First, my dear Internet, a question:  Is it passively aggressively funny or douchey to make a cross stitch that reads “A flushed toilet is a happy toilet!” and hang it in the bathroom as a gentle reminder to help my roommate remember to flush the toilet after he uses it?

To be fair: roommate is a super nice guy and if I were to simply ask him to please remember to flush the toilet he would absolutely do it but I think he’d be far more embarrassed about needing to be asked face to face than if a cute decorative hanging were to suddenly appear on the wall as a reminder.  And no,  I doubt that he would care that I’m talking about it on the Internet as most people who read this blog do not actually know him in real life so he’s still able to maintain some dignity and anonymity here.

Second, so I filled out an online dating profile a couple of weeks ago. One of the things it asks is “what do you do on a Friday night?”  I answered that if I hadn’t made any out of the house plans, I would more than likely be curled up on my couch in my pajamas, watching a movie or some television and making stuff with yarn.

So far most of the people who have responded to my profile do not believe that I would admit to such a “lame” Friday night activity and have decided that I’m kidding. This works kind of in my favor because hey, who doesn’t like to be thought of as funny?  At the same time… guess what I’m doing right this very Friday night?

PJs? Check

Couch? Check

Yarn? Check

Redbox movie? In the player and waiting to be played.

For a little while I really did try to come up with something else to go and do. There’s a documentary about Warren Ellis being shown at a local comics shop tonight. There are a bunch of coffee shops and bookstores close by that I could spend some time in. Downtown with all of its goings on is just a short train ride away. I couldn’t help but think of what others would want me to be doing or whether or not I should see if any friendly type people had any plans or wanted to hang out–you know how people do on a Friday night.

But when I got right down to it, what I really wanted to do was curl up on my couch in my pajamas, with some yarn, some sticks and a movie (and my cat, if we’re being honest). It’s been a weird week sleep wise, I’m tired and could use a quiet break. So I gave myself kind of a harsh but peppy talk about how “you get to do whatever you want to do now, you don’t have to worry about what anybody else would want, so put on your goddamn pajamas and get comfortable!”

I’m kind of proud that I listened to myself.

Hmmm. That title feels lamer than it sounded in my head when I laughed myself into a coughing attack about it a few minutes ago. Oh well. I’m keeping it.

So. 2012. It’s kind of, like, here. And stuff.  I keep toying with that whole “I should probably do a 2011 review like every other blogger on the planet” but tonight I do not want to look back. I want to look forward. Particularly in terms of what I want to do on this blog.

I have loved refinding my blogging mojo over the last couple of months. I’ve loved it so much that I toyed briefly with taking on a blog365 project. After all, if I can do a year of vlogging, I can do a year of blogging, right? The problem is that I do not want to risk the quality of this refound blogging mojo for the quantity a blog365 project requires.  So I’m not going to do that–as fun as it may be.

Instead I’m committing to three posts a week.  I’m going to blog on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. At a minimum. Maybe I’ll blog in between those days and over the weekends too but I’m not going to commit to that. Right now 3 feels like a pretty good balance, especially since I committed myself to vlogging every Tuesday and Thursday.

I’m thinking up a creative project for the weekends, but for the purposes of this post we’re just going to focus on the blog.

Monday. Wednesday. Friday.  I have the power!

Today I did three things.

I made my official “I completed a full year of vlogging!” vlog. (Because I really DID complete a full year of vlogging!)

I cleaned my kitchen (it was BUGGING me).

I took the day off.

I don’t usually make myself take days off. They just usually kind of happen because of scheduling and having to wait on others and I guilty let myself have a little bit of free time while I wait for schedules to smooth out and others to get back to me. But today I made a nest of blankets on the couch, turned on Netflix and then spent the whole day lying around. And sometimes playing with yarn.

I did some thinking about my new year’s resolutions and what I want to accomplish in the next year and themes and stuff and I think I finally figured out what I want to do. I’ll talk about that in more detail tomorrow.

Mostly though…I just rested.

It was nice.

It’s not yet midnight here in Oregon but midnight has come and gone for a lot of you already so:

HAPPY NEW YEAR IF IT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU ALREADY!

I’m still trying to figure out what to do with my vlogging project. I don’t know what kind of real resolutions I want to make. I love the planning and the considering but I’m not yet ready to commit to any of the crazy ideas floating through my brain right now.

In that respect, this New Year’s Eve is exactly like last year’s New Year’s Eve.

In every other respect I think it’s safe to say that the year is not ending the way I thought it would end. I’m learning to be okay with that.

That’s not me being emo, that’s me being honest.

For right now, I’m choosing not to dwell on where I thought I’d be. For right now I’m choosing to focus my attention on whether or not I should shimmy under my bed to smooch my cat at midnight (the neighbors set off fireworks and so now she’s hiding).

What? Even if it is just the touching of noses, some form of smooch needs to happen at midnight. It’s tradition!

Happy New Year’s Eve Eve!

I know that a lot of other people have put together 2011 Year in Review kinds of posts and I thought about doing that myself but guess what: 2011 isn’t over yet. Who knows what kind of exciting stuff could happen by tomorrow night?

