the Village Knittiot

I have noticed over the last couple of years that Summer usually brings with it a bit of a lull in the blogosphere — or at least the portions of it I tend to gravitate towards. I think during this time of year we are probably more willing to actively engage with the world around us and we don’t need the digital buffers of a virtual community as much (or, at least, this sometimes introvert doesn’t). In essence we want to get out in our backyards and smell the proverbial roses and maybe watch the grass grow a little, figuratively speaking (and if you’re the sort who isn’t terrified of bugs and things like lyme disease or west nile virus, probably literally as well).

For my part, the quiet around the Village lately is due to a number of things. For one, I still feel like I am recovering from the frenzied pace that marked the beginning of my first summer here in Philadelphia. The crazy work schedule followed by the exhausting visit with my family has left me with a great fondness for naps and sleeping in (a luxury I rarely afford myself). And, while the knitting and spinning and fleece processing continues, it does so at a much slower pace. My summer of knitting naturally has been a tremendous part of this as, more than ever, I think before buying.

I have also finally accepted the fact that I am not the kind of person who enjoys purchasing other people’s patterns and making them, that I will not readily plunk down a sizable amount of cash for a collection of someone else’s designs. It is just not something I do (easily). I simply want knitting to occupy this space in my brain that is something like second nature. I want to be able to just find yarn that I like and use it to create something of my own. I know this is not a new expression of desire for me. I’ve said it at least a dozen times. And I’ve lamented my lack of knowledge and the lack of classes that explain on a fundamental level just how this knitting thing works. I’m not talking about purls and knits and step-by-step instructions that walk you through a specific pattern or isolated technique. I want something that will give me a knitting foundation. You know, the kind of instruction people used to get when having socks and sweaters depended not on your ability to buy a $35 book and follow directions, but on knowing how to take yarn and turn it into a sweater or pair of socks that fit the intended recipient.

But to blame the lull here on slower, more process-oriented knitting wouldn’t be entirely accurate. The truth is, I’ve been a lot more preoccupied with thoughts about writing, or to be more accurate, what I want to accomplish over the next couple of years. I’ve also been reading a lot (which further reduces the amount of knitting time I have). At this point, I’m not sure how blogging fits in to all of this, or rather, I’m not sure how blogging about knitting fits into that. And while I recognize that I haven’t ever blogged exclusively about knitting, it has provided a framework for what is here. However, I find myself feeling a bit limited by that framework lately. Fiber and its various incarnations are only a part of my life and there are avenues I’ve been wanting to explore and haven’t felt able to in this space.

When I first started blogging, I was really struggling with my writing. It had become a source of tremendous stress for me and the act of writing something out here where it was visible to the world was an important act at the time. Blogging became a tool by which I was able to rediscover my voice and while it might sound melodramatic, it saved me at a time when I was in want of a little saving. Then there was the unexpected and very welcome side effect of finding this little community of amazing people who were supportive, surprising, creative and thoughtful. I don’t want to lose that, but lately I’ve been feeling as if my focus is split. I’m wanting to make some changes but I’m not quite sure yet what they are. Until then, I suspect the Village will continue to be a little on the quiet side.

Just a quick announcement with a little shameless promotion of the *other* blog — Kaizerin (co-blogger extraordinaire and wonderfully dear friend) and I just posted a write up on our impressions of Joan Didion’s latest book The Year of Magical Thinking over on The Bookish Dark. Feel free to venture over for a little literary discourse should you be so inclined…

Work has been busier than expected lately. Last minute projects. Tight deadlines. Up early. To bed late. Writing from the crack of dawn. It’s both exhausting and exhilirating. I am still in such awe that I am making this freelancing venture work. And work it is. Work, work, work.

Nevertheless, there has been at least a little time for knitting. Despite the hectic schedule, it was a surprisingly relaxing weekend and I was able to get through several of the pattern repeats on Ruby Joy. This shawl has been progressing so beautifully and I have been feeling so good about myself as I speed along. I’ve been checking my stitch count at the end of each row and it has (with the exception of a couple of rows requiring some tinking) remained right on target. I do visual spot checks here and there to make sure my yarn overs are lining up as they are supposed to be and they have been.

