Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Lla;jfdsalkfdsjafdsl;jk

*snork!* Huh? Wha? Oh! Hai! How are ya, how's yer cat, how's the weather, how's every little thing?!

What? No! NO! No-no-no-no-no, heh, no. I wasn't asleep on my keyboard or anything! I was just doing this…thing…see, in Welsh, you always put an 'll' before, uh…

OK, fine. I may have dozed off just a smidge. It's been that kind of…hmm. Less than a month, more than a week? Weeth? Meek?

Oh gosh no. It has been no kind of 'meek,' y'all.

Work the last two weeks has been…let's see, what can possibly describe my working life these last couple weeks…ah yes. Here we go: I have been running like a schizophrenic squirrel pounding back highballs of espresso-meth infused Red Bull.

To make a very long and involved story shorter, we're deploying a new process in about a week. It's a pretty big deal; extremely "high visibility" and so forth and so on.

One of those things that has been talked three-quarters to death since April, but then sort of simmered on the back of the stove for a good long while before suddenly erupting into flames two weeks ago.

Because why do things over a matter of, say, six luxurious weeks when you can cram the entire six week lifecycle into only two? Oh, and if you can throw in some Technical Difficulties, the database servers having to be reset, key personnel being on vacation on critical weeks and such, well, you can have yourself a real party.

So I've been pretty much logging in to work as soon as my butt hits the bench on my 4:40 train every morning, and then I work straight on through until it chugs back into town at 5:30.

Awesome.

Speaking of which, the new schedule is working out really well. All obligatory "gosh doesn't commuting suck" kvetching aside, this is turning out to be a really good idea. MegaBank is getting a better deal in terms of how many hours are available for me to work for them, and in terms of how active my brain waves are during said hours. Much as I hate to admit it (don’t know why, actually), I'm one of those "morning" people types.

My ability to process information goes sharply downhill after, I kid you not, noon.

I know. That's pretty lame. But there it is – by 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon, if you don't see me write whatever you're saying down, just assume I will have forgotten all about it by tomorrow morning.

My timesheets are quite a bit better, too. Gone are the 5.5 or 6 hour days – right now, I seldom have a day that doesn't involve overtime. And it feels so much easier, since I'm not trying to log back in from home while the Denizens are pounding around trying to break the house apart with the sheer power of their noise.

It is impressive, their noise.

Speaking of the Denizens, I'm arriving a full hour earlier to grab them from the sitter's house, which makes them happy. And if anything goes wrong along the way, from meetings running just a little over to delayed trains to missed shuttles to more delayed trains, I still get there in time.

The delays would have to be pretty epic for me to miss my deadline these days.

I'd say the only real downsides are that I get a lot less time with the husband, and that I'm really tired, really early in the evening (golly, really? because usually people who have an alarm blaring at them at 3:30 in the morning are so chipper at night!).

Meanwhile in other news…I have some form of knitting-related depression. I've lost interest. It's all just sort of gray. I can't get worked up about anything.

This is because I want to knit a lacy shawl, but do not need one, nor do I have the appropriate yarn easily at hand, and furthermore I intellectually know that a lacy shawl (at least, any of the ones I want to do) (because why do an "easy" lacy shawl when you can choose one with a 600-row, 38-stitch pattern repeat?) is exactly-precisely the wrongest possible thing to choose as a "oh goody, let's sit on a train and knit!" sort of project.

And thus, I am sinking into a knitterly lethargy. I look at Eldest's Lillehammer and think, Meh – too heavy, too wool-y, too hot.

I look at my sock yarn collection and go, Yawn.

I look at every single ball of yarn in my easily-accessible stash and dash off the reasons it, too, just isn't right.

Too bright, too cool, too cotton, too wool, too acrylic, too blue, too orange, too brown, too not appropriate for a lacy shawl

I don't know why I get like this. I really don't. Most of the time, I'm pretty promiscuous easy-going when it comes to project loyalty. If the sweater is too big, I'll just throw a new sock on the needles; if the sock isn't charming me, I'll grab the sweater again. If this project is too complicated for a "take along" project, I'll just keep it next to the sofa at home for "at home" knitting and take something not-fussy in my mobile kit.

But then…every so often…I just… get my mind set on something that is completely inappropriate for some reason. Something that requires a yarn I don't have, at a time when I'm on a yarn diet. Something wool at a time of year when 97 degrees is a "cool" day.

Something complicated when all I have is train-time available for knitting.

Will I actually do that to myself? Will I make the time to dig through the put-away stash looking for a fingering weight yarn to make one of those excessively fiddly lace shawls I've been daydreaming about for the last two weeks?

I honestly don't know.

Except that yeah, I totally think I will.

Because visions of knitted on borders, cunning cast-ons, and the thought that seriously, it's not THAT hard to keep track of pattern repeats on a moving train (inability to learn from past experience: check!) keep running through my head. And maybe it's a Sign! And if I don't start this project, well, maybe something…awful will happen!

Far be it from me to bring about global economic disaster (or something) by refusing to Knitter it up and take on the overly-fiddly knitting project on the train…that's right, I would never let the world that depends on me down!

Because I'm a giver, people.

That's right.

A giver.

8 comments:

RobinH said...

Could convince yourself that say, a lacy *scarf* would scratch that itch, while being more portable? Or is it shawl or nothing?

KatherineR said...

How about lacy fingerless mitts? Anne Hanson has some designs over at Knitspot.com

Much portable fun.

Hester from Atlanta said...

Well, I too go through the same thing trying to satisfy my creative/knitting self with a yarn project that just doesn't exist. I don't have 4 kids to keep track of feed, clothe, care for etc. but I do have a long commute and it is 97 degrees out most days. So what do I want to do? Knit myself a hoodie long cardigan with heavy yarn that has maybe some wool, silk, alpaca. Why is this? Maybe we need a support group for totally inappropriate projects for the time of year? Best - Hester

Theresa said...

I totally understand the feeling. I haven't done commute knitting in a long time, but right now I want nothing more than to knit some sort of crazy complex lace using lace weight. (Actually I really want cobweb weight on size 0s, but I won't admit that even to myself yet...). This wouldn't have been a problem a year ago, but now I'm a mom and spend my days chasing my 9mo around the house. Most of my knitting happens while watching her play and I have to be able to leap up suddenly to grab her away from whatever she's getting into that she shouldn't. What about a scarf where every row is different, you could photocopy the pattern and highlight each row as you complete it. I've found that makes it way easier to keep track of where you are and a scarf is narrow enough that it's harder to loose your place on a given row.

Firegarnet said...

In my case, if I have that kind of um, fixation, then I will need to do something about it or else all else languishes. I second the highlight the row completed thing. I do that on *every* pattern now. Too easy for me to get distracted and then waste precious knitting time working out where I was.

Louiz said...

How about using sock yarn for a shawl? It's not as fine, admittedly, but you could start it *right now* rather than once you've located some finer yarn...?

Kate said...

Seems the lack of mojo is contagious - hope you didn't catch it from me! :-D

I say go for the shawl - you won't be happy 'till you do! :-)

PipneyJane said...

Keeping track of the lace? Lots of stitch markers, a row counter AND highlighter tape. Plus the occasional lifeline.

- Pam