Yup, I woke up happy. SYRUPY OVER THE TOP BRIMMING WITH F&ING HAPPINESS!! Why might you ask? Well, let me tell you!
-We’re going to have brunch with a great friend whom my husband is trying to get her a job at his company. This isn’t a bite you in the ass situation because this chick can totally do the work.
-I’m going to get my first facial in ten years!
-My husband was awarded by the CEO of his new ‘old’ employer two tickets to tonight’s major league baseball game, right behind home plate in a luxury suite and a reserved parking pass. We get to be VIPs!

The only downer is my weight and I’m not even going to let me get me down. I’m going to stretch, walk and enjoy my body and how it functions today and make it stronger for tomorrow.

So, if any unhappy thoughts, bad ideas or foul moods want to ruin my sunshine, it’s not going to happen. I’m teflonning my good mood.

Sunshine and puppy dogs,

Jen

But, I’ll be here to rant about life and it’s unfairness for having a rather large ass. And too small boobs for said ass.

Also, I’ve been writing a dear BP, fuck you for killing my childhood home and a lot of people I know livelihoods letter but I keep deleting it. Every time I start writing the letter I want choke someone and then I start crying. As I am about to right now.

Maybe in a day or two I can compose the letter to my satisfaction.

And Knitting. And running grown up errands like having my car serviced by five men.

Yes, at one point there were five men on my baby. I didn’t know if I needed to be ashamed or start filming the servicemen on car action and try to sell it to some perverted group on the internet. Obviously, I didn’t go with the money making route.

My car has recovered from her experience and I’ve also been poked and prodded. In the eyes. But the eyes are good. So are my teeth. And tomorrow I find out how my back is doing. Which I already know, shitty. I’ll be talking to the doctor to schedule another round of epidurals for a spinal block of glory. I loved the results from the last round, which lasted two years, and if this round is just as grand I’ll be a happy camper.

But back to the knitting, because really, that’s the intriguing (ie boring) part of my life. I’m working on a sweater for my mom – no pictures yet. And socks (in progress – toes only right now) that are in ode to my 80’s childhood, Rainbow Brite.

And here is the pile of yarn that I’ll be using to make said knee highs.

Now, for the serious subject. What would you all (five of you) think if I stopped Nutcase101 and made a new knitting blog? Nothing has been decided but maybe I’ll do something 50/50 – rant and knit or as often known in the knitting world as “Stitch and Bitch”.

In about five hours and fifteen minutes we’ll be on a jet plane to California for a glorious five days where we’ll enjoy great friends, conversation and food. Honestly, it’s going to be a blast. We do plan on fitting some sites into our trip but really, it’s all about the people.

And if you’re in Los Angeles and you want to have lunch with the Slackmistress, Betheboy and the crew of LAGenX, come to Laurel Tavern at noon tomorrow (5/29).

You might have heard that I went to a little yarn thing in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago. Where I might or might not have spent way too much money on fiber. (I’m an addict. I admit it.) But all of this happened on the way to yarn heaven. Okay, really, it was to my friend’s apartment.

I landed in Atlanta around 9 pm and had to catch the train (MARTA) to get to my friend’s apartment. Thankfully, the train stops at the airport so that part was pretty easy to navigate and get a seat to myself. But when I had to switch trains, the car had gotten full with people that had been watching the Braves wear really tight britches throwing around balls. Hey, I know what I appreciate about baseball, the uniforms.

Getting on the second train was NOT fun. All the people pushed, shoved and didn’t care about letting me on to the train – heck, I almost didn’t get on it. And then when I did, there was no where to sit so I stood in the aisle with my rolling bag, shoulder bag and hand bag. I tried to get situated before the train started moving but I was not successful, as the train jerked into motion I slammed the left side of my back into a hard plastic seat.

Thankfully, a gentleman saw my distress and kindly offered his seat. Which was great because I was ready to bite someone’s head off – I was tired, having been up and gone to work, then traveling and finally getting on two trains. And I didn’t mention that on the first one that I got stuck behind a group of former sorority sisters that only knew how to describe every other statement with “Oh, I SOOOO know what you mean.” “OMG!” And “LIKE WHAT?!”

Finally, I got to my friend and got to lay down. But I had no clue what I had done to my back until a few days later when bruises started to appear on my spine and there was sharp flank pain. And by a week later after a slew of symptoms and a battery of tests (including a CAT scan where I got to be radio active for a few minutes), it was determined that when I hit my back into the train seat that I had caused some wonderful kidney stones to play ping pong in the kidney bruising the inside while the chair did damage to the outside. Good times, good times.

The time on my bedside clocked glowed 4:30 and no light filtered in the window, there was no moon that night.

This was a common practice for me to be wide awake when most of the world was slumbering because I was in the second year of my double masters program and twenty-four hours a day was no where near the amount of time that I needed to get all of my work done. Since the start of August, I had been tasked with going to class, studying, go to work, running a project team of undergrads, organize and implement a recruitment campaign for my program, try to find a job and sleep (plus all of the other things that we have do to stay alive and maintain some sort of acceptable hygiene).

Sleep was the luxury that I gave up first.

There was too much to get done and I had to make sure everything was a success because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get the grades and if I didn’t get the grades I wouldn’t get the job and if I didn’t get the job, then twenty-six years of hard work would be for nothing.

That is the thought that would run through my head every moment that I wasn’t concentrating at the task at hand. So, anytime I tried to lay down I was thinking of the what had to be completed and that I just completed or that if I dared to play hokey, that I would be so far behind my whole life would come tumbling down.

