the Village Knittiot

Tonight I descend into utter lunacy with the beginning of a 5-week Spanish course worth 3 credits toward my language requirements for teacher certification. The class meets Monday through Thursday for 2 hours in the evening. I will have exactly one half hour between the time I get off work and the time I need to be in my seat ready to learn. I am feeling a little intimidated by the severity of the schedule, particularly since it comes on top of starting the new job, but my experience has been that a busy schedule usually means I am getting more done in every area of my life. Except perhaps knitting, but that is another story…

Once I am done with the Spanish class, GRE study commences with the goal of taking it late August/early September. Then it will already be time for the next round of Spanish (this time only two nights a week - thank goodness). At this point, it is looking like a January start on the Master’s program.

I realize this is a lot of tedious details, but for myself I just needed to post it somewhere public. Perhaps so it would seem a bit more real outside of my own brain. The start of a new job is always such a hopeful time — you know, the “Maybe this one won’t suck!” brand of optimism. I wondered a couple of times if my plans to get my teaching certificate weren’t hatched out a desperate need to escape the last horrible place and that a new job I enjoyed with people I like would weaken my resolve a bit. Nope. Even if this place is the wonderful environment it seems to be, that doesn’t change a thing. I need to feel like I am doing a little something more with my life, and for me, teaching is still the answer.

Anyway, new job, crazy schedule, summer (upcoming visit from mom!!) — thought I ought to make at least an attempt at explaining why the streets of the Village seem a little deserted as of late…

Today Mr. Knittiot and I celebrate our one year anniversary. Like all good stories, ours started long ago in another time and place. And like all good heroes and heroines, we didn’t get here without our fair share of struggle, disappointment, fear and sorrow. But, if we learned nothing from fairy tales at least we learned it is the beauty and the promise of love that carries you.

I was sixteen the first summer I worked at the Renaissance Festival, and I felt every second the possibility of life and the anticipation of serendipitous change in the way I imagine many sixteen year olds do. One evening, just before the closing canon, I was standing there on the fringes of the nightly drum jam watching the belly dancers twirl themselves into oblivion, the gypsies beating out a hypnotic rhythm. There was that particular smell that I always associate with festival, a blend of patchouli and smoke and sweat mixed with hay and the scents of summer evenings in the country. I had a rose in my hand that one of the flower girls had sold to me for a dollar. Then the most amazing thing happened, I looked across the field to my left. How many things in our lives have changed forever because we looked to the left or took a right turn and ended up somewhere else?

I’m painfully aware that I can never really describe this moment without breaking down into the language of romance novels and old movies. But truly, when I looked to my left, the light at that particular moment wrapped itself around this one man like a halo. Everything in him glowed, the long hair hanging around his shoulders, the skin of his face, his hands. I’m pretty certain it was in that instant that I loved him. And even though I’m not sure I believe in past lives, if I ever recognized someone I’ve never met, it was him. I walked up to him and handed him the rose, which he promptly ate. Yes, this was the love of my life.

His was the most amazing friendship I’ve ever had. It influenced me in ways I am still discovering. But timing is a curious thing, and in the end we lost touch the way people do. But there were dreams. Almost every third month like clockwork. The kind so real you have to think about where you are when you wake up. For years I secretly believed he was stopping by in my dreams to check on me, make sure I was okay. And I was sure that if I ever needed him, he would know and be there. Apparently I was right.

A couple years after college, I was working in a miserable soul-sucking job when I suddenly sat bolt upright in the middle of my day and said (almost out loud) “I have to find him.” And I did. Of course, that is a whole other rabbit trail of a story that ends right here where I am sitting at my computer typing out a story that is still a little unbelievable to me.

The morning we were getting ready to go down to the court house I happened to be straightening up a few things in my office and came across a very old journal dated from 1997 – four years after the last time I had seen Corvus. I opened it up to somewhere in the middle and right at the bottom of the page I saw that I had written “Today I told God that Corvus is the only person I want to marry.”

Sometimes, dreams do come true…

Yesterday was my first day at the new job. Like most first days, it was exhausting. I crawled into bed at about 8:30 and collapsed. This much is clear already, it is going to keep me very busy once I am up to speed, and that suits me just fine.

Of course, that initial adjustment period is always a little like purgatory. You are figuring out how to do everything, even the simple things like where to find the staples and post it notes. And I’m one of those people who want to know what I’m doing already so I can just be doing it.

