.
YIKES!
two socks at once! Double yikes!
Once I’ve got the cast-on figured out, I’ll learn the little heel tricks you use for toe-up socks. Then, with all that confidence surging through me, I’ll tackle continental knitting. I see big things in my future.
Read other bloggers talking about new skills they want to learn here: knitcroblo4
i’ve got WAY too many projects underway! why do i do this?!
You hear it a lot on television these days, where it seems like every show has at least one scene in an AA meeting: you have to take a fearless moral inventory. Although I think it’s a good idea for everyone to take a fearless moral inventory — AA or not – today I was thinking about taking a fearless knitting bag inventory. It’s a version of WOTN Mondays, but on Tuesday.
So what’s on the needles? There’s one I can’t reveal here, the wedding shawl, but here we go:
2nd Kai-Mei, ready to work the heel
My Kai-Mei socks – I’ve been sneaking little wearings of the finished sock because it’s so dang wonderful. Madelinetosh sock, in crow – feels kind of hard when you’re knitting it, but as the fabric flows from the needles, it’s softer than you think it’ll be. And when you soak it and block it? Really so nice. The pattern is clever and fun to knit, but when I was knitting the first sock I was just going on faith (Cookie A faith) because I couldn’t see how it was going to work. I highly recommend the pattern and the yarn.
OK, next?
oh, my dearly beloved Ishbel, languishing....
I do love this Ishbel, knit with madelinetosh lace, in lettuce. It’ll be my 3rd (why do I think “she’ll be my third”?), and the pattern is fun and the color is great and I love the whole deal but it’s been set aside for so long that I struggle to pick it up again. Once I finish the wedding shawl I’ll return to this because it’s going to be fantastic.
Next?
what is wrong with me?!
Stop it, me! Stop! Why did I start this one?! I had plenty to work on, the last thing I needed to do was to start another project, but I did. This is Baktus, and I got about 1/3 of the way through it with Noro Silk Garden Sock (pictured above, the yarn cake) when I decided that I’d rather alternate the Noro with a black yarn. So even though I had no business starting this one in the first place, I frogged it and started over, alternating it with a KnitPicks Essential Kettle Dyed, in soot. [Lori, do not start another project!!]
such a 3-D blankie!
Totally Autumn, which I’m knitting with Cascade 220 Heather in chocolate, so it’ll be more like a blanket. The photo represents the length I get from one skein; since we want it to be ~6 feet in length, I’ll need 7 skeins and of course I’d bought 6. Luckily the sale is still on at Webs, so I bought additional skeins.
Next?
hanging my mondo head in shame and denial
This project, the Mondo Cardigan in madelinetosh merino (graphite) has been so painful. I had enough yarn to complete the sweater, but I foolishly didn’t look at all the skeins before I started. One of the lovely things about madelinetosh yarns is the variability in color, but this time it bit me in the butt. When I got to this point on the first sleeve, I noticed that my last two skeins were quite obviously blue. That would not work. I couldn’t find any graphite in any of the online stores, so (to use Yarn Harlot’s phrase) I threw up the Bat Signal in the rav forums, pleading and begging. Very kind raveler Glennae offered to sell me two of her skeins, which looked like a match to mine, but that would leave her with an insufficient amount of yarn to knit a sweater – the reason she bought it. I didn’t want to leave her in that spot, so I basically just went into denial and ignored the problem. Then, last weekend, I “randomly” decided to look through ravelers’ stashes to see if anyone had any of this yarn, and found Jenny – boopersin on ravelry. Jenny, O Jenny, my new BFF and savior. I wrote her asking if she’d sell, told her my sob story, and she quickly agreed. Isn’t she wonderful? Friend her immediately if you’re on rav, she’s a keeper (and Glennae too, if you don’t know her yet). So Jenny’s two skeins are winging (or brown trucking) their way to me, which means I’ll be able to finish my Mondo Cardigan. Whew.
Next?
froth and beads
Is this technically “on the needles,” given the fact that I’ve obviously pulled out the needles? Apparently not. It’s gorgeous. It’s Liquid Silver, by Rosemary Hill, with Elann Silken Kydd, a luscious and halo-ey mohair and silk blend, with glass beads. I started knitting it when I first returned to knitting a couple of years ago, and honestly, it was beyond my beginner’s skills. I struggled with the very thin yarn on the very slippery needles, with nothing on hand to thread the beads onto the yarn. So I got this far and then put it away. Apparently at some point I pulled the needles out – to use them for another project, probably? – but I don’t remember doing that. The pattern would be very easy for me now, so I hope to frog this and just start over with the same pattern. After all, I have the beads.
I know this is supposed to be a fearless inventory, but I’m not being fully honest here. There’s a sweater in progress, halfway up the back but I don’t like it so I’ll frog it and reuse the yarn, and a Christmas stocking for one of my girls, just begun and set aside.
There. Now I’ve been really fearless, I’ve confessed my excess. I feel much better. And I just noticed how many of my projects are made with madelinetosh yarn. I love her.
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