the best-laid non-plans

So, hey, remember that whole "I won't have a job this summer" deal I was so excited about? Yeah, about that... I kind of... have a job now? A full-time one? With benefits and a salary and an office, etc.?

But it's good! I think it's going to be really good... it's library-related, writing about librarians and library programs at that big school on the hill in Ithaca, and it seems like just the right bridge between what I do now and what I'm going to do. I'm really excited about it -- more excited than I am about school, in some ways -- and it just feels right.

But, another but: I'm worried that I'm overcommitting myself, following my same old patterns and making my same old mistakes by trying to do too many things at once, scattering myself, making myself diverse at the expense of making myself actually *good* at anything. Also worried that this job, which is pretty writing-intensive, will mean I'll be working on fiction even less than I do now, and that I define myself too much through my work and was therefore too intimidated to embark on a future without a paying job. And I'm mourning that lost summer a little bit, too. The garden and the biking and the writing will all still be there, but sandwiched in between the 9 to 5. It's worth it, I know it is, but there is a little sadness around the edges.

During the packing process, which I have actually been weirdly enjoying so far, I rediscovered this packet of old papers my oboe teacher in high school gave me. This quote made me feel a little relieved when I wasn't sure that taking a job that truly speaks to me but that doesn't have quite the right timing was the best decision I'd ever made:

Perfectionism is slow death. If everything were to turn out just like I would want it to, just like I would plan for it to, then I would never experience anything new; my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes.... My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful, I will not fall from heaven. But a "mistake" is a delcration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder that I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes, I have grown.

Nice, right? There is no right answer and no right path. If this path, this new thing I have chosen, is a mistake, I will try to listen and grow from it. (If it's not, I will be perfect! Er wait, no, that's not exactly what Mr. Hugh Prather meant in "Notes to Myself," is it... :) )

baa. baa. baa.

I spent a large part of yesterday -- actually, all of yesterday -- at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. There were sheep:

And wool:

Yarn abounded. The place was knitters' paradise, and I felt rather at home among my people.

Whole trees of yarn!

We also watched a demonstration of working sheepdogs, which were pretty awesome:


That reinforced the idea that sheep are... how to put this polietly... really not at all bright. But, also true to the stereotypes of their character, they did seem pretty docile -- their handlers led really big, active sheep through thick crowds of gaping city-folk without appearing to be at all worried that they'd bite or kick. (Unlike a properly feisty goat, say, which were sadly but understandably underrepresented.)

These guys were here, though:
The noble alpaca, thinking, "Hey, where's MY festival?"

So continues my deep and abiding love of state-fair-type extranvaganzas such as this one. I'm not sure what exactly it is about them, but one step onto the grounds and I feel a special giddy excitement -- the heady combination of the hot and sunny weather, the company of lovely people, the scent of fried everything in the air, the looming barns filled with awesome animals. Love it. M, A and I all managed to walk out of there with our wallets mostly intact (I only bought one skein of yarn, actually, in a dark green called "Ocean's Depths" from a semi-celebrity vendor) and the new knowledge that "baa" is the most onomotopaeotic animal sound in the world. Sheep voices sound amazingly similar to human voices... instead of "baa" being a sort of semi-inaccurate representation of the sound the animals actually make, it's as though they are pronouncing the word "baa" each time. It's a little freaky. In a good way.

Baa. Baa. Baa.