No more knitting for fun

The paucity of posts for this blog might concern me if I did not already regularly exceeded my recommended daily allowance of stress and concern on other things. However, I now have at least one follower (Hi Peter) so I feel compelled to update the blogosphere with my latest accomplishments.

Accomplishment #1 - I somehow wandered backwards into a job at my LYS. I was a regular, (always browsing, rarely buying, going to Knit Knight, talking with the employees, etc.) and the wonderful owners asked me if I was interested in teaching! I thought it might be fun, and now 3 short weeks later, I am teaching like 4 classes a week for the entire month of July, and am the "sub" when they need extra help. I am currently scheduled for the following classes:
Beginning Knitting, Intermediate Knitting, Jared Flood Striped Scarf, Lace Scarf/Wrap, Fair Isle Scarf, Cable Scarf, Intermediate Lace.

Of course all of these classes need complete, or almost complete demonstrator projects to teach with, so guess who is now knitting for his supper and is behind on things to get done? ( I have to re-knit the things that I had done before, because they were not make from yarn from the store). Last week I frogged two projects, as they were not for my teaching and they were bogarting the good needles. My WIP pile now looks like this: (sorry for the poor pic, my camera sucks)

and yes that is five (5) scarves that I currently have on the needles, and I don't have my Intermediate Lace, nor my Cables scarf started yet. I still have a few weeks until my teaching starts (June 30) but I am now knitting on a deadline, and it is officially work. So much for the carefree days when my knitting was a connection to my inner self!

Accomplishment #2 - I got a call today for an interview for a real job! Of course as soon as I commit to something more than 3 hours in advance, I get a job lead. I believe I am destined to get this job, and that it will interfere with some of the knitting classes I am responsible for. But I am resolved to stay positive and ignore all crises until they are unavoidable.

Accomplishment #3, well acutally there is no third one yet. It should have been "cleaned my apartment and did laundry" but that didn't happen. Maybe tomorrow.

Why I Knit

OK, so it took longer than a day to get back to this blog. I can protest that I have been occupied, and was unable to fit it into my overflowing schedule, but that would be a falsity on the grandest of scales. However, I have promised you that I would answer the question "why do I knit?" The easy answer is: I knit to prove that I exist. This may sound absurdly abstract and pedantic; however, after much thought, I am going to stand by it. I feel that a person's existence is proven only by the result of his productivity. I know that Descartes would disagree with me, and I don't care. A person whose life does not create anything, who has no product attached to his existence, can be said not to exist at all. Just for the record, I recognize thoughts and ideas as products, so long as they are documented and communicated (in which case this blog is another proof of my existance.) I am currently in a long stretch where my professional life results in no product, as I have either been unemployed or a server for the last year or so. At the beginning of this period, I found that channel surfing for 8-12 hours a day only empahsized my non-existence. My blog-surfing took me to several knitters' blogs (they are prolific bloggers) and I grasped it as a means to resurect my existence. Two years later, and it has become the main source of my ratioanlization that I exist. I assume that my rabid existentialism will persist, even if I eventually come to find another activity and product to occupy my time.

why, and why . . . and who, and how often

OK, so here is my first post. I believe that the requisite material for this one is why, and why . . . and who, and how often?

I have often thought of becoming a writer, and am under the impression that that particular avocation requires that I occasionally compose some written words in order to satisfy some sort of existential requirement of the craft. Therefore I have begun this blog with the singular purpose of creating content and honing skills necessary to become the next Henry Richard Dana.

As to the inquiry regarding the tantilizing and somewhat clandestine title, I am sorry to say that my blog will not be filled with the sordid types of drug induced sex-parties which filled the fantasies of my youth, those I would happily discuss with my mother. The things I can't tell my mother are less shocking and more personal. Anectdotes that describe my failures, and regretable accomplishments, things that don't fit in with the glosssy narrative that I feed to my mother whenever I talk to her on the phone.

"That guy" on the front cover is my grandfather in his 1944 Military photo. I have others of him that I will probably exchange out every once in a while. I do this to protect my anonymity (I don't want my mother finding this - she just got a facebook page, so she is now hooked up to the grid) besides he passed away a few years ago, and this picture looks more like me now than it looked like him at any time in the last 30 years, and I like it. So no harm, no foul.

I hope to post on a relatively regular basis. I am currently waiting for a delivery of yarn so I can begin my next knitting project so hopefully the next few days will be sufficiently vacant and desolate to encourage me to become a habitual blogger. Yes, I knit, and why I knit is a great topic for the next blog entry.