Three Random Things...

Random thing #1: TOES!!
Jeez that's blurry... Oh well, it's a sock toe!! I learned it from Wendy - it's Knitpicks Shine Sport on size 3 needles. (I know, I was all like, sport weight yarn? For socks? Shut up!)
But it works... you start out with this little rectangle and then you pick up a couple of stitches and viola! A toe. Here's where it gets really nutty: I have a lot of Knitpicks Shine Sport. A lot. I was thinking I might knit these puppies into some really long socks - like over my knee socks - and make them cool and stripey. Now, when am I ever going to wear over my knee stripey socks? Well, I could wear them to bed. Not that I wear socks to bed, but when it gets really cold again I'll need something to pull off in the middle of the night and throw across the room. Also, if I don't get bored and actually finish them (stop laughing) I could go as Pipi Longstockings for Halloween. See there? Planning ahead.

Random thing #2: Overheard at the office yesterday...
And I swear that to the best of my memory this is how the conversation went.

A: What movies have you seen lately?

P: Well, let me tell you, we saw Mr. Brooks and Oceans 13

A: I have never heard of those. Were they any good?
(Seriously?!? Never heard of those? Mr. Brooks, sure, but OCEAN'S 13???)

P: Oh they were both pretty good. I liked Ocean's 13 a little better.

A: I have never seen any of them - are there really thirteen movies?
(Um... what?)

P: Well, no, it's the number of people involved in the caper. It's a remake...
(She went on but I'll spare you. None of us are living in caves and we all know the basic story, right? And yes, she really did use the word "caper." Repeatedly).

A: Oh, I see, who is in this movie?
(Who is IN THIS MOVIE??? At this point I stopped pretending I wasn't listening and just unabashedly eavesdropped on them).

P: Well, let's see, there's George Clooney

A: Ooooh, I like him

P: And Brad Pitt
(Here's the part you're not going to believe...)

A: I don't think I have ever seen him in a movie, is he a good actor?

At that point my head exploded and I was forced to stop listening to the conversation and move to another part of the building.
These are people I work with every day. Every. Day. And this is not an unusual conversation.

Random thing #3: New Yarn! New Yarn! New Yarn!!!!
Knitpicks has a new self-striping yarn and Blue Moon Fiber Arts has some new and fantastic colorways. I may have accidentally placed a Knitpicks order and I have over $100 in Blue Moon in my shopping basket. As SOON as I get some extra cash I'm clicking "submit." I only hope I don't add more to it before then.

Mini-Rant

My feminine hygiene products are getting a little too bossy. And cheerful. Sort of like perky aerobics instructors who never sweat. Bitches.

I can handle the instructing and the cautioning and the insisting that I properly dispose after use... but I can not handle the cheerful hope that I "have a happy period."
The commercials are irritating. Commercials are supposed to be irritating. But on the packaging there are several times that I am told to have a "happy period."

It's not a happy period.

And frankly, I sort of resent the implication that it should be. I also resent the implication that there are people for whom this is happy fun time. Like I'm the weird one for hiding in my dark bedroom with a heating pad on, a bag of Hershey's kisses in my left hand, a bottle of Lortab in the right. And I'm coming off of 10 days of progesterone... so I'm all jacked up right now.

I am ready for the hormone roller coaster to pull into the station so I can get the hell off this ride.

Have a happy period.
Fuckers.

I smell purple.

As in, I can smell purple, and also I smell like purple. Because I am an idiot.

I have been a little, um, down. I know this is shocking to you as I have been hiding it so well. So last night I decided that I needed to have purple hair. Yup. Purple. Not all of my hair, just enough of it to feel better but not so much that you'd say, "what the hell is that fat girl doing with purple hair?!?" More like if my hair moved in just the right way you'd see a glimpse of the dyed hair under the brown hair and think, "Is that... purple?"

So I went to the store and bought Kool-aid and mixed it with developer and spent twenty-five minutes trying not to drip on anything. I rinsed it out and it dried and my hair was... TA-DAAAAA!!! Not purple. Not at all. Not any different in any way. Except that now it smells like grape Kool-aid, which doesn't actually smell grape. It just smells, well, purple.

You'd think I would give up. You'd think that I would sigh and say, "well, it was a good dream, but I am essentially a soccer mom and should have soccer mom hair." Fuck that.

I may not go the Manic Panic route but mark my words: I will have purple hair. Oh yes, I will have purple hair.

A Choice Every Day

Thank you all for your wonderful comments... Lara really hit it on the head, though. Marriage is a choice you make every day. Even when choices are difficult.
Right now I choose to remain married, I choose to nurture this relationship. Right now I choose to take the bad with the good, even if the bad seems prevalent right now.
It will either get better or it will get worse, and while there are certainly things that I won't tolerate I am willing to wait this one out.
I think that my angst recently has centered around the fact that I thought I had a pretty good handle on relationships in general - my relationship specifically. Recent conversations with my husband have made me see that we have two very different ideas about what our relationship is like and where it is going.
Something that you'd think we would have figured out a long time ago.
Apparently since his dad died everything has shifted for him. Priorities or expectations or what he needs. I honestly don't have any idea what that means for us. He is not looking for a way out. He is perfectly content to let things go on as they are. And he really doesn't want to talk about it. Or the job search. Or anything.
So that leaves me to figure out what kind of "normal" we have now and how to navigate it.
Today I choose us... who knows what will happen tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Out of Proportion?

"Marriage is like an un-funny episode of Everybody Loves Raymond" (Knocked Up).

