All I Want is to Crochet this Chicken, OK?

chickensWe’ve all had ’em – those days when it seems like brushing your hair is too much effort. When all you want in the world is to sit quietly in the corner with Netflix and a skein of yarn, crocheting a chicken.

This morning I ordered 12 patterns off Etsy (thanks for the gift card, dear) and sat contemplating the delights of a cat scarf versus a chicken trivet. Chicken won. Scarf is next.

Because when you don’t have books (see last post about Between Books Blue Funk) you still have yarn. And sometimes, that’s enough. I’m between books and I’ve hit rough water in my current writing project. Tomorrow, I’ll get back to writing. Today’s it’s just me, two cones of 100% cotton thread, and an I-hook.

Sure, I’m getting the three loads of laundry done between circular rows. We have to do laundry on Sundays and Mondays because the bookstore is closed then and we don’t own a dryer. We always check REAAAAAAALLLY carefully for errant foundational garments on the rungs of the mystery room chairs, before reopening Tuesday. People point at what they don’t understand. You’d think they’d never seen a size XL thong before.

But what I’m really doing is recharging. Sometimes your brain, like good farmland, needs to go fallow for a day. Leftover pizza for lunch, Chef Kelley’s bowls of good soup for supper, and me and the chicken are gettin’ on like a house afire.

Go by, mad world.

If you want to order the chicken pattern, it’s from Ken-Sarah Moss on Facebook. Here’s the link to her ETSY site. https://www.etsy.com/listing/158723591/crochet-pattern-for-the-swanky-chicken?ref=shop_home_active Only costs $3.50 and is quite fun to work up. No, I don’t get a commission – don’t even know the lady! But I’m having fun dating her chicken. Sometimes, ya gotta smooth those ruffled feathers, y’know?

The Between Books Blue Funk

dull bookWell, it’s happened. The miasma is upon me. After a string of really enjoyable reads, I am Between Books.

I know you’ve been there, that unhappy head space where you’ve got high, high expectations from having just finished a really enjoyable book (or, if one is lucky, a spate of three or four) and you’re tired when you go to bed because a bunch of new real-life projects are in the works, and you turn to your bedside table piled high with great choices ….

… and go flat. I like Sarah Allison’s writing–that matchmaking apple-flinger tree was one of the most lovable romance characters ever–and I admit readily the reason I can’t get into The Peach Keeper is me, not her. Or The Rebel Bookseller. It’s a great book with important things to say! So is Big Box Swindle. Each of these waits on the table by my bed, weeping softly. All of these are books I’ve looked forward to reading.

Sarah Nelson discusses in her memoir So Many Books, So Little Time how your mood and recent life moments must align in some way with what you’re reading, or you can’t get into authors even though you want to. Wise readers put them down and return later.

Usually the catalyst for breaking my Between Books Blue Funk is to read something completely different from what I normally choose. So the other night I grabbed a post-apocalyptic young adult novel, and settled in.

It didn’t work. The novel was awful, but not even awful enough to trigger the horrible-writing-response that lies dormant in all of us, inciting print-blood lust to rip the thing apart. This was more the toss-aside casual disdain of “oh, please.” In a badly-crafted amalgam of  Hunger Games goes on The Road, literary crimes are just way too obvious to ignite passion.

And so I sit, stuck. How could this happen to a bookshop owner, you ask, spoiled for choice an’ a’ that? Perhaps that’s part of the (first world) problem; too many choices reduces one to making none. Or perhaps this is the consequence of binge-watching the whole Season Four of Downton Abbey in one week. (Yes, we know, but we won’t spoil it for you.) I’ve let my reading muscles go slack.

Although I did get quite a lot of crocheting done.

Whatever the combination of reasons that have led to this winter of my book discontent, I hope it’s over soon. There are so many new writers and worlds to explore, I hate to fall behind.