Tales from the City, Part 1

Subtitled: You know you are a knitting dork when...

Alternate subtitle (because I am all about the decisions these days, apparently): In which the author really, truly stretches the extent to which one can legitimately lengthen a sentence, beyond what she has ever bloated one before, and then does so multiple times, requiring incredibly slow reading and perhaps ultimately ending in necessitating a cocktail and whichever painkiller is OK to mix with alcohol - the author never actually remembers and so typically goes without (painkillers, obviously, not booze) because she doesn't want to wreck anything in there - the liver, the kidneys, or whatever that other thing is in there, she forgets - any more than she has to.

Ugh. Maybe forget that last title. That author HATES it when people say "I'm all about" something. That is so 40-year-old mom wearing a baby doll T-shirt pretending she's just in style and not actually trying to hide her tummy. Ugh! I would NEVER do that. Nuh-uh.

Anyway, without further ado, (though with a bit of stage fright, what with my having set everyone's expectations so high) here goes:

The setting: the Butterfly Exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in New York, a treat for which the average person has paid $22 and probably doesn't want to be disturbed by crazy, knitting-obsessed people who don't actually care one fig about butterflies, and in fact would prefer not to have them flitting about so closely over their heads (Do butterflies poop?) but got dragged in there because they had a daughter who wasn't actually using her own money and apparently doesn't remember that she lives all of three miles from a butterfly exhibit that is bigger, and in which no snooty volunteer lady compares her 41-year-old mother to a seven-year-old on the mere basis of her having said "Wow," even though it was only out of politeness, mind you, when she was shown a butterfly's proboscis through a magnifiying glass. 

Because she didn't really feel Wow. She only said Wow. To be polite-like.

I mean, Hel-loooo? It's a butterfly nose. Who cares?

Also? It's possible she wasn't even looking at the butterfly's nose. Because really, who cares? (As she may have mentioned.)

Plus, she was busy.

Stalking a sweater, you see.

And not even the sweater, really, but the yarn. The sweater was so-so. The yarn, however, was EXACTLY the yarn she had just used to make her own sweater.

Which she was wearing at the time.

Ahem.



The author chose to ignore the fact that the other sweater-wearer did not seem even remotely intrigued by the author's own sweater, which the O.S.-Wearer might have been, had she actually made her own sweater, using EXACTLY the yarn the author had, as per the premise of the story playing out in the author's wild imagination.

But no, no, the author chose to ignore this and press on, attributing the OSW's lack of interest in the author's sweater to her perhaps not having noticed it.

What with all the stinkin' butterflies getting in the way.

And so the author, head full of images of two strangers bonding, basking in each other's shared knowledge of things knitterly - perhaps a bitch or two about the darn button band being so fiddly, and Hey, what did you really think of this yarn? - maybe even linking arms and leaving the damn butterflies (and perhaps even Girl who is known to be a bit tiresome sometimes, saying horrible, nasty things like "You know, Mom, I don't even LIKE knitting!") behind, as they headed off into the sunset for tea and further chat about things knitterly, well, that author, she took every opportunity to shove herself and her sweater in front of this woman.

Like this:



And maybe this:



(By the way, that last one is not the author. It's some sloppy sweater-thieving person who keeps forgetting she has a college reunion coming up and better start with the salads, already! If she remembers what one is...)

In any case, apparently OSW was very fond of her butterflies, thank you very much, because she did not look down even once, until finally the author was forced to Step. On. Her. Foot.

Not hard. Just a little shove, really. To get her to notice what was really important here: Hel-looooo, lady? Lookie me! Lookie my sweater!

And still the OSW did not say anything. But the author noticed that her eyes definitely rested on the sweater a second. (That the author was not able to detect any admiration whatsoever in the glance, she attributed simply to jealousy, and, being of noble spirit, chose graciously not to hold it against the OSW.) I mean, c'mon. How could she not be jealous? Look:



Perhaps she did not say anything because she is shy, the author thought. (She is nothing if not completely oblivious determined, this author of ours.)

Still, a teensy bit of doubt crept in anyway, and so the author retreated into a corner to think about the situation.

At about this time, a butterfly decided to land. And get stuck in the wool. Maybe. The author couldn't really say for sure. But the signs everywhere said not to touch the butterflies, and she really didn't want it on her - what if it was a moth, for heaven's sake? - so she tried to blow on it, giant puffs of dislodging coffee breath. And when that didn't work, she added a shimmy or two.

(In case anyone is interested? Nothing says "cool" like lady in a hand-knit sweater twitching in the corner, blowing on herself.)

The help - including the lady who thought the author's "Wow" showed a distinct lack of vocabularic skills - started to head over.

The author explained that she thought maybe the butterfly was stuck. The help looked at her like this was her fault, and she was apparently trying to steal their butterflies in her wool sweater or something.

The author apologized profusely for being so attractive to butterflies. She knows it is wrong of her. But apparently it is the love that will not be denied.

Eventually the author butterfly was freed, unharmed, and the author was allowed to go about the business of stalking the other sweater. Good multi-tasker that she is, she had come up with a new plan during the disentanglement process: she was going to give that sweater a good once-over and make sure it was even handmade in the first place.

And so she slunk around, chasing after the OSW, trying to assess things like gauge and tension and, most tellingly, the presence of a hem on the sweater. (Handmade's don't often have them.) Unfortunately, hems tend to fall around people's bottoms, and the author could really use some glasses (though she denies it vehemently) and so essentially this poor OSW was being chased by a woman staring a bit too closely... at. her. butt.

This might be a good time to mention our author is actually quite shy.

And knew full well she was never going to grow a set of ovaries big enough to just walk up to the woman and talk to her. Especially after getting caught checking out her ass. And so she readied to give up her dream, this whole crazy plan, and just look at the damn butterflies already when she suddenly found herself face to face with the OSW.

Who, it turned out, had a rather large portwine birthmark on her neck and face.

And probably thought the author had been staring at that the whole time.

Well.

The author, while OK with letting everyone think she was a twitchy kook freak muttering in a corner, was certainly not going to let stand any possibility that people think she was a rude twitchy kook freak who stared at people for no good reason, and so was ultimately compelled to speak:

"Rowan Felted Tweed, isn't it?" she said, just a big smugly, because she already knew she was right; knew that now that she had broken the yarn barrier, she and this OSW were gonna be BFFs 4-evah. All because she was so impressive in her knowledge of the yarn arts. And so daring, so sure of herself, she could approach random strangers, she, this author gifted with yarn-savvy and wearing her very own cabled sweater on which she'd sewn the buttons almost straight.

Yeah... no.

In fact, you know that face people make when you present your two-year-old, who happens to be covered in boogers and a chocolate milk mustache and other assorted things and they are trying to pretend he is still cute but really they're just praying he won't touch them? 

Plus also they think maybe you smell?

And they don't know if they'll be able to get away? That face? Where they hold themselves all stiff and paste on this brittle smile that looks like it might crack their teeth?

Yeah.

This knitting business is so much harder than they ever tell you it's going to be.

So that's it, really. The whole story.

Told ya' it was really nothing.

Stay tuned for tomorrow. In which I get carded. 

Again.

(P.S. It's not really gonna be tomorrow, just so ya' know. )