the silence

I work with a lovely, lovely woman. Let's call her Coworker. I like her so much, I even threw her a baby shower (more on that later). The one thing that really confuses me about her, though, is her conversation style. I expect pauses between speakers occasionally, but Coworker just waits for me to speak. All the time. Incessantly. She pauses so much our conversations become The Elizabeth Show, where I just blather on and on and on, make myself laugh, and work out therapy-like things. It's SO odd. I tried pausing once to make her speak when we were on the phone, but the pause went on for so long I just caved. I couldn't handle the expectant silence. Why? What is that all about? What is she waiting for me to say???

Coworker's baby shower: I knit her a simple lavender raglan sweater and a matching cloche-shaped hat in some cheapo superwash stuff. Cute, simple, easy. Now, I expected the ladies at the shower to react with something like, "hey, nice work Elizabeth! Wow, you knit that? Neat!" You know, the normal kind of response to knit gifts.

What I got was nice, but completely scary. One woman pounded on the table with the flat of her hand as she shouted, "EVERYTHING here today you will THROW AWAY, but THAT, THAT YOU WILL KEEP FOREVER." Another woman said in a hushed voice, "I hope my present isn't opened after yours. That is truly magnificent." Um, what? I mean, thanks, but jesus christ, ease up, okay? Coworker told me after the shower, looking at me dead in the eye, "When my daughter is too old for that sweater and hat, I'm going to mount it and frame it so she can see it when she's grown." What? What is wrong with these people? It's nice, I appreciate it, but holy fuck, it's kind of freaking me out. Everyone at work loves me now. Did I infuse that sweater with airborne crack? Apparently so.

The sweater pattern, by the way, can be found here. Please note its utter simplicity. If I had done fair isle, NO, intarsia color work, I have zero doubt someone would have shit their pants. Ew.

The hat is here. Again, so easy.