Springtime Hello

Monday night, late late.  I've been having a little trouble sleeping lately - it's the opposite of many season changes to this point in my life - where I've often felt as though Mother Earth pulls on all her inhabitants to help her make the transition from winter to spring, summer to fall - but this year, I feel quite enlivened by it. Many trees have soon-to-be full fledged leaves on them, and where very recently you say a green brown haze wrapping branches and stems, you now see a lime-y lush beauty emerging slowly.  The deep, old green of summer will be here soon - I can't wait.  I love summer.

We've had two days of rain in DC and I can truly say, it's been invigorating.  I love the hardness of the rain - and how it cools down the afternoons and nights.  It makes me want to toss on some Vaughn Williams, and sit and write, but mostly I just work.  Work work has been very busy with the development of a new publication (a cd-rom toolkit for workshops we're designing this summer in fall around the US) and I've been deep in it with my Editor hat on, managing content between the copyeditor (who really should be doing this) and the designer (who I finally emailed directly last week, without waiting for the contact to, uh, make contact, and got a proverbial slap on the wrist for breaking the designer-contact wall.  Stupid). Outside of work, in knit work, I'm working feverishly to finish a mens turtleneck pullover in Fiesta's Kokopeli (a wool, mohair mix - yes, men, I love a man in mohair), finish editing a book due out this summer, getting ready to put on my hat for Knit n Style tech edit duties, and start on a sweater due in July, plus two articles. 

Knit work is going very well - I've had several articles published, have been designing and doing more and more work.  I feel like in a lot of ways, it's not the most extraordinary work.  I mean, you think of designers like Annie Modesitt and writers like Stephanie, and you see how volumnous that are in their output - then I consider the work I do in a month or two, and while I think it's exceptional (considering I'm trying to hold down a 9 to 5), it doesn't have the same whirl and mastery as publishing KwB did.  But, I'm happy with where I am with it.  It is of course challenging - managing the details, getting through the workload, and still trying to have time to actually have a life (and post to this blog which *always* falls to the bottom rung - in fact, I probably wouldn't be posting now, if I could sleep. I just had some Opal Nera.  That'll put me out).

In travel news, I've been accepted back to Knitting Camp - I'll be at Retreat 3 with the OftTimers, which should be wonderful and humbling.  I'll try not to make a fool of myself and say something offensive in the first 10 minutes (which I tend to do, but amazing missed last year).  And, I'll be at the Mens Spring Knitting Retreat (MSKR) in May - just booked a plane ticket - AND plan on heading to the Spin Off Annual Retreat in October - and likely skipping out on Stitches (and what is inevitably a set of classes I don't much care for), but being sure to stop by the market. TNNA Columbus is still up in the air - need to think about the expense.

Jumping around a bit here, the Anisette is setting in... I went to a wedding this weekend.  I've been to a few gay weddings in my day - tho this one was Hetero all the way (not a bad thing, straights need love too). Still, I found myself saying that this experience was unlike other weddings (gay ones) that I'd been to. For example, it was nearly 90 degrees in DC on Saturday and despite the invitation which clearly read, no suits, all the guys (except me - who wore some seersucker pants and a buttondown- and my birks) were in wool suits.  Needless to say, I felt extremely underdressed (whereas at a gay wedding, I don't think it'd ever cross our minds to put fashion over comfort - in my circle anyway).  Moreso, I felt a kind of swelling happiness at this wedding, which I've never felt before.  Maybe it was because of the closeness, maybe it was seeing their parents there, maybe it was having a crush on the groom: watching my friends get married, I came to understand why people cry at weddings (I shed a tear or two, or maybe it was the dust).

I skipped out on the reception (someone there, who shall remain nameless) made a snide comment about my state of underdress, which left a very sour taste in my mouth; and as I was walking back North-Easterly to my home, I found myself experiencing that good-bad feeling.  You know these feelings, it's like when you spend a great night with friends drinking, then have a hangover the next morning; have a great yoga class, and then are sore as hell the next day; or eating a pint of headache and getting a really bad headache... I had this sobering moment where feeling really happy for my friends, I, at the same time, felt awfully lonely and single.  Weddings do that to single people I think.  I wonder if there's a term - do we call that 'wedding remorse'? Or does that reference something else?

Otherwise, been working lots and all that jazz - and endeavoring to have a social life beyond yoga.  Looks like the spring mens gathering will be cancelled this year; we're having trouble with the site, and I'm exhausted 'donating' my time to causes that just seem to sap me (though very much honor and miss those gatherings).

Hope to see some of you soon - check out the latest issue of Knit n Style to read my latest article, an interview with Meg Swansen.

Comments

[Mary-Heather]

Springtime Hello = seasonal blogging? ;) Nice to see you post!

I hope you are coming out to MDSW - I will be there! Can't wait!!

[Sean]

It sounds to me like you have more than two full-time jobs. I can't imagine being able to handle all the work you do. I'd be in a nuthouse within a week.

Of course, I'm old and brittle, and it's a struggle for me just to tie my shoes in the morning. (I should probably get a man-servant, don't you think?)