Peace Seeking Missile

I feel like I'm busier than I've been in a long, long time - but most of the business is just the work of keeping the house going, unpacking, moving in, getting settled - you all know the drill - and the knitting business is taking a back seat.

I guess this is how it "should" be - how it usually is for folks - except the knitting business is also the mortgage business. Life throws us curve balls, I guess.

And, as silly as it seems (it would certainly seem silly to me if it weren't happening to me) I also feel tremendously guilty that I'm not able to do it all. I think guilt is non-productive, useless - absolutely no good to anyone. Yet here I am feeling that I'm not doing enough.

And, of course, that kind of thinking just leads to wheel spinning (not the fun kind where you make yarn, either - sidenote: I'm watching ROME on HBO and I notice that one of the women seemed to be using a spinning wheel. Nu??? Her dad just beat her up - probably for time traveling.)

And even less productive? Forcing you folks to read about me feeling guilty for not being more productive. It's a mania, I tells ya, and this is the point when the blog becomes therapist.

Grandma Car
I'm in Madison, WI - and if it weren't so overcast I'd see the beautiful city I've heard so much about. Even WITH the overcast I can tell that it's a wonderful place. Of course, I wasn't aware they were having the festival of one-way streets this weekn (Apparently I've been crowned the one-way princess! Kneel before my lane shifting prowess!)

On the way I stopped at a Wendy's for a chicken sandwich and the girl at the window said, "Wow - my grandma has the same car! Or maybe it's my great-grandma - one of them..." Lovely. God forbid I tell her I knit for a living. I wonder if I can package up this mass-produced pity and sell it on ebay?

I haven't gotten started on the projects I hoped to - the video, the proposal for the new books - I feel so far behind.

So I'm staying at a lovely hotel - the Madison Concourse - I was upgraded because they're full, so I got to go to the Governor's Closet or the Governor's suite or something like that on the 12th floor for some free appetizers and drinks. No more appetizers, but lots of gin and tonic. While I drank I stumbled wandered over to the business center on the same floor and printed out some stuff and called Gerry ("There's a computer in the BAR?" he asks...)

While I was on the computer a group of half-fried business folk staggered past and one asked me archly, "Looking at PORN?" Oh, if only they knew. Knitter's porn - checking out expensive fibers and luxurious knitting cruises. Another guy reached around and peering over my shoulder said, "Hey, she IS! This guy has the biggest - "

- crochet hook.

Worry follows me like that bowl of Cream of Wheat that used to chase the kids on the ads. If you're over 40 you know what I mean - raise your feeble, arthritic hands (if you can) and there's nothing to do but put it to bed. Worry and guilt, two of the most useless things in the world.

I've ordered a really delicious salad - it goes with the gin & tonic - and I'll settle in for some knitting and some Bill Maher before bed. Tomorrow I teach two classes on Combination Knitting, then I drive down to Knitters Treat in Monticello to teach there on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Then home. Then Cleveland. Then Home. Then Chicago (PRW Audition.) Then Home until May. Home.

Hannah REALLY misses me these days, and I miss her, too. She's at that rough pre-teen age when she knows she's being irritating, but needs continual reinforcement that even if she IS irritating, I love her just as much as ever. Which I do. I remember that age so well - it's a hard time.

So here I am in my peaceful hotel room, trying to enjoy my solitude and wishing like all get-out that the kids and Gerry were here making a racket.

It looks like our time here is up...