Your Friendly Neighborhood Hermit

Hey. Hi. Yeah, I'm still around. Did you miss me? Did you maybe forget about me? It's okay. I think I kinda forgot about myself for a while there. Things at casa della Thorny have been strange. Well, not so much the casa as the cabeza. Nothing dire or anything, just... no more than one would expect of someone predisposed to depression who has spent three years at home with young children and who's recently suffered a major loss. I've got an appointment to see someone about that, so hopefully I will be more of my old self soon.

It's 5 a.m. and I just wrapped up some knitting and am going to post up about it briefly.

First of all - what am I doing up until 5 a.m. knitting? Well, y'see, it's September, which means it's Official Thorny Insomnia Month. The whole thing where the days get noticeably shorter? It jacks with my whole circadian rhythm business, and then it's just... bad. So I've been sleeping like a crazy person, at all kinds of weird hours.

The other part of it, though (and it's a shame my camera is acting up, because pictures really would help here) is that I did a preliminary dig through Active Stash - a clear plastic tote where my knitting resides, waiting for the children to decide to fuck with it. The objective, ultimately, is to reorganize the whole works. A few weeks ago (okay, almost a month ago now) I bought some storage goodniks from The Container Store, and it's high time I got them into use. Also, I was looking for something, though I'm not sure what that was at this point.

I've had a crazy-ass bout of Startitis the past month or so. Like... kee-ray-zee. I've been casting on at LEAST two new projects per week, and finishing squat. Things here are getting pretty gnarly, so I decided to do a bit of checking to see what was really going on.

Okay, I /had/ been finishing squat. Then tonight, as Caz got the kids to sleep, I finished the Argosy I started a few weeks ago (out of KnitPicks Swish Superwash in Fired Brick - lovely wonderful yarn, I can't wait to knit with it again). I'm not even entirely sure how that happened, to be honest. It was easily the fastest scarf I have ever, in my life, knit. Granted, I kept it slightly shorter than scarves I've done previously, but then it's not really a pattern that you want to make into a muffler, y'know? Plus I figure it'll stretch a bit with blocking. Even so - a really respectable, cool-ass looking scarf without really trying.

So, once I finished that, I kind of poked around going, "Huh. What should I cast on next? I don't want to drop down below 20 WIPs, after all...." (you think I'm kidding, but really? I'm probably not - it's been baaaaad.)

Surprisingly, I discovered a hat, plus four or five dish cloths in there which are all completed, save the weaving in of ends. I'll have to actually buckle down and do that one of these times. Especially now that I have to weave in the Argosy ends as well.

I also discovered five (5) (cinco) (cinq) (FIVE!) swatches in there, waiting to have their pre-washing measurements taken and recorded. So I did that.

I found the hat I'd started, partially frogged, and re-knit for a friend's birthday (the birthday was in August - I am a bad friend), then cast aside in disgust when I realized I was knitting him a giant cotton bucket. So I laid it out and actually measured it for a change, rather than just eyeballing it. I think the problem is not that it is too wide, but rather that it was getting too long. So, there will be re-frogging, but I've adjusted the pattern I'd brewed up for it, so hopefully the next attempt will be successful.

I found a Flower Basket Shawl I'd begun out of well-aged Malabrigo merino worsted which I'd intended to frog but never had. So I frogged it, then pondered for a few minutes and cracked open a book which is actually intended to be a gift for someone else eventually (just as soon as I can photocopy a few patterns out of it... you understand how that goes), and cast on a totally different shawl with the Malabrigo. I then knit about 35 rows of the shawl. So far it's looking nice. I think I'm going to like it. I just hope I can find the rest of the Malabrigo, wherever it may be hiding.

I looked through some patterns I'd collected here and there, including some culled from one of those "pattern a day" desk calendars. Some cute stuff there - I may have to cast one of those on soon. There's a hat that looks to go nicely with the Argosy, actually.

Finally, I started to put it all back away. And realized that really, I ought to at least finish the damn Hiuumaa Mismatched Mates I started back in May of 2006 (egads!). I'd reached the gusset on the second sock when some enterprising young hooligan(s) yanked the needles out and dropped some of the stitches. So I sat down and picked all the stitches back up, and then knit a few rounds, and then knit a few more rounds, and finally stopped before I hit a "downhill" section (you know, those sections in a pattern where you just /can't/ stop midway?). And then I carefully put it in my fancy new Sock Vault (courtesy of Meg for my birthday, also way back in August - coolest. present. evar!) along with the Kaffe Fassett-stripe sock I started last week and have been working on a lot lately (gorgeous colors!).

And then I looked around, and pondered if I could really justify staying up any later to knit, and well... I couldn't. I shouldn't even be blogging right now. Tomorrow (today to most of you) is soooo going to suck.

I was telling a friend, a few days ago, how really what I want is a nice long weekend someplace far away from everything. I want a nice cozy bed, a really comfy recliner, a DVD player with fresh batteries in the remote, a stack of DVDs to watch and all the knitting I can stand. A fireplace, regular doses of hot chocolate or hot cider (mmm!) would not go amiss either, but are not requirements.

The hard part is, while it would be lovely, I know it wouldn't truly help. Because I would still come back, and would still face the things I need to face - namely myself.

On a political-ish blog I frequent, someone made a comment last week that was, well, far too astute. You know, the kind of thing where the moment you hear the words all you want to do is go, "Shut uuuuuuuup!" and stick your fingers in your ears and sing at the top of your lungs so you can pretend you never heard it?

Yeah well, I heard it. I didn't want to, but I did. And try as I might to deny the truth of it, I won't be able to keep it up forever. Eventually I'll have to admit that, well... I'm more or less afraid to be me. Afraid to declare myself, afraid to step forward and actually /do/ the things I talk about doing, so afraid of failing or being called idiotic names or I-don't-know-what that I'm letting my dreams and goals and hopes escape me.

I don't know how to get past that fear, yet. I expect that's one of the many things I'll be bringing up at that appointment I mentioned above.

But until then... who knows. Maybe I'll see if I can't get another WIP finished.