The really good thing is that on the surface, nobody seems miserable. And because it is such a busy environment, it appears that nobody really has time to get miserable. This alone was enough to make me breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Sunday afternoon Mr. Knittiot and I spent some time working in the backyard. Doing this is something that we have to work ourselves up to. I mean, we have to plan it like three weeks out. And then I’m pretty sure we both spend those three weeks praying it will rain. Owning a home is a first for both of us. And sometimes it is a little bit intimidating.

The family we bought the house from had owned it for 87 of its 88 years. The woman who lived here (and moved to a nursing home shortly before we bought it) had been born in this house. I expect she intended to die here, but apparently that just wasn’t in the cards. The truth is, she probably lived here about 10 years longer than she should have. The house is all potential, but it’s hidden under layers of neglect and grime. I’m not usually too sure how to go about uncovering that potential, so I tend to huddle in my office on the second floor and freak out about how much I don’t know about owning a home.

This is only our second summer in the house, and last year I think we went into the backyard maybe 5 times. And then it was only to quickly run the mower around and flee. It is so wild back there, I don’t really feel like I belong in it. The wildness of it all looks great from my kitchen window, but standing in the middle of it is a lot like intruding.

Sunday, however, it wasn’t raining and we had planned to go outside that day. It was actually the perfect kind of yard day — cool and overcast — but I’m sure we could have easily found a good excuse to not go out there. It was, after all, threatening to rain. But we stuck to our plan. After running the push mower over the yard (we have one of those excellent push-me-pull-you old fashioned mowers — kind of the grass equivalent of one of those carpet sweepers) we started talking about our plan of attack.

The woman who lived here, in her better days, must have been a phenomenal gardener. Even through the overgrowth, the raw materials of a cozy backyard are evident. So we decided to take one section at a time, starting right at the edge of our back door where there was this little flagstone path leading out to the yard. Well, we thought it was little, but what we saw — a few feet long and a couple stones wide — is actually about 7 or 8 feet long and 4 stones wide. Over time, dirt had washed over the stones, roots had taken hold, and they just kept creeping their way across the top.

So we cleared that off and got an excellent start on pulling out the frightening thorny bush that appears to be dead, but keeps shooting up new thorny growth all over this one corner of our yard. I’m pretty sure that we found the spot for our garden, which will be a next year project at the earliest. This summer will be mostly about carving out a little space for us in the midst of all the wildness of our backyard.

Last year I went to Rhinebeck in search of yarn and came home with a drop spindle and a couple pounds of rovings. Not yarn, per se, more like the embryonic equivalent of yarn. Three weeks later, my honey of a honey bought me a wheel (the spindle was soooo slow). Since then I’ve spent a considerable amount of time wishing that I had bought more fiber. At least more fiber that wasn’t so pretty and soft I was afraid I’d ruin it. In the last eight months I’ve managed to dabble and experiment my way through a little more than half what I bought. Still, everytime I look at the results of my spinning, I am a little disheartened at what has become of those large piles of fluffy soft merino. It isn’t that my handspun is particularly awful, it’s just not very stunning…

Also over the course of the last eight months, I have become progressively more obsessed with lace knitting. An obsession only fueled by the Fiddlesticks Triple Mohair Triangle Shawl Kit given to me as a birthday present by my mum. True, lace can progress slowly. And, often times, mistakes are not apparent until you get several rows into something and at that point ripping back your work can be quite an ordeal. Then there are the things you don’t see at all until you block your work. Nevertheless, lace is lovely and worthy of obsession. There is such an art to it. And the slowness of it all and the attention it requires and the rhythm you get into — there is nothing like it. And I must admit the tiny, tiny thread-like quality of a laceweight yarn has me over the moon.

So, on Saturday, when I picked up half a pound of plain old natural white roving, I decided that I wanted to spin it into a lace weight and design myself a shawl. Never mind that I had never spun a lace weight. Or that my strictly amateurish attempts at a standard sport or DK have been uneven at best, wildly varied at worst, and usually more on the worsted side than anything. But, lace weight is what I wanted, so lace weight I set out to create. And you know what? I did!

I am spinning singles so fine, the spider living in the corner of my den is starting to eye me with the cool and jealous air of competition.

I am knitting a quick swatch on 1’s and the stuff is loose enough that I think I would need triple 0’s if I wanted to get a tight weave. It is soft, but strong, and even with 2 strands plied together (pictured below) I am still measuring 31 wraps per inch! If you want a point of comparison, fingering weight comes in between 16 and 18 wraps per inch.

