If you are ever in the Los Angeles area and you want a most excellent Thursday evening, filled with food and beverages and yarn and chitchat and a wide variety of what I think are hands-down the most interesting women (and sometimes guys) in all of the city, you need to come to Stitch 'n Bitch at the original Farmer's Market, on 3rd and Fairfax. It starts every Thursday around 6:30 or 7 p.m. and goes until 9:30 or 10 p.m., and ...

... time for some maudlin reminiscences here! Because this is what I do! Just ignore me and click on the pictures if you aren't up to getting your introspection on this a.m. I mean really.

See, there was a time, pretty recently, when I would not really leave my house except to go to work, and the most basic shopping and errands and so on. Then when the real sadness set it, it was followed by fear. Fear that maybe I was so unpalatable not only did my husband flee, leaving a wake of destruction in his absence, but perhaps others would be as displeased, and ya'll know. I was brought up a nice Southern girl with a dominant people-pleaser gene (it's on the same node as the "loves fried foods" gene.) What had gone wrong? When had I moved from people pleaser to people-displeaser?

This is how it goes when you get your heart broken, and your ass increases in both density and volume, and you go to a place of solitude and wallowing -- a place where sure, if I were stronger and better and perhaps medicated, I would not have to go. But alas. I'm just a person, a pretty regular person, with challenges of my own and that's what happened. Locked the doors. Looked down.

Before long, I didn't even want to go to the grocery store (OK, not truly a sign of sickness) but when the day came that I actually chose to stay home rather than go to Target with Jennifer, dire times were upon us. It's not normal when a red-blooded "I shall prop up the economy single-handedly so the terrorists don't win!" kind of girl loses the will to bargain shop.

Then one day out of the blue, Ellen sent me an email, and invited me to come to Stitch 'n Bitch (though ya'll, nobody has to be invited, I'm pretty sure Ellen just knew I was a recluse) and after much hemming and hawing, I went. And I met people. Real people. And last night, I sat next to Faith and she grinned ear to ear and said, "Laurie, I love this group of people. Look at us! People are hugging and catching up, and smiling and it's so great..." and she's right. It is great. There was Jennifer, laughing and tangled up in yarn, and Gwen was there with her new engagement ring (!!!) and we missed Sara, who has a biscuit in the cooker if you know what I mean and I think you do, and I felt like I was in a room with people I'm lucky to know. Even if sometimes I'm too tongue-tied to say much. Or the more usual scenario: when I blather away like a mindless dumaii.

And yet they don't seem displeased at all. It's been the happiest addition to my life, this group of people. Proving that even when it's scary to leave your house and meet new folks, as long as they're armed with yarn and a sense of humor (which our group has in spades) then you know you're on the right path to somewhere. And that path will probably pass by a yarn store.
If you're lucky.

Don’t watch much television. I did see one episode of Vampire Diaries and thought it was pretty good.

I DO like Big Bang Theory. It’s funny and I can relate to the geeks. :lol:

I also like Hell’s Kitchen and wish Chef Gordon Ramsey would bring back Kitchen Nightmares.

There has been no return of Car Spider, and I’m hoping it’s because the fantastically warm weather has turned the interior of my car into a death oven and fried him to a crisp, much like the sun-bleached, husk-corpse of a wasp that sat in the far, unreachable corner of my rear window for months until I finally hauled out the dustbuster to dispose of it. Hope you enjoyed your slow, hot, burning death, spider! (Will now probably be eaten to death on the way home.)

Things that are making me happy today:

- Early morning sunshine reflected in sprinklers and the birds who splash in the puddles
- Passing vehicles that have dogs sticking their heads out the window
- Good books, a comfy chair and plenty of time
- It’s payday, and the third paycheck for this month (not that the extra paycheck ever really seems to work out, but still)
- Shorty’s exasperated sighs whenever Sunny hops onto the bed at 6:00 a.m. meowing to be fed
- Receiving budget reminders from mint.com: You have exceeded your monthly hair budget (my hair now looks normal again, so it was totally worth the scolding, mint.com!)
- The stupid tick bite I got last weekend is no longer resembling a textbook case of Lyme disease (between the tick and the spider, I fear the bug/creepy crawly population is mad at me)
- Photos of exhausted camping buddies

How about you?

Yesterday Christine mentioned that as an alternative to having a yappyass purse dog (one of my life's goals) (because I have such lofty ambitions, shutup) I could take a page out of the crazy book and run around with a ferret in my bra. Ha! You think that's crazy!

