Distracted? me?

Having recorded the last of my current knitting-in-progress (I do not count spinning) at Ravelry the other day, I have had to face the fact that I am working on seven different things and am frantic to start an eighth (but more on that later.)  Some people refer to this as 'startitis' but I know that's not my problem, as I'm actively pursuing all of them (except one, and more on that sooner.) 

There is an article by Jonthan Franzen in the April 18th issue of The New Yorker - on the subject of going to the still-uninhabited island thought to be the setting for Robinson Crusoe and while there rereading Robinson Crusoe, which seems like the sort of length to which I could see some of us going to see a rare breed of sheep or learn a near-extinct needlecraft technique - that I suspect offers a better explanation. Franzen likens distraction to drug or alcohol use, in that the more you use it, the more you need to use it to get the same effect as you did at first. 

If that theory is correct, then I have what Sherlock Holmes might have called an Eight Project Problem.  But I think really what I have is a Mariner Problem (making it a Seven Project Problem, the thing from which I am trying to be distracted being the eighth). 

I'm about to hit the first sleeve, you see, and owing to the way this sweater is constructed I have to decide whether I'm making full-length sleeves and risking not having enough yarn for the back, or going with three-quarter and hoping that will give me enough for the back.  Or whether I should just frog it altogether, buy new yarn and start again, and use this yarn for the other project I'm frantic to start (for which I have a little more of this yarn than I would need.)

Such an enormous degree of decision-making is beyond me at the moment so I'm knitting everything else.  Seriously, I'm spending a little time every day with everything on that project list depending on where I am and what else I'm doing at the same time.

Of course this is not an ideal solution, which I guess is typical of the things the subconscious comes up with.  But on the upside I am making tiny amounts of progress all the time on several other things I will enjoy using, perhaps even as much as I will love wearing my Mariner. 

I even got a little farther along with the stripey project:

and last night was able to confirm that I do, in fact, have enough yarn to make it the very size I had in mind.

Thank goodness!