Thursday, July 06, 2006

snippets & boas

Blogging has proven to be a very strange thing for me.

If I have plenty of time to write, it's because nothing interesting is going on in my life, which in turn means I don't have much to write about.
Converserly, if I have no time to write, it's because far too much is going on, and that usually means I have too many things to write about.

Right now I'm in the busy life mode. Having little wrenches thrown into my day like having my car break down or having my dog figure out how to clear the 6-foot fences around my yard are just an added bonus. I'm also working on TheBride's BoaThingy, and I'm taking care of everything that needs to be taken care of now, because next week's rehearsals and performances will be keeping me away from home.

Here is a brief list of the things that have been on my mind lately, some of them overly preoccupying. They are all probably topics I may never have time to write about here.

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I started talking early as a child...I think I was even speaking full sentences before my 1st birthday. I'm now almost 40 years old, and I might be able to talk, but I still don't know how to communicate.
What is up with that.
When do we master it? Do we ever?

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I am about to dance/perform an emotional duet outdoors, with very little production/lighting, and "no clothes" as my costume. How much more naked can I get. (I'm feeling extremely vulnerable *wince*)
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I am learning that I make a much better girlfriend to my Boyfriend when I am a busy girlfriend. I'm not quite sure what that means yet (either I need to keep busy or I need to figure out how not to be a nuisance when I'm not busy).
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I spent several days last week feeling extremely "disabled". I've been trying to figure out what is causing this, and all I've figured out so far is that I have not been feeling disabled when I'm home or when I'm alone. It only happens when I'm out or with other people.

I think this might have started when I was feeling sick and run down. I was so wiped out, it was hard to get tasks done (not because I have a disability, but because I was sick). I think my feelings of gimpness were further fueled by several people around me helping me to complete some of these tasks, and then telling me, "Now what would you have done without me here to help you?"

Well, what I would have done is I would have completed the task myself. Or maybe not. Thank you very much. Whatever. But I only accepted your offer to help because I was sick, not because I'm incapable...and I really dont need your help at all, thank you...especially if you are going to remind me of how incapable I am as part of your "help" to me. Sheeeit.

It's funny to me, but often times these are the very same people that complain that I'm too independent, that I dont accept help, and that I'm stubborn. Which are all true facts about me. But maybe your comments is part of why this is true of me, people.

The cost of my asking for help can be pretty high.
Feelings of self-value are kinda worth their weight in gold.
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TheBride BoaThingy Update & Comments on Comments

BeanMama said...
You are ONE BRAVE knitter - that scenario would scare the short rows out of me!


HA! It is so funny you say that. The first day I spoke with TheBride I told here that if I didn't think I could pull it off, I knew a few other knitters that could. You were one of them.

Sara said...
Is this a bad time to remind you that you asked all of us to remind you not to try to knit to deadlines?


I know that. So much so, that when I wrote the post, I originally titled that section "Hey, I Thought One Of You Was Supposed To Slap Me Upside the Head If I Set Up A Knitting Deadline!"
But it was too long.
And I'd already accepted the project before blogging about it, so I couldn't actually get away with blaming it on all of you.
So, in answer to your quesiont: Yes. This is a bad time to remind me.
;-)


On another note, the BoaThingy is coming out pretty good, actually. I still don't like the yarn or the way I think it's going to end up looking...but my make it up as I go pattern plan is behaving and the shaping looks really right on. It's basically looking like a big crescent moon shaped wrap. Not a boa. But I'm hooked on calling in a BoaThingy, so there you have it.

I brought it to my knitting group today and everyone else seemed to think it's soft and romantic looking, perfect for a wedding (I just typo'd "weeding"...hahahahaha).

I met with the bride for a few minutes today after the knitting group, and had her check to see if I'm even close to being on track...being that I'm knitting a "feeling" or a "mood" she is describing, not an actual pattern. Luckily she genuinely loves it (thank goodness). She seemed truly excited and happy. The only hitch (and I just knew there would be at least one) is that where she originally told me she wanted it to land off the shoulder, now she wants it to hug the neckline more closely. So I need to rip back a wee bit. But it's cool. I'll have it done in no time flat, with plenty of time for her to check it out once more and still be able to make adjustments if need be.

Photos soon.

