Catch up...

The trip to the Right Coast was successful in that I managed to eat plenty of food, read a few fabulous novels, and chill with kittens both cranky and aloof. I really needed a few days of not having anything to do - no applications or pressing projects or editing for AK or balancing anything at all. It was absolutely lovely to be awoken Banzai Kittan style to a day filled with little more than reading, walking around, coffee, more reading, and Courbet (his current show at the Met is fantastic and features one of the best posters for a show that I've seen in a while). I miss being in that city or, more properly, near it.

I cannot profess to be a true New Yorker. People outside of the tri-state area assume that anyone who identifies as "being from New York" was born and bred in Manhattan. However I did grow up never more than a 2 hour train ride away (faster if you caught the commuter express) from all the museums and theatre and life that is NYC. There's a particular smell that catches you when you step out of the MTA car and onto the platform at Grand Central - electrical and dank and hot - that I find so comforting. While I love PDX and its cleanliness and devotion to all that is green and progressive, sometimes I want to walk around a city with a patina of exhaust and sidewalks cracked and skewed by tree roots, where everyone walks quickly and speaks even faster. I feel recharged when I visit, as if I'm somehow stronger, more of a badass for surviving my stay. When I touch down in PDX I feel my Queens' vowels start to fade and my gate soften, but a thin coating of something (dirt, attitude) remains.

The awesomeness of the trip was continued by a day spent checking out local knitting stores with a very awesome person. It was great to just rant and chat and squish yarn all afternoon. Should she open her knitting store with chocolate bar, I will be the first person on the couch. I finally bought the yarn for AK's sweater: a dark blue superwash wool (a Cascade 220). He loves the color and it's actually rather pleasing to knit with, though I am completely over this ribbing already. The pattern (the Wonderful Wallaby) looks like it won't be too much of a challenge. Picking up the stitches to make the pocket will probably be the most annoying part, but this is why I have a Trish. I really need to get a regular knit night going again. I don't think I would have finished my sweater if I hadn't had a set night a week to work on it. In my travels I also picked up some beautiful sock yarn that I'll be turning into a lace scarf (the pattern is, I hope, relatively easy and I can read my work better than before, but I'm still terrified) and a cheap ball of variegated wool that is slowly turning into my third Quant. I really adore that pattern. I wish I could find something else featuring entrelac that I really liked (not too big on the scarf since the wrong side is a bit funky looking).

What this post comes down to is that I miss Edd and I like my new knitting friend and yarn and that I want a cup of coffee now please.