Tonight I’m staring at blank Word documents and trying to come up with the words I need to finish a project. Exciting, no? No? Okay.

I’m also trying to firm up plans for this blog and my vlog and other types of things both creative and professional (but still creative). The nice thing is that the majority of this kind of plan firming is that it can happen in my head. I can think it all out while I watch more Bones on Netflix and knit more inches of the latest scarf. I’m getting pretty good at the seed stitch, if I do say so myself.

I was telling my roommate (and my Mom a couple of days ago and one of my friends a few days before that) that I feel like I’m in the midst of the ramp up before the makeover montage of just about every cheesy chick flick ever. I feel like I’m almost ready to make some grounded decisions and changes. I can feel the fizzing, I just can’t see the details yet.

So I knit. And watch television and think and ponder and over think and over ponder and drive myself a little bit crazy. But that’s okay. I don’t have to have it all figured out right now, right? It’s only New Years Eve’s EVE. I still have a whole day left to figure this stuff out!

So here’s my question for you all:

Is it better to dive in head first knowing that it could go horribly awry because you aren’t truly ready for what you’re about to dive into just yet?

Or

Is it better to keep waiting until you do feel truly ready, knowing that you are completely capable of coming up with reason after reason after reason to keep putting it off because you are really good at working yourself up and may never let yourself feel totally ready?

Must! Update! Every! Day! Can’t! Stop! Now! Auuuugh!

I’m trying to come up with some good resolutions for this next year. I’m trying to figure out how I want to do my vlog next year.  I have a big work project I need to be finishing up but I’m not sure how to get it to gel together.

So of course today I spent the day on the couch knitting and watching Netflix.

What–isn’t that how you do some of your best thinking?

Oh and I accidentally fell asleep for a while. Apparently I was really comfortable and really tired (my roommate and I had our bi-annual apartment inspection and smoke detector check today. At 8:30 this morning).

Now I’m turning to you guys: what do you think I should do with my vlog? What would you like to see me accomplish in the next year? It’s still all up to me, of course, but I like you guys.

Dear Abbott,

We listened to this song at your memorial service. We were all crowded together in your Kung Fu studio, shoulder to shoulder so many of us packed in that the air was thin and we listened to this song.

I listened to it on the 27th of every month of that first year you were gone and I haven’t listened to it since. One year after your accident the man who would eventually become my ex-husband and I started dating. I wanted to turn the day from something awful into something wonderful and now it has become doubly awful.

Oh well, the best of intentions and all that.

You’ve been gone for eight years now. I’ve done quite a lot of living in those eight years. I’ve moved three times. I’ve started a new career. I’ve fallen in love. I’ve had my heart smashed into a zillion teensy pieces. I’ve been married. I’ve been pregnant. I had a miscarriage. I got divorced. I started a blog. I started a vlog. I found my tribe. I lost myself. I haven’t refound myself yet but I’m working on it. I’ve made new friends. I’ve reconnected with old friends. I’ve lost people I thought I could count on. I’ve watched people grow up. I have a cat. I feel like I’ve lived so much in these eight years its enough to fill up a whole life.

You were twenty seven when you died. I wonder how much living you would have done in these eight years. I’m going to guess a lot.

I still love you completely. It’s easy because, since you’re gone, I can always love the you that you were to me when you died. You won’t ever get older or change or become someone I can’t believe I ever cared about. You will always be my friend–the friend who would blow smoke from those goddamn American Spirit cigarettes you used to smoke into my face and lecture me about how the hamburger I was eating was going to kill me before the smoke from those cigarettes could kill you.  You will always be the friend who was the first to understand when I needed a hug–often before I did.

Sometimes, even though I love you, I hate you. I hate you for not being here, especially now when I need you so much. I need your perspective and your arms and your safety. I need your humor and your sarcasm and your stubbornness. I need you and you are not here and even though there was nothing you could do to stop it, you didn’t even see it coming, I hate you for letting death win and take you away.

Most of all I miss you. I miss you so much and every day. I miss everything about you. I even miss the way you used to make me mad. I miss you for all of the reasons that I loved you. I miss you. I miss you.

But I don’t wish you back.

I love you and I need you but you being gone is how things are supposed to be–as much as that sucks.

I used to wish there was a way to reset things so that you wouldn’t get into that accident and so that you could still be here. But if you were here, would I have the life I have now? Probably not. I do not know what kind of life I would be living right now. I hope that it would be a good one and I know that I wouldn’t know the difference since this life wouldn’t have happened but I know that my life would be vastly different and even though it’s going through a really rough and really painful patch right now, my life is good. Or, at least, it will be again and hopefully soon.

It’s hard admitting that out loud. It’s hard to admit that as much as I wish I could see your face again and tug on your beard and hug you and, yes, kick you in the down there because the loss of you has cost me so much pain–it’s okay that you are gone. I mean, it’s not totally fine, but it is what it is. I’ve stopped wishing for that to change.

Seven years ago today the man I would marry and divorce and I decided to start dating. He offered to wait until the next day but I wanted to take the terribleness of the day and cover it up with something good. His leaving has made the day dark again.