Any slumber I did get was fretful and full of images of falling in endless pits. Being awake was so much better because I thought I had some sort of control.

But on this particular morning, the synapses in my brain were firing rapidly reminding me of a giant list of tasks and deadlines that needed to be completed and met. And that’s when I started crying and I couldn’t stop. I tried studying. Sobbing. Watching TV. Sobbing. I couldn’t call anyone to share my mental state because it was so early. My mind might have been broken but my manners were still in tact. The nausea started, my chest tightened, shaking from head-to-toe, dizzy spells and a number of other symptoms of being in a state of panic.

Then I got the brilliant idea that I needed to get to campus and camp out in front of my adviser’s office door, so that when he arrived at work at 7 am he could deal with a woman in full blown mental break-down and panic attack before his first cup of coffee. I wanted to quit everything – school, life because I couldn’t handle the responsibility.

I don’t remember the drive to the campus but I do remember entering the business school building (24 hour access) and feeling a sense of relief of being on campus. But that did not last long as the panic became a hundred times worse as I realized that by leaving the graduate program that I would be letting everyone down, that my parents would be ashamed and I was going to be labeled a quitter and a failure.

And honestly, after that point, I don’t remember the thoughts that went through my head or what I did until 7 am when my professor walked around the corner and saw me there. I just know that my professor found me outside of his office curled up in a ball and he patiently spoke to me for several hours until my panic attack was over. He let me babble incoherently and took the time to listen to my fears. All of them.

He assured me of my abilities, confirmed that I was overworked and that I would be fine. That life would be okay.

And he was right.

She felt the need to never be alone, taking on a new boyfriend, a one night stand and then the series of fiances. They all loved her and I was going to be a bridesmaid many times over.

During the parade of men, I had graduated college and moved on with my life. The time she and I spent together was sparse moments when I was home. No matter what was going on, I encouraged her to better her life.

Then came the day when she called me, exasperated. She told me it was all a big misunderstanding. And that she had not been called. It wasn’t really her fault and she was going to make the next court date. The crack pipe that Child Services had found under the bed of her second child wasn’t hers, it was one of her fiance’s friend’s. And no one from the court house had told her what time her custody hearing was, it wasn’t her fault that she had lost full custody of her children. Yes, she was still going to marry him.

That was the day I walked away and couldn’t help anymore. I had always seen her as the 18 year old girl I had shared my dreams with. I thought I could save her from the bad decisions by giving her what I thought she needed. But that day, my own dream of her saving herself with my help was shattered and there was more anger at myself, as there was at her and her poor decisions. I was her enabler and she was in denial and I couldn’t support either one of us in that manner anymore.

The week before I had decided to be adventurous and check out a new local knitting store that is right down the road from our apartment. (B, sorry, that means a lot more yarn is going to be adopted and making it’s home with us.) The owner had converted an old craftsman style house into a yarn store but kept all the warmth of walking into someones abode when you crossed the threshold.

You walk into a livingroom that happens to house yarn on the shelves instead of family photos and books. The dining area is ready for you to sit down to supper but the china hutch bursts forth with color of cashmere, not Grandma’s fine china. This repeats from room to room, except for the kitchen where tea, coffee, cookies and cupcakes await to be eaten.

Basically wants to make a knitter/crocheter fat and happy.

Anyone who walks in the door is encouraged to bring in their knitting, sit on the couch and just chat. So, this past Saturday I did. I was bold enough come in (and spend a pretty penny on some Cascade Ultra Pima), then work on the hat that I’m making for B. I met some wonderful ladies, learned about the various classes and had people complement me on my knits.

And the good news, I survived. I put myself out there to interact with strangers and it wasn’t too bad. I’ll definitely be back.

They had been trying for a baby for so long and were about to start another round of IVF and if that didn’t work they were going to adopt.

I got together a group of women (men were invited but politely declined) to teach them how to crochet, so that they could make squares to create a blanket of love for M. Originally, I was going to teach the group how to make hats for Chemo patients but the project was switched after they heard about the Schuyler Blanket Project.

Well, I’m happy and sad to say that the blanket was presented to M today. I’m sad because we had to rush the blanket to completion due to M taking another job, so that she could start ‘anew’ – she has a lot of great and sad memories associated with our workplace.

But, she loved the blanket so much and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room when it was presented. She had no clue that we had been meeting almost every Tuesday for the last three months making squares. I’m glad that she gets to take our love with her.

And, just for the record, 25+ women made 42 squares (there was supposed to be 48 but I had to give them a cut off to get the blanket sewn together) and out of the 25+ women, 19 of them did not how to crochet at the starting point.

Here is the wonderful blanket that everyone worked so hard on:

Life is hunky doory.

Oh wait it’s not always happy. Sometimes it is.

But right now, we’re trying to figure out which way is up because we’ve been through a lot of good and bad change in our lives in just the last couple of months. A lot of it is really affecting B, because people in this world aren’t always who you thought that they would be and sometimes they change on a dime.

But there have been a lot of freaking awesome. People that take time out of their lives to tell you that you’re appreciated and they think you’re worth keeping around. This has been a continuing thread in both B and I’s lives and that gives us the warm fuzzy feeling inside.

I wasn’t going to write this post. Hell, I put up a fluff piece about the cats. THE CATS. I love the cats but they haven’t cured cancer or done anything YouTube worthy for them to become internet stars.

So, life is life. It’s fun, scary and damn interesting moment-by-moment. Honestly, I’d like it to slow down a bit to the pace it was before but if this is what it takes for B and I to make a life for ourselves, then so be it.