Then sometime on Sunday afternoon I looked down and I got that sinking feeling. Something didn’t look right. Worse, something didn’t look right about 15 rows back. Something about 15 rows back on my MOHAIR and silk blend shawl. Further inspection revealed that it wasn’t really terrible exactly, just a minor glitch. Only two yarn overs on one row that are off by one stitch. The other yarn overs on that row and every other row are perfectly placed. Really, it is just these two yarn overs. Hardly noticeable. Except, of course, to me.

I sat there for a number of minutes just holding the shawl in my hands contemplating my options. I could always tink back 15 (or more) rows, stitch by stich by tedious stitch, and fix the two yarn overs. Or, I could leave it as is. I also briefly toyed with the idea of slipping those few stitches off my needles and trying to work down the 15 rows to fix it. I even started in on that crazy plan only to realize that the problems inherent with mohair and fixing mistakes would hinder me from doing anything other than getting frustrated and destroying the shawl in the process or possibly setting it on fire when it proved impossible to do so.

So, I took a deep breath and just kept going. There is a mistake in my shawl and I am trying to ignore it. I keep telling myself comforting stories about how in some cultures artisans will purposefully introduce a flaw into an object they are creating because there is no such thing as perfection. I remind myself that this is probably good therapy for the whole accepting that life isn’t perfect stuff I’m supposed to be working on. And I am distinctly shutting out the voices that are telling me there is no point in having a shawl made out of such exquisite yarn if you are just going to let it have a mistake out there for all the world to see. I told that voice to shut the hell up and went and ripped out my unsatisfying socks hoping that it would relieve some of the tension. So far, that strategy has worked.

Even so, I know this is going to continue to bother me, at least a little. I know that someone is going to compliment me on the shawl when it is all done and I am going to want to show them the two deviant yarn overs to temper their praise. Sort of like a perfectionists cautionary tale. Yet, even with all of that, I honestly can’t face tinking all that mohair. It’s too disheartening.

This got me thinking about my tendencies toward perfectionism. I know we all have them to some degree. But it seems that some people are just better (or maybe more confident) about determining in what situations it is okay to relax your expectations and “let it go.” I sometimes feel as if I am afraid that letting my guard down in one instance will cause all my standards to rapidly deteriorate in every other area of my life (another symptom of an all-or-nothing approach, it would seem).

I find myself often stymied by perfection and unable to move ahead because of a perceived inability to achieve some ideal. And I’ve decided that is no way to live. It is singularly unsatisfying. So, I have been slowly cultivating a philosophy of imperfection over the last year or so.

A philosophy of imperfection doesn’t merely tolerate the messiness of life and the chaos that can errupt without notice. It should help you find a true sense of joy and unexpected wonder in these situations. Because, it is true — there is no such thing as perfect. Except maybe being happy with things as they are.

On Sunday when I gave myself permission to just keep going, there was a little shock of thrill that went through me. Wow. Just don’t fix it. It was so simple and so freeing. And it just turns the whole notion of perfection on its ear.

This morning I woke up and I could hear the heater clicking on. That means it is very cold. Which in turn means I don’t want to get out of bed. Fortunately for me, I have a sweetie who brings me coffee in bed every morning. I never, ever get tired of saying that. Of course, in a week, that is going to turn into green tea in bed as we are slowly, slowly weening ourselves off the caffeine. Wish us luck and if you don’t hear from us in a week, please send out a St. Bernard with a barrel of espresso around his neck.

Fun With Yarn

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking a class with Annie Modesitt at Loop in which she taught us the techniques to make her circular, reversible, upside down, right side up, inside out wearable sweater (the one from the Fall 2005 cover of Vogue Knitting).

