Thursday, November 29, 2007

Friends Don't Let Friends Knit....

I am caught in a time warp. Because I haven't seen many movies since I started on this child-raising thing 16 years ago (lack of money, lack of time), my points of reference for actors and actresses are, well, a little off. So when Derfwad Manor posted fairly recent pictures of Jessica Lange and Ellen Barkin, I thought she was playing a cruel joke. I remember the fresh-faced Jessica from Tootsie. Ellen, girlfriend, in my heart you're still the young wife in Diner. But here I am looking at pictures of (not very gracefully) aging women. I feel like Rip van Winkle, waking up after 20 years. Ah, the ravages of time.

Giddy with triumph over our potty training success yesterday, I neglected to stick a diaper on Susie when she fell asleep in my bed last night. So, when I went up to go to sleep, I had to strip the baby and the bed (I love doing this at midnight). Susie slept through all of this. The whole episode agitated me a bit, so I went back downstairs to get the pee smell out of my nostrils and edit some more photos. I went to bed at 1 AM. Which explains why I passed out while I was putting Susie to bed (with a diaper) this evening. And missed half of my weekly Knit Night.

Which is all right, because I hate knitting. I invested so much time in one stupid sock, and it persisted in getting bigger and bigger (not in a good way) as I knit it. I kept telling myself that it would still be all right, that it wasn't that outsized; but tonight the scales fell from my eyes (what does that mean, anyway?) when another knitter looked at it and suggested, not unkindly, that maybe I could hang it from the fireplace on Christmas Eve. It's that big. I think you could fit a small laptop in it. Or you could have, but not anymore. Because now it is just a big pile of yarn sitting in the middle of my dining room table. Waiting to be made into a smaller sock. Or maybe a sweater, if I can find a pattern simple enough. Or maybe I should just cut it all up into tiny little bits to punish it for wasting hours of my life.

I take failure sort of personally, I guess.

Time is running out....gotta post or the NaBloPoMo monster will get me.

14 comments:

  1. You hate knitting. I hate yoga. I don't care how popular it is. I hate it.

    I remember Ellen B. in Diner too. I loved the scene with the bucket of popcorn...remember that one? And, hell's bells, have you seen Micky Rourke lately. I think he spent some time in prison. I actually think all the women in my post would be quite lovely if they would just quit using the botox and ease into middle age like the rest of us. And Jessica Lange...she was so ethereal and stunning in Frances...before the lobotomy.

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  2. Those pictures were shocking weren't they? Even more shocking is looking at myself recently. We spent a week at the beach with old friends this summer. When we were together it was as though time had stood still, I felt the same, they looked the same to me....until I got the pictures back. Something about being held still in a photo. I looked at us all in those photographs, suddenly SAW us as we really are and thought - Oh.My.God WHO are those middle aged women?

    Pretend like you really intended to knit a stocking for the mantel - 9/10s of success is pretending that's what you intended in the first place!

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  3. I don't like knitting either, but I do like to crochet - this was a cute post - take care. Kellan

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  4. I do not enjoy knitting. I had friends tell me to take it up because it was so relaxing. I think, at one point, my head almost exploded. If I want something for my child that is knit, I look on ebay.

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  5. I have no idea who any of those people are so I'll just jump down to the part about knitting! Have you been knitting long? I've been at it for about a year and have knit baby blankets and baby hats, a beanie for my husband, and just recently completed a skirt and headband for Emily (which you saw on my blog). I haven't attempted anything like socks yet. I think that's over my head still!!

    If you haven't been knitting long, I'd say stick with it and have fun! I'm finding myself able to knit things that 6 months ago would have been too over my head and out of my range of ability.

    anyway, HUGS, too bad about the sock... Would have been fun to see a pic of it hanging by the fireplace!

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  6. I do not miss toddler pee in the bed. However, as I am looking more and more like Ms. Lange these days I suppose I might be next to pee in the bed.

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  7. Oh I wish I still had the pink pants I knitted my daughter when she was about 2. I somehow didn't notice till I was nearly done when my husband pointed it out that if I kept going it would fit me. I was the laughing stock of the Chilean population here. About 3 years later it fit her. I feel your pain.

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  8. I hate knitting, too. People say they do it to relax -- but I cannot fathom anything more stressful.

    Sorry, not much support here. Hope Susie continues to do well. Yay for her!

    Heidi

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  9. Ah the days of toddlers peeing in my bed, can't say that I miss that part!

    I remember all of the movies that you mentioned and whenever I tell my girls to watch them because they were so great, they look at me as if I am an alien.

    As far as knitting goes, maybe I don't want to learn to knit, after all!

    Have a great day!

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  10. I'm with ya sister. The result of TB cough that lasted a month is RC waking up in the middle of the night demanding a sippy cup.

    The ultimate result was like last night; me changing him from the skin out at 2:00 am. I tucked a folded towel across the crib rather than changing that shit, I mean sheet.

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  11. I've switched to baby booties. They're fast - I'm big on instant gratification. I had to rip one back halfway the other night, and it only erased an hour of knitting, not a week.

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  12. That's why I've switched to baby booties. They're cute and fast. I had to rip one back halfway the other night, and it only erased an hour of knitting, not a week.

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  13. I love the idea of cutting the yarn up into little bits to punish it!

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  14. Dude.

    Google "Silver's Sock Tutorial" and then GO THERE. She has photographed every single step and explained it to the point aht even ADD people like ME can understand.

    Do it. And be converted to a sock fanatic forever.

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