One of the things I do not need to do right now is knit a tea cozy. It's unlikely that I will ever need to knit a tea cozy. In spite of my otherwise rabid Anglomania, I seldom drink tea. I own a teapot, but it hasn't seen action in three years. A teapot that is never full of tea does not require a cozy.
Nor has anyone else asked me to knit a tea cozy. There are several people who are waiting for me to write things and draw things and photograph things. There are even people who are waiting for me to knit things–but not a tea cozy.
And yet, this afternoon while I try to keep my shoulder to the wheel and my nose to the grindstone and my feet to the fire and all sorts of other undeniably nasty expressions for getting work done, I cannot stop thinking about knitting a tea cozy.
Not just any tea cozy, either. A so-called "bachelor's" tea cozy, with openings to fit over the spout and handle. This is of course a subtly misandrist label suggesting that unmarried gentlemen are too lazy and/or stupid to lift the cozy off the tea, but never mind. I still want to knit a "bachelor's" tea cozy because without the openings what you really have is a hat pretending to be something else, and I am bored of knitting hats at the moment, even devious undercover hats.
Of course, there is somebody who expects me to be knitting a hat. But I don't want to work on the hat, I can only thinking of knitting a tea cozy. And I have the most dreadful sinking feeling that before long, I will be knitting a tea cozy.
End of communication.
