Thursday, November 1, 2007

Becalmed

I seem to have lost my sense of humor. I'm not sure quite where or when, but it's definitely taken an extended leave, and I miss it. Maybe it happened when I was trapped in the house watching the county burn down, but if I'm going to be completely honest, I think it must've fallen out sometime before that. I've felt rather light on the humor this whole semester. In fact, I've been positively angst-ridden, which is not like me at all. None of this Germanic angst or schadenfreude for me (OK, there are a few people whose misfortune might make me laugh, just a little, and only for a few moments before I realized anyone was watching). Nope, I'm a good old-fashioned whiskey-drinking, bagpipe loving, you gotta laugh because baby no one is going to do it for you Celt. Full of joie de vivre. I mean usually I totally vive that joie. However, not so much lately, so if any of you have seen my sense of humor as it wanders about on its (presumably) merry way, could you send it home? Because I would really love to be able to laugh at my misfortunes.

While waiting for someone to revoke my humor's passport, I have continued to knit. On Monday, I had knit this:
It's the first of a pair of Wine and Roses mitts for my sister-in-law for Christmas. I zipped right through most of the thumb gusset before I realized that it was too big and that the lace just wasn't going to show well, so I ripped it out, hauled out needles one size smaller, and tried again. Now I have this:
I'm almost back to the pre-ripping point, so that's good. The thing about knitting small objects like this is that I (I can't believe I'm admitting this to a knitting public) don't swatch for them. I figure by the time I finish a swatch, if I had the gauge right, I could have had some serious portion of the thing done. If the gauge is wrong, I'd be ripping out the swatch and starting again anyway. I think I've gotten away with this in large part because I tend to knit to gauge on yarns like this. Now, for big things I do swatch, it's just the small ones.

I'm very happy with this yarn. It's the Dream in Color Smooshy I ordered from The Loopy Ewe a bit ago, and while I'd been wanting to make socks for me out of it, I did get three skeins, and this color seemed right for my SIL, so I'm sharing. At least I get to knit with it, instead of waiting until after Christmas knitting is done.

I also broke down and got myself a really big treat last night. I usually don't spend this kind of money on myself, but I had my reasons.
It's an iPod nano. The young men at Fry's clearly thought I was a whack-job when I told them that I was looking at the iPod shuffle (cheaper and smaller) because I wanted to listen to podcasts (I didn't mention that they were about knitting) and audio books (does anyone else my age have trouble not calling them books on tape?), not music (I didn't mention that I wanted to be able to listen to these things while either knitting or going for a morning constitutional; they clearly already thought I was 85 years old). Unfortunately, the way the shuffle works, you really can't easily listen to things like that, so the nano it was.

My hope (one of so many) was that part of the reason that my sense of humor has left for warmer climes is because I'm just not getting enough exercise. The problem is that, for the most part, having time to walk is going to mean hauling my patootie out of bed at what is, for me, godawful o'clock, so I thought I'd better have a bribe in the form of a book. I lay in bed the other night before finally deciding to buy it (I've been agonizing for a while, is that pitiful?) feeling cranky that once upon a time I lived in a place where I could go hike right near my house, where just being able to see the hills was enough to get me out of bed and I would never have plugged into a book just to get moving. However, I am trying to be realistic, and the fact of the matter is that urban neighborhood walking is not thrilling enough to make me get out of bed early when I could be sleeping, and maybe it's time to up the ante. With the time change coming, I'm hoping I can convince my body that 6 is the new 7.

Pssst. I'm going to tell you something I haven't told anyone else yet. I'm going to chop all my hair off. I think. (I'm hoping a new me might woo my sense of humor back.) In general, I see myself as a fundamentally short-haired person who occasionally tries to become a long-haired person. I always come back to short hair, though, and I think I'm there. We'll see if I have the courage to go through with it at my appointment tomorrow, but meanwhile, I'm going to expose myself to you in all my end-of-the-day, Powerbook Photo Booth glory, just so you have something to compare it to if I'm brave enough to go through with it.
You have 16 hours to either tell me not to do it or find me my sense of humor, or the hair gets it.

7 comments:

Anne said...

Want to send me a snail mail address? Clearly, serious measures are called for at this juncture.

p.s. I ALWAYS feel better after I chop my hair off. The anti-Samson, or something.

Marianne said...

You are so cute! How short? I figure go for it. Hair always grows back...right?
The knitting is beautiful...
I don't have an ipod..and I hate to admit it but I've never even held one.. (as she pokes her head out of her cave)...
as for your sense of humor... I'm going to send you a couple of things that hit my mailbox today..
hang in there.

Stell said...

ohhh ipod, yummy, and the knitting is cool to. I've been a nanoid owner since the nano 1, and had to physically brute force my bear from his shuffly onto a nano 2, the shop guy was right, you need the nano so you can navigate properly. And now - go and download all the cast-ons, all the sticks-n-string, and all the l&v. I dont' get L&v, must have caught a few bad ones where they just giggled, but every one else does.

sense of humour, where are those two girls from 'you knit what' when you need them - how about going back thru their archives?, i guess there is a really flat time after a near miss, I'm not sure what to do with that, but if you need a little nz perk, leave me a note and I'll see what I can do.

Rabbitch said...

Do it! If you don't like it, it'll grow back.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I think you should cut it. Add a little sauciness to your style.... For sure! Do a little color, too. A few blondy or reddish streaks. - Kim

Anonymous said...

With a conscious effort, I can call them audio books. I always have to think first.

The hair's easy - chop! It always grows back.

The sense of humour? Not so easy. Did a kid 'borrow' it for a while and forget to put it back where it belongs?

Anonymous said...

I just started reading your blog, after reading about it and realizing I must be your (much) older sister...years of teaching freshman writing, kids (now grown), knitting, etc. So much you write about really resonates for me, so thank you for sharing your insights. The hair? Definitely cut it--an inch or two off can feel so liberating.
As for the sense of humor, I guess we can skip quickly over the sadness most decent people feel at the state of our country these days. When you add the stress you just dealt with, well. My theory is that we lose our sense of humor when life gets pretty bad, then when it gets grotesquely bad, the old gallows humor cuts in. I'd never choose that extreme, but I've sure had some great laughs at points I thought were the nadir (of course, they weren't, but that can be funny, too--we thought that was bad!). If you have time to read a funny book or two, and borrow someone else's humor, I'd recommend Cold Comfort Farm, or Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat. I'd read references to Jerome's book for years before I finally tried it--I laugh just thinking about it, although my kids, who usually share my sense of humor, don't find it amusing. Anyway, worth a try.