PlazaJen: Passion Knit

It's been hot. Two days ago, when I left work, the all-knowing screen in Mimi Murano informed me it was 100' outside. In my scramble for the camera feature on my cell, and of course, trying to wait to safely take the picture, the number dropped by one, but still. Even if Mimi miiiiight be overstating things a little (I have no idea where she gets her flair for the dramatic), it's fuckin' nuts. Hot, hot, hot.

(Uh, note the internal temp? And the fan on high?)

I was dangerously close to running out of Diet Coke at work, so before I picked up lunch, I ran into the CVS near work. I seriously had to maneuver around this woman three different times, because she was buying out all the clearanced perfume and makeup sets. I would have been a little more scathing in my irritation, but she looked so lonely, and seemed so timid, that I just imagined her in her studio apartment at night, trying out different looks & smells, waiting for someone to find her beautiful. Gah. Anyway, because I am NOT going to pay $4 for a 12-pack of Diet Coke, because I know someone, somewhere, will sell it to me for $2.50, or $3, I ended up with the last box of Diet Mountain Dew, which is my old trusty friend from back in the day, getting through finals week. And then? I sailed down an aisle that was lined with summer-themed items and things you normally can only buy on TV, and I did a double-take:

What. The. Hell.
You know, when I first started working after college, I remember having some ginormous earrings. They were crazy and fun. And yeah, they pulled on my ears. So? I stopped wearing them eventually. Or only wore them when we went out, versus all day. Apparently I hadn't discovered the Ear Lobe Support Tape System, which would have allowed me to never take them out. (I like the graphic treatment that shows the unhappy ear as red, possibly infected.) The icing on the cake is that this? THIS? This stuff's medical grade.

And my last dose of insanity for the day is my continued progression on the Mystery Stole.... I love Ravelry, and the huge community it is bringing together, and the opportunity to share ideas, ask questions, learn about new things - and then there's all the pictures of everyone ELSE's MS3, and I am just telling myself this is a good opportunity for me to NOT be comparative, and not be competitive (I'm really not, given how far behind I am). The comparative part is what's kicking my butt, because everyone else's photos look soooooo nice and sturdy and dense and you see the pattern definition - and mine looks like, durrrrr, there's probably a mistake ten rows back, there's NONE of this curling line stuffs - and as I kept examining it last night and hearing the stern perfectionist voices in my head (so strange, they sound JUST like my mom and dad, hm, think that's significant?) I kept arguing back that it just didn't matter. I'm not going to rip it back. I'm actually going to keep knitting it. I'm not abandoning it. I really like the process. This is a project I would normally NEVER ever do. It's way outside my comfort zone, my experience zone, and if I wanted to, I could look at it all as failure, failure, failure. Which is kind of what I've been telling myself about ME in general the past week, horrible ugly unkind words as I try to go to sleep, to the point of tears and desperately wanting sleep to end the hammering. Brains are funny, insane things, and sometimes they're hard to control. Last night as I looked at my knitting and looked at other people's knitting, I didn't drown out the littlest voice that said to just keep knitting mine as-is. And while I came close, and a few tears fell, I managed to stop the louder, meaner voices when I went to sleep, too. While the situation with my MS3 is minor, it's very real, and it somehow clicked through as a metaphor for bigger things. There's a theme to the design, and it will tell a story. I sort of like the notion that mine may be missing a few sentences? But it will also tell a story of its own.

Labels: knitting, life, random orts