Domestic Obsession

It might do to explain what's going on here.

I have an annual compulsion that started right around puberty. It wasn't terribly noticeable the first year; basically, I spend about two months furiously cross-stitching in every spare moment I had. After I'd mastered a weird little tapestry-like cross-stitch (that still hangs in my parents' house), it went away. I think I've still got a half-finished one somewhere with roses and bunnies on it or something...

Eh, I was about 13, it's not like everyone's got immaculate taste at that age.

But this wasn't a one-time thing. The next year I suddenly started making really ornate throw pillows. The year after that I think was knitting, and a rather long episode resulted in around eight Irish Chain quilts and a Christmas present to my parents known as the "Swan Song Quilt" because it is ruthlessly ornate and also the last quilt I finished.

It really is a compulsion, too, like somewhere in my lizard brain, a plot hatches to make me excel in some completely weird long-lost (or neglected) craft. My entire family knows it as the Domestic Obsession, because it usually seems to be a skill that would be required of a woman on a wagon trail or Pleasantville or something. I've started to see it as a series of Scout-like merit badges, where I have to achieve an unknown set of skills before I get the badge and the compulsion eases. It's completely insane.

And this year? Well, either I'm turning into a 50s housewife (compulsions: painting, flower arrangement, entertaining) or some sort of recession-era cook (soups, dishes from low-cost items, making own bread). But sometimes these things collide, such as today's totally weird skill: marshmallow fluff production.

Anyhow. Just wanted to explain what's really going on here, and also to note that all of these weird little skills (dressmaking, quilting, cooking, etc) have turned out to be useful in the long run. Would I have been able to cater my sister's bridal shower without a rather intense baking compulsion a few years ago? Probably not. And you'd be surprised at how many things are strangely interrelated, so when the side of your skirt rips on a piece of metal at your desk, you can borrow a coworker's sewing kit ("for loose buttons") and patch it up in a reasonable manner.

So while the Domestic Obsession is somewhat involuntary and occasionally expensive and often not really that useful at the time, in the long run it's always good to learn new things. And maybe the compulsion side of me is smarter than I think.