Karin (Kucki), your letter is "H."

*****

Well, I got a surprise valentine's day card yesterday.



From my youth group. They often come down a little early (we eat at 6, have the lesson at 6:30, and then game-time afterwards) and they all hung around. One kid who was good at graphic design lettered up several cards (for me, for the other teacher, and three of the kids did one for their mom) and they all signed them.


That made me happy. These are, remember, teen and pre-teen boys, members of a group not always exactly tuned in to the feelings of others. (And no one put them up to it; I asked).

So something must be going right if they think to make Valentine's cards for people.

*****

I finished the sleeves on the CPH last night:


They're blocking. I'm going to knit on the hood and the button bands, and then block the body of the sweater before sewing it up. (No blocking instructions are given in the pattern but I think the finished product will look better blocked.)

I didn't have the energy to pick up stitches for the hood last night, so I did this instead:



It's the gauge swatch for the Grecian Pullover. That's about as true as I was able to get the color (and I took numerous photos). In real life it's a bit darker than what it shows up in the photo. I have gauge - or, well, close enough. The tiny bit that I'm off is in the direction that will make the sweater just a tiny bit bigger, so I'm just going to go ahead and knit the 42" size and figure it will all come out in the wash, figuratively.

I'm also finding I will probably have close to 900 yards of that gray alpaca (from the CPH sweater) leftover. Which leaves me with a couple options:

1. consider it for a vest for myself
2. knit up a whoooooooole mess of hats for Dulaan
3. make a kid sweater or two for Dulaan
4. give it to someone who has more time to knit than I do, who will use it to make kid sweaters for Dulann, or Pine Ridge, or Guideposts sweater-project, or something.

I'm actually leaning towards #3, because I'm thinking I could play around a little with designing - because, whatever size the sweater comes out, it should fit SOMEONE - not like when you're trying to design for a specific person.

But I don't know. These days I've found I have to be a bit more selfish with my time and that also seems to include knitting for others.

***

I DID go and read Yarn Harlot's post.

And she's right. Both about the "whole grain" vs. "twinkie" thing and about the pure idiotic fairy tale ideal that society crams down our throats.

I remember in Great Books, discussing that Platonic (or maybe it was pre-Platonic, it's been nearly 20 years now since that class. And we were reading like 300 pages a week, which has a strong negative effect on my reading comprehension) concept that we all started as "complete" souls, but somehow those souls got split into two halves, and so everyone goes around looking for their "soul mate" and when they find it, they're complete again.

When I was 18 that sounded like a horribly romantic concept.

Now, it makes me roll my eyes like a 16-year-old Goth at the mall, because if it's true, then I've been walkin' around alllllllll these years with half a soul.

I will also say that I've been a (somewhat distant) observer of an affair that happened in my vicinity...and you know, I realize I probably don't fully understand the situation or the whole infidelity thing, but whenever I hear of what seemed like an otherwise happily-coupled person who cheats, I want to go up to them and just SHAKE them. And I want to say: "You have someone who LOVES YOU. And you are HURTING THEM. Why are you being stupid and maybe throwing away something that other people would love to have?" I don't know why I react so strongly to it*...but I do. And I don't know, I kind of look at the little minefield that the dating world has become, and I've read excerpts from "He's Just Not That Into You." (my nominee for THE most pessimistic book in the world), and I just kind of sigh and shrug and figure that I was never issued that part of the rulebook...

(*Very likely partly because I believe that love is difficult, finding someone you love is very rare, and that there aren't "10,000 people out there you could be happy with" or whatever dumb statistic some pop psych study promoted).

there are a lot of things I am good at coping with as an adult but the whole human relationships thing is not one.


The other thing - and I know I've said this before, but the whole Valentine's Day Myth does another thing that bugs me, and that is that it "privileges" (to use a word in a way I would not normally use it) one type of love over all others. The implication being that if you have parents who love you or friends who love you or children who love you or if you have love of God or sort of the general saint-like love of your fellow man (which I really do not posess; my fellow man ticks me off to easily), that you are a lesser person than someone who's managed to hook a person into sharing their bed and sharing their life.

And again, it's like the half-a-soul thing: I'm very happy for the people who have found that kind of love. But under no circumstances should those people tell me (or act like) I am pitiful, pathetic, less of a human being, not really "living," going to wake up at 80 and realize what I've missed, etc., etc. (And yes, I've heard the 80-and-regrets thing. And it made me just look at the person who said it, say "I'm sorry, I just remembered something I had to do," get up, and walk away. I was DONE with that person right then.)

Sometimes I think people who have a mate do not realize how difficult it can be - perhaps even impossible - for some people to find a mate. (I do not believe in "soul mates," at least in the sense that "everyone" has one, and just has to go out and find them. I don't believe in "a lid for every pot." And I don't believe in "love at first sight" - "interest" at first sight, yes. "lust" at first sight, perhaps. But not "love.")

Plato again, and this time I agree with him: "Be kind, for you know not what burdens the other person carries."

And I PROMISE this is the last I have to say about this for at least a year.