Yarnspotting

I’ve been thinking about the homeless guy I saw earlier this week, the one with the HELP ME GET DRUNK sign. The librarian-in-training class I’m taking this semester is on Literacy and Services to Underserved Populations. So I should be growing more sensitive to literacy issues, right?

I already know that a staggering percentage of impoverished and incarcerated populations have very low or practically non-existent literacy skills. I imagine the same is true of homeless populations. So I started thinking What if that homeless guy couldn’t read?

What if he asked someone else to write that sign for him? What if he thought it said ‘Homeless and sober – please help’ or ‘Will work for food’? What if it’s the homeless equivalent of a ‘Kick Me’ sign joke?

There he was with a homeless guy ‘Kick Me’ sign and I’m making fun of him. I’m a jerk.

Besides affording an opportunity for me to feel insensitive, my literacy class yielded not one but two fiber arts-related run-ins last night. I went on a field trip to visit a library-based literacy class last night for a group project and it turns out one of the women in my group is a crocheter (seriously, I’m finding crochet peeps everywhere - it makes me wonder if they know something I don't). She spotted the sock-in-progress* poking out of my bag and we ended up talking needlesports for most of a lengthy T and bus ride home.

Another knitter was sitting in front of us (the 66 bus was crawling with yarny types last night), furiously working 2x2 ribbing on teeny double-points for the entire ride, so as I was getting off I asked “Sock or sleeve?” She said “Sleeve.” I said “Cool.” We shared a silent look of perfect understanding, and then I stepped off the bus.

I like to think the whole exchange had a pleasingly terse, masculine, almost Hemingway-esque vibe to it, if you can picture Hemingway with less repressed homoerotic tension and more knitting.

* “Progress” in this case being a generous term for the first inch of Socktoberfest sock # 2’s ribbing. Further progress stalled until tomorrow at the earliest due to having left said Socktoberfest sock at work. I was hoping Sock 2 would be less disaster-prone than sock 1, but thus far? Not so much.

On being "open"

I’m not what you would describe as an “open” person or a person who “shares feelings” well. Mostly I replace “feelings” with a combination of wine, self-mockery, and ironic finger-quotes. (Never doubt the power of ironic finger-quotes to trivialize emotional discourse. I’m making them right now, just without my fingers).

In a clear violation of the ironic finger-quoter social contract, I’ve recently been encouraged by a wide variety of people to be less “closed off” and more “emotionally available.” Judgmental people.

So trying to share my thoughts and feelings is a new thing, and frankly I'm really bad at it. I think I need signposts, or maybe flashcards, or some other very clear set of rules that will tell me what is good sharing (I’m worried about my presentation tomorrow?) vs. bad sharing (Every single time you open your mouth I just want you to SHUT IT?).

For example, I sat through an entire hour-long meeting this morning with my zipper undone. You’d think any one of my four female coworkers in the conference room could have, I don’t know, subtly motioned to me that my underpants were showing, but no. I discovered this on my own after the meeting ended.

Showing your underpants at a meeting clearly falls into the “bad sharing” category. This is the level of obviousness I understand.

Then this afternoon I saw a homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk near my office building holding a neatly hand-lettered cardboard sign that said HELP ME GET DRUNK. If I hadn’t been walking with my boss, I totally would have given him a dollar.

Probably more than a dollar, because that’s the kind of openness I can get behind.

11475 stitches later

I have a completed sock.



Only 11475 more stitches to go before I have a pair.

Knitting smut

Awesome Meredith has a special talent, besides helping me acquire yarn. She also finds kitsch-tastic pattern books everywhere - in thrift shops, at yard sales, I swear sometimes the more aggressive 70's patterns just heave themselves at her bodily as she's passing innocently by.

Her latest find was the 1969 "Gypsy Vest Book" which, as you might guess, had vests, vests and more vests. One vest was very, very special...



I really intended to come up with something witty to say about it, but the knitting porn pretty much speaks for itself.

Plus, I caught the last 20 minutes of Stitchy McYarnpants at Porter Square Books tonight. And I am humbled.