Now, I’ve got nothing on this girl (40-50 wraps-per-inch and all on a drop spindle!), but I have to say I am feeling pretty giddy over my spinning right about now. And my mind is awhirl with the possibilities. A soft lacey wrap? A delicate cardigan perfect for cool summer evenings? An elaborate shawl? Only time will tell. For now, you’ll find me happily spinning away the early morning hours mesmerized by the fineness of my yarn.

Also, if you are looking for a little bit of inspiration, and you don’t mind potentially being tempted into another one of the fiber crafts, check out the tapestries this woman weaves. I have never seen anything like them. I followed a link and followed a link and followed a link — you know, the way you’re apt to do on a lazy afternoon at a job you hate — and there these were. I was so overwhelmed that I wrote her an email just telling her how awestruck I was. And you know what? She wrote me back! Just to say thank you. Pretty cool in my book. Please note that she spins and dyes her own fibers to create these phenomenal works of art (her artist’s statement is worth reading). She also knits and writes and teaches and is just damn amazing.

As some of you know, Mr. Knittiot and I recently switched our domains to a new hosting service. Since the introduction of the uber-shitty Network Solutions into our lives, things have been a complete nightmare.

Our first clue that things were not going to go well was the discovery that they LIED TO US about all the reasons we decided to switch over to their *@%#! service in the first place. Then, when Mr. Knittiot called them and said, “Um, I have an email from you guys that states I would get the following services/features/options, but it doesn’t appear to be that way at all.” They said, basically, “We didn’t say that.” And he said, “Yes you did.” They said, “No we didn’t.” And he said, “Would you like to see the email?” And they said, “No. We didn’t say those things.”

One of those things they failed to deliver on was a pointer from my old URL to my new domain’s URL. This was particularly disheartening to me, since everyone who formerly read, bookmarked, or linked to my blog found only a lonely error message when trying to connect to The Village. Okay, so I lost some readers. Those among you with enough tech savy or who’s email address I had, I tried to let know. Then I discovered my RSS feeds stopped working, and that I no longer received email notification when I had a new comment. Also, sometimes, in the middle of the day, the site would just go down.

These problems (and more) resulted in long conversations with customer service where they told us things like, “The problem is your email service provider.” Okay. Rounds of no-it-isn’t-yes-it-is would ensue. They would reluctantly open trouble tickets for the treatment of such problems and then Mr. Knittiot would get an email from them saying the ticket had been closed and the problem was resolved, when clearly the problem had not been resolved. In short. They are fuckers. So, we are taking our business elsewhere.

Once again, this means a little upheaval. Some potential downtime. And ultimately the ability to breathe a deep sigh of relief. This time, we did a little more homework. And by we, I mean Mr. Knittiot. This place is the real deal. They get excellent reviews all around. And most importantly, they aren’t liars. So that’s good then.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know what was going on. You know, just in case you end up in some other dimension because you happened to visit my blog at exactly the right moment in the space-time continuum where alternate universes collide and all that. Most likely though, you’ll just encounter an error message, but not to worry — we’ll be right back.

If you do end up in an alternate universe — either I’m really sorry or you’re very welcome.

Okay, so I got it. I am about to go tell these bastards they have until Friday to learn what it is that I do. Now that it is real, I’m shaking like a leaf. Also, I learned that even though I am starting a teensy bit lower than my current salary, when the temp to hire turns to hire, they will raise it appropriately (that’s how much they like me and value my experience!). Oh and did I mention that they give out bonuses at Christmas?

I GOT A NEW JOB THAT I LIKE AND I DON’T HAVE TO STAY IN THIS VILE HOLE ANY LONGER!!!

So, the job interview for the Copywriting position went swimmingly. Better than swimmingly actually. This is it folks, forget the other thing this is The Really Perfect Job. Or, at the very least, the Best Possible Scenario Given the Current Circumstances Job.

Let’s see, where do I start? Okay, how about with the fact that part of my job would include researching and writing copy on video games (!!!) and toys (!!!) and computers (!!!) — also vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, power tools, and other things that might be less exciting but which, nevertheless, provide good finger exercises for the writer Knittiot. Oh, yeah, then there was the emphasis on a casual work environment, which means — we work hard, but we get to wear jeans and feel comfortable while we are doing so. The company, it sounds like, is growing leaps and bounds — almost to the point that they can’t handle the growth, which is why they are planning on doubling their staff by the end of the year! Also, I can’t tell you what a foreign experience it was to walk into someone’s office and be treated like a professional and a human being with capabilities, value and potential. I’m just glad I didn’t start crying in her office. Or fall to the floor at the end of the interview and grab onto her leg and beg her to let me stay there.