First, let me talk about Loop. Loop is an amazing store. Craig is truly the first yarn shop owner that I have ever met who really, really understands about making you feel relaxed and comfortable and welcome right away. His staff members embody this same understanding — they give you help, they ask you questions. They also give you space. They smile and are pleasant. They are honest. They are also knowledgable and enthusiastic. The spacious, open area allows you to really move around and look at things and this is a wonderful, beautiful thing. Also, he has impeccable taste. I mean impeccable. His yarns are top notch and gorgeous. They also are on the very, very expensive side, and as such, I have to think long and hard and go back to the store a few times before deciding on something. They do also have a few more afforable yarns — a massive selection of Cascade 220 and the Malabrigo, which is like Manos, but with slightly less thick/thin variation and with more yardage for a little less money. Their book selection is out of this world. They have everthing. Always plenty of needles and so forth. It is just a pleasant place to be in general. Taking a class there is even better.

Yesterday was the first actual knitting class I have ever taken and let me tell you this, I will be taking more. It was phenomenal. The amount of information I absorbed — a lot of it from the instructor, but an equally important amount from fellow knitters — was like nothing I have ever gotten working on my own. I am convinced that Annie Modesitt may be a bit of a genius (of the Mad Hatter variety) and the sweater that she taught us the technique for may be just about the most versatile pattern I have ever seen or used. Seriously, you can wear it inside or outside, upside down or right side up. You can substitute any yarn you want and can fit it precisely to your measurements. It is clever, inventive and very fun to work with. We did two swatches in the class — a rectangular one, just to get a feel for the technique, and a circular one to get a feel for how it would be to work the pattern. I turned my rectangle into a cape for my water. As an Aquarius (you know, the water bearer), it seemed only fitting that my water bottle should have a cape.

Despite my attempts, I failed to find the right yarn to begin the pure genius sweater, and since it can truly be made with any yarn, I may just find the right roving and spin my own. And since the postman (who is fast becoming my favorite person in the universe) delivered a package all the way from a certain wonderful blogger in Canada containing this (thank you JoVE!),

Blue Faced Leicester is at the top of my list for potential candidates.

Things I learned in no particular order:
1. How to knit in the round using two circulars (can someone tell me why I thought this would be really complicated or why I thought I needed to buy a book to learn it?)
2. Inox needles are not the unpleasant experience I thought they would be. As Juno pointed out — “They’re pointy!” Yes indeed. How could I not have found these sooner.
3. Random increases and the telephone number technique
4. The way I purl may be slightly inefficient and there is a speedier way if I can master it
5. I can actually learn how to alter a pattern, take my own measurements into account and design my own sweaters — as soon as I take the classes that will teach me some of the things I absolutely need to know
6. This is an expensive hobby
7. Living in a city with decent public transportation is as awesome as I imagined it would be
8. I know more about my adopted city than I thought I did
9. Knitters make the world a better place

Fun With Books

As some of you will remember, my dear, wonderful friend Kaizerin (who tragically lives on the other coast) did some co-blogging with me through the Knitting Olympics. In addition to our shared obsession interest in knitting, we are also quite the rabid bookworms. One of our favorite weekend activities involves five hour conversations mostly about what we are reading, intespersed with our thoughts on life, the universe and everything, with frequent stops in which we marvel at how much we have in common and how come it took us so long to find each other on this planet.

What started out as a discussion about how we could have more frequent, in-depth book discussions even though we live on separate coasts of a rather large continent, turned into a decision to go into the co-blogging business for good. Thus I give you The Bookish Dark, a site devoted to our passion for all things bookish.

Like all new blogs, we are still working out some kinks and getting up to speed, but our first joint discussion is up, covering the book Feed by M.T. Anderson — a title I tend to blather on about quite a lot both here on the blog and in real life.

While we will be doing a lot of joint reviews, we will also be posting individual reviews of what we are devouring in our own private reading lives. We both tend to take our reading very personally, and we want to talk with other people who do too, so come on over and check it out!

