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It is possible that I might need an intervention.
I have always had this bad habit of starting new projects before I finish old projects. I’m not sure why, but I seem to need to have several things in progress at a time. Maybe it makes me feel more productive. I don’t know. But looking around the apartment at this moment, I’m getting a bit concerned about myself. This place is starting to look like the lair of a crafty hermit in training.
Care to look into my simmering pot of crazy?
Over here we have the back of an Aran sweater. At least, part of the back. I stopped when I got to the part that said “shape the arm holes,” or as I refer to it, “the hard part.”
Project: Knitted Sweater
Completion: 17%
And over here we have a baby quilt for my new neicephew (gender still unknown) who is due this summer.
And this is a monkey, sliding down a rainbow.
Right now, the top is all cut out, but I have a lot of sewing to do. I need a cold weekend, a complete season of Breaking Bad (or similar), and possibly a case of beer. Then I just need to put my butt in a chair and play “sweat shop.”
Project: Baby Quilt
Completion: 24%
In the kitchen we have some bisqueware that needs some stenciling. This one won’t take too long. Maybe two Rachel Maddows and a Daily Show. I just haven’t got around to it, yet.
Project: Stencil Pots for High Fire
Completion: 0%
This is a writing project which is due in a month or two. This is what I should be working on. Of all my unfinished projects, this is the one that I know I need to focus on the most. Which is why I’ve been working on it the least.
Project: Collection of Short Essays
Completion: Too Scary to Think About
This is a baby gift for a friend of mine. It is almost done; I just need to knit the ends in and wrap it up. Knowing me, I will probably do these things five minutes before I need to leave for the shower.
Project: Baby Blanket
Completion: 99%
These are my running shoes. They are “put away” and they aren’t going anywhere.
And this is the book that I was supposed to have read in time for book club tomorrow night. As you can see from my bookmark, I’m about half way through. I could stay up and finish it tonight. But instead I will probably watch The Biggest Loser on Hulu and then go to bed.
Project: Read Book for Book Club
Completion: 49%
And here are some dogs who think that I should stop taking pictures of my messes and just clean them up (the messes, not the dogs).
But instead, I think I’ll finish wasting time by blogging about wasting time and load up that Biggest Loser episode. After all, it isn’t my fault that there aren’t more hours in the day. If there were, maybe I could get some laundry done.
My morning got off to a strange start. Around 5am, the curtain in my hallway outside my bedroom decided to fall to the floor with a terrifying clatter, scaring the bejezuz out of both me and the dog.
The funny thing was that the thought that went through my head as I flew off my pillow was, “Bats!”
What? Why? Weird.
There is girl in my department who doesn’t look like me. Just so that is clear. That said, we are both petite and brunette, we have similar taste in clothes, and – I feel reluctant to say this – we are both attractive. At least, I think that’s fair. But my reluctance comes from the fact that I still evaluate my looks based on my acting days when I had to be scathingly honest with myself about my “type.” And my type is “cute friend” in a small budget production, or possibly the “woman next door” in a day-time TV ad who wants to have a candid conversation with you about your vaginal itch. Melissa, on the other hand, has leading lady looks.
Casting notwithstanding, we look similar enough that people in the office tend to mix us up on a regular basis. The director of our department even does it from time to time. But right now it doesn’t happen as often, as Melissa has just entered the third trimester of her first pregnancy.
Which is why I was so surprised the other day when I popped into the kitchen to get some tea and one of the little old ladies from the lab asked me, “How’s the baby doing?”
“Really?” I thought. “You still can’t tell us apart? Because at present – and for the next couple months – it shouldn’t be too difficult. I’m the one who DOESN’T appear to have a basketball tucked down the front of my pants.”
“I think you are thinking of Melissa,” I told her. “But we were in a meeting yesterday and a decision was made that she is having the department’s baby. And that we needed to stay informed. So yeah, he’s doing just fine.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “I am thinking of Melissa.”
I poured hot water on my tea bag, thinking the conversation was over. But then she added, “Are you even married?” with an extra emphasis on the word ‘even’ that I found disconcerting.
“No… not married,” I said with a nervous laugh. Though what I wanted to say was, “I’m not pregnant! But if I was it wouldn’t be a big deal if I’m not married in this day and age, so just… stop being old!!!”
But then she said, “Good for you.”
This surprised me, but I wasn’t really sure what we were talking about anymore. So I said, “I have a dog?” I phrased it as a question, as if I was asking, “Is this helpful?”
She said. “My husband died and left me with his dog. But sometimes I kinda wish he would have taken the dog with him. They got on so well; it would have been better for everyone.”
“Yes… well. They make good roommates,” I said, clutching my mug in both hands. She might have responded, “Yes they do,” as I smiled a “goodbye” and headed back up the stairs feeling just a little dizzy.
—
I was having brunch with friends a couple of weeks ago and when we got up to leave, Dan pointed at my shoes and exclaimed, “Hey! You are wearing GREY boots!’
Dan, who is a stylish urbanite and self proclaimed “shoe guy”, was teasing me because I am virtually always clad in black boots. I have a favorite pair, but at last count I noted that I had four pairs of black boots in various heel heights. It’s quirk of mine that a few of my friends have noticed and commented on.
“Har har. Yes… I own another color of boots,” I said, stretching my arms into my coat sleeves. “And anyway,” I felt compelled to add, “I’m from Utah County. You are lucky I can put an outfit together at all.”
‘Now now,” Dan said as we started to walk toward the door. “I’m sure you can pull a tank-top over a T-shirt with the best of them.”
—
I recently joined my first writing group, and I must say it is going very well. We have a really good group of people and so far the criticism has been both direct and respectful. I’ve received some great feedback that is helping me to develop some of my older stories.
Last week, as we were hashing through one of my creative non-fiction essays, one of the women said, “I’m just wondering if your life is that much more interesting than mine, or if you just have a more interesting perspective on things.”
“I think it’s the latter,” I said. And I was about to say, “I think that most people would just put the Neosporin on the dog’s ass hole and move on with their lives, but for some reason I feel compelled to write about it and draw a metaphor regarding my childhood…”
But I didn’t get a chance, because the woman’s hand dove into her purse and retrieved an object with lightning speed which she shoved directly into my face. I dove sideways under the table, thinking I was about to be pepper sprayed in the eyes or tased in the forehead. She is LDS and I think there was part of me that was worried that she was angry with me for something I wrote about raising children in the Mormon faith being “a mean thing to do,” but I hadn’t expected her to go all Danite on my ass.
Everyone was laughing so I surfaced to discover that the object was not a weapon, but a small action figure. I’m not familiar with the character, but it looked like G.I Joe dressed in snowboarding attire.
“Oh my God, why did you do that?” I said as I settled back into my chair. “And what is that thing? I thought I was about to be maced!”
“It’s my kid’s toy,” she said. “I was trying to show you: this is what my life is like. I go into my purse looking for my debit card, and I find stuff like this.”
And then I remembered what we had been talking about. “Oh, right.” I said. “Why don’t we move on to the next story?”
I don’t know if my life is more or less interesting than anyone else’s. But I seem to have a way of finding the mundane… well… life threatening. And sometimes that makes for a good story.
