Knitting without Tears OR Knitting without Sanity?

No. I did not cry. But instead, last night was knitting with kicking, screaming, confusion, frustation, and general violence.
So, what we have learned from all this is that Jessica cannot handle more than one new thing at a time. I could have handled

a) a much smaller needle size
b) a fingering weight yarn
c) learning to purl
d) learning to rib
e) none of the above

Instead I chose to do all at once. Hey! I've got one scarf mostly finished, I'm a freaking knitting wonder woman here, I can do it all! Says me. Yeah right! says my fingers.

I will now attempt to recount the evenings events without bitterness. I'm sure I won't succeed at that either.
So I sit down to cast on with the cable method like I did my first project and for the life of me can't remember how to do it. It's gone, straight from my brain. So I look at my handy knitting referance, and get it figured out. By the time I get through a few I realize that I've successfully put my needle through not one but two loops, so I pull it off. Then I attempt to do it again. By attempt I mean that I stare blankly at the books technique to do a slip stich. That's right people, I got dumber as I sat there. I couldn't do it. I stared at that page and tried over and over for at least ten minutes. (I can't believe I'm admitting this) Finally I just *did* it the way I always do and I'm back on track. I get the whole row done. Slowly, but done. I go to k2, p2. Great, how hard is that? For me, it's a nightmare. I can't catch the stitch, I put my needle through the yarn, I pull the yarn under the stitches instead of between the needles. I get frustrated. Really frustrated. I rip it out and have just enough time to make dinner and make a screaming call about how to do this to Heather. She calms me down and talks me through it.
So we go down, eat dinner and I go at it again, while watching survivor. I *know* that I need to be putting all my energy into this needle, but I have to have some distraction, or I'm going to break my new bamboo size 4 needles in many small bits. SO I cast on, screw up, pull off, cast on again and count.

I get 41. I need 40. Hrm, is that right? I counted a second ago, I needed 3, I put three on, now I have 41. I can't have 41 with a pattern repeat of 4 sts. Okay, let's count again.

1, 2, 3.......38, 39, 40, 41. Okay, I must have screwed up, let's take one off.

Alright, now we're cooking . K2, P2, K2, P2.....count how many sts you have, go at it again. Continue to double check and make sure everything is good. It is, and I'm even getting this purling thing. And then I get to the end. Now, where was I again? Did I just P1 or P2? *sigh* go back and count some more. Okay so I just P2, now I K2, P2 and then turn around and P to the end. Great, I can do this. Wait. I have to do 4 more stitches. right? Right. Why are there only 3 stitches left? Why is that?
Well, there's only 3 stitches left because I only cast on 39 stitches! I counted wrong AGAIN!!!

...

I freak out. I'm yelling at everything. The poor dog was so confused. So I yank it off the needles, stuff them through the skein and shove them in the corner of the couch. I then proceed to over microwave and frozen desert (to make matters worse) and start back in on my garter stich scarf. After several rows of that and a long conversation with Heather, I'm finally calm. I still can't look at that yarn right now, so I bought some Manos de Uruguay cotton stria for this new project and some size 6s. Hopefully that will help, but only time and sanity will tell.