My Loser Mo Adventures at Sock Summit

As most of my knitter friends know, Sock Summit was just here in Portland.  I was very excited about this convention when I heard that it was going to be here again.  What a great opportunity to learn some new gay guy skills.  I mean really, it just sings GAY with all that yarn, needles, colour and tons of women and very few men.

Well, as usual the road to my official gay card was blocked from the very start.  My partner, Jeff, is a former English teacher.  Every year, he and his English teacher friends head off to Cedar City, Utah, to that city's Shakespeare Festival.  I never attend these gatherings as seeing two plays each day for three consecutive days really makes me want to vomit.  Don't get me wrong, Jeff loves it (he's a better Mo than me) and so do his friends but it just doesn't do it for me.

This year, one of the group couldn't make it due to a wedding; so, I agreed to buy her tickets and hang out with my partner appreciating live theater.  One glaring problem, it totally interfered with Sock Summit.  Unfortunately, there was no way out.  The one saving grace is that we returned to Portland in time for me to attend just one day of the convention, Sunday.

Happily armed with this information, I logged on to Sock Summit's web page to register, tickled that I was about to add points toward my official gay card.  As I started to review the course offerings my heart began to sink, "This is so not going to be an opportunity for double or even single gay card points."

"It's all about knitting SOCKS!"

I HATE knitting socks.  I mean WTF how can you have an entire convention dedicated to just socks.  Why not something practical like sweaters.  Now that's something you can have a convention over.  I knew it would deal with socks but I truly thought it would also deal with other knitting genres.  NOPE!

Now you must realize that this is yet another set back.   I've been working on getting this card for 40 plus years and I'm not getting any further in accumulating points.  There had to be a way to salvage this, and as if by magic, it occurred to me "I know, I'll take one of Franklin's classes.  That would be fun and Gay!"  (So, if you don't know, Franklin Habit is one of the kings of knitting.  He's a great guy and has tons of great ideas and, of course, has a HUGE following.  Also, he's a blast to hang out with.)

As I clicked on the the link for the registration page, I should have realized that something was amiss as a cold shiver came over me and dark clouds blocked out the sun.  I didn't think much of it at the time; I mean hey, I live in Oregon, cold shivers and dark clouds are the norm.

Well, true to form, the Universe conspired against me yet again in my quest for a gay card.  As I reviewed the available classes it became apparent that there were no spots in Franklin's classes!

Okay, I'm going to diverge for a moment here.  I think that there should be a standing rule for situations like this.  Gay guys Always have a spot in any class taught by another gay male knitting teacher.  Really, this is just common sense.  We are a minority in the knitting world.  There should be an affirmative action program just for us.  Plus, let's be real, gay guys are a Ton of fun.  Who wouldn't want at least two or three of us in a class to break up all of that middle aged estrogen?  Not only would it be a learning experience, it would be a party and, if one of us was a true Mo, all of the middle aged women could get fashion and make up tips.

Rant over (for the moment).

Burying my disappointment I decide just to go to the market place at Sock Summit and hang with my male knitter friends.  Of course, this, in and of itself, is fraught with problems.

I think male knitters can relate to this very well.  There are a certain amount of odd looks that you get when you walk into the female dominated world of knitting.  You can almost here their thoughts, "Hmmm...who's that?  What's a guy doing here?  Who's husband is he?"  Of course this is just as you are walking into the building.  The next round of thoughts occur as you are actually looking at yarn and knitting needles, "He must be here with his wife. Hmmm...he knits but he's a guy, probably not that good at it. He doesn't know what he's doing; I'll have to tell him what he wants to buy."  Yup, that's what they are thinking; I know it, and, of course, all these thoughts actually take points away from my gay card account.

Anyway, I dealt with these archaic misnomers admirably as I walked into the market place, smiling trying hard to look like I belong.  Just so you know, this is where I'm a loser Mo Extreme.  I can feel it radiate from me.   I really don't fit in.  Just to let you know, I really did try my best.  Here was my plan. 

First, I did not wear any of my cowboy gear that I usually wear.  Instead of Wrangler's I wore Lucky Brand jeans.  Instead of boots, I wore Puma's.  I even carried a man purse!  But, to no avail, I still didn't fit in.  I know this by one thing; I couldn't get anyone to wait on me.  Yup, they saw me; my wallet bulging with credit cards hot to be used but they didn't come.  Even the gay clerks ignored me.  Nope, not even an interested glance, they all just clung onto the women customers, admiring their choices in yarn and crooning over colour combinations....Vomit! Come on guys!  I'm gay like you and I'm somewhat attractive.  I have nice biceps!  Wait.... I know; it's the colour thing.

That's right, I did it again.  Damn!  For those of you who don't know me, one of my most glaring loser gay guy things is that I don't get colour.  Truly.  I don't know what colour goes with what.  I can't see the subtle shades of pink mixed in with the purple.  I can't tell when the yellow is tending to more of a green.  To me taupe is just a grey and mushroom is just brown.  Gasp!  Horror!  Shock!  A gay guy who doesn't get colour?!!!  I know; believe me, I live with this shame daily.

So, there I stand, in the middle of an arena of extreme gay card point acquisition, radiating disdain for crooning over colour choice, watching my opportunity to be a real Mo trickle away.  Uggh, I just can't help it.  Defeated again, I left the market place  head hung low, and waited for my male knitter friends to finish their classes and shopping so that we could go out to eat.

I guess I'm the Pinocchio of the gay world.  Instead of telling people that I'm a real boy, I spend my time telling them that I'm a real Mo.

However, I will persevere.  I'm still working hard on the gay card.  My Sunflower Shawl has sparked interest at Knit Picks.  They sent me their yarn to knit up the shawl and I finished it last week.  I'll be blocking it today and then I'll drop it off at their offices.  Hopefully, they will like it in their yarn and I'll have my pattern up on their site.

Also, I'm designing yet another lace project.  In my opinion, nothing screams GAY more than knitting and designing lace.  I'm thinking I should get at least a thousand points towards Winner Mo status by coming up with another great lace pattern.  I'll keep you posted!