I think I have a problem.

That being said, I do not plan on ending my problem, controlling my use of the substance in question, or getting help from my support system. I also plan on meeting regularly with friends I have met due to my abuse of this substance and recruiting others to its use.

Yeah, it's yarn.

Old joke, I know. Not funny anymore, I get it. But hey, it's funny to me still, so you have to keep hearing it.

This weekend I was gifted with the extreme pleasure that only forcing my friends to purchase yarn can bring me. I drug Jennifer to Hobby Lobby where we picked out some sock yarn, as she is bound and determined to "finish a sock" this year. I think she can finish two.

We also picked out some double pointed needles for her use, this before I realized that she had perfectly wonderful bamboo DPNs in the correct size. Oops. I emphatically refused to allow her to buy DPNs based on color alone. She wanted blue. Blue were too big. Sorry, Jen. Can't allow you to make socks big enough for a giant just because you love the color blue. Knit blue socks.

I also picked out some lovely gray and pink/peach yarn to use in knitting Mousie. So I have Yankee-yarn, yarn for my little tribute to my doodling mouse invader. Hooray!

Of course, the yarn is silk and bamboo, I think, a bit luxe for a knitted toy mouse. But there wasn't any other lighter-than-worsted-weight yarn available in the two colors I needed, so I gave in and got the pretty soft yarn, just because it was there.

Now, a less impatient knitter might have waited until the following Friday, when she (or he) planned on going to her (or his) yarn store (in Fort Wayne) where they have little balls of every color imaginable, in a hardier wool. But what do I care? This mouse can be fuzzy and cute. It can look like the mouse in A Visitor for Bear .

Meanwhile, I have knit up the Mongolian cashmere I got for Christmas into a lovely cowl. It's done. It's sitting in the Wooden Salad Bowl of Nearly-Finished Projects. The only reason I'm not wearing it now has to do with a pom-pom, my pom-pom related inexperience, and the fact that if I screw up the pom-pom, I have effectively ruined Mongolian cashmere. Not going to happen.

Knitting with the cashmere presented me with some difficulty, as I had no desire to mess it up by knitting with my usual tightness. I wanted it to be as soft once knitted as it was beforehand, so I did what I have never done before: I forced myself to knit loosely.

It was unnatural. It took longer. But my cowl came out soft as can be, so it was worth it.

But this created a problem.

Forcing myself to knit loosely got me used to knitting looser. Not that I'm not still a tight knitter. I am. but my gauge is now less tight.

Meanwhile, I am half-through a vest, I'm about to armhole-shaping on one of the front panels. But here's the thing: I knit the back B.C. (before cowl) and now I'm knitting the front A.C. (after cowl) and they are very different sizes.

And I have decided not to care. So what? I'll block the back larger. Whatever. I am not ripping back this not-plied fuzzy fuzzy merino with all its stick-togetherness just because I was spoiled with cashmere and now my fingers are bent on destroying a perfectly good front-of-sweater.

This could be one ugly vest.

Stupid yarn. Too sticky to frog. It's even Frog Tree--it should be frogable! But no, instead I have to sit with a stupid needle and slowly pull out every stupid stitch to keep from ruining it completely. Knitting it once is fine, but it looks awful when you re-knit with it.

I should have just made a felted-something. Except (exclude these from my generalization) I hate felting.

So I have resolved to think of stressful things and hope my gauge normalizes a little before I finish Mom's socks and my everything else.

Maybe I will do as Jennifer did, until I forced her to stop since her pinkie was in such excruciating pain, wrapping the yarn repeatedly around my pinkie finger and yanking it with each knitted stitch. That made her knitting very, very tight, even if it did make her hand hurt so much that after two rows she had to put down her work and wait for the agony to fade.

I believe in you, Jen. You will get those socks finished!

And I will finish: the Summer Scabbard, sewing on the straps and buttons for the French Press Slippers, the other blue sock for Mom, the other green sock for Mom, the lace stole for Mom, the lace for me, the vest, the cowl, the other cowl, the other-other cowl (for Mom), the other Ellington sock, those two sweaters I haven't started yet because I have so many other things I haven't finished, the two pairs of socks waiting because I have too many other socks I haven't finished, and the green Paton's Grace Mystery Garment.

On the plus side of all of this, I have removed clothes from yet another dresser drawer (who knows where I'm going to find space for them) and filled the drawer with surplus yarn, taken all the remainders--the excess yarn from projects past--and put it into a plastic wheel-ie cart thing (to go into my closet), sorted out my unfinished things (see above), found a cache of Addi Turbos (circular needles) I had hidden in the corner, and finally united the twenty-odd patterns I had scattered all over my room by putting them in their own individual plastic sleeves and then into a binder. Translation: Now I can find things when I want to finish them. This is movement in the right direction.

Meanwhile, it has become apparent to me that there is no longer enough space for me to inhabit my room. No. It must be given over to the yarn. It will be the yarn's room, and I will sleep in the corner of the living room, perhaps on the couch, or if not that, on the floor next to the dog's bed, because it is near the fireplace and somewhat warm.

I will move clothing and shoes into my car, where I will retrieve them each morning, darting out in my pajamas and snow boots.

That sounds pretty reasonable.