I just had a long IM discussion of knitting with a friend yesterday. My conclusion was that it had too much of a steep learning curve to producing something as useful as the store-bought equivalent to be worth my time in general, compared to, say, cooking -- it's a lot easier to make food that's better than what you could get at a cheap restaurant than it is to make clothing that's better than what you could get at a cheap department store. Some of this has to do with technology and the fact that clothing technology is far too expensive and unwieldy for most people to afford, blah blah the factory model, why individual artisans were driven out of business by the industrial revolution, synthetic fabrics, etc. Point being, Target probably sells better mittens than any I could make with my two hands and some wool yarn.

Of course, I can't really cook either. In fact I pretty much live the pathetic do-nothing-yourself existence of the American wage slave, with all the high-fructose corn syrup and plastic waste that implies. But I don't have a Facebook! Something in me objects to the notion of any of my acquaintances having my contact info and being able to contact me and put the onus on me to either refuse to answer them or let them in, and by something in me I think I mean "my desire to ever be anonymous for a second ever again."