Hi Kerri? Don't read this.
On second thought... read it, what the hell do I know??
Also, I'm a little medicated. And by "a little" I mean drugged to the gills and feelin' pretty fine.

So I have been a little down. (Really? None of us had noticed).
And mostly, I have been a little down on marriage. (Um, nope, hadn't noticed that either).
It is not that I don't love my husband. I do. Essentially he's a good guy (with issues). Essentially they're all good guys (with issues). I guess we more or less pick the guy with the issues we think we can handle the best. Or something.
Whatever.

But I have been watching a lot of comedies and comedy specials and stuff. You know, trying to take the edge off. In a nutshell: it didn't work. It sort of made it worse.

Because the funniest stuff in stand-up and in sit-coms is the "holy crap marriage sucks but I love him/her anyway so what the fuck divorce is expensive anyway" bits.

It occurred to me that maybe I am blowing this whole spousal drama out of proportion.

Yes, he needs to get a job. Yes, one of the other husbands needs to figure out whether he's gay or not. Yes, another one needs to get his anger issues under control. There are some issues that need to be fixed... but the thing that has had me in such a twist is that while I love the husband I don't really like him right now. I don't want to spend time with him and when he comes to bed I pretend to sleep. I am angry with him. Constantly. I want him to not be home when I am home. I would rather he leave the house and pretend to look for a job so that I can have a few hours alone and not have to be pissed at him about it. I resent the fact that emotionally he has been MIA for about a year. (Understandably, right? But just because my dad is still alive doesn't mean I have no emotional needs. Fuck, some of you know my dad... I might just have MORE needs than the average bear BECAUSE he's alive but that is a different story all together).

But maybe that is not such an unusual thing. Maybe we have been led to believe that marriage is supposed to be this mutual exchange of ideas and support... and it is actually... um... NOT. Maybe it's ok to not like him very much right now, and maybe that doesn't mean that my marriage is in trouble. Maybe it just means I'm married. Maybe it is ok to only get, I don't know, half of the support you need from your spouse and the rest from other people. I get more support and sympathy and help from my friends than I ever have from any man ever. The only thing I'm not getting from my friends is sex and financial support. (Again, a totally different post is in order to really discuss that one).

I can't be the only one. I look around at my friends and I know for a FACT that there are at least three or four of us.

I am not saying that we should all go out and get divorces and live alone forever. Not at all. I think that what I'm saying is that maybe we really can't expect our husbands to fulfill every emotional need we have and maybe our expectation that they will is causing some of this angst. I mean seriously.

I have known some of my friends since I was 13. Other friends of mine are relatively new and still others are people who I have known for a long time but only recently really developed a relationship with. And we all seem to be having the same sorts of issues with the men in our lives.

And it can't all be blamed on "the kids." Not all of us have kids. Unless you count our husbands.

I know that we're all old enough to have given up on happily ever after... but I think that we really did buy in to the whole "life mate" thing. We bought into the idea that somehow they would learn to communicate in the same way we communicate. We bought into the Ikea and Ethan Allen and Fucking Kodak commercials. I am really starting to think that we just might be expecting too much out of these only recently domesticated animals.

They're not all bad. Like I said, they're basically good guys, but when we expect them to love us and cherish us and support us like our friends do maybe we're asking for more than they can give.

I am not ready to give up on my marriage... I have talked about it a lot recently but I am not ready to do that. Maybe this is what marriage IS. Maybe this is what I have to get used to. You know, once he has a job.

Maybe the thing I thought I was supposed to get from marriage that I'm not getting is really better found with the women in my speed-dial. You know, except for the sex and financial support.

Simple Needs

A bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper, a book, a sock and thou.
See, my needs are simple. My wants manageable.
I am in the stockinette black hole of the end of the sock. No more decreases until the toe, no more pattern, just row after row of stockinette. It's nice because there is no thinking involved, but I am ready to start the next one and I can't because the first one is not done.
I thought that this one would be better - it's the Katie the intern sock and she has teeny tiny little feet.
I measured it about an hour ago and had about an inch and a half to go before the toe decreases. I kept knitting. I measured it just a minute ago and had just over an inch to go before the toe decreases. What the hell?

I had a nice lunch earlier today - I got up before Bean and the husband and showered and found clean clothes. My laundry fairy is apparently on vacation. Then I met a good friend at the best bookstore in the whole world for sandwiches and some book fondling. Neither of us bought anything... but we touched pretty much everything in the store. It was a good day.
Well, it was a good two hours.
I need more two hour blocks like that.

There is a 2-liter of Diet Dr. Pepper in the fridge, dinner has been cooked and eaten, and if I knit all night I might actually get through another half-centimeter on this sock.

Just Keep Knitting...

WARNING!! Rockin' Sock Club Spoiler at the end of the post!

When all else looks fails, just knit.

This is the Tidal Wave sock for Katie the Wonder Intern. She is the reason I don't have to work weekends anymore. I love her. Love her. And I love these socks. I'm using Crystal Palace Panda Cotton (quelle surprise) in Chocolate Almonds. It's lovely.

She also has the smallest little feet in the world... so it's a fast little sock. The pattern is very easy and (as an extra bonus) it's really easy to figure out where you are in the pattern if you put it down.

I also got some yarn this week:
Don't you just love the Blue Moon Fiber Arts people?!? I love, love, love these colors. And how perfect for summer?!?!

Yarn therapy, you know?
Knitting and sleeping. That is how we roll.