Too sick to knit

I had all these fantasies about being sick - I would lounge on my couch, knitting furiously while periodically dabbing daintily at my ever-so-slightly damp nose. Instead, I spent a lot of time knocked out on cold medicine, just "having a quick lie down" that would turn into three hour stretches of complete unconsciousness.

Needless to say, very little knitting has been done. I've also completely lost my sense of taste, so whatever I eat tastes like unflavored oatmeal. This makes food texture very important, because I really, really hate oatmeal. Baked ziti? Not good. Salad greens? Better. I might as well eat healthy if I can't taste anything, no?

I also think I might have spotted subway knitter in the wild yesterday. If not, I should apologize to the stranger I looked at so oddly for such a long time at Government Center yesterday evening.

Finally, I met a very nice crocheter on the train today, who asked after my sock. We talked yarn stores and preferred fibers. I also clued her in to the joy that is Windsor Button. I feel like my work is done for the day.

Alas, it's really only just starting...

I am not alone

This blog thing is the best. Not only do I spend way less time boring my non-knitting friends with knitting blather ('cause I can bore the entire internet, see), but there's all kinds of validation to be found.

Take Teep for example. Pattern-averse, half-assed swatcher, not the world's fastest knitter, and funny as hell: "I'm not using a pattern except as something I can hold my knitting up in front of and say things like, "La La La, I can't *hear* you!". Awesome.

In my own knitting news, I was couch-ridden with a wicked chest cold today (hear that, boyfriend? And yes, I Blame You). Minimal sock knitting was accomplished in between the horking phlegm and the chills and the sweating.

More importantly, I picked up an exciting new knitting skill. Well mostly a frogging skill, which given how much time I spend frogging things is probably more important than new knitting skills. I used to just pulled out the needles, rip back the stitches to where I made the mistake and then spend ages picking up each stitch individually. This was infuriating.

Turns out you can pick up the stitches before the mistake, then pull out the needles, rip out the work to where you've picked up the stitches and not spend hours fiddling with stupid, splitty yarn.

I ripped out the whole heel flap and puckered gusset and spent less than two minutes getting the stitches back on the needles.

It's like magic. If magic were self-evident, logical and clearly illustrated with helpful pictures in an introductory knitting book.

Dispatches from the very good goat department

Our trip to the Topsfield Fair began inauspiciously, with bad traffic at the Topsfield exit.

The traffic jam did give us an opportunity to sing along loudly, and embarrassingly, to my friend’s newly purchased Simon & Garfunkel Live in NY CD. There’s a wonderful moment in the middle of the show where Simon (or Garfunkel?) commends the civic-mindedness of “the guys selling loose joints” because they planned to donate half their proceeds to the city. Drug dealers these days have no sense of social responsibility.

In any case, after an hour of excruciating inching, we were informed that the fair parking lots were full and we would have to catch the shuttle from the satellite parking lot. I managed not to ask the nice policeman why the hell no one thought to tell people that before they spent an hour sitting unnecessarily in traffic. Ergh. Things didn’t improve much once we hit the satellite parking lot.



If I ever wondered how much I love fried foods and rubber frog-catapulting games, the answer is “an extremely unhealthy amount" because a full hour later, we were squeezed onto a school bus and dropped at the fairgrounds. And then things improved immeasurably. There were lights...



And rides...



And snacks...



There was a Latino dude playing the traditional Peruvian folk tune “(I Can’t Help) Falling in Love with You” on the pan pipes.

And, of course, there was this sign...



And this...



There were chicks hatching, which was really very cool until I noticed two of the chicks were having a rough time. One just lay there with a leg awkwardly twisted up and over its chest, racked by really painful-looking seizures. Another misshapen runty one kept trying, and failing, to stand. A little kid asked his distressed-looking mother if the runty chick was “going to make it” and in a stricken voice she told him “I don’t think so.”

It’s so wonderful when children can be exposed to the miracle of life – and the inevitability of suffering and death - at such a very young age.

I also saw real live sheep for the first time since I started knitting. Sheep are soooo much more exciting when you’re a knitter. They’re yarn, with legs.



I even managed to accomplish some hat knitting…



Many thanks to my fabulous friend Megan for driving and being such excellent (and patient) company.