4 comments:

BeanMama said...

I thought WE were your knitting group? Pout, pout. We miss you - we were just chatting about you on Wednesday.

And thank the stars and goddesses that you took the project on! It sounds like it will be satisfying in the end - nothing better than knitting something (even if it's not your style,) that is really loved & appreciated.

MsAmpuTeeHee said...

Backpedaling. Or tinking. Or something.

YES! The SnB is my knitting group!! And I miss you guys too!! And once this performance season is over (which is very soon) I will be back! But rehearsals are on the same day of the week, at the same exact time, so I'm screwed. I miss you guys too :-)

The other "group" I'm referring to is actually a knitting class/workshop at Skein Lane that is on a weekday morning, and I only attend sporadically when I need help or am feeling like The Hermit Knitter. But I have made some friends there, and it's a pretty great group, too.

Is the SnB ever going to revive the daytime knit for parents and those who dont mind little tykes running around?

Jen said...

Hey Amput - thanks for your comment on my hole (he he he)
a) I too am a better partner when I'm busy - when i'm not doing stuff I start to feel like time's a wasting...it's a good thing - we bring adventure

b) re: Helpers who are not - it must blow donkey balls when folks forget that everyone needs help when they are sick....two legs or one. i would have verbally lost it on them....way to step back from the moving vehicle!!

Anonymous said...

heh heh -- Okay, forget I said anything about you-know-what, and good luck with it.

I got the flu recently while my true love was out of town. It wasn't so much that I needed him, per se; I just needed someone to go to the drugstore and buy me Puffs 'cause I was too sick to drag myself. I couldn't ask someone who didn't already live with me, because they'd just catch what I had. A profound regret of my life is that I have been unable to train the cat to go shopping for me. Thus I had to use paper towels to blow my nose for a week, and this cost me some skin.

Then I got a worse flu a couple of weeks ago. I felt like someone had taken an axe to all my joints, and then there was also the vomiting. Oh, yes, I needed help, and I wasn't shy about asking for it, nor was I sparse with my gratitude afterward.

Disabled or not, it's very difficult teaching people to help you when you ask for it, to help only when you ask for it, and to help only in the ways you ask. It's very difficult training yourself to ask for and accept help when you genuinely need it -- or even just when you'd like some. We'd all like some from time to time; there's nothing shameful about that.

Now switching perspective from assisted to assisting, sometimes -- and I really do think everybody does this sometimes, except maybe your odd saint here and there -- we might make it hard for others to ask us for help, and harder for people we have tried to help to express gratitude for our efforts, because of our own vanity, the little child in each of us who needs to be praised for helping mommy whether we're really being particularly helpful or not, and whether our help was really all that important or not to the task at hand. Naturally, no one usually intends to make anything more difficult, nor is it usually anyone's intent to make anyone else out to be a big fat useless lump who can't get along on her own, ever. (When someone does mean to portray you this way, it's time to leave, unless you like it, but that's another topic for another day...or for therapy.)

The people who love you just need you to need them, and to say so once in awhile, and this is true whether you are crippled or not. Of course, I could be wrong, but I submit that it is possible that you feel it differently at this time, because you are still processing what has happened to you on many levels, still coming to terms with who you still are vs. how things have changed, and perhaps this has a lot to do with how you receive the very same things people might have said to you when they were taking care of you while you were sick five years ago, long before it would ever have occurred to anyone -- including yourself -- to think of you as disabled in any way.

Of course you are no more handicapped than you want to see yourself, and of course it is also true that you cannot control how other people see you. It is also perfectly right, though, to sanely, calmly, and compassionately tell people who love you when you feel they are trying to make you feel more crippled and needy than you really are. I wouldn't bother with strangers, but the people who really love you are also still processing -- and are also still the same people they were before.

I have no idea if any of this makes sense. Mercury is retrograde for the month of July, everyone is feeling a little oversensitive right now, and everything I say is gobbledygook, as well as most of what the rest of the world says this month, and this makes it extra fun trying to communicate on these sensitive topics with people who matter. So I hope this makes sense and is helpful, not annoying. At any rate, I advise everyone who reads this to just go easy on yourselves and on the people who count in your lives just now. It's a bad month for communications. It's a very good month to try to exercise our nonverbal kindness muscles, though.