I am having a hard time getting started today. I didn’t even get out of bed till almost seven, and I am still sitting here at the computer in my nightie. I have music to learn properly before singing it this morning. I need to put gas in my car. I left the book I bought at the store and intended to pick it up first thing today. And… oh, never mind. I guess as long as I put some clothes on before church, it doesn’t matter what else I do.

I blame it on the bikers. The rumble of motorcycles all night, plus my husband having gone downtown for BBQ and waking me up when he got home in the wee hours of the morning – is that a good excuse?

The Empress showed me an article about Type D behavior. You may remember Type A and Type B. It was suggested that Type A people — controlling, hard-driven, competitive folks — were more susceptible to heart attacks than the more laidback Type B folks. This was then expanded to include Type C, people who deny their emotions but feel aggrieved and put-upon, who were thought to be more susceptible to cancer.

It turned out that this division could not be supported by actual data, but it was sort of fun, at least for Type B people like me. After all, there are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe that there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don’t.

Well, researchers are now proposing a Type D: the distressed patient. These are people who worry a lot, who fret over things, are often irritable and upset, and also tend to have limited social lives. These folks, according to the article, are less likely to comply with treatment, and less likely to survive if they should have heart attacks.

I am skeptical of this, because I can imagine a happy-go-lucky noncompliant patient as well as a cross and irritable one. I also know a few Type D people, and they do not seem less healthy or closer to death, unless it is at the hands of the people around them. My husband (who does not follow any medical advice or do anything he is supposed to do for his health, and yet has the lipid numbers, according to the nurse, “of a sixteen-year-old”) is one of those people. The doctors don’t even check his cholesterol any more, and he lives primarily on saturated fat and hot peppers. Occasionally, when he sighs heavily and tells me he is going to die soon, I snap at him.

Sometimes it puts me in mind of a TV show I saw many years ago, in which the ghost of a cheerleader haunts a girl filled with teen angst. “Perk up!” says the ghost at one point. “I’m dead and I’m not depressed!”

The Empress’s article did not have any suggestions for such people. Oh, it said everyone should eat right and exercise, but it didn’t suggest ways to perk up. Or ways to sidestep the Type D health issues. It seems a little unfair to me that people who are already not happy should also have to worry about their health. Because you know they will.

This will totally cheer you up: a site with many free lace edging and insertion patterns. I haven’t looked at all of them, but just the names are poetry: Kilgorie Edge, Geneva Lace, Smyrna Insertion (actually, that could sound medical or martial, too; it depends on your attitude), Mikado Lace. And if those names do not intrigue you, there is also “skull cap for an elderly lady.”

Here is Brooklyn in a crumpled heap. Or at least Brooklyn’s sleeve. The remaining pieces of Brooklyn are in my knitting basket in their own crumpled heaps. #1 son claims that they will all be ruined. I am not sure what sort of ruin he has in mind, but between his nagging about the level of care the parts are receiving and his nagging over my speed (or lack thereof) with knitting up this sleeve, I am beginning to look forward to finishing this jacket. I am doing the decreases on the raglan sleeve, but then there is sewing up and the collar and the finishing to do, so I am predicting another week. It will probably be longer. This is because — while I am really not doing any other knitting at all anymore — things always take longer than you expect them to.

It is not Brooklyn’s fault that #1 son is nagging me, and the yarn has a really nice feel, so I am trying not to let the knitting experience be spoiled, but I do want it done. I have Christmas gifts to make, and a cardigan that I have been thinking about for a year, and a lace shawl neglected on the needles. Not to mention the quilt in its frame, and a half-finished prayer shawl.

As all knitters know, it is dangerous to begin to wish to be finished with something. This is when you make mistakes. So I am trying not to hurry, though I do find myself thinking about other projects while I knit… 

“Brooklyn” is the track jacket from Denim People. It is being made in Den-M-Nit on #3 needles. So far, it has been a very pleasant project, with no hard parts of any kind, and the yarn seems very suitable. I did have to get a second ball of ecru for the striping, so if you want to make it yourself, you might go ahead and start with two.

I include this information because I know that when I happen by someone’s blog and see some nice knitting, but no details on what it is or where it came from, I am disappointed. So this is for the random reader of knitting blogs who might chance by.

The novel Unraveled Sleeve described a needlework pattern by Beth Russell in such detail that I felt sure it was a real, extant pattern being described. I googled it. And indeed it was a real pattern, one of many at this website. The Arts and Crafts style is a favorite of mine, and I was greatly impressed by the beauty of these interpretations. In fact, I was thinking of making one — or more than one. I have two piano benches that need cushions, and only a dozen projects already planned, so it seemed like the right thing to do — until I checked the pricing. Knitters, if you want to feel good about the cost of your craft, check out what they pay for needlepoint kits.

The HGP for this week is repeating the cooking and shopping from the past couple of weeks, making a guest basket for the bathroom, and thoroughly cleaning the kids’ rooms. At the moment, I don’t even want to think about that.

There are about 60,000 residents in the town where I live, and we have a few thousand extra with the Katrina evacuees. This weekend, we are expecting 300,000 bikers and — well, whatever you call people who come, as tourists, to hang out with bikers.

There have been festivities going on since Wednesday.The traffic and the noise level have been horrifying. The police are out in force. That Man’s cousin is down on the square with his BBQ smoker and, I have it on good authority, a dancing skeleton in a do-rag.

The place where #1 son works has a sign up: “Welcome, Bikers!” There are lots of signs like this around, but this particular little shopping center contains an optometrist, a wedding planner, and a beauty salon, so I am having a little trouble envisioning a lot of biker activity there. I could be wrong.

I was checking out at the grocery store and I asked the white haired old lady next to me whether she was going to go down and see the motorcycles.

“Well,” she said, blushing, “I was asked to ride…”

I’m envisioning a parade float of some kind here.

“… but I haven’t ridden in years.”

Ah. A procession of bikers, perhaps, inviting a stalwart former motorcycle mama to join them.

“Besides, he’s married.”

I quickly readjust my thoughts.

“I thought it was sort of tacky of him to ask me.”

I agreed with her, adding a bit of shocked disapproval to my expression. Apparently, it is Not Done to ride around on a Harley with a married man. He should have known.

“Anyway, if he’ll cheat on his wife, he’ll cheat on you too,” the lady finished up.

I don’t know what kind of geriatric hijinks are going on down at the biker festival. Maybe I’ll go down myself and see.

However, I have a lot of housework to do first, and I need to get onto that fact-checking, and I am really hoping to finish Brooklyn’s right sleeve. I also have a baby shower to go to tomorrow, and I was wanting to make something for that. This does not sound like a realistic plan for the day.

Here are the sleeves of Brooklyn — the completed left sleeve on the right, just to keep things interesting, and the other sleeve, striving to be just like the completed one when it grows up.