Pack rat

There are things done during periods of duress that are good, like ditching a job that's killing you, literally.

And then there are things done during those periods that are lamentable at best, and downright foolhardy at worst.

When I moved from Nor'eastern State of Doom, I had to make decisions about What To Bring. I threw a lot of stuff out: old orientation manuals from school and my last hospital, of which I'm sure an entire acre worth of trees were felled in the making, weird doohickey things I couldn't figure out why I'd kept all that time, random pieces of string... and well, more expensive pieces of string.

In retrospect, the expensive pieces of string (yarn!) I must now properly lament, as in the Old Testament breast-beating and wailing tradition (or breast beating were that I had a real bosom to speak of. Perhaps I should find a tunic to render instead...)

I don't know quite what I was thinking; it would have been a mere one more box of stuff. Surely one more box of stuff would have fit in that spacious moving van that came to collect all my worldly possessions for the long south-bound haul that was my destiny?

Alas, and anon (for good measure).

Here I am, wishing I had just one ball of the good old stuff (I did keep a few paltry special skeins, but not enough to knit what I want to knit now, dammit). I think my rationale was either a) can't. pack. another. fucking. box. or b) I can always buy more yarn.

Note that rationale b) is a hugely self serving one, as dumping all your old yarn means you get to have fun buying new yarn. But somehow, it just didn't work out properly, and turned out to be more of the wrongheaded thinking involved wherein a well-meaning but ironically insensitive friend buys you a puppy dog two days after your venerable canine companion of fifteen years has gone to Dog Heaven.

Sometimes, I'm just a big fat idiot. A big fat idiot that finds herself at the local craft store, shelling out more money for yarn she had in her stash but donated instead of hauling along with her like a good pack rat.

Error of packing judgment; I will never make thee again, I do so solemnly swear on my beat up copy of the venerable knitter's guide Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Without Tears (well, I would swear on it, but it's in storage right now).

Moral of the story: yarn is your friend. Treat it well, keep it near you at all times, and most of all remember: don't get rid of what you've got, because if, heaven forbid, you don't have the yarn you're looking for, why(!) you can always buy more.

As a postcript: Turd. Why must I get my charity-knitting-second-wind one week before the due date of several charity deadlines? And furthermore, why must I insist on starting a blanket before said deadline?

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