Why Can't Life Be Like Knitting?

The best time of my life was also the worst.

I had no money, no friends, no social life at all, actually. I made no money. I was buying groceries and paying rent on credit cards.

Six days of the week, I woke up and made a shake for breakfast, then baked a potato or something else for lunch and went to the library. I had all sorts of stuff in my graduate carrel that I wasn't supposed to have, particularly a little electric kettle, with which I made soups and tea and stuff.

Around 2 PM or so, I would go for a walk around the park. Then I had to get some sort of dinner (Arby's was the only thing on campus back then, apart from the horror of the actual cafeteria, so I had a lot of chicken sandwiches) around 7. Then I played a game -- if I worked until 11 PM, I could go home and watch Letterman, and then go to sleep.

On Sundays, I drank beer and watched sad movies.

And this was life for about a year or so. It was...disciplined. I thought of it at the time as having no life.

But it was also wonderful. I had one thing to do, and one thing only: write the dissertation. I mapped out the chapters, did the research, wrote up the conclusions. And it was great.

It's occurred to me that knitting gives me some of that same singularity of being. The same focus. I have a specific goal and a map to get there. I know exactly when it's done and exactly what it takes to succeed at the task.

Compared to real life, that's paradise.