The Bookish Dark

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
that feels a flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician–
nor is it valid
to discriminate against “business documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
“literalists of
the imagination”–above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, “imaginary gardens with real toads in them,” shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.

I discovered this poem in the American Literature class that changed my life back when I was a youthful undergrad. For me, the whole world of metaphoric language and symbolic imagery exploded that semester and what I had thought I understood and what I came to realize I only appreciated on a very limited plane was suddenly swallowed up as this entire universe opened up before me. I saw new dimensions and it was like a whole way of existence was now available. There were “imaginary gardens with real toads in them” and that has always stayed with me.

Last Monday I finished the book Feed by M.T. Anderson. For the past week I have spent hours and hours trying to pull my collected thoughts into some semblance of order. It hasn’t been an easy task and I know that I have only begun to scratch the surface of what I want to say.

I tend to interact with my literature pretty personally (what’s the point of reading if you don’t?). I internalize what is going on. Make connections. Everything I read seems to relate to every other thing I have ever read, seen or heard. The side effect of this kind of approach is that finding a starting point for commentary can feel at times like a sisyphean task. I try to start at the beginning, but each time I discover my beginning, I realize that some event preceded that one and we are rolling back to the bottom of the hill and starting our way back up.

Feed takes place in an all too believable future. Forget Big Brother governments that rule exclusively through fear and intimidation. Watch what happens when corporations control our lives, exploiting all our emotions to turn us into better consumers. Complacency abounds when the toughest decision you have to make is which shirt to buy.

Told through the eyes of an average, ordinary teenager named Titus, Feed doesn’t deal strictly in stereotypes and generalities. Anderson’s teenagers are people. He has respect for them. And that reason alone is what will make this book required reading for all my future English classes.

The title Feed, refers to the system installed in the vast majority of Americans. It is like the Internet in your head. Not only is it the place that you chat with friends, watch television or movies and find all the information you need (sure beats that pesky need to exercise your brain and remember facts or think), it is also tied in to all your vital functions, even your memories. But its primary function is to make being a consumer easier than ever. As it analyzes your every thought, every impulse, every action, it takes that information to feed you the appropriate remedy or enhancement. “Buy this!” flashing in your brain 24 hours a day and always sounding like the voice of reason and clarity.

In this society, what makes you a valuable member is your ability to consume. Sound familiar? The environmental, psychological and spiritual consequences of this extreme world are tough to take. I find myself walking along the sidewalk now and noticing the blades of grass shooting up through cracks in the cement creeping outward and I just want to bend down and kiss them. I want to shout, “Hooray for you! Keep growing! Don’t let them stop you!”

Not everything is perfect in this future (she said facetiously). The poor are still marginalized (imagine that! people without the ability or desire to consume are considered unimportant? who would have ever thought!?) and the opportunities are reserved for those who have the means to access them. The worst part about this, is that the absolute destruction of the environment makes it impossible to hike into the wilderness and just drop off the grid. There is no place else to go. Not to mention the toxic conditions which people would rather tolerate than change, as long as they get to continue to live in their nice houses, buy their stuff and keep getting entertained.

The book is centered around American existence, but hints abound at the hatred which is felt throughout the globe toward the Americans. The good news, as far as I can see, is that the Earth itself will get extremely pissed off with us long before we can complete this vision and she’ll find her own ways to take care of the situation.

This jumbled mess doesn’t even scratch the surface of what I want to say. I’m not sure what is going to happen with this, but I’m not by any means done writing about it. There’s just too much. But whatever you do, go get this book from your local library. Read it. Give it to your favorite teenager, your friends, family members. And please, talk about it together.

When I was a kid, the boys in our neighborhood got together one summer and built their own fort. Up until this point, we had all played and worked together harmoniously as a group. We had even managed to completely transform this area around a large old tree into a comfortable somewhat fort-like structure. It hadn’t required any hammering or building materials, we just used the landscape and environment to naturally provide shelter and doorways and room partitions. We all brought items from home or that we found to add to it and there was much playing and climbing and having fun. So, when they erected this monstrosity on the side of our favorite sledding hill, it felt like a bit of an affront. In a scene like something from an old movie, they even took a piece of paper and wrote “Boys Only” in their very awful little boy handwriting and tacked it to the front door.

