It's Embarassing To Be Stupid....

*
*
My heart is paralyzed,

My head was oversized,

I'll take the high road like I should.

You said it's meant to be,

That it's not you, it's me,

You're leaving now for my own good.....

(Train, "Help me, help me, 50 Ways to Say Goodbye")

*

(The story behind the lyrics above?  I'll never tell.  Brings up too many sad, poignant, and regretful memories...)

(There's always a story behind the lyrics I quote...)

(I'm going through a middle-aged crisis where I think back to pivotal moments of time in my life---and I wish to God I could go back there and make a different choice.  Know what I mean?)

(God, if I was still drinking alcohol I'd get a beer to cry into....)

(Now I just cry into my coffee.....)

WHERE WAS I?

Oh yes.  My stupidness.

As I begin "Zariski" anew, with the lovely "Linsey" yarn that Berroco sent me, I have still been agonizing night and day over the placement of the squares onto the yoke.  I just flat out couldn't understand the written instructions nor the diagram of the squares placement in the Berroco instructions booklet.  For somebody who is supposed to be smart, I've been feeling completely stupid about this whole thing.  But I discovered recently that there is a saleslady at one of our LYS' who knitted a Zariski.  

So off I went today  to the LYS in which the aforementioned saleslady works.  I wanted to ask her if I could look at her Zariski in order to fully understand how I should knit my own correctly.  This is an LYS which is soon to go out of business because the LYS owner there wants to retire.

I got to the LYS right at opening time and there were at least 15 to 20 people waiting.  Today marks the beginning of the "Retirement Sale" there---I can't believe they are closing that store, dammit.  But since  I was there, I thought I might as well check out the bargains as I clarified how to knit Zariski.

I found the particular saleslady and she brought out her Zariski.  I told her I hadn't understood the booklet's written instructions or squares diagram.  I asked for a paper and pen so I could actually sketch the garment.  She brought me a huge pad of lined paper and I began my drawings of the mysterious Zariski.

I must have fussed with that garment for over half an hour, pulling it this way and that, arranging it to and fro, making notes and trying to sketch the thing so that I'd still understand how to knit it when I got home and wasn't able to see the actual garment in person anymore.  

My first sketch wasn't that great....

So I refined my sketch and drew it again.  And again.  And again......  And fifteen sketches and about an hour later I arrived at this nice little sketch:

And...um....er....well....I really hate to say this....because it really shows my stupidness.....and I was dumbfounded to see it...

But...

It is the exact same diagram as in the Zariski instructions in the Berroco booklet.

Yes---it's the same diagram.

I'll bend over now, so that anybody who wants to can kick my stupid butt.  I totally deserve it.  Here I swore up and down to Berroco that their diagram wasn't correct and that it didn't make sense, and yadee yadee yadah.... and I eventually drew their exact same diagram!

But, in my defense....I'm STUPID!!!!

Seriously, folks.  I'm stupid.  They could build monuments to my stupidity.  They could write sonnets to my stupidity.  I should quote song lyrics about my stupidity......

WHERE WAS I?

Oh yes....Zariski.  And so, armed with my "new" diagram, I came home and knitted on.  As Elizabeth Zimmerman always said: "Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises".  I love this quote.  And I definitely think my stupidity frequently puts me into a knitting crisis.  But, in my defense again, the saleslady at the LYS declared that she, too, had misunderstood the directions and diagram---and had found it necessary to frog part of it once.  (Either my stupidity had already infected that LYS or she's a distant relative.)

(And, speaking of crises, I'm not quite certain what fool thing put me into this damnable middle-age crisis....)

Anyhoo, here's my work on a Zariski sleeve:

And notice below that my "Linsey" yarn bag runneth over.  I picked up a few more hanks of "Linsey" at the LYS sale, even finding several hanks of a coordinating solid color.  I picked those up in case I want to put some matching picots on the end of the sleeve or a matching border of single crochet around the edges of the garment.  Or more picots.  Or some scallops.  You get the picture.  I was thankful I'd made it to the yarn sale before those hanks disappeared.

And the below picture is how Peaches deals with my crises of IQ:

(Alas....stupidity and life's choices....)

(Pardon me while I go cry into my coffee.  At least I have vanilla creamer in it....)

("My heart is paralyzed"....and on and on in the song....)

(No, I don't have to wonder where I am now.  I know where I am only too damn well....)

*