Who am I?

I have given up trying to work out "where" I am, (my American geography is improving by the minute.) and after the last couple of days I'm really trying to work out "Who" I am.

The ideas I have about myself are not matching the experiences that I'm having. I am not...for instance the kind of person (I am absolutely sure of this) NOT the kind of person that this

happens to. (Notice that the five chairs directly in front of the podium are empty. Five people stood in the back rather that sit that close to me. There is a chance I'm starting to look like a woman on the edge.) My anxiety about speaking to these people was only compounded by the fact that right next to the podium was a grand piano. (Flashback. Serious flashback)

After the talk we retired to the charming shop, I took a picture of the display in the window. It was so cute I couldn't hardly stand it.

Many thanks to the resident yarn shop cat for arranging itself so beautifully amongst the books and yarn.
Brooke drove from Cincinnati (that's three hours. In the rain.) so that we could meet.

Check out the mitten. Brooke has some idea what she's doing. (Plus she brought me some of those little tiny sharp coloured metal needles I love so much.) Who does that? Who does that for me? I ask again...Who am I? She wasn't alone either, lots of lovely bloggers and readers and even (get this...) Complete strangers who didn't know I had a blog. Who knew? (A thousand apologies for not providing links. On-line time is scarce, and picking up the urls is time consuming.)

The sock saw Mount Vernon's tiny town hall and cavorted in front of the yarn shop.

It's hard to tell when a sock is cavorting, but I assure you, it was.
The sock was just about moved to tears when Patti, Deborah, Sarah and company announced that from now on 10% of the profits from my book sold in their store will go to Doctors without Borders, thus making Craftsman Hill Fibers a member of Knitters Without Borders of the highest standing and a collection of women of the utmost decency.
The sock was so happy about this, that I didn't show it...

This. (Sock yarn from Memphis. How did that happen? It's all so fuzzy...)

The next day I took a plane from Ohio to Virginia, where after an unsettling experience navigating the Capitol region public transit system (Note: The metro is NOTHING like the subway. Even if you have been on the subway a hundred thousand times and you think you will be able to just slide on into the metro system...you would be wrong. Not matter what the guy at the bus stop by the airport tells you, the Metro is as much like the subway as pizza is like jello. Not a transferable skill.) I eventually made my way to the hotel, (by the way...the Pentagon? I don't know if you've been there...it's HUGE. It's unspeakably massive. Immense. Take what you see on TV and multiply it by a billion and then puff it up a little. It's so big that you can't even tell it's a pentagon. It's just HUGE. Does Canada have a building that big anywhere in the country? Freaked me out. Huge. )

The lovely Kristine picked me up and took me over to her shop, Knit Happens. (Poor Kristine. I don't think she'd slept in days. Her online store went live the other day and she was pretty delirious from overwork. Many thanks for retrieving me.) I signed books, I met bloggers and normal people...

These are bloggers. Not normal people. Vibegrrl and Chelsea welcomed me, it was wonderful.

Kristine gave me a Knit Happens hat

Note the cake in the foreground. Lest ye think that it was ordinary cake, it was cake from Kristine's birthday the day before. (Who am I? Last week I was frowning on twinkies, this week I'm scarfing Kristine's day old birthday cake like it's tofu on sprouts.) If you haven't done so already, go give Kristine a big birthday gift by having a look at the online store. It's pretty slick.

I could show you what I bought at the store, but I'm waiting for the guilt and shame to be less sharp. Many thanks to the Knit Happens Crew for enabling the signing...and the buying. It was awesome.

The sock admired the vaguely phallic stately Masonic temple in Alexandria, and we were on our way.

The sock and I are currently on the train from Virginia to New York. (I don't know where exactly.

Do you?)
I love the train. It's quiet and slower and feels more civilized than hustling off planes at a thousand miles an hour. There's more room to spread out, and walking between the cars to the cafe car never gets old for me. I think the train and knitting might be a lot alike.
There are faster ways to travel....but (as Margene would say) with the train (and knitting) it's about the process.

I'll apologize again for the lack of links and names. There's too much to type. if you saw me...toss your link in the comments for everyone to see.
Tonight....New York, New York.

I miss my kids. Who am I?