In no way did I understand this action, and so I did what anyone would do. I cracked the combination for the lock they had put on the door and went in to have a look around. Sitting there in the middle of the floor was a bucket of paint, which I can only assume they were going to use to spruce the place up — and boy did it need it. The place looked just awful. How could this possibly be better than our tree fort? Feeling a spurt of resentment, I opened the lid on the paint bucket and turned it over on its side, leaking paint all over the floor of their fort, little hoodlum that I am.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you they were angry. But so was I. Here we had spent all summer working together and then they just went off and with a few boards and nails managed to shut me out. Well, my anger only lasted a moment and then I felt a bit sick. Of course they discovered it was me. I don’t remember how, probably I did something stupid like step in the paint and then walk home leaving a trail of footprints right to my front door. My mother suggested that I bake them brownies to make up for my bad deed. I thought that didn’t sound like it would work, but I was pretty desperate at that point and was ready to try anything. This is how I learned to apologize, and unlike my girlfriends, who I would discover over the years continually punished one over and over again for even the most minor of transgressions, when the guys heard me say I was sorry and had the chance to tell me how lame it was that I did that to their fort, they each took a brownie and it was over. I like boys.

In July when Mr. Knittiot and I visited Philadelphia to see if it was our kind of town or not, we stopped by this great bookstore. To me, the hallmark of a town that I can live in is the presence of a bookstore precisely and only for younger readers. Philadelphia, fortunately, has one of those and there, on a bookshelf I found a collection of writings from some of my favorite authors of all time called Guys Write for Guys Read which turned out to be a bunch of short pieces written by various children’s authors and illustrators on, well, being a guy. Some of the contributors (and this is a paltry sampling) include M.T. Anderson (who wrote the brilliant book called Feed, which I am in the middle of right now), Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl), Neil Gaiman (who forever changed comic books for me), Daniel Handler (who is as funny in person as you would think), James Howe, Brian Jacques, Walter Dean Myers, Christopher Paolini, Daniel Pinkwater, and so many many more.

The book was compiled by Jon Scieszka and all the proceeds go to his organization called Guys Read, a literacy organization which he started in order to generate and celebrate reading enthusiasm amongst guys of all ages (though particularly kids and young adults). When we got back, I requested the book from the library and last week it came in. I spent much of the weekend making my way through several of the entries, many of which I had to read outloud to my husband because they were the kind of hillarious you feel the need to share with someone else. We were both laughing so hard at points that I thought I was going to pee my pants.

I think the best one so far — and I’m still only in the H’s (the book is alphabetical by author) — is called The Follower by Jack Gantos, which you can read if you go to the website and click on Adults, then Help Guys Read, then Jack Gantos. The website is done in flash, so I am having trouble figuring out how to link directly to it, which I suppose is a good thing if you want people to roam around your site, but mildly irritating if you just want to link to something.

So, if you get a chance, check it out. Better yet, if you know a young guy pick up a copy for him. Then do him the favor of reading him The Follower and watch as even the most non-reading kid gets interested in reading. The best part is that each author has a selected bibliography after their name, so if the guy likes what the author said, he can go to his local library or bookstore and request something.

On a final not, if I hadn’t got this book, I might never have discovered that there is a book out there called The Day My Butt Went Psycho — which, you have to admit, would be pretty sad for a girl who owns all the Captain Underpants books and goes by the name of Loopy Stinkerchunks in some circles…

I am one of those people who, for all of my childhood and beyond, have been genuinely happiest when my nose is in a book. I remember when I was in college how I couldn’t wait until I was done so I would have more time to read. (Ha!) I was constantly exposed to new materials that I would only get a taste of but could never fully delve into. My list of things to read grew faster than I could keep up with. And I foolishly thought that outside of college I would find the reading time I craved. And I didn’t fully realize at the time what a powerful thing it was to read and discuss in a community — even if that community was nothing more than a class full of people who I had decided only half cared.

