waisting time

pom pom goodness
Originally uploaded by Needleworks, Inc..

There is an element of my personality that becomes really attached to things like movies and books. Like, really personally committed. When I finish reading a book or watching a movie I carry it with me, in my head, for weeks.

As a child, I lived very much in my head. More there than in reality. I read more than I actually talked to people. I would WALK and read. My mother actually had to take my books away.

I was so much easier for me to live with the people in my books. I would also create elaborate scenarios in my head where I was smart and funny and successful in any situation. In real life, I couldn't order my own food at a restaurant because the thought of actual conversation with a waiter scared me so much I lost the ability to speak.

Of course I outgrew this, but not for a long, long, long time. I still have this uncanny ability to suspend reality (I mean, I cried while watching The Iron Giant.) and as a result, I feel, I get really attached to characters in books (or movies). After having finished a particularly involving book, I often don't read anything for a week or so. I can't. I'll read a magazine on the subway or knit, but I need time to process and let the story fade away a little before I can become engrossed in a new one.

It's no surprise, then, that I approach my knitting the same way. A particularly engrossing knitting project (the kind that you can't put down until it's finished - the kind that you will actually knit while WALKING) uses my energy like an intense movie does.

When it's finished, I can't work on a new project right away. I putter around and do some swatching and generally give myself time to process my finished project. That's where these pom poms came from. I made them because I literally couldn't make anything else. Aren't they luscious? I think they're going to be part of a kind of neck-warmer thing. I don't quite know.

(Today on my way to work, the L train stopped for a full 3 minutes at the 6th Avenue stop with the doors open. There was a man on the platform who, quite honestly, looked homeless playing a keyboard and singing Dock of the Bay. He was so good, that by the time he finished, EVERYONE on the train had looked up from their newspaper or US Weekly and was listening to him. Whenever I hear some random Otis Redding it makes my day. Thanks,man.)