I’m not ready to get back to my regularly-scheduled life, so I take a minute here to stall it a bit more:

• I put this on facebook so I would remember it — apologies, then, if you read it there. When I was in the Austin airport, the TSA agent was very chatty. I guess Texan trumps TSA, because she wasn’t grim and stern like they usually are. My turn came, and I stepped up to her little table and handed her my boarding pass and ID, expecting to be waved through after she scribbled on the boarding pass. Instead, she said “What’s your specialty?” Well! My immediate thoughts were I’m really good at being happy ….. I knit …. I make excellent bread …. and I just had no idea how to answer her, nor did I know why in the world she was asking me such a bizarre question. I thought maybe it was some kind of new TSA identity check, a person ought to be able to answer that immediately and if they can’t, maybe they’re not who they say they are. Then I ran through possible occupation answers I might give, but I never know how to answer that either: writer, editor, teacher, ah! Psychologist, I said. She smiled and said “It says Dr. on your boarding pass so I was just curious.” (p.s. if you’re on facebook, friend me!  I’m ldh.ny)

• My cabbie last night was unusual. First, he was friendly and chatty, which is partly unusual. After he put my suitcase in the trunk and got settled in his seat, I gave him my destination. He said “Columbia.” “Yeah, near Columbia,” I answered. That’s good, I thought, since cabbies often misunderstand my address. Then he asked me if I’m a professor. I do teach undergraduate students, so the easiest answer was yes — and he just beamed. “How did I know!” he said through his big grin. He asked what subject I teach, and when I said psychology he said “Ah! I’m a very lucky person, I can ask you questions! You have a PhD?” When I said yes, I do, he said “I’m right again!” Then he talked a little bit about how arrogant Lindsay Lohan is, what’s wrong with her. He was so charming, seeing himself as such a lucky person, knowing so many things about me. It was a sweet ending to a sad travel day.

• One awful thing about missing my Katie is that now I know the fine texture of her day, I can so easily imagine what she’s doing at any given time. It’s only 8:30 in Austin, as I write, so she’s sleeping, but she’ll be up soon, and she’ll make Trey’s lunch. My chest aches with the missing her.

• My birthday is coming right up, this Sunday. I’ll be 53, which is startling because I think I’ve been saying that I’m 53 for the last several months. I always do this. The coolest thing is that Sunday is the day we change the clocks — spring forward, fall back — which means my birthday is 25 hours long this year. WHEE!  And it’s stunningly beautiful weather, and it will be through the weekend:

look at that!

• I bought three gorgeous skeins of yarn at Hill Country Weavers (remarkable restraint, don’t you agree??), which I’ll photograph later. I also made a lot of progress on my Oz Delight sweater, which I’ll also photograph. Knitting post to come, then.

this is the just-dawn light. katie and trey got up MUCH earlier than they'd have liked, but it's worth it (easy for me to say!)

two pork butts so big it takes the both of them to turn them.

that's just shy of 20 pounds of pork butt. How many more times can I say pork butt? PORK BUTT. I am so mature.

How did I get so lucky!! My husband cooks fantastic meals for me every night, we eat fantastic meals on fantastic vacations, and now my daughter and her husband make fantastic meals for me. Granted, I put in my time on their end of the spatula — many, many long hard years of getting dinner on the table every night after a long day of classes and work — but this feels like a big bonus.

Katie’s frying some okra to accompany the pulled pork sandwiches we’ll have, and there’ll certainly be leftover Halloween candy — if not, we’ll have her pumpkin cookies for dessert. And I think there’s a gallon of Blue Bell chocolate mint chip ice cream in the freezer. Have I said it’s kind of about the food already?