I hope that maybe in a few years I’ll be able to write a letter like this one about that.

I hope that wherever your unique Abbott energy has gone, it is having fun and it is happy. I hope that wherever you are, it is good.

I’d say please write back soon but if a letter actually turned up from you, that would just freak me out.

Love,

Me.

*Sarah McLachlan

I’m not going to lie. Today has been a hard day. Today is Will’s 30th birthday and I don’t get to celebrate it with him. On days like this it is difficult to remember that there are very real and legitimate reasons behind our split and that we are both going to be better off apart. On days like this I want to erase the last four and a half months, pretend they were just a weird and terrible dream and live the life I thought I’d be living now: one in which I get to make a big and happy deal out of my husband’s thirtieth birthday. Instead I’m home by myself (okay, my cat is here too) watching Bones on Netflix and looking at the new scarf that I’ve started to knit. I sit here, without humanoid company and do my best not to cry and to do the deep breathing I’ve learned to do when the awfulness gets overwhelming and keeps me from being able to think straight.  Sometimes, though,  even that doesn’t work.

I’m not very good at letting my sad show. I don’t do being vulnerable in front of other people. I’ve always been a care taker and being the care takee is foreign and uncomfortable to me. I don’t like it. I’m far more comfortable just waiting it out and keeping it all to myself until I can find a way to talk about it in a way that makes us all laugh. Finding the funny is something I’ve always been good at, but sometimes there are days like today when I just…can’t.

What I’m grateful for today is that I have a plethora of people that I can reach out to when the breathing and the waiting it out aren’t working. Today I’m grateful that there are people who will always answer the phone when I call and who will let me wax poetic and ventastic about how things are for me right now and how I feel about the way things are for me right now. I am grateful that I can say the same things over and over and over again and they just keep listening.  People like Wendy and my Mom and my friend Katie and any number of the other people who I have on speed dial.

Having people like this in my life is a blessing. It is a blessing that I didn’t always feel like I had so every day I am thankful that I have it now.

So today, dear people who always answer the phone: I am grateful for you.

I make things with yarn.

I make square and rectangular things with yarn.

Once in a great while I will manage something circular but only with crochet. Somehow I find the idea of knitting in the round really intimidating (this is probably because I am not so good at crocheting in the round).

My maternal grandmother (who we all call Nan because my oldest cousin couldn’t say Grandma when she was little) taught me how to crochet when I was six or seven. I have a few guesses about why she did this. They range from wanting at least one of the grandkids she was able to see on a regular basis to be able to sit and do something quietly without complaining about being bored when we were at her place to perhaps wanting to bond with the granddaughter who, when not in the company of her rowdier cousins, would poke her nose into a book and not come out to say even word one until it was time to go home. Maybe I asked to learn. I don’t know, I can’t remember. My brain goes from not knowing how to crochet to knowing how to do simple chain stitches and the basic double stitch to make rows. I know that somewhere in there Nan helped my brain go from one to the other.

I loved playing with yarn as a kid and then as I got older I shunned yarn, crafting and even just crafts. If it was not mass produced and available via giant chain store, it was not to be owned by me.

I’m so glad I let that go. Crafts and crafting are awesome.

A few years ago, not long after we moved up here to Portland I picked up my crochet hook again. I’m a nervous sitter–I need my hands to be busy. When I’m reading this is fine–I can hold the book and turn pages. When watching movies or television  and after I’ve become full of snacks, though, I tend to…pick at myself. Like a meth addict or something. It’s kind of gross. I don’t even realize when I’m doing it. One nigh I looked down and saw that I had pretty severely mauled my feet and thought “dude, I need to find something to do with my hands. That’s disgusting.” So up my crochet hook got picked and I scrounged up some old yarn that I had saved from something or other. I made a couple of awful looking potholders and thought “this is soothing. I want to learn how to do more,” so I checked “Not Your Mama’s Crochet” out of the library. I learned a few more stitches through that book and suddenly I was churning out scarves (which didn’t look half bad, if I do say so myself) and hats (which really really did look bad).

Then I read Crazy Aunt Purl’s Drunk Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair and thought “…knitting. I want to learn to knit!”

So I did.

I bought a pair of knitting needles and sat down with my laptop and some “how to knit” videos and taught myself the basic knit and purl stitches.

It’s a few years later and I still don’t know how to knit round things but I honestly can’t tell you which fiber art I find more fun or more soothing.

I love that I know how to do these things. I mean, okay–I hold my needles (both knitting and crochet) oddly and when I knit I make judicious use of my thumbs and that’s not really how you’re supposed to do it. I don’t hold my yarn correctly. But whatever, the stitches still look right when they’re completed. Being able to do these things makes me feel arty and, oddly, self sufficient. I do not need to buy scarves or potholders, I can make my own! If I learn how to stick with a project long enough I can make blankets! And clothing and bags and…really pretty much anything I want.

There is something soothing and calming about playing with yarn. It is satisfying in a way that nothing else is satisfying. (Shut up pervs, you know what I mean.)

I don’t know if I will ever be considered good at fiber arts, but I know that I’m really glad I’ve gotten back into them.