You May Have Already Heard This Story, But...

I feel like a complete idiot.

So you get to hear it again.

I wanted ice cream. I really did. And we'd had ice cream at work! It was in the freezer. So I decided to get some ice cream and eat it, to add to happiness levels. I opened the freezer door, because yummy ice cream is yummy. The only thing better than ice cream is unexplained bacon.

What I should have known is that, since the library is filled with other employees, and many of them enjoy ice cream much as I do, the ice cream would certainly be gone. But in my brain, if I'm not the ice-cream-eater, that means the ice cream remains as pristine and untouched as the driven snow.

The ice cream was gone.

Did I mention I had a teen program that night at work? Because I did. A whole herd of teens were coming in, and I was going to do some talking. And people were going to look at me. Keep that in mind.

When I was young, I wore glasses.

My glasses were rather strong, because my family is characterized by sight problems and hearts that suddenly explode. And also pale skin (but only on Mom's side).

One of the reasons PE was so freaking hard was peripheral vision. I didn't have any.

And my teachers seemed to have this philosophy, this teaching strategy, that I absolutely hated: If you don't feel like planning a lesson, just make the kids play dodgeball!

I hate stupid @#&*%*! dodgeball. You know what dodgeball is like for a kid like me? It is like a minefield, or like a firing squad. Dodgeball is giving the evil jocks permission to use nerds for target practice. Think hurting people is fun? Dodgeball is the game for you, and many of my school's future federal prisoners practiced their tactics for upcoming murders on hapless dorks like me.

The only thing funnier than raising welts the size of bowling ball on the extremities of your victim is making a welt fo the same size--on the FACE. See, giant arm-bruises can be covered. But two black eyes and a bloody lip? Not so much.

Would it surprise you to discover I once went through three pairs of glasses in one school year?

I did.

Because my face made such good target practice, my school churned out a few college athletes, and several psychopaths*.

While losing glasses can get expensive, it was nothing like the cost of having reconstructive surgery, so life went on. Glasses offer some protection.

But not when you're 27 and hungry for ice cream.

Can you see your nose? Right now, staring at this page while you read, do you see your nose? Just a little bit, I bet. But before I mentioned it, I bet you couldn't. Because your brain filters out your nose when it interprets what you see, so you don't walk around all the time, staring at the weird bump you have that people like but you hate.

Standing there, in front of the empty spot where the ice cream used to be, I kind of accidentally forgot I had a nose.

I closed the door to the freezer with frustration.

And then pain.

Blinding pain, the kind of pain that makes your eyes water. I curled over, leaning on the shelves next to the fridge. I waited for my nose to start bleeding (it didn't). I waited out the pain.

Then I opened the door again, took out some ice, stepped back super-far, and closed it.

That's right. I slammed the freezer door on my own nose.

Now, I totally lucked out. Because my nose bent sideways and TOUCHED MY CHEEK. If I had hit it higher, I think I would have broken it. Lower, there might have been cartiledge damage. But no. I was okay.

Meanwhile, my coworker (she'd just finished pouring vanilla extract down her body in a tragic baking accident) discovered my plight. Her response? She rolled her eyes and said something to the effect of, "Only you." Then she left me there, huddled against the cabinets, struggling to breathe through my rapidly-swelling nasal passages.

I expected my whole face to swell up. Instead of a nose, I would have a lumpy, purple-black tennis-ball-sized protrusion. But no. The only evidence was a little purple dot of shame. The dot has faded to a green dot of shame.

My question is this: How does a girl come back from this sort of thing? How can I ever trust myself to safely operate a door again?

Was this too much to ask for?

*Schools are now beginning to ban dodgeball. A-freakin'-men, people. Either that, or maybe the government could fund schools enough to let them spring for some flippin' FOAM balls instead of having kids play dodgeball with BASKETBALLS. Because basketballs HURT.

**You think I'm joking? Not so much. Behold the jewel of Jennifer's graduating class. See?

Photo: "Vanilla Ice Cream Cone" by Steven Depolo 2009

Low Expectations

I wish I could say I was surprised.

My home state cannot spell the name of my hometown. See?

It's "Roann" not "Roan." Roan is a term used to describe the color an animal's coat.

