Bad Blog?

Today I:

• had half an eggplant sub and a soy latte for lunch
• drank coffee for breakfast
• pretty much fell out of bed knitting
• knit all day while watching Danny Deckchair, Dark Shadows (revival), and Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx
• ripped it all out an hour ago
• had a seitan "cheese steak" for dinner with a Hefeweizen
• considered blog quality

Some time between relocating heat pumps and archiving a ream of tatty construction documents, I write this blog. I have an hour lunch break, but I don't like leaving the office. I work in a mostly industrial neighborhood, so the lunch options are not only limited, but severely overcrowded. And then there's the weather. East Coast weather is not my friend. There's heat waves and snow and sometimes they're two weeks apart. Egh.

So I bag a lunch and I sit at my computer, trying to think of something interesting to write, drinking coffee that comes from a machine that makes robotic whirring noises and fending off architects under the false impression that just because I'm present, I'm available. Quality isn't usually at the forefront of my mind when I'm posting so much as just being able to press Publish without my computer crashing or having a hitherto unheard of deadline suddenly drop into my lap.

Notice how I used the word "hitherto"? That's because I'm at home right now. I have a little space to think - literally. It's about 250 sq. ft., and I call it my apartment. Most people call it an efficiency studio. It's packed with yarn and books and my boyfriend/partner/whatnot, practically to the ceiling. I am a packrat. Every day is a struggle to hold back the flow of clutter. My mom's parents had so much clutter that they had to erect retaining walls in their living room. I'm not quite at that point yet, but I am considering using my textbooks as furniture again. Somewhere in all this stuff is my mind, my direction. My focus. What was I saying?

Oh, yeah. I was going to say something profound about blog quality.

Today I am haunted by the thought that I am merely cluttering the Internet with yet another self-aggrandizing, poorly written blog. I am pathetic with html code. My font is too big and don't know how to fix it. I can barely organize my sidebar, and yet I still want a second one. I can't decide on a banner illustration, so I just haven't drawn one. Taking attractive photos for my blog is a low priority - I'm lucky if the photo isn't blurry and it has enough light. This is partially a product of my apartment, aka The Cave, but it's also laziness. This really shines through in the way I write my posts. Consistency in theme? Never. Completed thoughts? Only by accident. Structure? Just a tool to desperately reign in the chaos.

Why do I bother? Well, I'm a hybrid of interoversion and sociability. I have a desire for Show and Tell, but in person I have no real forum. Maybe because when other people are meeting people, I am knitting, or writing. I take books to parties. You get the idea. Years can pass without acquantainces knowing what I do when I'm at home because it just doesn't come up. I think I still have some old friends who don't know I draw. Or knit.

What was my point, anyway? Oh, yeah. Keep reading me. I may be scatterbrained, but I've got lots of stuff to show you and I'll probably get better. Everything has a learning curve and I tend to go whole hog on anything that really interests me. For instance, I spent all today designing a wristawrmer on US #4 dpns, only to rip it all out. I already cast it on again. One thing about going whole hog is that in my case it often involves a lot of pigheadedness. Believe it or not, but this is what gets me anywhere. It certainly isn't patience.

Last night, I:

• made seitan "cheese steaks" with my boyfriend/partner/whatnot
• had a couple beers
• picked out a new bar of soap to carve