I do a lot of knitting and crocheting, especially when I’m not writing. It’s a nice way to be creative without having to actually think too hard about anything, because I just follow other people’s patterns and voila. It’s more fun if I’m watching shows or movies at the same time, so I usually do both, and this has the side effect of embedding the memories of what I watched into the knitting. Er, sort of. I mean, not that someone else could look at that one scarf I made and see the Waltons or the doll I just made for someone and think of Skins. But I do, and I normally have an amazingly crappy memory when it comes to these kinds of things. I’ll watch a movie and then not remember what happened in it five minutes later, but I can look at a knitting project and suddenly remember what I was watching while I made it.

I have some knee-high lace socks I knitted last summer. One sock is all three seasons of Arrested Development, and the other is a season and a half of Desperate Housewives. Some fluffy scarves I made when I was first getting back into knitting are a couple episodes of Gilmore Girls (and so are some Christmas presents I made people a few years ago). A Harry Potter scarf I made for someone is some British movie I can’t remember the name of (but it had that guy that played Leonides and some kid waiting for letters from his father) and a Monk marathon.

I don’t remember what I was doing with *every* project, but I’m always amazed at how vivid some of the memories are and how much they stick. And it’s not like they’re important memories, since it’s just me watching TV and working on projects. (Do not ask what else is going on in the world while I write novels, because it’s all one big blur and I have no idea. Those are theoretically more important memories, and they are all whirlwindy and crazy.) But it’s interesting anyway.