A Dim Capacity, Sir, But Mine Own

Today tastes like paper. Wet gooey newspaper with pineapple Life Savers, Red Devil wing sauce, spiked with chilled vodka. It started out boring and dead, but now it tingles and sings.

In Dickenson’s words, “a dim capacity for wings degrades the dress I wear.”

I met with Terpsichore tonight after work, to pick up the yarn I had forgotten, and I left with three new projects in my head. Have I mentioned she does that to me? She gives off sparks of inspiration, and I helplessly follow. (Ok, tell the truth—I prance merrily alongside and occasionally dash on ahead, guardian angels spinning madly in my backdraft.)

So now I have the shell to cast on the back of and complete, and it would be a Very Good Thing if I could get this bateau-neck top cranked out by January so it can go in the summer magazines, and by the way, the lace stole I designed for her is being featured in the January issue of “Creative Knitting Magazine.”

And I want to work up the pattern for this wonderful flippy crocheted scarf another designer worked up before life wound around her ankles and tripped her in the dark; plus I have some material for a lace scarf that’s worked from a faggoted center out (and it is so amazingly soft and wonderful—I taste Valrhona chocolate with lavender, warm and melting (lick it off the wrapper) when I touch this yarn. Swoon.)

And being me, I’m torn. I would love to get a resume of articles and projects and designs together sufficient to make my knitting resume impressive enough to make this, my sex job*, my sole job—but on the other hand, I have a ton of stuff I wannado for me me me.

I crave the Rogue and want to find out if the cabling works where I finessed it into a v-neck cardi. I found a site with tons of magnificent cables to deconstruct and rearrange—I don’t want their sweaters, not even with a switch to a cardi—but their cables are way cool. I have wool for a sweater for me—a simple 2 x 2 allover rib, v-neck, zips up. I have sock yarn enough to last three lifetimes and a desire to make enough socks to wear handknits every day for a month (or three!) without wearing the same pair twice.

And books! I love my Hugin books**, and seem to have one on me nearly all the time. I have a ton of paper to be processed into frippery pages that I love to write on, and I have two books, covers and all, waiting to be bound. Maybe this weekend.

The neighbors have put out their decorations, and I have a blog entry in mind regarding what they do each holiday, and some commentary on stuff and the way it moves in and takes over. I have photos from Mexico that need to get sucked off the card and cropped and massaged and posted.

So while I thought I had nothing to say a few minutes ago when I realized that it was Wednesday, and time to update the blog, I now realize I have plenty to talk about—except talking won’t get me any closer to doing!

So—closing it down in relatively good time. Will have progress photos come Monday to show what I actually did this weekend; though it may be nothing more that a shot of my semi-cleaned workshop.

*Sex Job—a job you’d do for free. You might even pay money to do this job, and the fact that you make a living at it is a source of amazement and wonder. Thanks to Hugh McLeod of Gaping Void for this term.

**Hugin books--In Norse mythology, Odin had two ravens, Thought and Memory; Hugin and Munin if you're a Viking. I find that my thoughts are not complete until they have been articulated, and incomplete thoughts clutter up my mind and lead to swirly obsessions.

Hence, I started carrying small notebooks with me, but having found that I didn't like writing on plain lined paper, I began binding my own blank books. I found I could do artsy stuff with the pages that made the process more fun--paste work, bubbling, other absent artist techniques that take very little input and look great.

I find the energy generated by working with the pages, creating the covers, and fiddling with the books generates more and draws me to keep pushing even when I get discouraged with the composting work that is a part of the process. When the books are filled, I can sort through the content and see what there is to be gleaned--then toss the book, because holding on to something like that is a lot like holding on to fingernail clippings. It served its purpose, now let go. You can't grasp with full hands.