O, hello. I am glad you are still here! The end of the semester was a little harrowing, but now there is a moment to breathe and obsess over seating arrangements.

I am not great at it yet, but for the past month I have been knitting while commuting. This is much more productive than dozing off, and it keeps my restless brain occupied.

There appear to be two ways of dealing with a knitter on public transit. One is to avoid. In the wrong hands, a knitting needle could do some serious damage, maybe even a d4’s worth. Very scary. Also, I have a terrifying presence, so anything sharper than an oven mitt in my hand is incredibly intimidating to the average person.

The other way is to ask a hundred thousand questions about knitting, how to knit, the history of textiles, and which things can be knotted together into other things. This always goes really well, because though I have been a knitter forever, I have no idea how even to approach teaching someone else how to knit. As far as I am concerned, I hold a piece of yarn near a stick and wiggle my hand and something happens.

As you might imagine, I am not very good at knitting. But persistent!

Although I have been dutifully observing the behavior that occurs when I take out my knitting on public transit, I have yet to discern the pattern behind commuter reactions. So far, it is about fifty-fifty, and evenly split down any defining characteristic I could choose to name. I am beginning to think that the division may have something to do with the annoyance of movement in one’s peripheral vision (avoid pesky knitters with their constantly-moving hands) or the well-known stereotype of knitter as affable and knowledgeable textile oracle who is secretly a crime-fighting superhero.

Maybe that’s not a well-known stereotype. It should be. Because, you know … never mind.

HIDWtS Rating: I cannot divulge this for fear of endangering your life, citizen.

[box type=“shadow”]I ride a shuttle to work. It is a really nice shuttle and the first time I have ever had this luxury, causing me to overthink pretty much every aspect of it, especially where to sit. And now I overthink where I decide to sit in every open-seating situation, so I’m writing about it in a series called How I Decide Where to Sit.[/box]