Fifth: Detractors and Enablers

All of us have detractors in our knitting realms. They come in many forms, and all of us have known at least one.

There’s the significant other who warns you that your yarn spending may be getting out of hand if you want to be able to afford to have a child and send it to college one day (doesn’t he know that good wool is a sound investment?). Maybe you have the sibling who suggests that you could chip in for Dad’s birthday present if you didn’t insist on knitting him new dress socks every year (well, yeah, but he enjoys wearing the socks far more than he likes mowing the lawn with the new mower). If you started knitting at a young age, you likely had the college roommate who suggested that you keep less yarn in the dorm room because it was getting a little crowded (if you look at it as part of the décor, it doesn’t feel so cramped). It’s generally easy to write these folks off as unenlightened. The brave among us even try to win them over through explaining how fun knitting is or introducing them to the comfort of hand-knitted socks. Even still, the majority of knitting nay-sayers remain so despite our best efforts. In my head I call these folks knitmares.

The lucky knitters have a few knitting enablers to balance the negative juju that the knitmares ooze in our general direction. The luckiest of us have more enablers than detractors, resulting in a life full of Merry Christmases with rightfully appreciated knitted gifts and happy trips to the yarn shop. I am blessed. As I’ve mentioned before, my mother is a serious enabler. She drove all over the city with me the last time I visited her in an attempt to help me find the area’s only yarn shop before it closed. She looks at and coos over everything I make. She even took up knitting briefly when I first got into it. Her encouragement keeps me knitting on the days when I think that I can’t barrel through another inch of knit two, purl two ribbing.

Another fantastic enabler, I’ve found is Jesse Dear (yes, another person who will likely come to be referred to by initials. Did anyone else have a flashback to “John Dear” from Lady & the Tramp when I named him? Was that just me?). Jesse is an enabler to the second power. Not only is his mother a knitter (my first real knitting friend, I might add) who accompanies me to the yarn store and shops, oohs, and ahs as much as I do, but he also seems to appreciate the things I knit (and if he doesn't, he wisely pretends that he does). Much of the time we spend together, when we aren't harassing one another and I'm not kicking his rear at MarioKart, is spent on nice, peaceful pursuits. There's a lot of idle-ish time spent simply enjoying one another's company. We watch tv, talk, lay around on the couch with a movie on, and read together. The great thing about these little ways in which we pass the time is that they grant me lots of guilt-free knitting opportunities. He reads; I knit. We watch tv; I knit. He creates awesome websites on his computer; I knit. The point is, we're both people who often choose to stay in together rather than go out. We're not partying types (What's that Courtney? You're a 23 year old knitter, but you're not a party girl? I'd never have guessed!). Occasionally, though, we both break character and go out for the evening. We have a fondness for art gallery openings, Wednesday night trivia at the local Mellow Mushroom, and snooty beer at the Belgian pub on the square.

Friday night, we decided to go a little crazy and head out for a bite to eat and a movie (hush, you! for us, it was a little crazy). We started at Alon's, a local bakery that now has the distinct honor of being one of only three places in the city where I will order and actually enjoy a sandwich (I don't like sandwiches, generally. Don't ask me why; I don't know.). After a light meal we drove to Atlantic Station to see Ratatouille. I have long been a fan of Disney/Pixar films, but Ratatouille was phenomenal. It was so fun and funny that JD and I were both laughing out loud the entire time. It was a huge improvement over our last movie choice, Spiderman 3, which was so bad that it left both of us unsure of whether it was worth it to ever go see another movie again. In fact, the movie was so good that I didn't knit a single stitch the entire time.

And you know what? I had so much fun that I didn't mind not knitting for an entire evening one bit. Just don't expect me to do it again any time soon.