I’ve noticed when I talk to people now about books and reading that most people get this sort of hushed awe about it. They usually tell me about how important books are and how they know someone who reads a lot and how that person is really smart. What usually follows is an admission that they don’t read much. This is almost always said with a bit of embarrassment. I’ve let them sit in that embarassment and walked away with my smug attachment to the library, the bookstore, the great mothers and fathers of literature, etc.

As I go through life and deal with my own illusions about myself and “the way things are” I have to admit that I have always held very close to my heart a sense of satisfaction and, embarassingly enough, a personal superiority around my love for books and reading and words and language and writing. When I was younger and “troubled” I received little encouragement in the academic arena, but even I knew that testing out at a 10th grade reading level in 3rd grade was a big deal. It was something that I was good at and liked so I clung to it. Almost as an identity. Okay, maybe not almost, rather most assuredly. I liked books. I could write a little. That was who I was. It made me smart and wonderful.

After college, I had less time for reading, as I’m sure you can imagine. And as the pressures of “adult life” mounted, my time for reading got more and more crowded out. At first I noticed my vocabularly lacked a little lustre. Then I had no time to care about that either. I realized for the first time how much mindfulness reading requires. And how it means being able to set aside all the noise and clutter in your mind to immerse yourself in another world. That has become harder to do. I started reading more non-fiction. But I missed stories.

I am always grateful when the opportunities to dash your own self-importance start to present themselves, because it helps clear out a little of that clutter. So lately, in the light of my struggle to make time for reading and my even greater paralysis around writing, I am thinking a lot about my senior class in Biological Psychology where I read one simple article that talked about how they think it is possible that only 20%-40% of brains are really wired to be “great” readers. How the processing of words and language might just be a fluke of biology and genetics. And how that forced me to imagine that, like so many things, there is an element of luck involved in the things we are “good” at (or in my mind, the things that make us good) and it may have very little to do with us. It’s hard to feel arrogant about luck-of-the-draw physiology.

Lately I am reading a lot again. Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, comic books, blogs, textbooks. And it feels good. My brain feels happy. I am learning to shut down the noise of my mind and live in the moment where I am scanning words across a page and letting them sink in. And I’m learning to read them with a little bit more of the being comfortable in my own skin. I’m putting the eternal “Why?” and “How?” behind everything and hoping to let the smug superiority, born out of an internal terror and insecurity of “never good enough!” just slide off.

The thing about Spanish: is that it really gets you thinking about your own native language. Or at least that is what learning a new language has always done for me. Over the course of my life I have studied Japanese, French, German, Greek and Spanish and it is always the same. When I am trying to piece together words in a cohesive fashion, in a way that would make at least a modicum of sense to someone who actually speaks whatever language I am clumsily attempting to use, it forces a person to think about language in the most concrete and basic of terms. I really like that kind of thinking — the kind that starts at the center with a very simple structure and then ripples out to the edges only to get increasingly complex.

The other thing I am always struck by is the very imprecise nature of the English language — the room for ambiguity, misunderstanding, multiple meanings. But I think there is an element of ambiguity to all langages, because language is always contextual. And the context is cultural, experiential and internal. You cannot learn a language in a vacuum. It has no meaning. The second there is language, you have already begun to populate the vacuum and define it, and thus it ceases to be one. Language defines, but even if we agree that a word means something, the context of your life will shade that meaning with your own perspective, as will mine. We are talking about the same thing, but also we are not. How is it we manage to communicate anything between ourselves?

And I suppose that is the beauty of being in this world right now. It is so imperfectly stunning. And it is what makes writing so amazing, because I tell the story I need to tell and you hear the story you need to hear and even if it shares some of the most basic elements, it enters your internal kingdom and undergoes a transformation. Language is living and dynamic. Anyone who denies this is practicing the worst kind of self-delusion.

