Professional

If you came by my desk and saw this little arrangement, what would you think of me?

My whole cubicle seems strange to me today. Turning only ninety degrees to the left of my monitor, I can see the multiple memento mori, a toy jacktrabbit wearing the baby rattlesnake vertebrae necklace, the tape dispenser and stapler that were so often stolen that I painted my initials on them with White-Out so that I'd be able to track them down, my 1988 Outstanding Service Award plaque from A&W Restaurant, and my plastic spider collection. My bookshelf contains two programming books, Ian Flemming's 'You Only Live Twice', a translation of the Popol Vuh, and 'Stiff'.

I begin to wonder if it's not time to straighten things up again. I am, after all, about to be under new management, and there is renewed interest in our deparment now that there are so few of us. We used to stay tucked away for weeks without seeing anyone from any other part of the company. That's different now. Important People come around. How do I want them to see me?


I'm still working on my spur-O-moment bulky cardigan, and I've run into a tiny snag. I knew that Limari didn't have dye lots, and I knew how different my five skeins were when I wound them up. What I didn't count on was that I'd be at a pivotal point in the project with the three most heterogeneous skeins still in front of me. I don't want the arms to be different from one and other, nor do I want the body to be wildly different from the arms at the point where they'd align when I wear the garment. Complicating things further, I do not want to have to split the balls up because I don't want to weave in additional ends. This thing's bulky enough already. I think two of the skeins are close enough to each other that I can knit the arms from them. Maybe I'll just deal with the more muted colors of that fifth skein on the body. If it's wrong, it's only a matter of ripping back and redoing it. It has taken me longer to debate the issue with myself than it would have taken to knit the rest of the sweater. It's not like I'm knitting with fingering weight yarn or anything. This should be an easy, stash reducing, worry-free project. Why have I spent my lunch hour staring at it instead of knitting?

That's just me. It's who I am and it's what I do. And now that I think about it, that's why I'm not going to take down any of my tchotchke.