July 7, 2004

Prideful

\Pride"ful\, Full of pride; haughty, showing arrogant superiority

I find it incredible that huge crimes against humanity can go unpunished. That people can do terrible things to one another and go without any sort of karmic revenge. No lightning bolt coming down from the sky, no earthquake swallowing them whole, no keening of small children or vicious dogbites, no cloud of blackflies pursuing them down the street.

I find this especially hard to believe considering that the planet, or whatever higher power you think is in charge of this sort of thing, seems very alert to my infractions, no matter how minor. Take today for example.

Your local harlot has (in the last 24 hours or so) perfected the navajo ply. This is a big deal, since I am deeply involved with Laurie's roving and it needs to be navajo plied. I did a nice piece as a sample to show off on the blog, but it was just short of perfect. Do I accept that I am human? Do I reveal my human frailty? Do I demonstrate my low place on the learning curve and allow all others to feel good about thier own undeveloped skills? Do I?

No.

I decide that what I will do is steam the yarn, pulling the little spinning errors out as I go an allow all of you to believe that my spinning is perfect.
Say it with me....Prideful.

I turn on the kettle and loosely skein the yarn, and when the kettle boils I begin to draw the yarn across the jet of steam, focussing intently on the subtle deception I am working. Let's take a moment here to stress that I accept what happened next. I deserve what happened next, and I understand the universe is deeply committed to improving me as a person. I understand that even though murderers run free and racists and bigots run around uncorrected by even one measly little episode of spontaneous combustion, that I am not allowed to pretend that I spin better than I really do. I understand that I am to be brought to personal improvement by drastic and shocking measures at regular freaking intervals. Ok? I get it. I was prideful, I was wrong and I regret trying.

I am sorry because as I was drawing the yarn across the kettle, gently easing the ply into deceitful perfection, I noticed a funny smell, a burny smell. I live with a man who creates electrical fires on a regular basis (small and controlled fires) so the smell of something burning up doesn't instantly register as an issue. Then I notice that it sort of smells like burning hair. Now this registers. My hair is big and wild and in its ongoing attempt to make me look stupid in public it could be on fire. I wouldn't put it past it. I leap back from the kettle to check my hair and that's when I notice that the skein in my hands is on fire.
I fling it onto the stove top, and it goes out immediately ('cause you know, torching the whole kitchen would be overkill).

prideful

I, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, do solemnly swear that I will not attempt to put a fast one over on the blog again. I understand that doing so can only end in my punishment, as I am being watched. My apologies to you all.

Posted by Stephanie at July 7, 2004 1:23 PM