Last night I found myself out for dinner with three lovable Drupal geeks (and the lovely wife of a Drupal geek). The food was decent, the chatter was fun, and our waitress was charming and funny.

After we had paid the bill, though, it became apparent that the Drupal conversation was far from over. And as much as I can handle a little geekery, I had a problem that was making me very uncomfortable. I had a stalled knitting project in my bag.

See, I'm making these mittens where you do the thumb last. So when you get to where the thumb will eventually go, you mark those stitches with a little length of "waste yarn". Then you continue knitting merrily, finish the body of the mitten, and then go back and remove the waste yarn to make your thumb.

So there I was, smack at the part where I needed waste yarn to continue, and I had nothing. I knew that I would be able to sit there happily for as long as they wanted to geek... but only if I was working on my mittens. Without that little bit of waste yarn though, I was going to have to leave. Soon. I was getting cranky and itchy, I swear to god.

Thankfully, the charming waitress came to my rescue with a ball of string and a pair of scissors. I think she thought I was a bit weird (well, it's true) but I managed to mark my thumb stitches, and then was free to knit away. The Drupal chatter continued around me for almost another hour, and I sat there, blissfully allowing it to wash over me, snickering to myself at times, and grateful to have such a wonderfully engaging and portable hobby.

"You should take up knitting," I said across the table to the lovely Drupal wife. "Yeah, maybe I should," she conceded. She must really love that man. ;)

Last night, I went to my first Spinning Class at Birkeland Bros (warning: 1.0 website glory ahead). You may have noticed, from my few scattered hints, that actually I'm kind of more enthralled by knitting and yarn and all things fibre-related these days than I am by, say, the iPhone that's giving everyone else a boner (not to say that I can't appreciate a hot hot piece of industrial design).

I am reeeeeally excited. :) Spinning wool into yarn is harder than it looks, and I found myself initially quite frustrated (you know that childish frustration when you just really can't get something that you really want to be able to do? Where you want to throw all the board game pieces across the room and stop upstairs to your bedroom and slam the door? like that), but then a little switch flicked and my body figured out how to keep the treadle going, not too fast, while my hands did the drafting thing, not too slow.

And then I actually made yarn! Oh yes I did. A small ball of plain natural coloured yarn, but yarn nonetheless. And I'm already excited about the possibilities ahead... I can start drooling over the things that are not yet yarn, in addition to drooling over yarn. (Yes, I really do love yarn. Not all yarn. But I love many yarns very much.)

It's a very meditative activity, which I think is part of the appeal. Once you get it, I can see how it becomes one of those "in the zone" activities. Very rhythmic, very satisfying.

I was wondering the other night whether I ought to start a whole new subsection of this blog for knitting-related rants, to save the non-knitting geeks in the crowd from having to suffer through my obsession. (Not that I'm under any illusion that the world needs MORE knitting blogs... oh it certainly does not. But still.) Darren advised me today that my personal website should be about things that are personally interesting to me, even if they are an extremely eclectic mix. So I'm not sure.... Thoughts??

Update: Well, I gotta say that I'm hugely amused and a little red-faced to discover that several hundreds thousands of people have clicked through to find out who the freak is who thinks that knitting is more exciting than the iPhone. Hello!! Welcome to my blog! Thank you Mr. Instapundit!

Interestingly, I will probably be the in the market for my first spinning wheel right around the same time that the iPhones get released... and they'll cost about the same. And so the true test will be which thing I decide to invest in... Stay tuned.

I wonder if it's time for a new look for this site?

I also wonder whether it's time to upgrade to 4.7... or even 5.0 (gasp!)?

I wonder whether that would be a fun holiday project... hacking around on a different template and seeing what I could come up with? It's been a while since I've engaged in any such legitimate geekiness. Hmmm...

On the other hand, if I get sucked into that, it will take away a significant amount of time from my mobius wrap knitting. And that would be a shame, because check out the gorgeous kit that walkah got me for Christmas! Oh, the choices.

Uh oh.

Between a visit to my favorite yarn store, a few hours of work on my first project of this year, and a couple of hours pouring over the endless selection of knitting resources available online... I'm back in the thick of my knitting obsession. I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to clear enough time in my life to possibly knit all the things I want to knit this winter. How is a person supposed to WORK when there is knitting to be done!?

Thankfully, I have another (less wholesome) obsession that lends itself well to knitting. My housemates and I have been consumed of late with a Showtime program that we watch on DVD (which makes us feel better about ourselves – has anyone else observed the phenomenon of non-TV watchers who will spend hours watching shows on DVD and think that it's somehow morally superior, since you avoid the commercials?). If you know me, then you know what the show is. The rest of you will have to guess. I will be obsessing my way through season three while I continue to knit up a storm. ;)