Vitamin deficient. Or Something.

I have been reduced to stupid knitting for some time.  I have, like, a whole plan for what to do with some existing not-stupid knitting and even a desire to embark on some other even less stupid knitting - I have swatched, oh, how I have swatched.    But non-stupid knitting is dependent on one very important thing, a non-stupid knitter.  And that I cannot help you with.

(For clarification, stupid knitting is for when I am at a low ebb of focus and fuzzy of intellect.  The knitting itself is of at least average intelligence and often of great charm and beauty.  Which is to say, it is the knitter who is stupid, not the knitting.)
(excuse me, I took a drink and missed and have just poured iced tea down my bra.  It is quite cold.)
(and also, I rest my case)

Recently I have made a hat which I cannot show you because the pictures are at home and I am not, and am wearing a finished greenjeans sweater which I have never showed you - though you can find it on the Ravelry if you like (It is very good.  The sweater I mean.) and am taking my second run at a pattern I feel is a nearly perfect manifestation of the stupid knitting aesthetic - easily memorized, very beautiful, easily fixed when my attention wanders even further astray, pattern-free and multi gauge friendly.

(All in some chunky blue tussah silk I bought a year or so ago and which crawled out of the stash and bit me on the leg recently in a demandingly insistent sort of way.  I have been having some trouble buying yarn (though I expect this will pass).  It seems the demands of my existing relationships are enough; I cannot take any new lovers for a time.  And which I also cannot show you until I come up with a useful picture, so instead, look at this - the entire time I was visiting my mother for Christmas I tried to get up for the sunrise - forgetting that the east there is mountain-shadowed and by the time the sun reaches over it to us, rising is long past.  I finally got my chance at the airport waiting to go home: even with the tarmac, it was beautiful.)

 

I am distracted really.  Is it February?  Ordinarily a month that does not upset me, this year it seems extraordinarily gray.  Today I managed to blow my hair dry before I dressed rather than flying out the door soggily coiffed and in yesterday's jeans.  I was still 15 minutes late, mind you, but this is, nevertheless, an improvement.  In winters past I have used a lamp on a timer to combat middle winter mornings, and I realize now I've never gotten it set up this year (hardly seems worth looking for at this point), which may explain the past six weeks of pathological reluctance to leaving the insulated down cocoon I sleep in.  Does that mean that I am making progress in my fight against the gloom in some larger sense, even when the mornings feel like losing ground against something?

It was a good weekend - for years I have made the argument that we should switch to a 3 days off, 4 days on work schedule and have lower blood pressure and more sleep and generally happier lives.  No one listens, but every three day weekend convinces me further that a less bottom line approach to life is the key.

City Garden LES NY

I napped a great deal and met some excellent people and ate some excellent food and knit a bit and listened to music and read and made an important decision about what it OK and what is not and acted on it (no longer knee-deep in boys, regretfully) and also my mother had back surgery and is groggy and doped up and not looking forward to being moved later but essentially herself in all important ways, which is very good.  As much as I complain about her she IS my mom and anesthesia is scary.  Please remind me I said that the next time I wish to stab her through the eye with a US8 aluminum straight.

Oh, and I had Moroccan tea for the first time (also couscous with stewed lamb: if you are going to eat meat this is definitely the way to go, which is more than I can say for the hamburger I ate Friday), maybe a hair too sweet but delicious, and then walked six doors down to buy some too - fair trade the girl behind the counter informed me while she bagged my loot.  Which is nice.  Delicious AND you don't have to go to hell directly after drinking it.  Have you noticed that grocery shopping is becoming increasingly fraught?  One does one's best, but someone somewhere is being exploited on my behalf right this minute.  It is the nature of human life to damage both the environment and adjacent other life just in the act of living.  Unavoidable.  And yet.  I told someone recently I was starting to have a certain amount of sympathy for the Janists.
I just finished reading Women's Work, the First 20000 Years this weekend - reading it as opposed to owning it and having skimmed it enough to find it interesting.  Excellent book - any interest in women, textiles, archeology, good writing, history or language?  Read it (If you had, you would know that the Venus de Milo was almost certainly using a drop spindle before she lost her bits.  See?  Go. Read.).  And now I have to read the Mummies of Urumchi which I find I resent terribly, almost.  I have a life-long habit of avoiding paleontology and archeology as a backlash against the extraordinary numbers of bones I was asked to look at by my mother, who was an enthusiast and had the typical sensitivity to her audience that an enthusiast has.  I remember that when we saw Lucy my feet hurt and that's about it.
I should have more retroactive sympathy these days - can I show you some wool, perhaps?  But it is an excellent book - and makes me very sorry indeed I paid so little attention when I took linguistics from Dr. Barber a million years ago.  Honestly, my education was wasted on me in some ways and I rather think I owe her an apology.

Oh, there was a point to this, I swear - somewhere in the early part of the book she makes the point that we are the inheritors of the waste of 20000 years of human invention and industry.  I'm trying to decide if that alleviates anything, knowing that, or if its just context.  Fair trade tea hardly makes a dent, though I think its a worthwhile endeavor anyway. 