Other miscellany: socks are the devil. I finished my first sock and I was thrilled. It was pretty. It was also pretty tight on my foot, but a little stretching out and we were all good. I started on the second sock and even though I looked at it as I was getting close to the end and thought to myself, gee, that looks awfully small, I was still surprised when I tried it on and it didn’t fit. I belong to the school of knitting that believes imperfection requires ripping everything out to the beginning and starting all over again. This is also known as the School of Insane Logic (we like the way insane and logic do and don’t fit together all at once). I am fairly certain that if I had been knitting both socks together at once, I would not have run into this problem. This leads me to believe that perhaps knitting both socks on two circulars may indeed be the way to go. I plan to take a few weeks to think about how I want to handle my sock problem before I go about ripping into them. ***added later: I tried them on again and it seems that with a little blocking and stretching the second sock does indeed fit, it just needs to be convinced to loosen up a little bit. Uptight socks are notoriously difficult.

More Miscellany: I have been reading a lot, which sort of surprises me, because with my schedule I thought I would be pretty wiped out. But, as I have experienced time and time again, the busier I am, the more productive and energetic I feel. And there is nothing to get me sucked into reading like studying a new langauge.

First, I finally finished The Unconsoled (again — finally) and I am so glad I decided to reread it. Even though it was still dense and at times hard to wade through, I found that I wasn’t as resistant to the narrative style since I knew what to expect. I just allowed myself to float along with it rather than attempt to cram it into the structure my brain thought it should follow. Second, I had a much more sympathetic understanding of the main character this time through — especially at the end when he was having a discussion with another character who I believe was supposed to be him years earlier, back at the beginning of his career. It was like having the chance to say to yourself all those things you needed to hear from someone else all that time ago. It was a bitter sweet and confusing swirl. And it is one of those books that is satisfying even in its open endedness. You don’t need the openness to be closed off, because it is what makes the most sense. Now that is skilled narration. I heart Ishiguro.

I am also reading Anne LaMott’s most recent book Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, which I think is very interesting. I am always fascinated by people who seem to have found an authentic spiritual experience in the midst of a Christian context. (You know, when it is really about grace and radical acceptance, and not some twisted and hateful social and political agenda that uses Jesus as an excuse to be a racist, homophobic, sexist, unkind and unloving fuck head who votes.) The first book I read by Anne LaMott was Bird by Bird — a very well-known book on writing — and I laughed and cried and related to every single word in that book until I thought I was going to pass out from the sheer joy of knowing that I wasn’t alone in so many of my struggles, both with writing and life. I have read a lot of her stuff since then and there is something authentic and totally lacking in self-righteousness about it. But I think she worries about being lumped in with the rabid Christianity of the right wing, so on some level it seems like she feels the need to point out at every turn that she isn’t a right-winger, she’s a left-winger all the way, without exception. This often disrupts the narrative flow. But her signature willingness to display the whole messy truth of her guts and her life is there, and if nothing else, it is worth it for that. I like that kind of honesty, even if it is hard or embarrassing or uncomfortably familiar.

I have also been making my way through Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I highly recommend this book, which is exactly what it sounds like - snippets of an ordinary life in Encyclopedia format. It is very original and the author’s voice is perfect for this medium. All these little bits and pieces that have you wanting more of the story. Also, it gets you thinking about your own life. Perhaps it is time for me to get started on an Encyclopedic version of the “100 things about me” post…

I live in a town where the height of marketing ingenuity seems to consist of paying someone to stand on a corner holding a sign advertising The Biggest Sale EVER! or some other life changing event of the utmost importance to consumers and patriots everywhere. Mr. Knittiot and I have not lived here very long, just shy of two years now, and the first time we saw this phenomenon we laughed and laughed, thinking it was just this isolated, humorous incident. But we were wrong. I have seen it replicated again and again. Furniture Warehouses. Bridal Shows. Mattress Sales. Computer Repairs. I find this tactic a little strange and have often wondered how effective it is. But it must be pretty good, because they continue to do it.

