Dudley is 11 weeks old today, and tonight we reached a new milestone - he was running and playing with Murphy like a maniac, stopped in mid-mad-dash, went to the back door and SCRATCHED AT THE DOOR TO GO OUT! He of course received huge, theatrical, crazy woman-type praise for doing PeePee Outside when it was HIS idea, not ours. He rarely has accidents, but yeah, he still has them, and up until now it was more a matter of us making sure his peanut bladder was drained regularly. This was the first time he ASKED to go outside to potty. He's a baby genius. I'm way impressed.
Somewhere down in my comments Geogrrl remarked that she hates to KIP. So do I. If this makes me a bitch, then, hey, I'm a bitch. I am absolutely baffled by this obsession with Knitting in Public as some sort of Statement - what is the statement being made here? My life is really boring and I have no friends of my own, so I really enjoy random conversations with the sort of annoyingly Off the Meds types who just HAVE to talk to someone who is knitting in public. And talk. And talk. And talk. I have some memorable KIP experiences from my husband's illness - knitting while the surgeons performed the miracle of fixing the femur shattered by a tumor, knitting while his brain mets made it nearly impossible to do an MRI, knitting in the nursing home while he was dying - and yes, I was approached by people who can only be described as freaks every damn time. I was literally sitting at my comatose husband's bedside in the vigil from hell, and cheery little clueless bitches would approach me to chat about knitting. No shit. I was certainly not seeking attention, I was not making eye contact, anybody who wasn't totally self absorbed and with the sensitivity of a rhino could size up the situation, see what was happening and realize that I was willing them with every fiber of my being to Please, Just Leave Me ALONE. But noooo....
I do still knit in public. I do it with my head down and the Invisible Shield of Fuck Off in place. I knit in public because it is my private quiet time, my blood-pressure lowerer, my time killer in airports, etc. I do not knit because I want attention, and I do not knit because I need to be your friend. I am generally not a rude person, so if you insist on bugging the shit out of me I will be nice to you, but please understand, that deep in my heart of hearts, I don't give the tiniest rat's ass that you knit too, I don't care that you think I "knit funny" or what you are making for your grandchildren. Leave me the hell alone.*
*The exception to this Fuck Off Policy is, of course, knit nights, yarn shops, or any other venue where people gather to talk about knitting.
I would love to be able to knit at lunch at work. I really would. But in the current situation - no walls, no door, no privacy, and with the crowd I work with, no good could come of it. I don't want to talk about knitting, I don't want to share my craft. I knit to keep from having a frigging stroke from dealing with the stupidity around me. I can't even get it to file, I sure as shit don't want to have to teach it to knit.
For me, it isn't an obsession and I have no problem telling the crazies to fuck off if need be but I KIP because I love to knit and want to do it whenever I can, even in public, but more importantly here in South Florida we have a dearth of LYS and I so longed to have someone "got it" about knitting in my life (none of my friends knit and none have accepted my offer to teach them) so I bought myself a clear knitting bag and KIP whenever I can cause I figure someone might just say, "Hey, I knit too, do you know of any knitting groups?"
ReplyDeleteAmen, Sister! I KIP occasionally--especially in airports now that it's being allowed again--and I do my level best to keep the "Fuck Off" shields up. I'm not bothered as much as I used to be--perhaps I've finally learned hwo to radiate an "attitude". But still, due to unwanted attention I just don't KIP that often.
ReplyDeleteMy exceptions to the above are the same as yours. I never knit at the office, either. I am wary of the message it may send.
Gah. While your husband is ill/dying and these clueless twits try to strike up a conversation? When your body language is clearly saying GO AWAY? How frickin' stupid does one have to be?
I hear you... I almost never KIP. I don't really want to discuss my knitting with strangers. I sometimes wish I were more relaxed about it, but at least at this point, I'm not. Maybe if I were knitting something more advanced, something I was more proud of? Maayybe... but prolly not.
ReplyDelete