Inert and inept

Do you remember the movie, Private Benjamin? It came out in 1980 and starred Goldie Hawn. There's a lame joke in it that still makes me laugh. The ragtag group of women soldiers are about to participate in war games, and are being given instructions by an intimidating, higher-ranking officer. Sgt. Ross, played by Hal Williams, is describing the terrain and says "Some of these landmines are inert. Those that aren't are (beat, beat) ert."

I want to be ept.

I am having a crisis of confidence. Can't read, can't write, can't make my computer do what it's supposed to, and I seem to have lost my knitting mojo. Which, given the amount of yarn I have stashed at my house, my BFF's house, and my mother's house, could be a big damned problem.

I just returned from a jaunt with lots of other knitters and at first, I thought it was a result of being around so many talented craftswomen. At best, I'm a knitting technician rather than a creative force or an expert, so it's easy to be intimidated by the skills of my confreres. But when I got home, I noticed unfinished projects that I'd given up on because I was stuck. And the project I'd planned to start on the trip had frustrated me completely, because I couldn't get the gauge swatch to work and the pattern I knitted looked nothing like the stitch on the sweater in the picture. And my latest obsession, socks, did nothing to soothe me. I couldn't increase to the correct number of stitches on a new pattern I'd been looking forward to trying, and I'd turned the heel way too early on my second sock in the beautiful Kaffe Fassett yarn. Which meant I had to rip it out and do it again. Wouldn't that make you question your mojo?

So, how to snap out of the funk? By starting a new project, of course. An achievable project for the shop, made out of one ball of yarn. One ball of yarn that knits up like buttah (Rowan Cashsoft Baby DK), especially on the ebony needles I'm using. I plan to use the whole ball on one stitch pattern, creating a long gauge swatch so customers can see how much yarn 142 yards really is.

Oh, and Sheridan Hay's, The Secret of Lost Things, seems to have broken my reading slump. I had a very satisfying reading session, snuggled up in bed late last night. The light went off around 1:30 and I didn't fall asleep over the book!

In retrospect, I wonder how much of my slump was due to coffee deprivation. The house blends I sampled in New Mexico sucked, and a latte from the Linden St. outpost of blue bottle coffee co. straightened me right up. To find out more about this nectar, check out their website bluebottlecoffee.net. This elixir makes me purr with pleasure. Every morning. Really.

But I still need a Mac guru...

Okay, okay and a shout out to IMDb (imdb.com) for that Private Benjamin info. My memory's not that good!