Blockhead

I finished that shrug and made half a mitt, but the mitt is too small. So I knitted a hat. It's a free pattern from Berroco called "Kap." I knitted it in Artful Yarns Jazz, a heavy worsted 50/50 alpaca and wool yarn. It's yummy soft and tweedy rust/sage green. And it fits my pin-head. It is not felted, and I wanted it to have that newsboy slouch, so after I washed it, I blocked it...on my head. Yes, I wore this damp little hat on my head for the better part of five hours while I slaved away on my computer. It was surprisingly warm and I was not aware of the dampness. The wonder of wool.



I worked today, worked hard too. I'm editing three different pieces of writing for that CBC contest. It's a huge job. Today I worked over a poetry collection. They were all poems that I wrote in moments of great freedom, when I had no thought but to get them down onto paper. That is how all my work begins, in moments of complete abandon. I allow anything and everything to spill out without restraint. I love that stage. It is full of feeling and release. My unconscious mind travels all around to places I would never visit otherwise. Sometimes it's terrifying and painful, but it is also a bit of a thrill.

Then the raw material sits around, for weeks or months (or even years) before I lay my hands on it again and wrangle it into some kind of shape. That wrangling process involves several stages of distilling, changing, moving things around, throwing my hands up in despair, slamming my computer shut, and stomping around outside.

This collection of poems has been through the grinder several times already, and I have reached the point in editing where it all feels like shit. Nothing is good. It's dead. No one will ever want to read it. At this point, I have to leave it alone for a few days, let it set. Knit. Watch brainless movies, like "Lake Placid."

I've been reading a lot of those meme lists of four things. I think my favorite question is the one about movies you can watch over and over. Some of mine are:

Armageddon
The Hunt for Red October
Erin Brokovitch
An Affair to Remember
The Shawshank Redemption
Dead Poet's Society
You've got Mail
The Abyss