She sent me a couple sample products to do my own little write ups on as part of the interview process. Yesterday and today I spent quite a bit of time working them over and I’m ready to send them off. Then, it’s all over but the waiting. I think they are pretty eager to move ahead so I should be hearing soon. And won’t it be nice around here when I’m not spending all my time whining/obsessing about my job?

Also, yesterday:

Beth (who is, by the way, one of the worst enabler/yarn pushers around) talked me into heading out on an “innocent” little road trip to one of the better yarn stores in the area. Finally realizing there was no point in fighting it, I caved in and bought some plain wool roving. It smells so yummy I want to sleep with it (am I the only insane one who thinks that wool smells like heaven?). The plan is to dye it, spin it to a lace weight, and knit it into some sort of shawl of my own design (not necessarily in that order).

I’m having a deliciously lazy Sunday; it is well past noon and I’m still in my pajamas. My thoughts are swimming casually around my head like goldfish. I’m feeling light hearted and JuK is on shuffle. Right now The Dead Milkmen are singing Punk Rock Girl and I’m thinking that a little drive with my honey might be exactly the kind of relaxing activity the afternoon is calling for.

It’s good to see a little hope on the horizon.

…change is never easy.

Sometimes, even though it is absolute lunacy, it’s easier to stay nestled in the familiar mire of shit than to go bounding off into new, frighteningly wide-open, foreign territory.

Case in point, I have a job interview today for a copywriting position at a local marketing company. This is good, right? Because it utilizes my skills better and it would certainly be more creative than the work I currently do. It is also bus-able and bike-able (important to a one car family). Most importantly, I would be able to quit this god-forsaken job and finally escape this vile and oppressive environment.

Nevertheless, there are some drawbacks.

It pays ever so slightly less than my current job. This amounts to something like $39 less a week, but I really am making the bare minimum as it is, and $39 a week is a huge deal to us. Especially with Mr. Knittiot still searching for work. I have no idea how much room is there for negotiation, but I suspect it is not a lot.

It is also a “temp-to-hire” position, which means there is a chance that they will not want me to stay on. I know that they do this just to ensure that the fit is good and if it isn’t, they can opt out of it without any strange entanglements. The chance that they will not offer me the job at the end of it all is small, I imagine, but still, you never know.

Temp-to-hire means that I will also not have health insurance, again, unless I opt for the too-expensive (and pretty damn crappy) stuff offered by the placement agency. It isn’t as if this would be the first (or even the second) time in my life to be without health insurance for a significant length of time — not including the scary times when I was a child. Still, it is something to consider. This might feel like less of a big deal if Mr. Knittiot weren’t already one of the 45 million Americans living without health insurance.

Then there is the fact that it is marketing, and that I would have to do things like write copy for Walmart (one of their clients) and other equally vile organizations.

Sounds like I’m talking myself out of this already, doesn’t it?

But then there is this familiar shit pile I am obligated to come to every day, which is so bad I can’t even begin to tell you, because frankly I’m afraid to share the details.

Maybe it is worth it to go to the other place even if it means I have to get a part time job somewhere else for a little while, or I don’t have health insurance for a few months, or I might be required to extol the virtues of a company I despise, just for the sweet bliss of escape. That is usually when my brain likes to point out that it could be even worse over there — that it might look like a wide open field of daisies that I could stroll through singing tra-la-la-la, but maybe there are landmines out there. And then where would I be? Even more strapped for cash than I am now (though not by much) and still just as miserable.

Please note that all of this has taken place before I have even talked to anyone at the company, interviewed for the position, or been offered the job. Like I said, change is hard — and sometimes it is easier to stay mired in the shit that is familiar.

So, I am going to go today, see what happens, and then wait and see if I even get offered the position. No need to talk myself out of or into something before I even have all the facts.

The other day on his blog, Franklin confessed to having a system for posting that kept him

“from making public things I’ve written in the throes of depression, things so maudlin that Sylvia Plath would roll her eyes and tell me to just get the fuck over it.

Well, Franklin, I’ll see your eye-rolling Sylvia Plath and raise you a comparatively optimistic Anne Sexton. Lately I feel that everything I write is dripping with misery and self-indulgent speculation about the hopelessness of it all.

