New Sweater...Tuesday!

This post was supposed to be New Sweater Sunday, but I washed it on Saturday and it wasn’t dry yet. And then it was supposed to be New Sweater Monday, but I had a crazy day at work and was too tired to write. But Tuesday’s as good a day for a new sweater as any other, right?

I finally finished Azumi. I scrapped the lace on the cuffs and hood. Honestly, what good is a lacy hood, anyway? I love the result. It’s warm and comfy and about as flattering as a sweater can be when you’ve gained twenty pounds since you started knitting it.

Here it is with the hood. I can’t decide whether I look like I’m about to rob a liquor store or join a convent. Could be either one, I suppose, depending on how the day is going:

I just finished The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson. It’s about Churchill from the onset of WWII-on and it made me wish that modern society was more tolerant of eccentricities. Churchill took two baths a day and literally worked in the bathtub or in his bed. Imagine the PM doing that now! It would be a scandal. I mean, I’m sure Churchill’s secretaries had to be selected very carefully and perhaps this is one of the reasons why it was not unheard of for men to be secretaries.

I also read The Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. Two page-turners in a row! It’s about a fictional pioneering female pilot a la Amelia Earhart. I really liked that book, too. Again, it’s the eccentricities and obsessions—the single, laser focus on flying— that enable the character’s success. I know, I know, “fictional character, Martha.” To which I have a one-word retort: Mozart. Never went to school, wrote his first symphony at 8.

But here’s the thing: I knew some really, really smart people when I worked at MIT, and it is so hard to accommodate some of those eccentricities. One of the grad students was afraid to make phone calls, so I made them for him (at least a few, until I told him he needed to learn to use the phone). Another person was uncomfortable talking to strangers, so he’d only talk to me when other people were in the room. It may not surprise you that the genius women I knew at MIT were completely normal people. Women don’t seem to expect the world to accommodate their quirks, and a woman who’s afraid to make phone calls in a professional setting would probably be considered weak.

At any rate, toleration of eccentricities is a burden to the people around the eccentric and we’re all just too busy and tired to do it any more. And our well-rounded kids with friends and hobbies are probably happier than Mozart ever was. Also, most of them don’t have archenemies who will poison them to death. Win-win!