Re-Entry

So there I was, having the time of my life with my two sisters, who only improved the situation by also having the times of their lives, when the weekend came to a screeching halt and Monday reared its ugly head.  Strange how sometimes a little time away can feel like a month off on vacation, and other times many days off in a row do nothing to give one a break. 

Re-entry is of course, what happens to objects which have been in orbit and then must come back into contact with the atmosphere.  It is also what happens to people who go on weekend motorcycle adventures with their sisters and then have to go back to the office on Monday.  The process is invasive, inflammatory, and generally a sucky transition from one plane of existence and frame of reference to an entirely different one.  Common symptoms include jet lag, hangover, disorientation, disillusionment, financial strain and criminal record.  In this case, my only complaints are disorientation and disillusionment, but it's enough to really stink up my attitude. 

The other problem might be self-fulfilling prophesy:  I took a day off from knitting and now I don't feel like working on it anymore.  I was so afraid to give myself a break, and now I know why.  I was afraid I wouldn't feel like starting again.  So in the interest of self-motivation, I will list all the great reasons I can think of to get back to work:

1.        Knitting is an excellent excuse not to do laundry.
2.        The weather is not miserably hot today, so sitting under the project will not hurt a bit.
3.        My lovely DH will be preparing our evening meal (as he has done all summer) so that I can work.
4.        Knitting does not require any more physical strain than say, beer-drinking, and is far more productive.
5.        Failure to meet my publishers deadline will result in extreme embarrassment and lack of cash.
6.        I am making a sweater, not mapping the human genome.  It's not that challenging, for pity's sake.

Okay, I think that was helpful.  Except for the part where I reminded myself about beer-drinking...

Shiny Side Up

After a long week of tribulations whose details I will spare, I made it to Friday.  At last it's time for my long-awaited bike ride with my sisters.  Here I am on Growly, my trusty steed of six years.  She and I have been through a lot together, and look forward to many more miles.  Of course, when I really ride, I wear protective gear; this is just a snapshot my friend took for fun.

I have been asked what if anything motorcycles have to do with knitting, and the answer bears more introspection.  The similarities are many:  Both are the kind of thing people tell me they always mean to try one day ("I wish I had the patience to do that!"), both require gobs of practice and huge amounts of concentration.  Both require a degree of courage, which I should add is NOT the absence of trepidation, only the fortitude to press on in the face of it.  Both activities seem to give others a handy tool for pidgeonholing me:  Oh, she's a biker/Oh, she's a knitter.  And both are about as expensive and time-consuming as I choose to let them become.

Tomorrow will be my second day off from knitting since April.  Not that I can bear to leave the knitting at home - I get too squirrelly for that kind of abstinence - I need to know I can always work if I want to.  But I will admit that the rest for my wrists and elbows will be really nice.  I am maybe halfway up the body of the Leopard sweater, so I feel pretty good about its progress.

If somebody asked to see a picture of the real and unvarnished me, I would have to say this is it.  Till next time (I will) keep it shiny side up.

Keep Swimming

Here is Finn, my faithful (albeit somewhat indifferent) desktop companion.  He leads by example, never getting too riled up about things one way or another.  He appreciates his treasures, but doesn't spend a lot of time obsessing about them.  He takes the time to hang out amongst the greenery, and remembers every once in a while to come up for air.  I could learn a lot from a goldfish.

I have begun my next Nouveau Nordica project , knitting with abandon in the sure knowledge that I have calculated both the size and the gauge correctly.  Or Not.  But the abandon part is true at least.  There is nothing like the momentum of enthusiasm I find in the first few inches of a new sweater.  I think it comes from the pristine quality of a project that I haven't (to my knowledge) messed up yet.  That first screw-up usually ends the honeymoon for me.  After that its just a regular old marriage: Do your best, keep on working, and hope it will seem funny to you later.

I spent some time yesterday on Project Management.  This is a euphemism I use to describe the act of fidgeting around with and reorganizing all my information.  I make spreadsheets and fill in notes on my calendar, and generally revisit all the parts of the project without actually working on any of them.  I guess it's my way of taking the book's (or maybe the author's) temperature.  Something drives me to intellectually pick up and put down every single piece of the work, making notes about what stage everything is in.  I am always hoping to find signs of actual progress during these navel-gazing sessions, and I guess I do, but it's never as reassuring as I would hope.  Ultimately I know what I knew before the fit of introspection:  The deadline is coming and I better haul ass.

The phenomenon that really blows my mind is the way projects have of filling up the time they have been allotted.  I know that if I had a year to do this book, that is how long it would take me.  If it were four months, rather than six, I guess I would somehow do that, too.  So I'll just have to keep swimming.