Knitting: November 2008 Archives

Feeling better today. Had a strange but pleasant dream about having a loooong date with a friend of a friend; someone I actually know in real life and had briefly been interested in before dismissing him as likely too far out in the stratosphere for me. By which I mean odd, rather than unattainable.

I know, you'd think no one could be too odd for me...

Anyway, it still made for a pleasant dream, even though it ended with the kind of transportational hassle that's a very realistic outcome of traveling anywhere by MTA.

Also, I did go bowling yesterday, and I did my special lane-dance, and I got lots of hugs from Special J, and I got to hang out with Miz Fury and her really very excellent boyfriend, and even when they were being cuddly, it made me feel warm and happy for them, rather than painfully envious, so it was all good.

And then I rode over to Fury's house and ate some (okay, a lot) of their Thanksgiving leftovers, and then hauled my very full tummy through the dark, quiet streets and curled up with my kitty and knit some, which is pretty much what we're doing today, too.

J and I had planned to meet for brunch and some shoppingish errands, but she woke up feeling awful, and the weather is hideous, so we decided to postpone for a more auspicious time. Which is good because:

a) some days there isn't enough Gore-Tex in the world to make it nice out, and
b) I really need to make some headway on my gift knitting.

So here is a pretty pink cowl I'm making for a bike friend, and then there will be the gloves for the boy who's killing me softly, and then there will be a hat for another bike friend, and then the fingerless mittens and cowl for sis, and then many tiny cute hats for nieces, and then something for my mom, and then....my fingers will fall off and I'll still have several more people to manage gifts for.

I've noticed during the month of almost-daily posting that writing something every day sometimes helps me figure out what the state of my own head is. It's not that I end up seeing clearly or anything, but it's like getting a little compass reading. This day the compass is pointing southerly, toward fairer winds.

PS. Yes, that blur in the middle photo is Kitwich leaping into the frame. She has a passion for this yarn.

And then there are days when I manage to accidentally (or instinctively) give myself exactly what I need.

Laundry: check. A chore, make no mistake, but laundry is much like writing - I hate writing but love having written.

Ride into city and go to favorite tiny yarn shop, where the elbow room is minimal but the selection very nice. And the lady at the counter gives me the approving smile and compliments me on my choices (I love that). Buy beautiful Malabrigo Silky Merino in cloudy sky, for my sister's holiday presents. A cowl and fingerless mittens, I think - my two "everyone must-haves" of the moment.

Also buy the yarn for mittens for he who shall not be named but who may at some point be hugged. They didn't have any more of the Jitterbug I'd planned to use, but did have an astonishing array of Koigu Painter's Palette. And I know some of you will fall off your chairs reading this, so steady on: I've never before knitted with Koigu.

Magically, there was a colorway that contained all the colors I've ever seen him wear, in a delightfully harmonious blend. So the choice was easy.

Then, ride to bike shop and have impromptu dinner with several of favorite people in world.

Then, beautiful ride home in clear, chill night air. Not the kind that freezes your limbs off - just the kind that wakes up your whole body and makes you happy.

I really like having seasons; you know what I mean?

I went to the therapist today, to do some of that old work I've alluded to. And I was complaining to her that I hadn't managed to run into you-know-who in weeks.

And she said, "Well, maybe the universe is protecting you."

To which I immediately shot back, with the rapid-fire delivery of a 1940s film heroine, "Fuck the universe."

And we both exploded with laughter.

Fuck the universe indeed. I saw him. Instantly after he arrived, he got a message requiring him to dash off on a run (messenger-speak for package to be delivered). He spent the next ten minutes trying to get someone else to do it, to no avail, and packed up and left.

Fuck you, too, universe. Kiss my stellar muscular ass, you shithole.

Ride fast, take chances. That is all for today.

Today as I was packing up my bike bag, I made sure that pocketcam was stowed in there, safe in its little pink pouch, so that I could take some cityscapes for the blog.

But that was before I realized how finger-numbingly cold it was out.

It's the kind of cold that catches you unawares, the kind where you think you have enough clothes on, only to realize, after the frail sun goes down (at about 4 pm), that there aren't enough clothes in the universe to keep your extremities from turning into ten tiny blocks of ice, and - um - ten other tiny blocks of ice.

So instead I took lap-pictures. Here's the view from my lap, five minutes ago (now the view from my lap would just be a shot of this here computer screen, with this very post on it, like that room full of mirrors stretching endlessly and self-referentially onward).

Exhibit A: I wanted applesauce. It was too late (and too cold) to go buy some, but I had two oldish apples kicking around the fruit bowl, so I made some.

Exhibit B: Sleeping cat. Big surprise, I know. But hey, it appears to be her job. That and a lot of licking herself (and my head after a shower - ewwwww), and a certain amount of decorating the apt with cat-hair.

