Remember the title from last October? I wanted a Latin translation of my motto, “Have hobbies and see what happens,” which I love fo rbeing so apt. In fact, something happened yesterday to reinforce my motto:

I was driving in town and saw a dog poking its head out of a car window. I like dogs, and this dog was big and black and shaggy and obviously very excited about getting to poke its head out of the window. So I smiled and looked at the dog as I sped up, and glanced over to see what type of person would own a dog like that, and I saw an old boyfriend, one of the two people I’ve loved, and I just thought, “Goddammit, why are you driving around in a new car with a dog I don’t even know about, if I loved you once? Why didn’t that turn out differently?” [Commenters: just don’t.]

As long as I’m talking about my old loves, what about the second of the two, the one who showed up on my doorstep last August with a Ravel CD, the one whom I hadn’t seen in five years, whose appearance I thought heralded newfound happiness and a bright future and lots of Ravel? The times we would have! But no. (I do still have the CD.)

But before I start sounding too crazy-bitter, I’d better get to the larger point, which is this: Very often, people do not do what you want them to do. They do not buy big black dogs with you. They do not decide to move in with you and have a life together full of chamber music. They do what they want to do, and if that involves dogs or Schubert with someone else, there is not a thing you can do about it.

That is what makes hobbies so fantastic. The yarn or the fabric I work with does not have a choice. I can make it do what I want. In the craft world, things are exactly how I want them to be. It’s a great feeling–sort of a metaphysical “Take that!” to a universe that won’t accommodate me.

So yes. Some Latin, some of my uncomfortable personal history, and another reason I like my hobbies. (And if I end up knitting myself a dog and a family in the next ten years, well–I guess this was the first warning.)

Happy Friday!