Work: Michelle Lukezic
01. Writer
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Michelle Lukezic
02. Theme
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Work
03. MUSIC INSPIRATION
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Pigface:
Suck
04. WRITING
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This blanket is terrible / who the fuck are you
When I was a kid I had this idea that I wanted to create a blanket. I couldn’t knit or crochet. I was ok at macramé; a sort of step-up from creating friendship bracelets. But that experience wasn’t really relevant. What I could do was that over/under/over/under sewing thing.
I remember spending hours picking out the fabric I’d use. Fucking JoAnns. Bane of so many hours of my existence. Anything that requires selection based on aesthetic consideration is undoubtably a thorough endeavor for me. I wanted a solid color for one side of the blanket, and a pattern or something for the other.
And then there was the middle shit. The stuff that is supposed to keep you warm. I had no clue. I picked an option that seemed pretty average; given I really had no way to evaluate it.
I already had a needle.
I just needed that perfect shade of nasty-ass-mauve thread to create some contrast. Something dark enough to hold its own on soft peach solid fabric on the one side; and the busier patterned side on the other.
Cool.
Are you sure this is what you want?
Yes mom.
Ok. Let’s go check-out.
I was exhausted. Decision fatigue for shit that doesn’t actually matter. But somehow profoundly matters.
Wanting to be productive—even though I was not at all feeling it—I started constructing this blanket, sans instructions or a real plan.
Fuck it.
You got this.
How hard is it to make a blanket?
It’s like making a goddamn grilled cheese sandwich.
--——---solid fabric——-—-
.().().inside-warm-shit.().().
-——patterned fabric——-
The three pieces were already cut to their correct sizes by “the slicer” (a name I gave the employee, and not the device that cut it).
Six foot by six foot.
Turns out it’s a lot more complex than my grilled cheese sandwich analogy. But I got the job done. I finished the blanket.
Literally three stacked pieces, with a perimeter of stitching to hopefully keep it all together.
That was a shit-ton of work. Like holy hell. For a piece of shit, this is neither comfy nor warm, blanket.
And here’s the kicker.
That patterned side. It had all the colors I needed. A touch of mauve, a bit of peach, lots of robin egg blue. And the illustration style of the person depicted in it, a seemingly older lady with droopy boobs and a long-wide nose, was just scratchy enough. I thought it was cool, because it illustrated this lady in different environments. At a typewriter. Reading a book. Cleaning house-shit. Telling at a bank. Cooking with a chef hat.
I had completely neglected to see that in this handwritten script, every eight inches or so were the words “I’m a workaholic.”
I’M A WORKAHOLIC?!?!
What the fuck? Really. How did I miss that? Why did I choose this? Why didn’t I notice that stupid fucking saying until AFTER I spent two and a half hours over/under/over/under poking my finger and hating every moment of it.
What a big fucking realization. It’s like the world was trying to tell me something. It smacked me in my goddamn face.
This was the first time I came face-to-face with the idea of what a workaholic is. I asked myself, are you a workaholic?
I’m a workaholic.
I let out a big sigh, left the blanket on the living room floor, hoped it would somehow magically be gone in the morning, and went to bed. Even now, recalling this event and thinking about that blanket makes me so anxious. The world, perhaps, was trying to tell me something. And I got the picture, well really, I didn’t; but I became aware of the picture.
It takes work to detach yourself from the notion of my production value = my value.
I don’t want to be a workaholic. I don’t want to be a workaholic. I don’t want to be a workaholic. I don’t want to be a workaholic. Fucking listen to yourself. I don’t want to be a workaholic. I don’t want to be a workaholic. I don’t want to be a workaholic. Goddamn it. I don’t want to be a workaholic. I don’t want to be a workaholic. I don’t want to be a workaholic. I don’t want to be a workaholic. I don’t want to be a workaholic. Aw man. FUCK that blanket.