Reading vs Knitting

I have not forgotten that this blog is a knitting blog. There is a reason it hasn’t been so knitterly lately. The horrible truth is my knitting has officially lost to reading. Believe me when I say how awful it is when you have two hobbies that border on obsessions that are hard to engage in at the same time.

I wish I could say that reading was something I had to do in secret as a child. Somehow that sounds way more cool than the reality. I lived in a house full of books. As a matter of fact, there are some small towns in rural Kentucky that did not have a library as large as the one in my house growing up. This is not arrogance or exaggeration, but truth.

All three of us children were encouraged to read, but not pressured. Our parents read. We learned to read to the exclusion of all other outside stimuli – alarm clocks, oven timers, door bells, telephones, television, bugs, sand in the pants, screaming cousins, gushing blood, rivers of vomit, lava flows of diarrhea, and incessant demands to set the table, come to dinner, wash dishes, or many other tasks. “Just let me finish this chapter” was a mantra we learned early and used often. We learned from the masters – my parents. Although, I will admit that my dad was bit more sensitive to the oven timer than my mom while reading. We could read in a three bedroom, 1200 square foot house with more people per square foot than some parts of China or Mexico City, all we needed was a patch of floor to lay or sit on.

In many ways, reading was an escape from the insanity that is my extended family. Think My Big Fat Greek Wedding with Anglos from Kentucky. Yes, it is possible to imagine it. When we were all together it was like that – a noisy, abundance of food, laughing time. Believe me, you can only take so much of the sick Olympics (my maternal grandmother is a gold medalist in the hospitalization, chronic disease, and most bizarre, pseudoscientific explanation for illness events), discussions of genealogy, discussions of who is “not quite right” in the family (most of whom were not present) and all things crop related. Then there is the whole unfairness that Rook and Spades are card games for four, male, adult, players – not 30 year old children.

We also learned that books should not be left anywhere near other members of the family who might possibly have an interest in the subject matter. Going to the bathroom without your book could mean that you would return to find someone else enjoying your book. Life is so unfair.

I am an equal opportunity reader. I read what some might consider brain-rotting drek to provide some much needed respite from high minded non-fiction and literature. While I would like to pretend that it is always a struggle between reading and knitting, that is not exactly true. I have my t.v. shows that provide time to knit. The recent writer’s strike is what really drove me to reading over knitting, as television has become a wasteland of “reality” t.v. and my favorite shows delayed until late in the summer. Bastards. So the had knitting suffered.

As much as I would like to pretend I can knit and read, I can’t. The book will not cooperate and I respect them too much to actually break the spine so the book looks as if it has actually been read. Reading a book and a pattern at the same time makes for some very interesting designs.

Now I know that there are ways to read books in digital format. I hate to admit it, but as much as I embrace technology there are certain things that I prefer to do the “old fashioned way”. One is read books, the other is journal.

There is hope for the knitting, however. Lately, the fingers have been itchy to knit some wool. In the past couple of weeks, I have finished two pairs of socks and am closing in on pairs three and four. Summer is here and with it new season on USA of my favorites and “The Closer” on TNT. Now there’s something I can knit to.