The Sweater that Hurt Me

If only it could be more like the sweater (or super hot spy) that loved me. The word for today is "pabo". That's Korean for "fool", and that's what I am for trying to knit a sweater in 4 days. Oh, I did do it, speeding away on some Addi Turbos, all top down in the round raglan. It was only after I finished. Several hours after I finished, actually, that my hand began to kill me! Painful throbbing, much worse than I'd ever had before. So I've been taking it easy. Took a few days off, then did a little crochet, no more than 15 minutes at a time with long breaks. Wow, that was stupid.

Anyway, here it is. Inspired by Tomato. I made the neck a scoop neck instead of a square neck, did a different color/texture pattern across the chest (I made it up!), and did a tiny bit of color detail on the neck, sleeves, and waist. I considered doing all those in corrugated ribbing, but ultimately decided against it as overwhelming. Anyway, 5 balls of Valley Yarns Colrain (merino/tencel) and a little bit of some Cascade Pima Tencel in white I had around, size 7 needles, done from Friday morning to Tuesday morning. Do you think this pattern is interesting enough to warrant being written up?



I've been noticing that other people's Tomatos have come out a lot more form fitting. Other people's tops in general. Like look at this lovely one. What is up with the tops I make? They never are that closely fitted. It's as though I need to do twice as many decreases after the bust (going top down). Is this because I have too small a waist? Cuz that's what I want to think. Yes, that's it, too small a waist.

In other news, I've been thinking about men lately. The trail of thought was brought about identity theft guy. Oh, didn't I tell you about him? I was walking home one night and some dude flagged me down, which happens, but he was wearing a suit and tie. So I thought I was about to be proselytized to. But he asked me to have dinner with him and his coworkers. Right then. No thank you, I just bought dinner. Also, that's weird. Well, he just wanted to tell me how sharp I was looking, blah blah blah, can he have my phone number, blah blah blah. And then he asks, "what do you know about identity theft?" skrrrrrreeech! That's the sound of the needle scratching across the same old record. Excuse me? He wondered if I knew that the previous week, thousands of Chicagoland teachers had their identity stolen. Um, nooo, I didn't know that, nor did I know flirtation nowadays was being mixed with infomercials. And then he handed me a DVD on indentity theft. I still haven't watched it, as I'm sure one of two things must be true: (1) it's like that video in The Ring that curses everyone to die within a week of watching it unless you make a copy and show it to someone else, or (2) There are just like 100 naked, variously posed pictures of himself on it.

And this got me to thinking of various men encounters I've had. This one was pretty mild and harmless. But there was the shouting match between me and about 6 dudes in Zimbabwe as they surrounded the telephone booth I was in and pounded on the glass. When they finally left and I made my international phone call to my Daddy, I burst into tears, not so much from fear, but from anger and frustration. I wanted to kill. I was 17.

There was the crazy dude in Korea who grabbed my ass, ran to the end of the block, and then started jumping up and down and pointing and laughing at me (this was the clue that gave me a hint that he might be crazy). I chased that dude for a full on 10 minutes. It was almost comical. We got tired, and the chase just turned into a fast walk. Then when we regained our breath, the running was on again. Across the street, through the park. Finally I did manage to catch him, tell him off in the most broken Korean ever, and hit him. At least I turned that one into a funny story, which won me "inki sang" (popularity prize) in a Korean speaking competition.
Here's my class cheering me own. Signs say "Go, Nikki!" and "We love you, Nikki!" Awww.



Then there was the group of drunk men in South Africa who wouldn't let me pass one evening as I was bringing home dinner. Really, one just kept stepping in front of me so I couldn't pass. So I hit him, and he let me go. Though I was always speaking English, they continued to talk to me in Zulu. I don't think they realized I wasn't Zulu.

And just this week some little kid hit on me. He looked about 18, but he showed me his ID that said he was 20. He had earlier lied to say he was 22. If you have to lie to be at 22, you're too young for me (my 29th b-day is Thursday). He invited me over for food, I told him I had my own food, he was like, "oh you got a Link card? Good, I'm tired of eating McDonald's." Oh, Kiddie got jokes? Then he touched my hair (!) and asked if I needed it braided. I was like, "look little boy, if you touch my hair again, I'm going to have to spank you." Come to think of it, maybe he would have liked it. Hmm, and I thought I left that whole strangers-touching-my-hair thing in Korea.

The point is . . . . wait, was there a point? Oh yeah, you know, girls aren't ever running up on me and grabbing my ass and touching my hair and shouting profanity at me. Or handing me possibly cursed and/or pornographic "identity theft" dvds. What is up, dudes? Why is this world so full of men hurting or harrassing women? Y'all need to chill on that, for real. I guess I should look at the bright side, since in both the Zimbabwe and South Africa cases, other men took the offenders away. Maybe I should focus on those men.