More than four years ago, I found myself unemployed and carless. With a LOT of time on my hands. I’d always wanted to design, so when Sarah (aka The Sexy Knitter) called me and asked if I wanted to send a design proposal into a book The Unique Sheep was working on, I jumped.

I designed two other patterns during my unemployment period, and both came out in book form long, long ago. Finally, after four years, this thing is, too! I admit, I thought it would never see the light of day. But that’s how things go in publishing sometimes. Cooperative Press finally put the book out this month, and it finally made its way onto Ravelry. After I checked every day for four months, of course.

So, there you go. Follow the links above to either buy the book or Ravel it, if you’re so inclined. I’m just glad it’s finally OUT and over with. Now, if anyone asked me a question about getting stuck in the pattern, I would totes have to wing it, because the whole thing is just a whiff of memory at this point. Confession: I didn’t even make a pair for my husband! The pair in the photo was done by the test knitter. As with all socks, I made one and was then DONE.

I am actually NOT going to talk about work today. I wanted to showcase this pattern, and then showcase something unusual I watched last night after work. A short movie by Rodarte featuring their SS2013 collection. And Elijah Wood. And a unicorn.

This one’s for you, Toni.

 

So I wrote this about a week and half ago while I was at work, just to get it out and for mental therapy and clarity. Things are still shitty at work, but I really want to stop writing about that and move on to other things. So I will post this now, and say that I will not be listening to Portishead at work anymore. The depression gets too deep when I do!

I don’t mean to always be a complainer. But sometimes, I think I am. I am that classic case of a person who wants something, but then when I get it – I don’t want it anymore. I am thankful to be at least smart enough and cognizant enough to realize my flaws, but that doesn’t make them any easier to bear. All I wanted was to be off my feet again and at a desk job. Oh hubris! Wish not for foolish things.

Or maybe it’s something else….something deeper. I have genuinely not been happy at a job for about five years. I threw my entire newspaper career away (ha! And now newspapers are a dying breed, so maybe it wasn’t such a rash decision?) for my dream job, which only lasted a short three years. And I’ve been drifting in the wilderness of unemployment, horrible job and now just an apathetic job experience ever since.

Would you like to know my deep secret? It’s really not that secret. I will tell anyone who asks. I am jealous beyond belief of stay at home moms. I don’t hate them, or denigrate them, I envy them beyond belief. Because I always wanted a child but time and tide and circumstance prevented it. I learned a long time ago that I get no personal fulfillment from a job. It in no way validates me, makes me happy or gives me pride. It’s been ruined in too many ways, first by the men I worked with in the publishing world, then by the backstabbing women in the yarn biz. I have learned to trust NO ONE. And I hate being that way, but I have been burned about 10 times too many, and I’m tired of hot things.

What gives me personal fulfillment? Keeping a neat home. Doing craft projects. Knitting. Designing. All of these things that I am so stressed and tired and burnt out to devote the time I want towards. This is my standard day:

1. Get up at 6 am. Off to work by 8:30. Don’t ask what I do for two and half hours. It involves a quick load of laundry, dealing with the kitty and other sundry tasks. Putting my makeup on takes under five minutes. So it’s not vanity that is taking up my time!
2. Not home until after six. Run to the gym, or to boot camp. If I’m at boot camp, I won’t be home until after 8 pm. I am in bed by 10 p.m. I might read one to two chapters of a book before I pass out.
3. On the weekends, frantically get my marketing done. Every other week, clean the house. Massive amounts of husband-generated laundry every weekend. Oh, and work wants me to do “homework.” Hahahahahahaha.

Now I know you’re thinking, “Well, Tanya, if you had a family, it would be a million times worse!” And you are probably right. But I wouldn’t be working at a job I hate, that’s for sure!

Okay. Deep, deep breaths. I needed to get this off my chest. I needed to write it down. I have to somehow put how I feel out in the universe, or it hangs around my neck like Jacob Marley’s chains, strangling me.

Work is….weird. My co-worker (the last one in my department unless you count the sulky troll doll who’s down the hall – and FYI, isn’t that a great name for a hardcore Norwegian metal band? Sulky Troll Doll! Ja!) has been out for more than two weeks. In hospital, with a myriad of illnesses brought about by her poor eating/smoking choices, but still. I am sympathetic and miss her, even if she does sometimes smell bad. These things happen, Ja?

They finally hired a new receptionist, so I will no longer have to fill in on alternate days. The barrage of country music on the loudspeaker at the front desk FINALLY stopped today. No more Toby Keith. No more Band Perry. But alas, my sanity has returned.

They also hired ANOTHER researcher (that’s what I am, by the way). But things don’t so much trickle down here as gush into your face. She just walked in today to fill out her paperwork, and boom, there she was. A cute/hot 22 year old flibbertigibbet who didn’t bring her driver’s license to fill out paperwork. Or a social security card. But she kept apologizing and giggling. She was most skilled at those two things.

I have to train this person.

So there you go. My alternate days have been spent out front at the Country Bear Jamboree or in an office alone. My mind plays tricks on me. I think too much. I put Portishead on the stereo the other day. This was most assuredly NOT a good idea.

AND NO ONE TELLS YOU ANYTHING. I mean, seriously. This just happened: I am up front. We are in a sketchy neighborhood. Our door is locked, and when you are up front you are the gatekeeper.

A man was just let in (by me) who in no way looks like an interviewee. He is wearing fucking mandals for chrissake. I mean, is this what you wear on a job interview? And now he’s making clicking noises with his mouth. This fucktard is most annoying!

And I ask my boss where the interviewer is, she waves me off, then comes back and says he is running late. Will there be any more interviews today? Yes. Do you have a list of them? “No, that’s not my thing. Bye!”

UGH. Welcome to where I work. And yes, I am sitting here typing this as it happens and mandal man is  relaxing in the lobby.

You may wonder how boot camp is going. It’s going. I’m going. For how long I can’t say. I am supplementing it with gym workouts of at least 45 minutes on the days I don’t go. I do not like boot camp. The friend who was begging me to join is never there when she says she will be. I feel like I’ve been blown off. Last night a woman smelling of mothballs was working out in front of me. If there are two smells that give me migraines, they are moth balls and burnt cherry pie. I know, random. But there it is.

The instructor is an Israeli man who yells at us in the voice of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. I am not exaggerating. It is slightly….humorous? But it won’t be the next time he yells in my vicinity and I rip his balls out and shove them into his mouth. Yes, I have my Serena Williams moments. And please don’t ask me about that time she came in BN late one Saturday with her entourage and I thought she was a tranny. I swear, it was the trucker hat. The one she was wearing.

I have done it. I have written down the things I was feeling and I am a little lighter now. I am sorry if I have burdened you with the mundanity of my life, with the hopeless dreams I once had of hearth and home. I think I just get a little irritated when I read things like cooking and knitting and Etsy blogs of happy stay at homers, and I want to rip my hair out by the roots from envy.

It will get better. It has to.