I heard from two long lost old friends last week and had a drink or two with someone who isn't lost so much as just not as intimate anymore.  It is interesting my gut responses to each contact - which ones I feel most positive about seem largely related to how close I was to being my essential self when I knew them.  It is very non-linear, which is a bit of a surprise - apparently my junior year in college was a time of greater solidity than the decade after:  identity is remarkably fluid sometimes, running into the corners of experience and environment and changing how you are no matter how fiercely you cling to your self-knowledge. 

You see people walking around drinking coffee with their white earbuds in, or sitting at a red light and they never show a bit of what is going on, not really.  Just people running errands, walking through the city with Joni Mitchell playing in their heads, or carpooling.  But inside we all have a lot going on, all these thoughts, passions, fears and excitement, stories piled up on stories, failures and successes and all the things that are neither but only life.  All these 20000 years of human development and we're still a mystery to each other and even to our selves.  It is scary to look at sometimes, that unregulated interior so very fearful, but what a glorious jumble it all is.    It is wonderful to be human.

 

Comments

[woolcat]

I have Joni Mitchell playing in my head all day even without white earbuds.

Interesting about connecting with old friends and what it says about the history of one's identity.

[Astrid]

"Mummies" is a great read -- go for it! And "20,000 Years" is one of my favorite books ever.

[Jennie]

Update, please. I'm feeling a need for another shot of Enchanting Juno.

[leanne]

if you continue to make me think, i won't be able to work on my stupid-knitting.

[Lene]

You saw Lucy?? I'm in a swoon of envy here...

[elizabeth]

My husband has been lobbying for years to take his retirement NOW, while he has the energy and wherewithall to do the things he wants to do, and he'll come back and work LATER, when he's too old to do anything else. His boss still hasn't come 'round to his way of thinking.

[claire]

The only times I ever really understand how much I have grown/changed/evolved are when I encounter the "long losts" and come face to face with my previous selves. Then I spend the rest of the day trying to figure out how I got from there to here...

Personally, I find I do best with ankle depth boys.

[Marilyn]

What a great post. Thank you. Most especially for reminding me that there are many things I know nothing about but having heard of their existence, I'm interested and want to know more. I believe it's called curiosity. Or learning. Or something that I used to have a lot of and do a lot of, but which (too) often falls through the gaping holes of adult life. Or my life. Oh, and thanks for teaching me a thing or two, also. :D

[lanea]

Holy crap, you studied with Barber? I am suddenly, painfully jealous. I will try to master it.

That 20,000 years is one of the only things I think about, in that I think about that, and sex, and food, and that pesky Web that pays my bills, and animals, and gardens, and, yeah, that's about it--really all of those later things in the list are part of item number one.

[Diane]

I wonder what is going on? I've been feeling the same sort of grayness. Life is OK, even good most of the time, but lacking in something...maybe enthusiasm? anticipation?

Good to hear that I'm not the only one who drops her drink down the cleavage. I even had to return these lovely, long-stemmed martini glasses...the boobs got in the way. I finally found some of the short ones.

[Jocelyn]

As you know, I recently re-read Women's Work myself (when did you take Betchen's class?). Maybe it's time for me to pick up Mummies again? She and her husband also more recently put out a rather fun book about the ways in which myths can be used to encode deep historical information in non-literate societies. I can't think of the title, but it was a fun read, and not a bone in sight, I promise!

[Lizbon]

PS. I am so getting that book.

[Lizbon]

Mmmm. Smashing last paragraph, darlin'. It is indeed a wonderful jumble to be human (and included in that jumble are some un-wonderful things, I think, but the jumble itself is wonderful, or at least wonder-inducing) - rather like the decorations at that restaurant, don't you think?

[Suna]

I looked at Mr. Greenjeans then friended you on Ravelry. Hope that's OK! I enjoy your blog. I hope you have recovered from the tea spill.

[julia fc]

Really? That book says that? I knew it! (remember my venus pose when I finished Scoop du Jour? I knew it!!!!)

[Charlene]

Great post. Really.

Too bad about the knee deep, which can be fun from time to time (I find myself, ummm, paddling in the shallows with occasional forays to where it's too deep for rolled-up pants, as I'm rather leery of the undertow).

[Mome-rath]

I read "Women's Work" a few months ago, and it's really stuck with me. So much so that if I get into the graduate fiber arts program I've applied to, it's probably going to be the backbone of the work I do there.

I loved your comment about how well we resonate with our contacts relates to how well we resonated with ourselves at the time we met them. It makes me wonder about the work we do—artwork, writing, knitting, crafts, etc. Do we make better work when we're better connected with ourselves?

[naomi]

Thank you, as always, for making me think.

Also, the greenjeans sweater looks wonderfully comfy.

[Michelle]

I love this. Love it. Love the flitting from topic to topic and it all feels connected, even though stupid knitting has very little to do with, say, long lost friends. Very little on the surface, anyway. It *is* all connected.

[Dr. Steph]

Nothing specific to say, except I always feel a bit warmer after reading your posts.