Beans

Brax,

Did you ever live with a really, really responsible person who sets schedules and then sticks to them, and who does everything he says he's going to do, like, right away? The kind of person who pretty much never says, "Oh, screw it, I'll do it tomorrow." Or, on the rare occasions when he would say that, he would, in fact, do it tomorrow. Like right when he got up, which would be the minute the alarm went off, because this is not the kind of person who stays up extra late reading a novel and then hits the snooze button 8 times.

I do. I live with one of those people. So imagine the kind of trouble I was in when the kitten went into heat. I was supposed to get her fixed, apparently, and I kept forgetting and saying I would do if after Christmas, and then after Christmas I kept saying I would do it tomorrow, and then Wednesday night we came home and Lucky Lucille was all dolled up with lipstick on and wailing like a cabaret singer.

I think it's almost over now. She has calmed down a lot. It's not a terribly big deal because she is an inside cat, but she did have to be locked in the bathroom for a couple of nights because she wouldn't stop yowling.

Type A personalities don't have any idea what it is like to be type B. Oh, they'll say they wish they could relax and stuff, but they really just wish they could be content with an A minus. They don't know what it is like to always be several steps behind where you intended to be, and you want to be good, and being good means being like those type-A people because they are the ones who get ahead and make the rules, therefore the rules say be like them. And you could never be like them because you think they're insane and also you are just not wired that way, and you always have thirty or forty things you've been meaning to do for days or weeks or actually, really, years. And you are working really hard, but you just can't seem to get it together to do them.

I get terribly frustrated with myself. I have always imagined that you can just decide that you're going to be on top of things and then stick to it. Like establish a system and always keep a list and do everything on it, and just commit to being a much more responsible better smarter organized on-top-of-everything person. I have achieved this at various times in my life, but it never lasted longer than a few months, and at the end I was exhausted. Here is what I think--a leopard cannot change her spots, and my spots are not those of a regimented, live by a schedule, crossin'-stuff-off-the-list-thing-doer.

I think I'm giving up on that ideal, or at least I am giving up on sitting around beating myself up for always meaning to do things and not doing them. I'll do stuff when I get around to it, and obviously if it is urgent it will get done. Yes, it is true that I am often getting things done at the absolute last second, but I've been doing that my whole life, and I think I'd better stop trying to change it and just get used to it and like myself anyway.

Living in a city packed with ambitious, ambitious people won't help, and living with one of them makes it a little harder too, but I figure once I have learned to accept my procrastinating, sloppy self, the rest will follow. He accepts my procrastinating, sloppy self, even if I do frustrate him when I do things like let the cat go into heat. So it is really about me changing my expectations and stopping trying to be something I'm not.

Here is my new years resolution: Stop trying to self-improve and hold myself to the standards of others; instead, just like myself.

OK, so the above was supposed to be a brief, funny anecdote about the cat as a sexy cabaret singer, and it was supposed to lead into a post about my sweater and maybe some new years resolutions. Somehow it turned into a pretty involved self exploration, which actually ended in a new years resolution, and that particular resolution eliminated all the other ones I was thinking of, like exercising or being more organized.

Writing is funny.

Here's the sweater.

It's the Cozy V-Neck Pullover from Fitted Knits. Easy easypants, and also handsome. I'm about to start the ribbing, which starts right under your boobs and goes all the way down, thus creating the simplest waist shaping in history. The yarn is Debbie Bliss Donegal Tweed Chunky. It is bigger than the pattern calls for, so I'm resizing for gauge as well as lowering the stitch count a bit around the bust. Uh huh. I am using the fatter yarn in spite of my suspicion that my love of fat yarn is becoming a joke among the gentry. I love it. There are several reasons why. 1) it is fat. 2) it is green. 3) it is tweed. 4) it is wool. Those are, like, my FOUR FAVORITE yarn traits. It is a fun time, and it's knitting up so fast that it I'll be wearing it within a week here.

Ok, I have to go find a bean recipe because I am going to a bean-themed potluck!

-Bruce