This post comes to you from the Austin Airport   Sorry.  I ran out of time there.
This post comes to you from the sky above Texas.  Nope.  That didn’t work out either.
A cab driving towards the hotel now that I’ve landed in Dallas?

Yes. This is working. I feel like various modes of transportation are my main location these days – and it’s just starting to wear a little.  Don’t get me wrong,  I love the tour.  I do – and I mean that.  I love meeting knitters, and I love reading from the book – I believe totally that this is the best book I’ve ever written, and I’m proud to be out here supporting it, and huge chunks of it are even fun, and really, there are authors out there who would kill for this chance, and I know that. So believe me when I say that the last thing I want to seem like is ungrateful… but dudes,  I am tired.

I realized it this morning when despite having a lovely day, a fine evening and eight solid hours of sleep, my only response to waking was a gentle sort of urge to weep softly and drink nineteen cups of coffee. 

Luckily for me (or I’d really be bummed), I know that this feeling is just a reponse to this phase of the tour. It’s simply too many days without the food I’m used to eating, the bed I’m used to sleeping in, and then husband I’m used to bothering.  It’s best not to think about it, since it can’t be helped. so instead of dwelling on it this morning, I got up, drank a cup of coffee (just one, since I know disaster looming when I see it) and I did 30 minutes of yoga and I turned that frown (literally) upside down, and now I’m on my way to the event tonight in Dallas (Fairview, actually)  and I’m feeling  genuinely happy about it. I think it was a wave of homesickness, and just because you love home doesn’t mean you can’t love where you’re at now too.. right?   Right. 

So. Yesterday in Austin.  Austin is one of my favourite cities in the US.  Any city with an unofficial mandate to "Keep it weird" is going to be high on my list, and the great thing about Austin is that I think nobody needs to try and make it weird.  It just is. The cabbie I got proved the whole thing by unbuttoning his shirt  as soon as we pulled away from the airport, (how come it’s never the guys you wnat to unbutton thier shirts that are just compelled for public displays?) and then proceeded to tell me a series of remarkably off colour jokes while blasting "Werewolves of London" as we hurtled through the city.  (For the record, only one of the jokes is worth repeating, and I have repeated it several times. I left my shirt on.)

I arrived at the hotel, changed really fast and left again, after being assured by Brent at the desk, that Book People was only a 10-15 minute walk from the hotel.  Well – Brent is either a filthy liar, or he’s never walked ten steps in his life, because 40 minutes later – 40 minutes under the blasting Texas sun, I arrived at the bookstore a shadow of my former self.  Enough of a shadow that I drank cold tea when they offered it to me, and I liked it.

Good thing I made it, because this is what was waiting for me. Wave at the charming Austin knitters!


I read, I talked, I cursed Brent publicly, and afterwards, this is who I met. 
The first sock brigade,  this time Laurel,

Monica

and Erica.

Then our babies for the day, Claire and Dorothy,

Leigh Anne and Dooley  (Leigh Anne is sneaking her first sock in there too.)

Aimee and Luke,

Jen and Evan and their darling Clementine…

Austin apparently specializes in clever young knitters, so I present to you the fine knitter known as Gus. 

Gus is eight.  (He just turned eight.  That’s significant.) He’s knitting some beads into his fine knitting.  I asked him what he was making, and got sort of a blank look.  I asked him then if it was an objet (as in an objet d’art) and after a brief explanation of what that was, we agreed.  It is an objet.

Please meet the similarly talented Abby (she’s seven, and she knit the scarf she’s holding) and Emily who is nine and three quarters –  (The three quarters is, as you may have surmised, significant.) Emily is wearing a vest she knit her whole own self.

They’re with their clever knitting teacher Mum Carey.

It was Rachael’s birthday:

And check out Anastasia. 

She showed me her wedding veil (which is in her hands) and I asked as politely as I could, when she was getting married.  Turns out it’s two years.  Everything is okay. For several horrible minutes I thought she was going to say "Oh, two weeks".   I was going to suggest a wedding scarf.

I got to see Tonie again, along with her Mum Janice.  Tonie was 10 years old the last time I met her –

and look at her now! 

I’ve clearly been at this book thing for a while.  I don’t know if that’s encouraging or frightening.  In any case, she’s a lovely young knitter.

In the Awwww. .. department for today, I give you Justin

Non-knitter, trying to be nice to his mum.   She asked him to come and he did, and there’s nothing more charming than faithfully obeying your mum, even though you’re a grown-up.  Not that I’m directing that at any of my children or anything, I’m just saying that Justin seems like a very good person.

Finally, last but not least,  I want to show you Stacie, Claire and Stephanie.

These three ran in at the last minute, out of breath and hot, and it turned out that they had run out on Ysolda’s class at The Knitting Nest to have their books signed.  Something I made sure to mention to Ysolda later that evening when we were together at the aforementioned shop.  Why? Because I’m three years old. That’s why. (A special thanks to The Knitting Nest for shooting me a tee-shirt to replace the one that my pen blew up on in my suitcase.  Extremely helpful.)

I’m off again, with only minutes to spare before I need to be at A Real Bookstore,  but I forgot to mention in my St. Louis post,  I signed some extra books when I was at Left Bank Books, because they do mail order.  So if you’re one of the people who wrote and asked how you could get a signed book if I’m not coming to a town near you?  Left Bank Books.