Knitting to the Tiger Beat

So. I Volunteered at a teen open mic night last week. Yes, it's true. Rowan: Smackier Picture's Gabby has apparently driven me 'round the bend.

Before I realized that I'd committed to a 5-hour shift ending at 10:30 PM, I'd rather planned on taking the train up to the Armitage location, then enticing my spouse to come fetch me so we could go out to dinner or something. Of course, this is all a ruse of Bond-Villain-Level Complexity to facilitate knitting (train = quality knitting time with hundreds of your favorite crazy people).

But I ended up driving, so no strangely peaceful knitting time on the train, alas. The first part of my evening was spent in the concert hall where I mostly watched the performers, kept hooligans from exiting through the main door, and lusted after various shoes. Midway through the evening, though, we swapped with the folks outside the doors. This meant less to do, more light, and a chair. Ideal circumstances for knitting.

So I grabbed my dual counters, the collar, and my spare skein and got to work. Can I just tell you that every person, male or female, knitter or novice, who sees the Gabby collar says, "That's . . . a collar? Is it for . . . a giant sweater?" I got some idle curiosity from my covolunteers, and some strange looks and giggles from the under-18 set. But nothing builds self esteem like Toaster, stand-up comic and emcee, stopping dead in front of your chair, pointing to the knitting and LAUGHING.

Do I know how to build street cred or what?