Somehow I feel compelled to tell you all that in the midst of my whining, I do manage to maintain a little perspective. This morning I was listening to NPR and they were interviewing a woman from Mississippi (or was it Missouri?) who makes $6.70 an hour working at Burger King. As if that doesn’t suck in and of itself, it turns out that her salary is too high for her to qualify for Medicare (Or is it Medicaid, and what is the difference? I feel I ought to know this, and yet somehow the thought of trying to make sense of it all gives me a sudden case of a coma.) They went on to point out that as a woman with 3 children, she would have to make less than $87.00 per week in order to receive coverage in her state. What the fuck? And don’t get me started on the woman who has Cerebral Palsy and is not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare or maybe both, and now has to give up the dog who is trained to alert her to oncoming seizures because she can’t afford him. Yes, my friends, things could be worse. I realize this.

I am trying to use my “perspective” to bolster my spirits, but mostly, I think my new “perspective” is starting to feel more like further “evidence” that there is a vast conspiracy to kick people when they are down and more than that, to punish people who are poor. I keep trying to remember if things felt this hopeless and dire when Reagan was in office. I’m sure it did. But somehow, this time around seems worse.

No news on The Perfect Job, and I’m pretty sure at this point it is safe to say there won’t be any word at all. Nevertheless, I have applied for a few other less exciting things and I’m going in to talk with a placement agency later this week. So, there is potential escape on the horizon.

Also, I finished one of my socks and am well on my way into the second one. The second one should go much more quickly, as it will likely involve less ripping back and trying to fit the right number of repeats into the space of my size 8.5 foot.

It wasn’t until I discovered some old pictures of my mother when she was my age that I suddenly realized how very much I am my mother’s daughter. People had always told me how much I looked like my father, and this was always rather disappointing to me. So when Dick sent me these old pictures of us, I was enthralled. Looking at her then was like looking at pictures of me now, and suddenly I saw her in everything I do. My smile. The way I hold my head. How I sometimes rest my hands on my hips when I’m standing still. And my hands that are exactly her hands.

When I was born, my mother named me Rachel because, like Rachel of the Old Testament who was so loved by Jacob that he worked for 14 years to gain her hand in marriage, I was loved. She always told me as I was growing up that it was a promise to me that I too would always be loved so greatly.

Three years later my father left. The next year my mother lost her mother. And shortly therafter, her father too. And then it was just me and mom against the world.

In a lot of ways, we grew up together. Sometimes it was fun, because my mother definitely knows how to have fun. And other times it was the exact opposite of fun, and I know a lot about the exact opposite of fun. But we made it through. I have so many, many memories of her. But mostly, I just remember that she loved me. And as she is fond of saying, “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

My mom is not so great at giving herself credit for all the good things she does. This is something that I inherited from her. And sometimes we are both pretty hard on ourselves and on each other. When Mr. Knittiot became the third member of our tiny little family, he reminded us that we were deserving of a little kindness and compassion. Now I try to tell her all the time how wonderful she is, and you know what? I think we’re starting to get it. We have entire phone conversations now about how wonderful we are. And then we laugh and laugh and laugh. It took us a long time to learn to laugh together, and everytime we do, it feels like such a gift.

My mother is strong and kind and she never ever stops trying. She isn’t afraid to admit when she is wrong and she never hesitates to apologize. She is generous and when she loves you, it never stops. And there is something so comforting about that. I know that my mother will never leave, never give up on me, and never stop surprising me. I know what it means to be loved, because my mother has always loved me in the best ways she could. I know not everyone is given that, and I don’t take it for granted, ever.

When I was a little kid, one Mother’s Day, the McDonalds by our house announced that all mothers would be treated to a free breakfast that day. I thought this was just about the coolest thing ever, because, you know, I was seven and free McDonalds was like Christmas. So I decided to surprise my mom by taking her out for breakfast on Mother’s Day.

I asked Mary, a friend of mom’s who lived in our apartment building, if she would drive us there. She immediately agreed. Then I made a special Mother’s Day sign and hung it up in the living room by taping it to my mother’s macrame and driftwood wall hanging. Then I snuck into her room and unplugged the phone by her bed. At 8:00 a.m. Mary called our apartment. My mother is not a morning person. The phone rang and rang and rang. Finally I heard her try to answer the phone by her bed, but since I had cleverly unplugged it, she had to come rushing out of her room to answer the phone in the kitchen. I yelled, “Surprise! Happy Mother’s Day!” She was surprised, and still a little unawake, I think. But also pleased. She got dressed and Mary drove us to McDonald’s. I don’t remember if I had saved up my money and bought breakfast for myself and her friend. Or maybe my mom bought it. That very well could have happened too.

Now that we are living half a country away from each other, cooking up surprises like that isn’t as easy as free McDonalds. And of course, there is the fact that neither of us eats McDonalds anymore… Even so, mom, I miss you. I love you. And I hope you are having a wonderful Mother’s Day.