This is How I Know I'm Old - Part 2

This is the tale of the snake scarf and one (young) woman's journey through the nursing home...

Last night resumed Ladies' Craft Night, a regular Tuesday night gathering usually involving snacks, always involving wine, and occasionally involving crafting. Last night was an occasionally night for me as I have no current craft in which to engage. I'm done making Christmas, nay HOLIDAY cards, I gave up making earrings, and I couldn't very well bring the remainder of my grad school essays, so I asked Lindsay to bring her crochet supplies. DAMMIT, if I can get into grad school, I can fucking learn to crochet!

(*Sidenote -- turns out I could have brought my damn essays. I arrived to find Lindsay making long division worksheets for her "fucking lazy" high schoolers.)

My crochet teacher for the night, Lindsay, is a high school physics teacher. And not just any old physics, but ADVANCED PLACEMENT physics. She does more with her brain in one day than I probably do all year. Figuring she must be proficient at her job, I set about playing the role of student. I was not disappointed. In just a few steps Lindsay had me hooking like a pro (sorry mom). Within a mere ten minutes, I had what appeared to be the beginnings of a very chunky, cozy scarf.

Please do ignore the grungy kitchen rug.

 Also, I can assure you that's not a giant stain, but the shadow of my head. 

I think.

One problem. Do you see what I see? Yeah, my scarf was looking a little wonky. No worries, I figured, I'd just have to keep better count whilst I crocheted. Unfortunately red wine and teacher gossip intervened. Within a few more minutes this is what my scarf had turned into:

Nice socks, eh?

A certifiable hot fucking mess. It looked as though a very soft, flat snake had just swallowed a trio of mice and was in the midst of digesting said vermin. This was not going as planned, however I was undeterred. Erica, on the other hand, was beside herself. "You know, you could just unravel your work and start over. You could start from the beginning and keep count and have a nice, even scarf," she said very pointedly. Uniformity and strict adherence to the rules are Erica's two closest friends. The fact that my scarf more closely resembled a bloated reptile was patently unacceptable for her. Me? Meh, not so much. I was more interested in emptying my glass of red and talking shit about my students than creating a scarf opus, as it were.

As the end of Craft Night drew near, Erica's husband arrived to retrieve her. Before she left, she gave my snake scarf one last evil eye. But I had hatched a plan. As soon as she was safely out the door, I proudly informed the ladies that I would be gifting this, my inaugural scarf, to Erica. Surely she would be delighted, amiright?!

So tonight I hurried home from the le gym and worked diligently through two episodes of *Parenthood and one catch-up episode of The Daily Show (fuck yeah Jon Stewart) to finish my masterpiece.

The home stretch

Unfortunately I ran into a bit of a conundrum. The ball of green yarn Lindsay had so graciously given me was disappearing quickly. And yet I was just hitting my stride. Lost to the mindless drone of TV, I had somehow managed to even out my scarf -- so neat, so orderly. It had become a thing of beauty, really. But it was still too short to really serve as a warm, snuggly, fully actualized SCARF. So I did the thing any good bullshitter does and I improvised! No more green yarn? FUCK IT! Weave in some white and, voila, instant Urban Outfitters street cred. It's as it was meant to be all along.

Just a touch of white

Sadly, the transition from green to white did not go as smoothly as I had (planned? hoped?), and the end of my scarf, once again, resembled a 2nd grade charity project. Ah well, it's the thought that counts, right?!

 

Obligatory Myspace bathroom pics, coming right up!

*Spoiler Alert: Drew Holt (Braverman), Lauren Graham's boring ass son from Parenthood, got his girlfriend pregnant. AND THEY HAD AN ABORTION. The damn writers on the show couldn't even let the characters say the fucking word. IN 2013. ON TV. IN AMERICA. Seriously. They merely alluded to it as "an option". These aren't even real people. Jesus, sometimes America gets it so wrong...