I’m in a book group and a poetry group, and I just love them both for different reasons. My book group is filled with such interesting, wonderful women — the book is often secondary, and while I regret that a lot, the women are just so wonderful I don’t usually mind not talking about the book. I do mind, but gee they’re so great and I only get to see them once a month and I inevitably come away from the night’s meeting feeling kind of high and happy. My poetry group is also filled with interesting, wonderful women (and one similar man), but we stay tightly focused on discussing poetry, which thrills me. Really, how often in your life do you get to sit and talk about something like that — whatever it is that you particularly love? We actually talk about the poems we bring or write, we deconstruct them, plumb their meaning, see them differently. The poetry group members are very very smart (as are the book group members) so it’s high-wire fun. I brought the woman who organized the poetry group into the book club and last night was her first meeting — unfortunately, I didn’t get to be there, since I am here in Austin, but she wrote me and her note was one of the boosting things for me this morning. Her appreciation of the women in the book group, and her thanks for bringing her in, made me feel so great. My life is so rich with all these wonderful people, women (and one man) whose lives and intellect I get to share so easily.

The other communication that gave me such a boost was a comment left on a previous post. The commenter’s blog-related point spoke to her pleasure in reading my writing, which she characterized as genuine. Well! For anyone who writes, is there a better thing to hear? I love to write and have writing-related dreams that I constantly pull off the shelf, gaze at, and then put back on the shelf. The idea that someone takes pleasure in my words is so thrilling, it’s like an energy boost that shoots my little rocket into the higher levels of space. Her comment reminds me too that we are all kinds of things, big and small, to others and we’re not even aware of it. I mean something to my friends that I’m not all that aware of — you do, too. And you mean more to me than you know, you who read and also you who read and comment.

Now, to Texas. Yee-ha! As always, when I got off the plane at the Austin airport, everything in me settled down and relaxed as I walked through the terminal. The people look SO familiar. I did’t know any of them, but I might have! There is a Texas look, familiar at least to Texans. In New York, the general look (big old over-generalization coming) is Italian or Jewish. I’m neither. But I do look like the people here, and it’s more than bone structure in the face. And then they sound like me, too, double great! Not many have accents as thick as mine, but Texas shows up in certain words pretty reliably. Also, if you’ve never flown into Austin, you should know this so you can quickly plan a trip: LIVE MUSIC in the airport. There’s a stage set up and the band that was playing when I arrived was pretty great! Also, the food in the airport is not the normal airport fare. No Chili’s or Cinnabon or that pretzel place. Instead, it’s local restaurants, really good Mexican food, barbecue, Schlotzsky’s (a local sandwich place with uniquely great bread), a local ice cream joint. You step off the plane directly into Austin sounds and Austin smells.

The flight from Chicago to Austin was kind of neat. You know there’s that very friendly, midwest, Chicago way of being — people just seem not to be guarded, and to smile easily? Well, combine that with Texas and you have friendly squared (y’all do know that Texans are very friendly, right? DO NOT go by our politicians, please, who are assholes). There was so much laughter in the airplane, loud friendly joking by the flight attendants, it helped my weary bones, I’ve got to tell you. And then when we started our descent into the Austin area, it was shocking to see how dry and brown everything was. Nothing green to be seen anywhere, so sad and tragic. So much heat and fire, so little rain, so much loss.

The best thing of all, of course, was my daughter and her husband waiting for me. I ran to them and just felt such overwhelming joy. It sucks not seeing your kid very often. You spend all those years knowing nearly everything about them (though boy can you be surprised to learn the things you *didn’t* know!), being able to look at their faces every day and have a sense of how they’re doing, being able to care for them when they’re sick or tired or blue, playing games with them, laughing or fighting with them…..and then suddenly you see them a time or two a year. I can’t stop staring at Katie, and I don’t want to do anything more than be near her, look at her, listen to her, live in the midst of the life she lives while I’m here. Katie and Trey took me directly to Chuy’s for some delicious TexMex (which you cannot get in New York. No TexMex, delicious or otherwise), and then we came home, to their beautiful and comfortable home filled with Katie’s cozy touches. I’m a happy mama right now. Life is good.