I am a bit of a novice about this town. I did not grow up here. I call it a town, because it is about 1/5 the size of the city that I came from (and there are those that will tell you the city I came from is rather on the anemic side of a metropolis as far as they are concerned). Even so, size is relative. It is a city, not a town.

So far as I can tell, the city sprang up around two things — a University of some renown and a thriving blue-collar manufacturing community. The University continues to feed the city on some level, but seems strangely cut off from it, like it exists in it’s own little bubble. There is this old-fashioned sense that there is the University and then there are the people who work for the people who go to the University. But over the last decade or two, the manufacturing facilities have been pulling out, leaving in their wake this dead sort of feeling. Unemployment is high. Jobs are scarce. They are trying to transition from a manufacturing town to something else. No one can agree on what that should be. Change is hard. Many seem to be resentful that there has to be change at all and are digging in their heels. But change is what is happening.

I often get the impression that there are two places you can come from here — the right side of the manufacturing floor and the wrong side. Because the town is small, those from the right side of the manufacturing floor are few and powerful. And they seem to believe that everyone else should be bending down and licking their boots clean. They also still seem to control most of the “opportunity.”

The city, from all accounts, is hemorrhaging young people. Few find reasons to stay. Few are given the opportunities they might gain elsewhere. And so they move on. I remember noticing early on how disproportionate the number of elderly people seemed to be. I mean, there are a LOT of old people here. So many of them shuffling through the grocery store and recklessly driving their cars all over the road. The light seems to be missing from their eyes.

When we visited this area a few years ago we were newly in love. The energy of this place felt so right. It felt like home. We started making plans to flee what felt like the stifling blandness of the Midwest for the East, we fell in love with this area because we were hungry for a little stark reality. I was tired of being polite. I wanted to get angry and emphatic without embarrassing everyone in the room.

I wasn’t prepared for the transition to be so difficult. I wasn’t prepared for Mr. Knittiot to lose his job and have such a hard time finding another one. I wasn’t prepared for how long it would take to find other people I liked. And how long then it would take to make them my friends. I wasn’t prepared for my job, which was supposed to be both temporary (awaiting entrance into grad school) and less soul-sucking, to become something that felt once again like a prison. I wasn’t prepared for my mother to fall and need surgery and not be able to be there for her through the whole thing. I wasn’t prepared for missing “home” as much as I did. So when Mr. Knittiot started hatching a plan that I knew would get us out of here, I latched on to it like a leech. When the plan fell apart, I expected to be devastated…

Here was the surprise. I wasn’t. I’m not.

So much has happened to me over the last two years. Not all of it was easy, but all of it has been good — good in the way that having a rotten tooth pulled is good or a ready-to-burst appendix removed. But even so, I have changed. Grown. Learned. And seen so much. I wouldn’t trade that for a hundred comfortable years in a city with which I am familiar and where I am known and loved.

One of my favorite things Mr. Knittiot and I do is read to each other in the evenings while we cook dinner. Right now we are making our way through the second Abarat book by Clive Barker. Over the course of both books I have noted that Candy’s (the main character) feelings toward Chickentown, the Minnesota town she hails from, remind me simultaneously of the way I have felt about this town and living here. And more than that, of every town I have ever lived in. She couldn’t wait to escape to the magical world of the Abarat. And yet her escape didn’t come without it’s own set of challenges. And “escaping” is never an extrication. Her life is still bound up in whatever happens with Chickentown, and she is even now discovering that despite everything, she misses it in ways she couldn’t have anticipated. We all have our Chickentowns to contend with — whether we stay or go, leave for good or temporarily escape.

Yesterday, on the way home from work, I saw the local computer repair shop had dressed someone up in a Chicken Suit and set them out on a busy street wearing a sandwich board saying “Honk if you hate pop-ups.” I still don’t get it, but it made me laugh. And it feels so good to laugh.