Believe it or not...

Okay--my internet time is on a serious downswing here... and, seeing as this is a knitting blog, you'll never guess the cause.

Yup. I've been KNITTING. (Or crocheting, as the case may be.) I know this may shock some of you... it shocks me. The simple fact is, that in spite of a sort of weirdo dissociative malfunction in my brain, you know that one that completely denies that Christmas is less than a week away? Anyway, in spite of this, and in spite of the fact that I've got grades happening (more about that later) and shopping to do (brother, do I!) and insane short people to take to Santa, in spite of all of this...

I've allowed IT to happen.

You all know what IT is--anyone who's followed the Harlot understands IT. IT is the driving need to, in spite of time constraints, budget constraints, and the fact that everybody you know and love has been gifted with wooly love sometime in the last two years, knit more Christmas gifts in a week than you've knitted in the entire past two months.

IT is insanity. Now, I have, in the past, been shanghaied by IT, and I swore I wasn't going to let IT even walk through the door this year. I had it nailed--I still do. Sort of. I was going to knit for my real mom's family. They like everything I knit, think I'm a genius because I knit socks, love new scarves and accessories and are basically poster children for 'appreciative recipient'. I once sat outside in the car because the Cave Troll fell asleep as we arrived at the family's house for Christmas, and my aunt got all excited because she thought I MUST be in the car because I was knitting something for HER. (Since I WAS knitting, and I DID finish, and the gift didn't have a home yet, once Mate told me what she said, it turned out she was right.) So basically, all of the Chaney women were getting knit wear--random knitwear. I'd been working on it since October, I had a couple of pairs of socks a couple of fingerless mitts, a couple of scarves--hell. I even had a scarf for the babysitter, cooked up on a whim. I liked it.

And then I saw them. Three really loud Christmas themed dishtowels for five dollars. (Imagine bright lights shining from above...'aaaaaaaaaaaa') And suddenly, I had a vision. A vision of this really tacky red and silver acrylic that had been floating around the house for a year and all of the craft shows I had been to, and... (you know where this is going, don't you?) Yup. Those crocheted towel toppers. I absolutely had to make them.

And so I did.

And then I had to make potholders to match. And so I am. And then... and then...

And then I had it. The ultimate IT epiphany. It happened when the Cave Troll stole my glubs, and I thought, "I need to make some glubs for the Cave Troll and Ladybug!" And (bright lights, holy music..."aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh") I had suddenly planned two pairs of glubs that must (MUST I say, absolutely MUST) be peering out at them on the top of the Christmas stockings.

Uh-oh. I've done this before. I've stayed up until four a.m. knitting or crocheting something that seemed like a REALLY good idea but that really wasn't as beloved as I thought it should be. I've crocheted until my wrist felt like it would fall off, I've glue-gunned my fingers to the iron skillet of hell, I've... I've...

I've only got a week, but I'm SURE I can make it.

Oh fuck. I'm doomed.

(*I'll bitch about grades on Friday, if I'm still as pissed as I am right now. Right now, it's probably a good thing that I blogged about IT, because if I blogged about the kid who put his name on two other people's assignments--one that he'd stolen from the portfolio stack--and then tried to pass them off as his own, I'd have to throw the computer through a wall, and that would really hurt me more than it would hurt the kid. Unless his head was in the way--and that's tempting too!!!)