I must’ve been out just earlier enough to make a difference, because I stood in the dark rain for 8 or 9 minutes, watching the completely empty street. Once a cop drove past, but that was the only vehicle of any kind. Finally, a cab pulled up and I guess the driver didn’t feel like getting out in the rain to help me so I struggled to get my heavy suitcase in the trunk while holding an umbrella and balancing my purse and backpack on my shoulder. It’s hard to lift a heavy suitcase with one hand and do the necessary turn and flip to get it into the trunk of a cab, let me tell you. The lip of the open cab trunk is higher than most cars, so it requires a very high lift before you turn and flip.

Anyway. I got to the airport and got on my plane, took my seat, and started knitting. Sweet. The pilot told us the flight was going to take longer than planned because we were flying into a very strong headwind. This gave me pause, because I had a close connection in Chicago, but plenty of time to make it. Not more, but more than enough. So I thought ‘well, either I’ll make it or I won’t, and freaking out won’t make any difference, won’t make the plane go faster, won’t make me arrive earlier or later.‘ Nice. I can’t always pull this off, but I’ve become increasingly able to do it over the last couple of years.

The view out the window was particularly beautiful; for a long time, it was very dark and the light was that eerie scene of an airplane’s lights bouncing off clouds in the dark. But as the sun rose, the clouds became this gorgeous powder blue, and everything out my window was one or another shade of that color. The sky was slightly darker light blue, and the blanket of clouds below was lighter light blue, but the whole view was that beautiful, tranquil color. I enjoyed it so much.

So we arrived at the airport, the pilot drove the plane in from another town, it seemed, and we finally taxied to the gate where the gate folks fumbled to get the jetway connected. I knew. I really did. I knew. When the doors finally opened, I had 12 minutes until my connecting flight was scheduled to leave. AND! As these things happen, I arrived at the far end of Gate C in Terminal 1 and my connecting flight left from the other far end of Gate F in Terminal 2. I ran. Like Forrest Gump, I ran. I ran and ran, ran and ran, ran and ran. I got to the gate and learned they had just closed the doors. Like, just. If I’d gotten there 30 seconds earlier, I could’ve gotten on my flight.

the tarmac at O'Hare -- my view for a few hours

But luckily I’m me, and have my Kindle and my knitting and my laptop so I can deal with the 5-hour wait. The worst part is just these lost hours with Katie. Boo.

A little change of pace, something I’m dying to tell you! Last night the coolest thing happened, though it was really just a tiny thing. I was standing in the subway, and I noticed a small man walking toward me — I thought he looked like an imp, a little elf or something. He had red-gray hair and he wore these funny wool pants that came to mid-shin, and he wore odd little leather boots. His clothes were strange, and something about him was just so unusual. I looked a little closer, and it was Philippe Petit! The man who walked on the tightwire between the two World Trade Center towers in 1974. It was actually him.

I felt such awe, and could not take my eyes off him. Such an audacious person, such a truly alive, audacious thing he did. Watch Man on Wire, if you haven’t already seen it (it was available streaming on Netflix the last time I checked — I’ve watched it 4 or 5 times).  I just learned that he’s Artist in Residence at St John the Divine….which is in my neighborhood, which explains why he was getting in the subway at my stop. Which means I may run into him again.

bold and alive

I so wanted to speak to him. I so wanted to thank him for taking that walk, but I felt shy and didn’t want to intrude. When we were both in the train, at opposite ends of the crowded car, I caught his eye and smiled at him and he looked away. I did it a second time and he looked away, but after that he kept looking at me.  I wish I’d had the courage to thank him, but the thing is I can’t even say why it means so much to me and touches me so much that he did that.

