Sometimes I worry that my Yarn Along photos are a little deceptive. By photographing my knitting and the book I’m reading side by side, am I suggesting that I knit and read at the same time? I hope not, because I never, ever do. What I do do when I knit is watch TV, so I thought it was about time that I included the TV in my photo. I never watch TV when I am not also doing something else – usually knitting, though I also often put TV on when I cook. For the last several months I’ve been working my way through The West Wing – for the first time since it was originally broadcast in the early ’00’s. Seasons 1-4 are absolutely transcendent – just amazing, phenomenal TV. Then the show tanks faster and more spectacularly than any other show I can think of. I’m watching season 5 right now, and it’s painful – sort of like turning on CNN and watching real politics.
Winter always seems to inspire me to mass-produce rollneck sweaters. This is a sleeve of a child-sized rollneck to match the adult one I’m also working on. I love this marled fisherman’s yarn. I could knit with it all day (and this weekend perhaps I will).
The book in the photo is Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities. I’m halfway through and am a little frustrated with it right now. This novel is part of the genre that involves the life-threatening hijinks that ensue when people from different races and/or social classes misunderstand each other; the best examples I can think of at the moment are the movies Crash and Babel, but I know I’ve read books in this genre too – maybe Zadie Smith’s On Beauty? In this novel, I do care about what happens to some of the characters, but I’ve had all I can take of Tom Wolfe’s endless descriptions of people’s hangovers and of his general habit of over-tagging his characters. I’m invested in it and will definitely finish it, but not without some moaning and complaining.
And yes, that is the vacuum cleaner in the left side of the photo. I put it there on purpose, in my favorite knitting spot, to remind myself that sometime soon it would be a good idea to use it. We’ll see if I take the hint.
Yarn Along is hosted by Ginny on her blog Small Things. Happy Wednesday, friends!
Postcards From Purgatory 
I can only knit and read at the same time if I’m reading on the iPad and doing simple stockinette. My usually companion to knitting is the TV too.
I probably could read on my tablet and knit, but I don’t really want to. I prefer not to multi-task if possible, though I can do it if I have to. Do you read Ginny’s blog (she’s the one who hosts Yarn Along)? She knits, reads, nurses her baby, and home-schools her older kids at the same time. I’m amazed by that but have no desire to try it myself. 🙂
Oh the vacuum cleaner… I finally got all the toys up off the floor this evening and vacuumed JUST after all the kids were in bed so I knew I wouldn’t be disturbing any sleep. It felt so good to see my floor again, minus the crumbs and the paper scraps and other random tidbits from a houseful of children! Love your sweater, that yarn is beautiful. I also watch TV most of the time when I knit and rarely watch TV without doing something else at the same time. I have wanted to watch The West Wing and have never seen it before but my husband wasn’t as interested as I expected and my main TV time is with him so that means I don’t usually get to shows just I want to watch! So instead we’re re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Gilmore Girls (yes, my husband chose Gilmore Girls over The West Wing… weird huh? haha!)
Yes, Gilmore Girls seems an odd choice for a husband, but who knows? I’ve been thinking about which series I should watch next, and Buffy is on the list. That would be a fun series to watch from beginning to end.