Knitting College

Signed up for knitting college at The Lion Brand Yarn Studio.

Knitting I & II and III (beginners).

Why? When I obviously do know how to knit?

Because we weren't taught at school. Not properly. It mostly consisted of writing reams of patterns down and not knowing what the difference between k2tog and p2tog was.

Because I only know the long tail cast on and knit/purl bind off.

Because I know very little about gauge and yarn. Heck, we only got acrylic back home, and here I am, surrounded by cotton, hemp, silk and bamboo.

Because I can't block. I do what I think is steam blocking but that's about it.

What the heck are grafting, Kitchener stitch and why are cables so complicated? what are short rows?

Lord, seems like I know nothing. Anyway, 1 class may not solve all my woes, but its a step forward.

Because I really do enjoy knitting. I find it relaxes me.

Except when I make a mistake!!!!

Knitting classes

should i or shouldnt i ?

I need some closure

Men.

From men.

men who have used me. abused me. left me. no goodbyes, no notes, no thanks and no farewells. just emptiness. the several billion little hurts of everyday. the several billions of tears i cried. can you stop me from looking back with anger? with revulsion?

how is it that they are now so happy without me?

how is it that i move forward, but keep sneaking peeks back?

they say time heals everything.

bullshit.

they lie. or are deluded. because it doesn't. the aches have died down. they don't mean anything any more. but their memories haunt me sometimes, even in my happiest moments, wondering why i was left behind like so much junk, why i was not good enough.

can you help me s---?

if only they had said goodbye.

Uneasy rumblings

All of us need an escape. This is mine.

this is a pink month for me. uneasily shifting into summer, taking in the apology pink roses on my sill, the pink lemonade, pink frosting on a strawberry cake. pink flowers and pink sari. pink bangles, and bindi. and now a purple top, designed to be low cute, designed to push em out and tuck it in.

the city, the city. light and sound and frenzy and madness. and calling to us. and my quivering belly, hungry for more but not for this, for what then? rumbles.

Pray, eat, love!

Tomorrow is my first Hindu festival in my own home after my wedding. So, dropping all pretense of my 'normal' atheism, I'm cooking up a storm.

Why do we do this to ourselves? My husband would be darned if he would ever fast (gulp, gasp) for me. Or pray. Whatever. We do it all the time, Karwa Chauth, Teej, Gangaur...every day of every month finds us praying for them, for their peace of mind and physical well being. Health, wealth and happiness to boot.

In any case, the kheer smells great and looks better. And you can read about our festival here.

I never particularly enjoyed school which, if you really think about, is not all that uncommon. Some of us are terrorized by our teachers, some by sports (maybe some is an understatement), some by math, and some by physics, chemistry, name any subject. Some of us by he students.

I was, I think, terrorized by it all. Even what I was good at—and this I know for sure, that I was good at some stuff. I was not created dumb. Our system, all right let’s not generalize, our teachers ‘dumbed’ me down.

It’s weird to think of sometimes, how in my angry and bitter tweens I would think of how it would have been if I could have landed just one punch. Kapow! Irreverent and insulting, it may be, I am very sure I cannot be the only one to have felt so.

And now? So many years have passed that it seems to have blurred. Imagine. Fourteen years of my life pass by like a fuzzy hung-over dream.

It’s very foggy outside. And cold too.

From meditations...

"The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last"

--Marcus Aurelius

It feels like two AM madness.

This peace, this silent poetry of movement while we pretend to sleep. Spooning, cuddled close, his arm around my chest, legs tangled together. His warm breath on my neck, tickling the hairs that grow there. The strange snuffling noises he sometimes makes while sleeping. Are we awake or asleep?

It feels like every night. And no night.

My tooth- well the place where it had been- throbs, the teeth around it also ache. I can still feel blood if I touch my tongue to the spot, but I mustn’t, too tempting, the dentist told me not to. Out of so much solid enamel, such a definite something, now negative space only. Remembered only by its absence, the mild aches that the painkillers can’t quite kill.

It is this tooth which causes me to wake.

I’ve turned to face him now, my sleeping husband, though it hurts my jaw to do so. My leg riding his hips, my hand wrapped around his waist. He is sticky with sweat, with the slickness of his own sleep. And I try to ignore that other, more familiar ache, that desire which we must tonight deny, even though I might think I have never wanted him more.

i really must finish my hey teach cardigan sleeves. have ripped out 2 attempts already!

and i really must decide what to make next. the yarn is threatening to take over the house!

Hoovering is bad for the ears. I can hear an echo hoover running long after I've finished my flat.

Oh, scratch that. its the neighbor, apparently inspired by moi!

Ode to a pink lemonade

Update: Drinking pink lemonade from a green glass, and now that there's very little left, it looks like a mint julep. No, absinthe. Welcome, summer, into my glass!

It’s been a long time, weeks of deciding; okay I AM going to do this today and following slumps into lethargy. What’s a girl to do? Too much leisure, that’s what I have, and the result is…sopoforic. I feel so sleepy all day it isn’t funny.

What’s a girl to do then? I said that already. This is everyone with a knife (metaphorical only, of course) at my back. What would my husband say if he knew I was trying (ahem) to write again? Would he cheer or shrug his shoulders, ah well, you can but try, and patting me on the head move on to some serious Topgear on telly. Well, I can but try.

I credit my inspiration today to this brilliant pink lemonade—fancy stuff all right, with ice cubes bobbing on it demurely, looking elegant in a brandy glass.

It’s such a nice day out, surprisingly. It was all cloudy and intermittent rain yesterday, resulting in one of those ‘I can’t decide if I want to duvet or not, too hot or too cold’ nights. And now, here comes the sun, there’s ever so many boats on the water which actually looks a bit blue if I stretch my imagination. It’s calling me to the nearest starbucks, coffee in hand, resting in the shade by the lighthouse. It’s calling for gelatos and skirts whispering round the knees, book in hand and a lazy sleep.

As if I don’t get enough sleep already.

Well maybe I can just stare at the pretty doggies. And miss my own.