[read more:  a piece on him in the NYTimes, and a brief PBS biography]

The boogie-ing part, not the sleeping at the wheel part. (Though, side note: Once I was driving up IH-35, from Austin to Dallas, and stopped to get gas. There was a giant tour bus there, the kind that bands use. Austin being the official Live Music Capital of the World [oh, you bragging Texans you], it’s entirely common to see them so I didn’t give it a thought. As I passed the bus, I saw it was Asleep At The Wheel, and as I glanced in the open door, I saw the bus driver seemed to be asleep at the wheel. It made the inner kindergartner in me giggle.)

ANYWAY. Yeah. My flight leaves NYC at 6am, so do you realize what time I need to get up in the morning? I haven’t done the backwards math yet, but I’m grateful I am still in the jetlag state of reliably waking up at 2am. I can’t wait to spend time with my daughter Katie…..a whole week, so luscious. We’ll bake (and eat, including pinto beans and cornbread, a delicious treat I don’t get in NYC) and knit and talk and watch movies and shop and be homebodies together. We both love that.

Everyone rags on Texas — and I’ll be honest, Texas politicians make that so so easy — but Texas is so much more than its idiotic politicians. Really. (And remember, it was historically a hard-core Democratic state. YES IT WAS! It took a bad turn in the 80s, like much of the south did, but I have hope that someday it’ll return to its Democratic roots.) Anyway, there’s so much that’s great about Texas, and Austin. I loved this article 50 Reasons Texas is the Best State in America. It was compiled in response to a piece written by Manhattan-based Gawker listing states by their worst-ness (Texas came in at 13), and the Gawker writer says:

The Texan ego is as big as the state, and no matter how much you point out to them that, uh, hey what about all this extremely terrible stuff, they will not listen. If you guys would just shut up about it for a while, the rest of us might like you a little more.

The funny thing is — and I say this all the time to New Yorkers — you could say that very thing about New Yorkers, who think the sun rises and sets on Manhattan, and that just outside the Manhattan borders, ignorance, evil, and chaos reign. Hrmph.

Anyway. Boogie back to Texas! Whee! GTT!  Whee!

How did I get so lucky.

angee, in knitpicks felici

I did round 1 swatching for my Mothed sweater and didn’t like the fabric; I need to swatch again, going down a needle size. It was just too thin and kind of gauzy, and not what I’m going for, really. I persist, like a real grown-up knitter!

Other parts of the NE got snow, and we were supposed to but mercifully we didn’t. It is gray and drizzly, though, so it’s that kind of April Fool’s Day. I hope you aren’t fooled today (unless you want to be)!

will and katie, 6 years ago

Strictly speaking, of course, that photo is not from this past weekend, but it summarizes my weekend in the best way possible. Katie is my oldest daughter (she lives in Austin), and Will is my only son (he lives here in Manhattan). The story is long and terrible and makes me prone to hours of tears, but Will has been hiding himself away from our family for the past 5 years. He hasn’t spoken to any of us since he appeared at Katie’s wedding, 2.5 years ago. Estrangements are always complicated and this one certainly is, but I promise that you can’t imagine the pain of it, unless your child does such a thing. The only thing worse is death.

Katie came to town Saturday in order to find Will and do a kind of intervention; she had letters to read that we’d all written, and she made a big photo album. She was not going to let him keep doing this without being forced to hear just how much it hurt us. I thought it was a mission doomed to fail…..find him? Here in NYC? Even that seemed impossible.

But find him, she did (she’s a force of nature, that one). And talk to him, she did. And listen, he did. And last night I got to see him, and sit next to him, and touch his face. We cried and laughed and cried, and it was awful and terrible and wonderful. Katie’s here until Wednesday, and they’re spending much of tomorrow together. Will and I will make a date to see each other again. It’s too much to hope without caution; we’ve all been so hurt, we’re all taking care of our hearts, but I’m the mother so I’m in all the way, no matter what happens. O happy happy day….

