Category Archives: humor

Occupied: Day 55 (Why Yarn is Better than Xanax)

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I’ve seen the week between Christmas and New Year’s called the lost week online. Netflix even recommends some binge watching for this “week without purpose.”

Me, I’ve been clocking the Mondays. Dec. 22 was the two lawyers meeting for the judge to set paperwork war parameters and order me an inspection on Dec. 29.

Dec. 29 was that terrifying inspection, with the resultant pursuance of a protective order.

Jan. 5 is the eviction hearing, and the separate protective order hearing.

There are times when self-care becomes survival, but the question is, what does it look like in that moment? When you literally go numb and wonder what else could drop out just as you think you’ve reached bottom. Chocolate and bubble baths aren’t going to cut through the fearsome static that fills the void of silence, wondering: will this ever be over?

It being over is a blog for another day, and an interesting part of tenancy law. This week, off from my day job and trying to be myself, I have taken up arms by taking up yarn.

I made this hat for a friend going through extreme stress.

Self-care is better when it’s calm rather than indulgent. What do you need most? OK, find that. I need calm. So I am crocheting a stained glass bedspread in Rennie Mackintosh blocks. And logging a lot of Netflix and podcasts. Fortunately, it’s a good time of year to be binge watching and listening to stuff.

Yarn is better than Xanax. When I sat in court waiting to speak to the judge about a protective order, I fetched my yarn from my car so I could crochet. The lady behind me also seeking an order grinned. She knew.

Now, as that imagination that makes me a writer also runs crazy with “what next,” I am finding the zen of repetitive movement helpful. Slide the hook through the hole, grab the yarn, everything is interconnected. Enjoy the moment. Let your mind slide with the hook.

Crafters know how to get to The Zone. We enjoy the fact that, at the end of not thinking about what we’re thinking about, we have something to show for it. Sometimes the stitches are tighter in certain places, but they are all holding together. This time, the center can hold. So can our nerves. Yarn is cheaper than Xanax, doesn’t have side effects, and amounts to something when it’s all put together.

Taking up yarn today and I might just finish this bedspread. I’ll post pics when I do. Best wishes, y’all–and thank you so much for your kind comments, private or public. It means a lot to know other people have survived this kind of difficulty with their sense of humor and faith in humanity intact.

Boxing Day at Walmart

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So the morning after Christmas is called Boxing Day in the United Kingdom, because traditionally those who were wealthy would box up things they no longer wanted and give them to their household servants, or to “the poor.”

In Walmart, Dec. 26 is called Boxing Day because of what’s happening in the Christmas clearance aisle.

I went to get cat food for Molly and O’Carolan, and coffee creamer for myself. At 6:30 am I figured the place might not yet be crowded, so what the heck, why not stroll past clearance because it’s fun to find ornaments one can enhance with crochet or decoupage and give next year. Like I did these polar bears.

The three aisles held a dozen women each, and they were not eyeing one another in a friendly way, nor yielding prime real estate with their carts parked in front of their targets. I left my cart at the top and started to walk in, but a woman’s eyes became daggers as she glared at me.

Competition, her face said.

Okay…. you know what, let’s just back away slowly. Who needs another ornament to crochet?

I don’t use wrapping paper, but passed that aisle heading back to my cart. The occupants were engaged in a free-for-all fencing duel. The women were being Southern Polite, which means they figured all actions were justified because they were taking good care of their families by saving money for next year. (Think the milk aisle after a snow forecast.) Ergo it was fair to swing for eyeglasses and hearing aids with the paper tubes.

From a safe distance, I watched. And wondered. Sure, I’d been cheerful about taking a look, but I can crochet an ornament as easily as crochet around a commercially produced ornament, to be honest. It just takes longer.

Those women in the aisle, did they believe they were getting ahead in life, sticking it to the man, spending time wisely by saving money? By spending money? Economics lessons, business classes, and social justice Ted talks on marketing strategies flowed through my brain, not sticking to one theme, more jumbled up like competing Christmas bells in discordance. Was this aisle in this moment what most smart shoppers came down to being? Not eschewing the stuff, but looking for the stuff on sale? Were these women gaming the system, playing the game, or pawns moved by unseen hands across a retail chessboard?

It’s not my intention to sound smug or condescending. We need what we need, we want what we want. Grandkids are born expecting things. Which perhaps proves the point that underneath our choices on how to spend Boxing Day, as Anthropology 101 teaches us, we are making less choices of our own free will than we think we are, because we start with the suppositions society has programmed into us from infancy.

Wrapping paper is life. Wrapping paper is love. Wrapping paper on sale is the ultimate good. According to the Laws of…. who?

I got my cat food and creamer and went home and sat in front of the fire, crocheting a possum scarf while blasting Mannheim Steamroller. Somebody had ordered the scarf from me, so yes, I am a comfortable capitalist—especially when sitting at home in front of my wood stove.

Choose wisely, friends.