In Which a blogger returns after an inexplicably weary hiatus

Hey there Cats and Kittens, sorry I haven't updated in ages, I'm not quite sure what the go was, I just sort of suddenly got very very tired. Like, all-of-a-sudden-I-seem-to-need-9.5-hours-sleep-per-night-just-to-function tired, somehow-I-can-barely-move-my-fingers-to-knit-this-stitch tired. Weird. So, I mean, I guess I'm anaemic or have low something or high something, but the upshot was that I couldn't seem to think of anything to write, and when I could it just seemed like an enormous effort even to contemplate actually writing.

It's not that I'm less tired now, it's just that eventually in life you just have to man up and do things. Like study for your Anatomy test on Tuesday. And it is at those times, as you know, that I tend to man up in the slightly misdirected fashion which entails blogging instead.

So, what's new? Nothing much, really, although I note that I rather mysteriously have 2 new "Followers" (creepiest term ever, somehow. Like you guys are stalkers or I'm some kind of crackpot cult messiah. I do not really feel that it reflects awfully well on either of us, Dear Reader. Still, it's flattering). One of whom is a friend of Beloved-by-all Bish and the other of whom has a name I don't recognise. Which is fine.

It's a strange thing, the idea of new people reading this blog, because it seems so varied (from my point of view) that it really seems as if any kind of disembling would be impossible. The shear volume of text is such that a great deal of my self must somehow be revealed to anyone with the enthusiasm to read it all. A lot of it is wildly out of date, of course, and naturally a great amount of it is just so much parenthetical hot air, but I wonder how clear the distinction would be, to the casual reader, between what is relevant and true now, and what was barely right even all those years or months ago when I wrote it half asleep.

At the moment I'm alternating between studying and procrastinating. Other tabs open at the moment are the Anatomy tutorial videos and the 365 Project, which I joined yesterday in a fit of enthusiasm. I'm not sure how that will work out, but it's fun to try these sorts of things, and although a lot of the people seem to be trying to build some kind of photography fan-base, my aim is, as usual, to try and encourage myself to pay more attention to the little things in life which are beautiful or lovely or whatever. There hasn't been much of that so far, because there're only 2 pictures up yet, and both of those are more of a self-introductory sort of variety.

The anatomy video interests me, I am ashamed to say, mainly because the demonstrator is pointing out neural structures on preserved slices of human brain using what very much appears to be a knitting needle. I love that confluence of prosaic, quotidian domestic item, the macabre, and the carefully detatched scientific structure and voice. Although pens are maybe more common, I really don't think anything would accomplish that counterpoint as well as the knitting needle. With it's traditional femininity and its vibe of handcrafts, it's perfect, somehow. Also it's an excellent pointing shape.

Plus, where did it come from? Did someone in the anatomy lab one day say "I'm tired of pointing to things with these wooden pointing sticks we keep in pencil jars here, it's time to upgrade!" and then go to Spotlight to buy them? You can just imagine the guy, having left his lab coat behind and fought his way past the huge rolls of fabric and the shelves of different yarns of different colours, to the knitting needle rack, looking at the different gauges and lengths and varieties, going "Um, well, I guess neural structures probably need about a number 6 size needle, I mean the basal ganglia is pretty delicate. I guess?" Did they just buy 1 pair, or several, assuming that knitting needles, like pens, eventually evaporate in a shared work environment?

Or did someone's wife or girlfriend or flatmate come home one winter evening to discover that her attempt to knit herself (or himself) a scarf and widen their skillset has ground to a halt because the anatomist in their life had wandered off with the needle which happened not to have wool on it? "What a useful stick! I will take this and point to things with it! How useful! I will take this one, because the other person has two, so I'm sure she won't miss the second one." If you had explained that this was a problem to the imaginary anatomist character, would they bring back your needle? If so, could you ever really feel the same way about it, and finish your scarf, knowing that it had been used to casually poke bits of cold wet spinal cord around?

In related news, I have been knitting again myself, because 'tis the season. (Cunningly, I use double-pointed needles which are afixed to one another in a loop, so you can make round things and also anatomists find it harder to make off with half of the pair.) I started making a baby hat for a pregnant school friend (of which I suddenly have 2), but had to restart about 10 times because of trifling errors such as misjoining the original round and thus making mobius strips rather than hats, and similar. As a result I've run out of steam on that project rather, but am confident that will successfully make other things sooner or later.

Isn't that an exciting thing to read about? No? Well, at least I feel like I've broken the ice on the blog again, and will get back to you again, sooner this time, with another post, presumably a less knitting-centred one.