My Ineptitude Shines Like a Beacon in the Night

I've made killer coffee this morning. It borders on the undrinkable, even for me, but I'm not going to let it win. Maybe it'll fuel me with some energy? We can but hope.

What a grim day I had for most of yesterday. When my beloved is away I immediately turn into some crazy cat lady (minus the cats, which I think is pretty bad). I started off well, but as the day grew older my motivation seeped away, leaving me sitting on the couch with a bag of crisps by 3pm. I haven't had such junk food in months, but there I went. I even swtiched the TV on, a most unadvisable action in the daytime. My brain cringed away in fear, so I had some chocolate too.

The house is a disgrace. I did some washing and hung it on the line by way of fooling myself into feeling just a tad industrious. I keep saying every day that I'm going to splurge and clean up, but I never get past the first half hour.

So, next I got some more stuff out and had a muck about with my sewing machine. The idea for making a miniature book in white has worked rather well. I bonded some achingly gorgeous watercolour paper with interfacing and machine stitched onto it, then hand embroidered over that. This book is 4cm x 4cm, so it's mindbogglingly fiddly, but it looks the business. I've ironed out the few things that I wasn't keen on in the last ones I made and it's going well. I still have to cut and assemble the pages, which I'll do this morning and then sew the whole lot together. I guess I ought to feel some small sense of accomplishment that I got anything at all done really, given my lack of mojo.

The evening was the bit I was dreading most. I'm used to being alone all day and working, the time goes by in a flash, but night time is when Jay's here and we do couple things. What would any sane person do? That's right, pop out and grab a curry. I have a most unhealthy addiction to lamb dhansak and will eat it anytime I'm able. I don't do it too often for fear that one day they'll have to take the side of the house off to help me get out, but it seemed reasonable to treat myself this once. Oh the joy! It was glorious. I'm beginning to suspect that there's something about chilli we're not told. The stuff is addictive, no less so than heroin. I crave it. I feel bitter disappointment if a dish is not as spicy as I feel it ought to be. I fancy that in 100 years people will be looking back in dodgy TV documentaries, gasping with shock that such a drug was ever legal and widely available, a bit like they do about the introduction of cocaine back in the day.

Aprés curry, I involved myself in something most unusual. My friend from just over the garden wall popped over to give me a mini class in crochet. This is something I have never done, to my shame, since I've learned bits and pieces of pretty much every other art and craft known to man. The hole in my knowledge needed filling and Lynn was the man for the job.

As is always the way when Lynn and I get together, we made tea (rose flavoured this time), gossipped a bit and shared our latest creative results. This takes quite a while when anyone comes here because I have endless projects, either on the go or finished and laying all round my workspace. There's always another, "oh wait, I made this too" to be endured. Poor Lynn. We also rifled through our button/thread/yarn stashes and enjoyed the ladyporn aspects of it that many people just wouldn't understand. It's simply phenomenal being able to share these peculiar little joys.

Yes, I'm procrastinating. The crochet bit. Oh great jumping jebus, what a carry on. In my defense, I've never had much in the way of co-ordination. I can learn to work a process if I give it time, but brand new things with unfamiliar tools are a geat source of vexation for me. Lynn would confirm this wholeheartedly as she has been the unfortunate victim of my inadequacies in this regard before. The only time I've ever felt more flummoxed than this was when I was learning to drive, and Lynn was privvy to that little debacle too, but that's another story.

Unlike most methods I use, crochet makes absolutely no sense to me. I can knit, sew, paint, draw, use Photoshop, Excel, build a simple website, blowdry my hair, apply makeup (to make even me look passable), sculpt, cast, dye, weave, print, the list goes on. But crochet, man, it has no basis in reality. You make a chain, which I've mastered, and then it all goes crazymad. It reminds me of the ill fated time I tried aerobics. I went to this class and they taught me a vine leaf (or somethng) little routine that is the basis of all the moves. You do this automatically to keep your lower half busy while you flail your arms hereabouts. Everyone else was vine leafing with aplomb, but me? No chance. I couldn't do it without scrunching up my eyes and concentrating as though I were working out quadratic equations in my head. I felt I were Michael Jacksonesque for even managing to keep in motion, but this wasn't enough. Needless to say it was a total fail and I never went back. I was similar with yoga. The instructor gave this great motivational speech at the start about people having different ability levels and it was just a matter of time before you got into the ryhthm, but by the end of the class he was in hysterics laughing at my attempts. He advised I go home and try it alone before returning, as he was afraid I'd hurt myself. Hurt his sides from guffawing more like. Again, I never returned.

So, back to crochet. I'm not going to let it beat me. I'll work hard and I hope to be able to post a completed small "thing" through Lynn's door by the end of the week, just to show her I'm not totally inept. All she's seen so far is a nasty little green blob that I managed to create, sadly comparible to a bogey. I don't want her to be disappointed in me and I must prove that I can win this fight. I think she'll be even more pleased than when I passed my driving test, though I recall vividly the conversation she relayed to me between her and my driving instructor right afterwards, where he shook his head and uttered in his spikey Glaswegian way, "I wouldnae have put money on it.".

I don't think I'll ever be the crochet queen, but I'd like a little of what everyone else appears to have. If I can make just one granny square or just one flower I'll be satisfied.