II. In Which Our Hero Goes to Applebee's

The other day, I went to dinner with a bunch of my friends. We went to Applebee's, which is about a 20 minute drive from town, because the Olive Garden had a wait time of an hour and a half and we were on a time-crunch. Still, it was a Saturday night, so we ended up waiting for our table for almost an hour. My friend Ondrea and I both brought our knitting, and we sat on a metal bench outside the restaurant with our friend Will sandwiched between us, both muttering and knitting. (Ondrea is working on a teal baby sweater; I'm working on the Interlocking Balloons scarf for my lab partner, who is from California and has no scarves to speak of.) While we were sitting there, a woman walked out with her family, stepped off the curb, saw us both knitting, stopped and looked dumbfounded. She said something like, "Wow. It's not every day that you see two women knitting outside an Applebee's." Then she laughed awkwardly, got into her car, and drove away.

It's funny that knitting has become so much a part of my life that I get confused when people tell me that they have never seen anyone knit before. I'm perfectly willing to answer questions, and I have no problems with knitting in public, but it is interesting that the first two things that come out of a person's mouth in response to my cabled scarf are, "WOW. What are you doing?" and, upon learning what I am doing, "WOW. Will you knit me a scarf?"

And I do occasionally knit people scarves - the projects that rekindled my addiction when I was sixteen were four basketweave scarves that I knitted for my ex, two old friends, and one of my (still) closest friends. And then there's the interlocking balloons scarf, which I am knitting for my Californian lab partner, a little because he asked for a scarf, but mostly because I've been eyeing the DK-weight charcoal alpaca yarn at Smith's for over a month.

(Seriously, I'm going to marry this yarn someday and we will make lots of cabled scarf babies and a couple of fingerless mittens and a sweater, and we'll sit around drinking hot chocolate that has peppermint teabags thrown in for some broke-ass-college-student flavor.)

Sometimes I wonder if I actually do like to knit, or if I just like to think about knitting - but then I rediscover a beautiful yarn in my stash and realize that - oh, my gosh, I can turn it into that little surplice camisole from Knitting Lingerie Style! - and then, from cast-on to endless, mindless rows of stockinette, I am addicted, planning every exam and homework session and dinner around When I Will Get To Knit Next. Sometimes it goes in cycles, but after a long day of studying and class and frustration, a couple of rows is exactly what I want and need before I go to bed.

Speaking of which, I have been putting off calculus homework for over an hour.

It's a shame how classes cut into my knitting time.