in the land of the living

No postings, no pictures. I've spent the last week fully incapacitated by Cold No. 5 (not nearly as lovely as Chanel No. 5) and No. 31 root canal. I'm in a right good funk after five completely couch-potato days where I hurt too much and was too full of snot to do anything but watch bad daytime reality TV and eat very soft things only on one side of my mouth. I feel so unplugged from reality and my life that it couldn't have been much worse if I'd gone feral and naked off in the woods. Harvey was a snugglebunny (he really does sleep for ten hours a day, I discovered, every day, and is just a happy little snoring stinker if he can do take his naps on the mama)--without him, I think I'd have felt like an asylum inmate. And what's more, I didn't get nearly enough knitting done. Once I figured out the short row heel mess on the Easter Egg socks, they just became boring boring stockinette again, and there's something truly mind-numbing about two at once on one long circ. But I don't really feel like starting anything new. Maybe after all those months of debating whether it should be the sadie blankie or the faina's scarf or socks, it's nice to only have one project going. But I'll bet it also means I don't knit when I would like to be knitting because I just don't want to be so bored.

a day full of januaries

It's supposed to be a knitting blog, I know. But the lovely thing about having no readers is that it doesn't matter if I stray from knitting for an existential soliloquy. I have a few new pictures to post, but they are stored on my laptop and our network is not working.

A long day full of work. I went in at 6:30 a.m., worked until 5, went home, ate something, kissed B and had a small sleepy-nap, and returned to work from 7-9 p.m. Since I also had a LARGE latte at 7 p.m., I find myself buzzing with that ultratiredness/caffeinated combination. Since my hand hurts from battling/frogging the short-row heel four times yesterday (the damn instructions are just WRONG, I decided, since Ms. "Che Guevera" Wulster says to slide the heel onto the cable when it's still on the left-hand needle and thus not at all in the sliding position), I decided to wind down by reading knitting blogs instead of knitting.

I love knitters. Just browing the PNW blogs tonight, I find that many of us share fears, frustrations, and frailties, and today, that helps. If that sounds like a january statement, it is. I always get a wee bit blue and jumpy in january. Perhaps seasonal--right now it's pouring rain like an open fire hydrant outside, and it has been for 20-something straight days, with no end in sight. It's definitely existential, our family virus: time is ticking, and look at all that I didn't accomplish last year. Will this be another year of failed intentions? (somehow I always forget in that question how much I did accomplish)

I came home on Friday in a right good funk, and B, who is patient and loving and nevertheless hates the januaries, listened for a bit. These days I am fortunately pretty good about talking myself down out of the tree when I get going--I do what I've recommended to clients, I stop the circling thought and remind myself of its distortions, of how much I did accomplish. I allow myself to just be as sad and fearful as I need to be in the moment, and the moment passes. It helps so much to acknowledge that this is both the dying of the old year and the birth of the yet unknown new year, a fallow time, a time of darkness and possibility at the same moment. There are losses to grieve, hopes that hang by a thread, disappointments. But I began last year to feel in one small corner of my heart that I am enough, that my pace is enough if I just keep trying, just keep moving. I want to reclaim that feeling, and I am grateful for the way the januaries remind me of what's important. And, this morning as I got ready to go to work, I rememered the Carbon Leaf lyrics: "Pace yourself when outrunning fear/take cover when it's dark/and keep an even keel." In other words, take care of the baby.

mea culpa, holiday absences

A month since my last post--heresy. Don't kick me off the KAL's, please. I'll share a knitting story:

We flew to San Diego on December 16 to meet the fam and then catch the cruise the next day. I'd had a hellish time getting away from work (both jobs), painfully cracked a filling at lunch two hours before we left, had felt old and fat and frumpy on the shuttle to the airport--filled with students from the college where I work (last day of finals and all)--was realizing I had spent way too much on swimsuits, had packed a seriously overweight bag and still had the nagging feeling I'd forgotten something. (I'm getting to the knitting part.)

The thing I was looking forward to most was popping on my mp3 player ("Shopaholic and Sister," a guilty pleasure courtesy of audible.com) and knitting along on the Easter Egg socks (while trying not to kick myself for all those times in July when I told myself it was too early to start knitting Xmas presents). So I settle into my seat and pull out my knitting. The flight attendant comes by, coos, and asks what I'm knitting. Socks, I say, all puffy-chested with pride.

Then I notice that the woman sitting across the aisle is staring at my knitting. I'm beginning to feel very interesting and accomplished when she says, "Do you mean to tell me they let you bring those on the plane?" (gesturing at the needles) I nodded and said something about they've changed the rules. She then says, "But they're really sharp, aren't they?" I hold my sz 1 Addi Turbo out and say, sort of, wondering if I look like a terrorist. She harrumphs and makes some snotty comment about how it doesn't make sense with all the other things they won't let you bring on the plane, etc. etc.

Sometimes I hate people.

The socks are coming along but Carole Wulster should never write another knitting book. The instructions for the short-row heel are unintelligible.