On your marks, get set...

I have signed up for The Knitting Olympics. Go ahead, check it out. Page down, and down, and down and eventually you will get to me - Marie R - undecided. Yes, in the true procrastination spirit, I am just today finalizing what I am going to knit. That is, if the swatch is nice once it's dry. Pics will follow tomorrow.

This event has caused me to embark on a period of self examination. I have firmly believed for many years now that I am not a joiner (I have even mentioned it on this blog more than once). There are many good books, movies, TV shows, etc. that I have passed by simply because they have become too popular and my snobbish inner self says "if that many people like it, it can't be all that good" (I know, I'm not proud of it, but that's the way I react sometimes). I was in plenty of organizations as a child/teen (orchestra, choir, etc.) but I almost never joined any clubs.

All that being said, I have now joined three Knitalongs, and rather large ones at that.

First, there's Jaywalker. (I'm almost done with my socks, I think I'm gonna make it by the 13th).

Then Sockapaloooza. For those of you who don't know, this is a secret pal sock exchange where you are assigned a person to make socks for and someone else is assigned to make socks for you. I think there are over 600 participants.

And now the Knitting Olympics, which according to the Harlot has over 4000 knitters signed up. Wow.

I think much of my current "joinerism" (is that a word?) has to do with my newbie status as a blogger. I'm relatively new to being a participant in the blogosphere and I think I'm just trying to get a feel for what it's like to be a part of some of these events. In the same way that when I started blogging I was posting 5-7 entries a week and now I'm at about 3 entries per week I think my rate of signing up for group events will probably wane with time.

But there's another aspect to it. I've been knitting since I was about 5 or 6 years old. And I have knitted throughout that entire time (i.e. I didn't have a period of ten years where I didn't pick up the needles). During most of that time the only other person I knew who knit was my mother. Knitting in public was a combination of social activism and circus sideshow freakery, especially in my childhood and teen years. Strangers would stare at me blankly, and my peers would treat my knitting as an occasion for mockery (not that it stopped me.)

But not anymore. Knitting in public has become almost mainstream, more likely to cause someone else to break out their knitting than to give you dirty looks. It's a little disconcerting to me to be part of a cultural fad, but I'm willing to run with it for a while. I think that's why I'm signing up for so many knitalongs.

Anyway, back to the Olympics. In past years I have been only somewhat interested in watching any of the Olympics. But with the advent of TiVo we can indulge in only watching what interests us and fast forwarding through the rest (now if I could just figure out a way to kill the commentary without having to mute the whole program). We enjoyed the last winter olypmics at lot more because of TiVo (wow, have we really had the TiVo for that long?!) And this year Punkin is very excited about watching all sorts of different events, so we will see how much we actually sit through.

And now please allow me to indulge myself in a proud parent moment: Punkin read a book last night. Obviously with much help from her father, but she got through all of Hop on Pop, sounding out the words and actually reading a whole book instead of just isolated words. I am so excited, and she is so proud of herself she could just burst. There's a whole new world about to open up for her.