A blog by any other name...

I've noticed that notwithstanding the name I gave this blog*, I don't write about what I'm reading very often. And I do read, a lot. Not quite as much lately as usual, with all the condo stress, but still. I think the reason is that for a couple of years, I wrote book reviews semi-professionally (professionally because they were printed in an actual newspaper [woo-hoo, Rock Hill Herald], semi because I didn't actually get paid, except with the non-tangible thrill of seeing my name in print). I think, in my mind, that has made writing about books "real writing" in a way that I'm trying to make this blog not be. Part of my idea for writing this, as you may recall, was to take the pressure of perfectionism off and just write, and I seem to have trouble doing that with books. Something for me to think about in the future.

Plus, I'm a re-reader, which means I could be reading something I've read so often before, it doesn't occur to me that it might be noteworthy (or blogworthy). I understand that some people read a book once and are done with it, but I don't really understand why. I mean, yes, I know "what's going to happen", but with a good book, I read it for so much more than that. I certainly don't re-read every book I read. Sometimes, rarely, I don't finish a book I've started, which was hard for me at first. I was reading a book once where the main character made a decision that I could just tell was a mistake, and I thought, "Oh, no, I don't even want to see this," and then it occurred to me that I could just walk away, and I did. Surprisingly liberating! More recently, I was halfway through a book by an author I liked, a book I had been looking forward to, and I realized that I wasn't enjoying it and didn't particularly care what was going to happen, who did what, or why, so I stopped. (Interestingly, my mother also got halfway through the same book and stopped. Not the author's best work, I'd say, since we both liked her previous work.) I'm always happy to talk about books, and recommend books (though it helps to narrow the request: asking me for "a good book" has a paralyzing effect on my brain), but I don't seem to write about them, for now anyway.

Cats, of course, make a regular appearance here, and will do so more photographically when I replace my digital camera (it's on my to-do list, really). Hockey, well, when the Bruins do a little better, I will be able to write more positively about them. Not that I want to be a fair-weather hockey fan, and trust me, I'm not, but who wants to read my hockey whining? (Why aren't they playing better, though? Really? It's looking so like last year in the worst way...) They won Thursday, the home opener, it was fun, and then came Saturday. The Buffalo Sabres came to town the only undefeated team left in the NHL, and left the same way. As usual, the Bruins aren't doing well, know it, and don't know why. How heartening. In October, it's supposed to be Red Sox fans who are thinking about next season, not hockey fans. Sigh.

Which leaves knitting! Saturday night, I started to feel like knitting, and had nothing to hand (triangle shawl was left at work, and after starting a Ruffles scarf with the alpaca I bought at Apple Festival, I decided that I didn't want 2 Ruffles enough to use up this yarn on one, so it took a trip to the frog pond. I'm thinking maybe wrist warmers, but since I don't have a pattern for them, that was out for Saturday.) I tried to tell myself that I should crochet another dish scrubby, so that when my current one wears down, I'll have a new one ready, and then of course I cast on a sock instead.

Not even the mythical third sock in the yarn of the first two, I just grabbed the first yarn I saw, the blue alpaca I used on the legwarmers and sleeves, without even seeing how much of it I have (enough for one sock? two?), and recklessly cast on. I don't know what got into me.

*I named the blog kind of at random, anyway. The pressure to come up with "a good name" was too much for me. In a world full of yarn harlots and crazy aunts and stitchy mcyarnpants (I am not making this up), it will take me a good long time to come up with a moniker that competes.