Holidays tend to be problematic for me; I always find myself overstressed and hyper-vigilant. I’ve had bad things happen around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes other people are so concerned with having the perfect time and presenting the perfect image that one’s best just isn’t enough, not even near enough.

In this holiday season I have to find the reason. I have to find the joy in it again, and define these days for myself in new healthy ways.

I’ve decided that finally for once I need to sit down at Thanksgiving and figure out at last what I’m freaking thankful for.

I’m thankful I have a roof over my head. Things have been up and down all this year and a few times I wasn’t sure if we’d make it but in the end I have a roof over my head, the husband, and the cats.

I’m thankful I have my wonderful patrons. Their love, interest, and support has often times been the difference between Rent and No Rent, or Food and No Food. They have had faith in my abilities, delight in my talents, and trust that I will follow through and repay their hard-earned money with my best efforts. I try every day to deserve the honor they give me.

I’m thankful that I have the cats. Rarely anything helps more than coming home and getting a loving headbutt kiss from Midnight, or having Dusky climb in my lap, up my chest and refuse to move until he’s been cuddled tightly, fitting his head under my chin. Thank the gods for good smart loving black cats.

I’m thankful that I have yarn. I have soooo much yarn. My stash is sizable. Any time of the day or night, when inspiration hits I can go to it and nine times out of ten find exactly what I need to make what’s on my mind. It overflows my cabinets and breaks the hanging wardrobe we bought for its prodigious size, but I love it, and it’s all mine.

I’m thankful that I have a vision that drives me. I live to have a hook in my hand; I live to be making new things that the world has never seen before (or old things in completely new ways). I live to fill my house with color and texture and vibrancy. I live to someday fulfill the dream of having a yarn shop all my own.

I’m thankful most of all for my wonderful husband, the family that the gods have given me. He’s been with me for years and I love him more every single day. He’s shown me what it means to have a real partner. He’s shown me what it’s like to be really loved. There was a lot of sturm und drang when we first got together; it’s passed over us like a wave over the ocean. Once you get below the surface, all is calm. We’ve sacrificed a lot to be together; in the end I measure all that I’ve given and I count it cheap. He is the reason for my season, all my seasons.

Happy Thanksgiving, mo anamchara. Most of all I’m thankful I’m loved so deeply by you.

Tags: bless me yarn art, cats, dusk, holidays, midnight, patrons, RealJob(TM), stress, the husband, the stash

Birds gotta fly. Fish gotta swim. Dogs gotta hunt.

Vox gotta crochet.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in this position, but if you have you’ll know what I mean. Ever done something and known immediately that this is what you were *created* on this earth to do? Ever felt that heady rush of knowing that you are a unique shaped peg in a unique shape hole — right where you need to be, at the right time, saying the right words, making the right motions? As if the universe itself could find no better thing for you to be than exactly what you are?

Serendipity. It all suddenly gels.

Sometimes I get that feeling. I know yarn. I love yarn. I can make yarn jump through hoops, sit up and beg. And while I can intellectually contemplate being bored with yarn and/or running out of ideas in about a few hundred years, I can’t actually imagine it.

If you haven’t had this marvelous feeling, I pity you a little… but I envy you too. Sometimes it’s the most frustrating emotion in the world because it drives you. It whips you like a merciless charioteer until you drop in your traces, covered in sweat and fatigue.

Today I finished a design that’s been bothering me for at least two years now: sturdy, realistic butterfly wings. Today it was like the angels singing — everything came together, and I fastened them to the doll, and they were PERFECT. And with that rush of absolute glee came three or four more ideas fast on its heels. A door has opened in this magnificent labyrinth of my own design, and there is MORE behind it.

You gotta do what you’re born to do. Anything else is a crime against your nature.

But sometimes it’s a necessary crime.

Exhilaration doesn’t always put money in the bank account. Serendipity doesn’t always pay the rent. It’s an unfortunate side effect of society that an action performed only *very well* sometimes pays much more than one performed in *absolute genius*.

Buddha does come back from Nirvana, to do what must be done. I’m glad that I can provide for my family. I’m glad that I have a RealJob(TM) and I can get rent and food and clothing and fuel and insurance and pay off old debts.

I’m also glad that my passion pays for itself, and more besides.

Ever got that feeling, that you were made for *something*, and that you’d finally found out what it was?

Tags: bless me yarn art, crochet, gonzo, life, RealJob(TM)

I don’t mind smokers in a philosophical sort of way. I’m a Libertarian, which means that I think other people should be allowed to commit suicide however they please, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience others or bring traffic to a grinding halt. Thank you, overpass jumpers, I AM talking about you.

I DO mind when I have to work in close quarters with smokers. Never mind the fact that with a barely-functioning immune system and a fairly delicate respiratory system I find the scent of smoke pretty irritating in more ways than one.

Seems like some of my local smokers attempt to find the most disgusting coffin nails that man has ever rolled to light up. They come in utterly redolent of noxious odors. If I came into the office reeking of a different but similarly nasty scent, perhaps of garbage or offal, I would be politely asked to go home and shower and change clothing.

I wish I could have a rule made to have all smokers spritz themselves with some fabric cleaner when they come back into the office. Oh, the smell of chemically cleaned offensiveness; there’s nothing quite like it in the world. I doubt this will occur as some of my managers enjoy a toke or two themselves. Granted, the managers appear to smoke a better brand of cancer stick that doesn’t disturb me quite as much.

I do enjoy an occasional clove cigarette (or cigarillo, as I suppose we must call them now since the government decided it was illegal to sell such pleasant-scented little delights to consenting adults); I smoke them whenever I feel self-destructive. I wake up the next day with a sore throat and lungs and a scratchy voice, which reminds me why I usually stick to alcohol.

What some of my coworkers smoke are not cloves; these are not cigars even, although some smell worse than others. This stinks almost as much as skunky ganja — again, something I’ve unhappily experienced on the clothing of other people. At this point I’m almost ready to explain to some of these people that a bullet is faster and gunpowder has a less obnoxious scent…

Ever had someone offend you with their odor? What was it, and how did you react?

Tags: fibro, illness, RealJob(TM)