Monday, November 10, 2008

Aphorisms

"She doesn't have the sense god gave a goose."

That phrase popped out of my mouth today at lunch with D, and I realized I've turned into a Spewer of Corny Aphorisms. It's been a crazy frantic week, with lots of flying, worlds turned upside down, my american friends suddenly clanging with idealism (such a nice shift from the handwriting of the past 8 years), official notice that I've Finally Completed EVERYTHING! to do with the phd (and the legal right to browbeat people into calling me doctor and to dazzle border guards with documents)...

While I was flying back from Seattle yesterday, I was teaching myself to cable on a complicated little hat and thinking about knitblogging. How the best knitbloggers have life at the core but through the medium of knitting, and some are way too much about their cats and dogs, and some completely transcend the knitblogging... but I was thinking about how knitblogging or writing about flyfishing or political jabber can just camouflage the stories of more jagged life. There I was, cabling and counting and watching depressing HBO shows on the little tv, and wondering how much knitting and knitblogging can become the blanket thrown over the stories you could stifle.

Lots going on in my life, mostly good for me, but some trials for people I care about, and lots of questions about What Next? for me that seem to be kicked under the chairs of the airport lounges that are becoming too familiar. Lots of scaffolds going up and coming down without any real construction, like the fact that I'm supposed to be in Uganda two weeks from today but the backing and forthing and opting out among my colleagues because of the unrest in Congo. My feeling is that going would probably be fine, and I was very geared up in my Adventurous Self, and wanting to do something meaningful with our kids, but it seems like the wrong time now, and I'm frustrated that I might never get to go.

So, Cabling. Aphorisms, learning to knit something new. Next diversion.

1 comment:

Ali said...

There is nothing wrong with corny aphorisms. Nothing, I say!

I'm envisioning picketing and placards:

"Corny aphorisms make the world go 'round"

"A corny aphorism a day keeps the doctor away"

"Corny aphorisms: what to say when you can't swear"

Okay, now I've said "corny aphorisms" in my brain too many times and it sounds like the latin name for a beetle. Or a snack food.