Whiskey Tango Wednesday*

The other day the FoUI and I had to run out to the grocery at the last minute because we were out of milk (this is a tragedy of epic proportions around here) we arrived less than a half hour before closing and the parking lot was pretty near empty so we parked in the spot closest to the doors and headed in. When we came out again (with our milk, and naturally some chocolate) there was a car stopped in the middle of the parking lot aisle. We crossed as fast as we could but the car just sat there. The FoUI said, "he's vultching** our spot." And idea which I pooh poohed. But chalk one up to my DH because once we had pulled out of the spot and gotten out of the way the other car did indeed park in the spot we had come out of. The lot was nearly empty, people, not a single other car in the whole aisle, left or right. Nor one in the next aisle either.

That little "whiskey tango" moment, courtesy of the driver that had to have the exactly perfect spot and only the exactly perfect spot, got me thinking about my own whiskey tango behaviour vis-a-vis perfection. To avoid going on too long here I'll limit it to my behaviour as regards knitting. I have a lot of yarns I haven't knit up because I feel a need to use the "exact perfect" pattern for them. Likewise I have a lot of patterns for garments I'd like to have but I'm either still hunting for the "exact perfect" yarn or I am waiting for my physique to become the "exact perfect" one for the pattern. That last is hopeless so you'd think I'd stop thinking like that but I still catch myself thinking "when I've lost weight" or "when I'm in better shape".

Whiskey tango? It's knitting! If I don't like the way a pattern is fitting/knitting up/looking in that yarn, I can just rip it back out. It's not paint or ink where I've used it and I can't pull it back off the paper/canvas. It's not even like fabric where once I've cut the pieces I can only make something I can get out of the smaller sizes of fabric I now have. Unless I've steeked (or am using frog-resistant yarn) I have great long swaths of raw material easily reclaimed for another go.

So all that time I've spent looking for the exact right yarn for a project (cough Mystic Light cough) or the exact right pattern for a yarn (cough pretty near all my sock yarns cough) is time I could have been knitting, and yeah maybe sometimes ripping the project. But since it's fairly likely that through the law of averages, if nothing else, I'd have eventually managed to knit something that was a keeper on the first go, that means I'd have more knitted items to wear if I just jumped into the deep end instead of doing this toe-tip-dip dance I've been doing.

What's funny is that I often do jump into the deep end. Even in crafts. But in more theoretical ways perhaps. I'll decide I'm going to try something and off I'll go diving into the middle of whatever it is.

I need to embrace the experiential. So, May will be about doing a possible option without worrying about finding the perfect option. Maybe I'll get more knitting done.

I'm between computers at the moment (minor drama involving the laptop acting like it was gonna croak has at last gotten me going on moving everything over to the new iMac but it's slow going) so no photos today but I do have a FO or two to show you next time. Which I hope will be sooner rather than later.

*I don't suppose it will be every Wednesday but on a semi-regular basis I think Wednesdays will be for "what was I/she/he/it thinking?" posts.

** I don't really have to explain "vultching" do I?