It was amazing. It was just amazing. I couldn’t speak when it was over, for quite a while. It’s a visually stunning movie, with wonderful editing and sound editing, but the thing is that it is really about what it’s really about. I mean, it’s not about a guy cutting his arm off (though he does). It’s really about facing yourself, facing life, facing it all, in a very real and rare existential moment. I get extremely irritated by people’s whining about “but what does it mean, it has no meaning, blah blah blah” the luxury problems of spoiled wealthy people. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t true existential moments, moments of facing the abyss of what it really all means, and what it means to be here, and that in some fundamental way it’s just you and that moment, alone. And that’s what the movie is brilliantly about, and it’s brilliant. James Franco is brilliant. The soundtrack is brilliant. Everything, I completely loved it. It’ll take a while before I can watch it again, and I hope it stands up to a second viewing. You’ll want to have your knitting with you so you can look away and concentrate on something else during some of the more difficult scenes, but you shouldn’t let them make you miss seeing the movie.

So what’s the sweater part of the post title? Two unpleasant things:

1. I’m frogging my Eve’s Rib Shrug. It’s just been such a pain in my ass the whole time, and it’s not going to look the way I thought it would in the wholly misrepresentative photos (i.e., it won’t be as long as it seemed and the actual shape isn’t flattering to my (*cough cough stomach*) figure. I love the yarn too much to let it languish. So yay to making a decision but damn to all that time wasted. I’ve learned that Carol Sunday’s way of writing patterns simply doesn’t work for me, and it’s not worth it. It’s a shame, because her designs are often truly gorgeous.
2. I’ve also decided with regret that I’m just not young enough to pull off the Laar sweater. There’s the ample bosom situation, but more importantly there’s the fact that I’m just too “mature” for the style. And I’m tired (see above) of putting in so much time and ending up with something I don’t like. So now I’m considering my sweater queue and yarn I already have in my stash, and as I promised myself, I’m taking my time with the decision. No more leaping without looking. My regret isn’t that I’m too old for that particular style, it’s just that it really is a beautiful little sweater and I have such lovely yarn for it. But one thing ravelry teaches us is that there’s always another sweater.

My precious oldest daughter Katie arrives in NYC this evening, and she’ll be staying with me until Wednesday. She’s on a family mission of import and urgency and probable sorrow, but it’ll be so good to have her here. I don’t get to see her….or any of my precious kids….nearly often enough. Intermingled with the moments of difficulty that bring her here will be lots of love and laughter, plenty of knitting and stash-pawing, some movie watching and card playing, probably, and lots of good food.

OH! Also, just to feed any schadenfreude out there about the high life in NYC: this morning I woke up and went to the bathroom only to find brown water dripping [again] from the ceiling, running down the pipes, dripping down the wall, splashing in the windowsill, bulging the ceiling. The guy who lives upstairs has bad plumbing and we always have to pay the very icky price. So happy waking up, Lori! Just in time for company, too. NYC, you’re such a charmer.

I have too much work to do to knit or tend to blogs (either as a reader or a writer), but I wanted to show you something. When I was lucky enough to visit my daughter Katie in Austin, last October, I taught her how to knit. She took to it immediately — a natural knitter, she is. We bought her some beautiful apple green yarn, and she launched into a great scarf. When I left her, she was a few sections into it, and going strong. Then her little dog grabbed it one afternoon and ate a chunk out of it, which kind of took the wind out of Katie’s sails. She frogged it back to before the chomp, and tried to get going again. Then she decided she might like to have another project underway too, so she picked the Habitat hat, by Jared Flood. Kinda intense for a brand new knitter! Especially since I live too far away to just pop over for a quick here’s-how-to-do-that session. WELL! Look what she did, her very first-ever FO:

Katie's husband Trey, wearing his new hat

I’m completely blown away! Here’s her project page on rav, if you want to see more pictures. This time I am bragging. Mama’s rights.

Back to trying to teach stats to people who don’t like stats. And editing manuscripts by people whose imaginations exceed their writing grasp. It’s one of those days, friends.