Months and months and months ago, when Jennifer and I took Ethel The Cat to the vet, we noticed the very hot blonde receptionist had a third boob. And the boob was... maybe moving.

I found this very interesting. A trick third boob. Was this a new dating thing I would have to learn? Was it silicone gone wrong? Was it a heart murmer?

Oh. Right! It's just the usual ... A BABY POSSUM IN YOUR BRA.

Cute girl had painted its toenails pink and was carrying it around in her bra all day. I'm pretty much convinced that only a hot chick could pull that off ... I'm just saying.

Fast forward to last week, when Jen is taking me and Roy to yet another $500 visit to Sherman Oaks Vet (Hello, sirs. We would like our wing of your clinic named "Sobakowa and The Minions.") And while we were waiting (again) in the lobby, Cute Girl pulled this out of her... OK. Not her bra. I guess she gave up the third boob in favor of a cat carrier. I support that decision. BECAUSE WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT THING.

While I like this Cute Girl receptionist very much, I think I will stick with my plans to one day carry around a little Minou-like puppy in a silly purse.

My bra is all full up. Thank you for stopping by.

Of course, I am about 72 days and thousands of dollars short, but you get the general idea. I am behind in everything. EVERYTHING. Here is a brief list, with a longer more detailed description to follow.

• I am behind schedule on my diet

• I am waaaay late planting my garden. Hi, it's August.

• I am weeks behind in email answering, blogstalking and general internets tomfoolery.

• I am one poor pathetic excuse of a mail-receiver and mail-sender.

• I am behind on holidays.

• I am woefully behind on writing.

• I am totally late to the draw with every kind of family obligation.

• I am behind on the seasons.

• I am behind on my knitting.

• I am behind on world events, news, politics, etc. (but I am totally caught up on gossip, thank you Star magazine and US weekly! I sure got my priorities straight!)


Ok, so here we go. Got some coffee? This is long.

1. Diet
My fridge currently has all manner of peppers, cauliflower, broccoli and other ass-diminishing foods still sitting in the plastic. Hard to eat them when they are just sitting there, unwashed, uncut and uncooked. At this point their only purpose is to separate the beer from the diet Coke.

2. Garden
When the hell did it get to be June already? I have yet to break ground in my backyard for a garden or plant any of the two bazillion seed packets I bought. My parents told me this weekend I'd be better off eating the seeds. THANKS, YA'LL.

3. Internets
I am one poor correspondent, I've been too (too) hard to find. But I just can't seem to get you off my mind. And when I get home at night, do I turn on the computer and answer email and do all the responsible, geeklike things I truly want and need to do? No. I come home, feed the cats, clean the catbox, and have just enough time before bed for a glass of wine on the patio. If I start getting home any later or getting up any earlier, I'll just be going to bed when the alarm goes off. Woe the fuck is me.

4. Mail
Ok, we're going to save this one for last. Because it's long, detailed, and VERY IMPORTANT.

5. Holidays
My mom's Mother's Day gift? Still sitting here making California a better place to be. How can she love a child who is incapable of sending anything on time? And Father's Day? It's next weekend. Have I found a good Dad present yet? HAH HAH HAH.

6. Writing
I want to write a piece for Annie, knit goddess and object of all my affection. But have I completed it? No. Why? because I want it to be PERFECT and also, I want it to NOT SUCK. Here's where I get into real trouble. For more on this, see "mail" below.

7. Family obligations
In addition to holidays (see above) I have also got a birthday and graduation card here for my nephew who graduated and ate birthday cake a month ago. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME? Perhaps these gifts and cards needed to age. We may never know. Also, my Uncle Truman? Calls my parents once a day to tell them that me, Their Bad Daughter, has not called. Again.

8. Seasons
WHEN THE HELL DID IT BECOME JUNE?

9. Knitting
Mystery Knitted Cat Thingamajig? From, like, February? Still only half-done. Self-hatred sets in.

10. World Events, etc.
Perhaps I haven't had time to read any news or watch any news or do anything remotely brain-expanding, but let me guess: Politics still sucks, we're still at war, the economy is still weird, the globe is still warming, the rich are still rich and the poor are still poor. Am I close?


Now. Let's get back to #4: MAIL.

This one is important because it explains a lot about me, and really has less to do with my currently insane workload than it does with my always insane self. The fact is, I have a problem. Well, two problems, really.