I could go on and list the many other failings of Indiana's website. But instead, I'm going to issue a challenge to you, my readers. Can you figure out what the cause of the closure of State Road 16 is (this would be between State Road 15 and State Road 19)?

If you can, I promise I will think of a way to reward you, like with cookies or praise or by letting you pick a new blog topic or something. (In other words, I will BRIBE you.)

La Digitessa, Laura's Bane

I don't know what the heck is the matter with me.

I have been knitting this pattern, ripping it back, knitting some more, ripping it back, switching yarns, ripping, knitting, ripping, knitting--you get the picture. I have been doing this systematicly, observing what my issue was and taking notes in order to prevent a repeat of the disaster. I finally thought, as I mentioned in earlier posts, that I had figured out my problem.

I hadn't.

You see, when the knitting gets to a specific point (the end of the gusset) there is no mention for what row of the main cable pattern one should be on. In fact, there is no mention of what row one should be on before starting the gusset. The side, lesser cables that evolve to become the gusset should be on the fourth row, but other than that? Nothing.

I had in the past had problems ending up on the right row of the lesser cables because I had never knit a toe-up sock and was making the same newbie mistake again and again, causing me to laugh and tear out the gusset. However, I was sure that once I had conquered this mistake, I would have been able to knit until the end of the sock, the cuff, without much trouble.

However, I realized that even though I was on the "right" row all the way up to the end of the gusset (on the main cable pattern) I had big problems when knitting chart 6, the front of the leg. This section has a section of travelling stitches that wrap from the gusset, crossing in the back, around to the front where it meets in the middle of the front, bringing an end to the main cable pattern.

I would give you pictures, but I don't have a nice, completed sock. I have a pile of frogged yarn (again) all crinkly on my floor.

I do not suck as a knitter. I am an awesome knitter. I have knit fancy lace. I have knit complicated cables. I have knit sweaters, socks (more than I will admit), gloves, mittens, scarves, hats, microbes, whistle cases, i-pod sleeves, cell phone cases, purses, and fungus. I have knit it all, designed a bunch, and I have never had problems like this.

That is because I am reasonably smart. I know how to figure out a knitting pattern and I know how to say to myself: "this isn't me, maybe there is a pattern error." And when I say that, I jump online and check it out. That lets me fix the issues I have, like with my cardigan (I love my cardigan) that had an issue with its pattern. It wasn't me. And even the patterns of some of my socks, most of which I caught and corrected by myself. I am Smart.

Several weeks ago, when I ran into this Chart 6 pattern problem for the first time, I went online and checked for errors. There were none. I am Dumb.

I am Very Dumb, because when most people would go for help, ask questions, post a topic on Ravelry...and I didn't. Instead, I switched yarn so I could figure it out myself without causing permanent damage to the sock yarn I care about. I can waste the bad yarn and work on the good yarn when I had it figured out. Good idea, yeah. But I was still Supremely Dumb because even as I read the pattern for the billionth time, I failed to recognize my problem, which is a big one.

Now as I sit in the mass of frogged yarn, I realize the error of my ways as I consider counting back rows so that I end up on the right repeat for sure. That is Galactically Dumb. The kind of Dumb that leads to a girl getting caught in a garage door in the Scream movies (Which were bad, especially because they led the way to the Serial Killer Training Videos we see advertised every day).

I am checking Ravelry again. Not for errors, but to check and see if someone has posted a "Hey, just in case you want to know, I was on Row X of Chart Y when I started the gusset!"

I won't find that.

When I have finally fixed my issues, I will frame the solitary sock I have knit out of The Crap Yarn that has lived in my drawer that holds the random bits of yarn. It was the only skein big enough to knit from that I had never worked with. I hate this yarn, it feels like sandpaper. But it will not tear the skin from my legs if it is framed above my bed where I can look at it and smile, knowing I have conquered this pattern. I will conquer this pattern.

In case you want to see the sock, you may take a peek at it here.

I am concentrating on not going insane. I am focused on that singular goal. I affirm that having a problem with a pattern does NOT make me a bad knitter. And even if I were a bad knitter, that would not reflect on me. I can be a good person and a bad knitter at the same time. That wouldn't matter to me, though. Because I am still a good knitter.

This is a challenging pattern.

It says so in the instructions.