March 31, 2005

I'm improvising as fast as I can

This morning I discovered two significant problems.

1. I was out of coffee. This is a shocking and horrific development and is a situation that I normally have several safeguards in place to protect against. I am not (and I really can't stress this enough) a morning person. It is really only the sacred brown elixer of life that gets me through the first four or five hours of consciousness and the absence of said beverage left a yawning abyss in my morning so huge that it was all I could do to go on. I rummaged the cupboards and finally came up with an old tin of espresso, tossed it into the coffee maker and drank what I though was enough to get me to the grocery store to buy the coffee I usually have. It turns out though, as I sit here listening to my heart beat (straight off...you really shouldn't be able to hear your own pulse) and typing at the speed of sound that I realize that I may have overshot my caffeine goals. I can feel my eyebrows.

2. My email is not working. Actually, it is more that my email is taunting me viciously. It is delivering some email (four yesterday... ) hoarding others for an random amount of time, then releasing them to me in a bizarre and perplexing order and sending a few of them to me five or six times, presumably in a bold attempt to appease me.
Hear me now. I am not appeased. I told the guy at the sympatico office that I was not appeased. He asked me if I was sure that people were sending me email, with a tone that implied that perhaps I had no friends. I'm not sure what I may have said to him then. I know that I called him "Dude". (Several cups of espresso can really take the edge off of the details....it all went by so quickly).
If you are not hearing from me...I may not have heard from you.

Three reasons why the Stitch and Bitch at Lettuce Knit last night was a fiercely good time.
1. Free range books. Here in Toronto.

Inthewild

This exited me more than I can tell you. Megan has a stack of them, and as far as I know she's the only shop in Toronto to have them so far. I'm thinking about visiting them again later.

2. I signed books. Three cheers to Kelly, who was the first person in the whole world to ask me to sign a book live and in person, and a huge shout out to Allison, who was so sweet that I felt like Elvis.

3. Megan made my evening by putting several of my favourite things in one room.

Lettuceknit

That's champagne, chocolate, other knitters and yarn. (Yes, yes....oh yes)
And by letting me hold her beautiful new baby Penelope, who is perfect, sweet....and destined to be a knitter.

Penelope

(Megan and Penelope are seen here in a really charming moment, mere seconds before I snatched the little bummie back into my arms).

Clearly I was overwhelmed with happiness, since moments later I hauled off and bought this (among other things, but we shall gloss over my weakness in the face of 22 day old babies belonging to yarn shop owners who have my book, champagne and chocolate...it's not flattering.)

Merino

It's Art yarns Super Merino, and Lettuce knit had the loveliest choices. Expect all my present projects to be dumped as quickly as a guy who has his mummy at the top of his cellphone speed-dial.

Finally today, I can make some announcements about the Bookbookbook, Tourtourtour. Where I'm going and where I'll be doing it can now be found here, on the official At Knit's End tour page. I'll keep it updated as I go, and add more stuff as the publicity people tell me what's up. (I'll be adding a summer trip to the west coast in a few weeks) I'm thrilled and scared to death, though must admit that I might be feeling considerably less anxious later when I don't have 7 litres of emergency espresso in me. I'll let you know.

The official launch for the book is at The Museum of Textiles here in Toronto (Dundas and University, St. Patrick Subway) Wednesday April 13th, 6:30 - 8:00. Wine, books, me freaking out completely ....what more could you want? Please come and help me celebrate.

Posted by Stephanie at March 31, 2005 1:37 PM