Exhibit C: Cowl-on-needles. Why? Because I need something I can yank over the bottom half of my face on days like these, and the balaclava I cast on for last night is gonna take too long. So this might be called The Interim Cowl. I made it in this pretty pretty hand-dyed lilac yarn that I bought at last year's Rhinebeck, to match the little earflap cap I'd already made out of it. Which he who shall not be named has dubbed the Little Blue Riding Hood. (After which I promptly removed it, since I hated that moniker) (But it was not as cold that day) (And I still haven't seen him - it's officially been a fortnight, if I am remembering the vague definition of that term correctly)

Anyway. I've got so little to report that it hardly seems worth mentioning. Clearly, I've fallen off the daily posting bandwagon, due firstly to illness and then to exhaustion and persistent malaise following illness.

I coulda beena contenda. Maybe.

I guess I just get tired of hearing myself talk about nothing, too.

I mean, I'm knitting (mostly gifts for fellow cyclists, since everybody's cold). I'm still on a bland awful American-type diet. White bread, for pete's sake. Chicken soup. And I hate eating chicken. I hadn't eaten a piece of animal flesh in maybe eight months, but I was starting to get faint from lack of protein, and my stomach will not allow me to ingest any of my normal sources of it yet.

Where are my vegetables, my glorious fruits? I looked at a bottle of guava juice yesterday and nearly cried. Okay, that's an exaggeration; it was more like a wistful sigh, but still. It was sad.

No guava. No Boy. Sigh.

Boywich is here. He likes his new gloves.

I'd been knitting them in secret because he reads the blog. They're simple stockinette fingerless mittens done in Jitterbug Toscana. Nice colors.

On me, of course, they reached almost all the way to the fingertips.

I'm exhausted for some reason; half asleep, even. Spent most of the day doing errands and laundry and stuff. Then we went into town, and he met a few of my cycling fiends - I mean friends - I mean fiends.

Kitwich has been very happy - it took her a few hours to remember who he was, but I fancy she's especially content at the moment because all the people she knows well are here.

I'd really like to tell you some kind of scintillating story, but it's mostly hangin' out here right now. Boywich may have had the idea that it'd be all dance parties in the big city, but I suddenly realize that I live a pretty quiet life most days. And that I'm pretty okay with that most days.

PS. He just read this and said, "I knew it wouldn't be all dance parties. I just came to hang out."

Does everyone go through this? Each season there is a color or small group of colors that kind of sets you afire, that makes you feel just right somehow, so that you want to wear nothing but.

It's not quite like having a favorite color, because the palette rotates quite a lot. For example, I tend to wear groups of colors seasonally - bright, hot colors in summer and cool darker ones in winter. But every so often a season will come in which there's one color that just sticks in my mind.

This fall it's deep dove grey. Stainless steel, Old Navy is calling it. At American Apparel, it's Asphalt. I could wear it every single day. Unfortunately I don't own enough of it to wear it every single day, so I am alternating it with plum and black and a particular shade of blue.

I'm enjoying those, too, but if I had to pick one, there'd be no contest.

It's all I want to knit, it's all I want to put on in the morning. In yarn form, one can have the variations spun right in, so that you knit yourself a garment with your whole season's palette.

I've been making myself knit some other colors, primarily as gifts for other people, but I feel like I'm chomping at some sort of bit to get at that Tortuga you see in the top edge of the photo. Grrrrrrrreeeeyyyyyy.

Okay, I'm doin' it. I'm not sure why. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but I have a feeling I'll get something out of it, if nothing other than the daily exercise of my literary muscles.

Though I suppose to really flex the lits, I ought to post fiction. If I run out of true tales to tell, it may come to that: 30 Tall Tales From A Short Person.

In the shop today, as I wheeled out my bike, another patron looked at it and said, "Hunh. I didn't think you were that small." Snort.

Anyway, I really am rather nervous about how I shall fill up a month's worth of posts. I expect at some point I will segue into the fantastical, as I am wont to do when entertaining myself in my own head.

For example, it occurs to me that if I were a superhero, my mutant power would be to make men forget they have girlfriends and/or wives. And as amusing as that may sound, it would not be my first choice of superpowers.

I should much prefer to be able to fly, for example - the better to swoop over the rooftops in the grey dawn light.

Time-traveling might be entertaining, in a Connecticut-Yankee sort of way. As would being able to wave a magic wand and degravitize certain objects.

During the mad pre-holiday rush, I might choose to be able to speed-knit - though I suppose that's not so much a mutant power as simply knowing how to knit Continental.

Aw, I'm just filibustering. The truth is, what's on my mind lately mostly has to do with being a bit lonely in a very specific way. I had a delightful day with friends today, for instance, and yet when I got home I still felt kind of lost. I've begun to feel, quite recently, that I may have passed over the border between wishing vaguely for a boy to play with and actually being ready to cope with having a boy to play with.

Believe me, there is a distinction. We shall see. So far, the mutant power does not extend to luring fabulous boys out of the woodwork. Okay, not to luring fabulous single boys out of the woodwork.