Artistic Dilemmas

There's this little thing called "second sock syndrome", which is when you triumphantly finish knitting a sock and then immediately realize, oh $#!*, I have to knit a whole other one just like this. And if you don't start the second sock pronto, you probably never will.

I had this feeling today after completing the most complicated sock pattern I've attempted thus far, in yarn that I am afraid that I will run out of midway through the second sock. I love the yarn, and I love the pattern, but I don't really love the two combined; the yarn wound up striping in a manner that I did not anticipate, and I think it detracts from the design pattern:


By all rights, I should have ripped it out but I just didn't have the heart. All those hours...which just proves I am a process knitter (I knit because I like to knit) and not a product knitter (I knit because I want some concrete result). And I'll wear them, assuming I ever finish the second sock...it's just that striping is bugging me...

On another note, I bought the new Sarah McLachlan compilation album yesterday. Driving home I listened to the two new tracks on it, and started thinking, "oh my gosh, is she getting divorced????". And, sadly, with a bit of Googling it appears that she did indeed separate from her husband. Celebrity gossip aside, what I find fascinating about this is how brutally honest the lyrics are, and I think wow, that's really brave to just put it all right out there. I think that real honesty is what makes great art. At the same time, I wonder how the soon-to-be ex-husband feels about these songs, and wonder if it's worth it in the end. I mean, they aren't "screw you, you bastard" songs, but they are revealing.

And I also think about the fact that her husband was also her drummer, and she's written all these songs about him, and then she's got to go on tour and sing them? It would be like having to read a page of your journal out loud to an audience...night after night. Maybe you'd get numb to it after awhile? I've written a number of fairly raw emotional essays, and the writing was extremely cathartic. Once written, though, I'm done, it's over - I have no interest in revisiting it (or revising it, for that matter). I don't know how anyone could get on stage and sing "you're the one true thing I know I can believe in" after it has become painfully clear that actually, you can't (or don't) believe in that person anymore. Or does it just become another song among many? I'd really like to know.

And now, I'm going to go eat some toast.