Perfectionism and Procrastination.

My two closest companions. Perhaps you may have seen them before? Do they look familiar to you, too? Please say yes. Don't leave me here all alone with them.

And what does this have to do with mail? Well, ya'll know I love mail. I mean LOVE it. This comes from spending most of my life in some rural chickenscratch town where the mail was the one surprise every day. Except Sundays, and those were dreaded interminable endless days, spent in too-tight dress shoes and on hard church pews. No surprises there. But mail? You just never could tell what might show up in the big metal mailbox.

When you live out on the Rural Route 99 and your mailbox is down half a mile at the foot of the drive, you also get the feeling that you're traveling long and far to get your surprise. I used to wait each day for three o'clock to roll around so I could take the dogs with me and walk down to the end of the long, winding dirt trail we called a "driveway" and pick up the mail and afternoon paper. In Comfort, Texas and all the little towns of my childhood, one thing stayed the same: meandering to the mailbox, wondering where the stamps would be from, getting dust on my toes as I went to fetch the mail.

So I do love mail. At age seven I got my first pen-pal, and she was from a fabled and far-away place called "Manitoba." I looked up Manitoba on the Time-Life Atlas and decided it must be very, very exciting there. I don't know what became of my pen-pal, but to this day, the word Manitoba still makes me think of snowglobes and pretty stamps.

I also love to send mail. LOVE it. I love the packaging, the addressing, the careful contemplation of every piece, like a little treasure hunt in a box. But, ah, here's where my twin theives of suckage, perfectionim and procrastination, come into play. I can't just mail something. Oh no. I have to make it AN EVENT. Which is retarded. I mean, just put the pieces together in a box and mail it.

BUT YET I PERSIST WITH THE RETARDATION.

I am the person who insists upon making my own holiday cards every year and EVERY YEAR fails to mail them on time, or mail them at all, because they must be PERFECT. And if they are not perfect, I cannot send them.

I have a long, long list of ways that the two Ps affect my life and ya'll, it is not for the positive. Let's take email for example. I can't just send off a one-line reply, or jot a quick "Thanks! Talk to you soon!" as Lynne has discovered. No. Instead, I will appear to be ignoring all your little notes for a week when suddenly you get the War & Peace of emails in your inbox. (Drew, you know, too. I'm sorry. I'll try to write postcard emails from now on. How's your eyestrain, by the way?)

And now I need to do a little apologizing. I LOVE the mail, and each piece makes me so happy and I laugh and feel like it's Christmas and I am appreciative, in fact I am floored that anyone would send me anything, and yet, have I let anyone know this?

No.

So, this is the mail I have received in the past two weeks.

Notice the carefully designed box labels, the uniformity of the box size, the padded envelopes, the tissue paper and bubble wrap. And imagine inside a handmade card, perhaps a little voodoo, a surprise or two. Now imagine I meant to send this all weeks ago but I am here, STUCK IN MY RUT OF PERFECTIONIST PROCRASTINATION trying to make you the best ever T-shirt, card, or CD, something that will knock your socks off.

And there's more. More ways I fuck up with the perfectionism. See, when I received each little mailbox surprise, I should have just emailed a quick "Thank you! love it!" but I did not do so. Instead, I thought, "Oh, they'll love it so much more if I send something unique and small and funny!" Or, in other words, perfect. And while I am having all this perfection happening in my mind, ya'll are out there thinking I have no good sense and I have bad manners because I never write, never call. When I'm just trying to find the perfect way to thank you.

I must stop this. I have to change. And now.

One of my Birthday Resolutions, coming soon to an Internets near you in mid-June, is to STOP WITH THE PERFECTIONISM. Especially when all the (imperfect, but still fun) outbound mail is stalled at home. Not in the mail. Or in your mailbox. Or anywhere near Manitoba.

So. Tomorrow is Tuesday. I will wake up a few hours early to do some much needed email maintenance and print some things out. Friday night I will finish assembling the goodness, and Saturday it's off to the Post Office, even if nothing is perfectly perfect. NO MATTER WHAT.

Also, tomorrow I will give you the detailed low-down on THE LOOT!!! With pictures! I've received such cool packages and nice notes and postcards and all manner of goodness. And, please, bear with me. I've had 33 years to entrench myself in My Issues, it may take me a few weeks to work out all the kinks.

But I thank you :) I do I do I do.

P.S. I just need to say it one more time. MANITOBA. Love that word.