Back To Knitting

 Currently on the needles is Karaoke from Knitted Socks East and West. As I've mentioned before on this blog when referring to this book, there are many questionable math and design issues. Why, for example are the yarn overs all next to purl stitches so they pull and look awkward? Why are there two knit stitches in front of the pattern repeats and only one after? Why are the back leg decreases done unattractively right up against the pattern in the last 2 stocking stitches, rather than in the two second to last, which leaves one stitch grace and looks so much nicer? These are all problems I've fixed by the way. 
They are also problems that I now easily forgive because of one element; the stitch the designer, Judy Sumner, calls the PKOK (pronounced peacock). That's pass the third stitch on the left needle over and off, then knit, yarn over, knit the remaining two stitches. A pretty little framed keyhole is created and Sumner has set rows of these off with a section of twisted rib. The effect is striking. I look at it and can't believe that something so easy to knit looks so darn cool.

I've just finished Knee Sock #1 as well as the ribbing on Sock 2. They're Daughter's Christmas present this year (by request) so I'd best pick up the pace if I want to knit any other gifts! And I do! I really do!

Love, Huge and Simple Between Us

...and in the end all that we can do is to sit at the table over which our hands cross, listening to tunes from the wurlitzer, with love huge and simple between us and nothing more to be said.

Elizabeth Smart
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

What I keep seeing is something white and slightly translucent, like a blob of suet the size of a koala bear, that has been plunked down onto this small wobbly table. It's solid and heavy. Hard to move. Everything in the room attends to it. We sitting here ignoring it, pretending it doesn't exist, is the height of ridiculous. Yet we do it. Daily. Constantly.
I suspect it's that way with the joy as well. There are so many smiles. They spill out almost painfully from lips dusty with disuse. All that awkward tripping. Stupid stupidity. Still we persist in pretending. For the sake of the higher ground?  Of being what we're supposed to be? Behaving with decorum and dignity? What one really wants to do is get very very drunk & wail & cry about all the injustice, all the pain of it. Behaviour frowned upon by society, by proper folk. Judged as sloppy and embarrassing. 
You keep asking what I want as if the very asking is the answer. Well, right now, what I want is the indulgence. Even once. To be a bad movie and trust that it's OK to be so just for a while.

The Pond on Saturday

I went for a long, long walk in High Park yesterday. My legs are a bit sore today but it was so worth it.