Hi Everyone,
I was planning on this letter being the capstone of my terrible job over the last 10 months. I had a draft written out in late June/ early July that detailed the inane drama of the job and the impact it had on me. At this point I’m over it, which is funny to say because I had that line in my first draft and then had a little crying jag for a week over everything, but here is the real line in the sand, 100%.
I’m lucky to be as resilient as I am, because I was in a bad place and I thought I would need psychiatric help to get out of it, but it turns out that about 2-3 weeks of rest and sunshine did the trick and I’m no longer crying uncontrollably and listening to Reba in the dark (I turn on the lights now) and thinking bad things. Take that, modern medecine or capitalism or something. I mean, not really. It’s funny to think of all the intersections of income and class on health. I’m sure that’s why I was able to bounce back.
The thing that is so frustrating to me is that I let a job affect me in that way. Not that my physical or emotional response to the situation was wrong, but that I put up with it, even though I would’ve been financially okay walking away. Even more upsetting, ultimately, is that my parents saw me go through this and encouraged me to stick with it. I think they have a messed up idea of how to relate to work, but it’s a weird thing to now live with, that they saw me in that state and didn’t intervene.
I have not gotten sick for longer than a year, depending on how you define “sick.” I had a couple hours there where I was convinced that I had covid when my brother tested positive haha and certainly there have been moments when I have not felt well, but no viral or bacterial events (fungal infections don’t count, comment below if you agree). The wildfire smoke last week that blanketed the East Coast really threw me for a loop. I am so sorry to everyone out West who experiences it regularly. ( Well I do have to claim a fun little edge over the West Coast and say that the particles become more toxic the longer they sit in the air) (It’s probably just a couple cigarettes’ worth of exposure given that it was just one morning, but I’m a cool older Zoomer, I don’t juul). It’s an empathy-sympathy gap things where, of course, I didn’t personally know and geez.
The joke is on me, because Monday of that week I resolved to wake up early every morning and go for a walk because I was stagnating. So there I am, Tuesday morning, noting the hazy? foggy? air, walking briskly, breathing deeply. And then I spent the rest of the week hiding indoors with my eyes running and a sore throat. Those PM 2.5 particles settled deep in my sinuses and really hurt my ears for a day or two there. I’m now checking the air quality index on my phone. I hate it. We don’t need this double hit of toxic air after an airborne viral pandemic.
I finished my sweater! One of those big artistic moments where you’ve realized how much your skills have grown over the course of a large project and you’re like :/ ahahaa. I’m already halfway through another. I very much suspect that next one will take me 2 months, after this one’s 10. I did not nail the sizing, but that’s particularly difficult for knits because they’re so stretchy. So the sweater fits me well without stretching at all, but that’s not how sweaters are supposed to fit, you know? It could’ve been smaller. The design on the arms is something I added, and not included in the original pattern, which I think you can tell in that it ends right where the sleeves join the torso but there’s several more inches of room for the pattern to repeat in the shoulder decrease section.
I also made this silly little market bag where I completely misread the scale and did not bother to gauge at all. I think the pattern is intened to replace the thin plastic bags for produce and not for holding all your groceries, but something is definitely off. (Realizing as I write this that the pattern literally says produce bag, but also look at their pictures for scale).
I finally finished assembling and strung up the loom I purchased a month ago. It’s so much bigger than I thought it would be, but once again that is my error. I’m beginning to think I have a problem understanding scale. I hesitate to call what I made a scarf because it’s fairly short. I need to figure out how I can wind a longer warp in my small apartment.
I am happy with how this came out for a first project, but I definitely had the realization while making it that it wasn’t going to be “good,” but that I needed to see it through, to improve for next time. I started on the left and worked right, if you can tell. I need to improve on selvages and also the ends. The little braided tassels look a bit rough.
I was getting frustrated with uhh garment creation, so for a simple exercise I sewed some lace on the cuffs and hem of this polyester blouse. I was feeling very pleased and then my brother called it a bowling shirt. Absolutely skewered me.
Hope this doesn’t come off like I’m exceptionally sad or troubled or a crafting wizard (unrelated to the first two, probably). Obviously, I experience many emotions, over the course of mere hours, even. This is just the valuable insights and aimless urge to be productive that unemployment gets you. Plus, at this pointI need to be doing something with my hands to focus, of which I am not a huge fan. Anyone else find that they now need a podcast or a video to do an activity where they didn’t previously? Not great.
I’ve been listening to a podcast on the fall of Rome. I don’t know if I recommend it? It can be pretty boring, although the facts themselves are interesting and I like how the narrator locates the story in the lives of hypothetical individuals and the impact on ordinary people. I really gravitated to this at the time because I was so stressed out by the news. It’s nice to hear about a great event and not have to think about the impact on modern society. You could write an academic paper I’m sure, but the sacking of Rome by the Gauls does not make me think of climate doom.
Following it up with a podcast on the history of Rome, which started in 2010 and ran until 2012. A true original. The episodes are 15-30 minutes, which I enjoy. (Shout out to my own podcast, definitely not under 30 minutes an episode). For that reason also, Up First, the NPR morning news podcast is also a nice news bite without getting overwhelming. Their reporting is not perfect, etc etc life in America.
Nothing really gets close to the high of Death in The West, especially with You Must Remember This still on hiatus and You’re Wrong About doing book club things and the OJ trial. If anyone has any history podcasts they like that are not about war or violence, please share them with me. I’m especially interested in learning more about non-Western ancient history.
Ok everyone, in conclusion, do not take career advice from your parents even if you really really like them. Remember to weave in your ends and block your fiber crafts.
//gabriella