Being boring

“So what do you do all day?”

There are a lot of reasons to hate this question (which, actually, I hardly ever get in so many words – but which I often feel in the air, from people who are not stay-at-home parents). My biggest problem with it, though, is that it gives me a choice between letting them think I don’t do very much at all, or letting them think I’m a total weirdo. 

I’m fine with being a weirdo, in theory, but somehow I have a big chip on my shoulder about knitting. You know, the thing I actually care most about. The thing that no non-Knitter who knows me is ever going to get. (Observe the capital K. Those who can and maybe occasionally do knit, but aren’t passionate about it, aren’t engaged with the online craft community, don’t daydream about opening a yarn shop – hey, good for them, that’s totally fine, but they’re not My People and they aren’t going to get it either.) 

So I spend my days childwrangling, and occasionally (far too occasionally, this year) doing freelance editing work, and in every spare minute I can find, working on knitting stuff. But that’s not something I can explain. If I were making a bit more money at it, I could say “I design”, and that would be an answer. But – and I guess this is mostly my own issue, Armin seems to think I’m imagining a problem out of nothing – I don’t want to say “I’m writing knitting patterns,” because it makes me sound a bit pathetic. Like, who’d want to do THAT? And when I do say it, it gets exactly that reaction. Total conversational blank. Eyes glaze over. 

“Oh good, so you’re not bored,” they say. 

Isn’t it nice that I have a hobby. 

Is it shallow of me to resent this attitude? Probably. But I hate that reaction enough that I try to avoid telling most people in my day-to-day life what I’m actually doing with my days. Apparently I’d rather be thought of as bored than boring. Which is more than a bit silly, since there’s nothing more boring than someone who doesn’t do anything.

I should just get over myself.