Chptr 34: Ode to Bookstores with Lots of Yarn Books*

Mine!  Mine!  Mine!

One thing I did not share about yesterday’s stoned (albeit in a medically prescribed way, so I’m not starting my sobriety count over again, dammit) (and, yes, may as well come out now:  I’m a white, lesbian, Russian style which is 'backwards' knitting AND crocheting, 40-something, fibromyalgic (see, I’m owning my reality here), SOBER born-this-way woman)… ack.  Need to start that sentence over again

One thing I did not share about yesterday’s trip was the visit we took to a large, shall not be named, chain bookstore.  (If I find out they have health benefits for part-time workers and allow domestic partner health insurance, I will name them.)  The Bookstore had a great (although not magnificent) yarnie section on knitting and crocheting.  I wanted to show Meredith that I was not alone in my knitting and yarn obsession, and to keep her occupied while I cruised the racks like a predator, I put a book of Yarn Harlot essays in her hands.

Yarn Harlot, I love you.  (And while yes, I am gay, no, not like THAT.)

Should this posting dissolve into a puddle right now?  (I’m tearing up.)

Meredith is speed reader and at one point, she looked up and said “I really like her.” (Yarn Harlot, that is.)  And put her nose back down and I had time to really get into my look at the books. 

Because I wasn’t going to buy one.  Really, I wasn’t.  I was just there to show Meredith that WE yarn people are a legitimate demographic.  But… they had Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby.  In soft cover. 

I pulled it out the rack, and snuck a glance at Meredith.  Safely absorbing The Secret Life of a Knitter.  I pretended I hadn’t put it down to the side and went back to looking through the shelves of titles.  I reminded myself I’m on a budget and when I had checked Victorian Lace out of the library last year, I didn’t end up making anything from it.

Devil Stasher inside me whispered, “Yes, but that was last year – you’re a much better lace knitter now.  You’ve finished 2 lace projects and started 25 more.  You need this book for your very own.”

Budget Stasher inside me yelled, “Girl, you just got 3 skeins of Colinette Mohair from a Ravelry member in Helsinki today AND you have the pattern for it, and you got 3 more skeins of Colinette Mohair from a vendor in the UK on Tuesday AND you have a pattern for it, and let’s not forget the trip you took to Looped Yarn Works on Wednesday and the Blue Heron Rayon Metallic skein and the 2 skeins of Kidsilk Haze, AND the purchase you made on eBay this morning from Shanghai of 200 stitchmarkers and plastic tapestry needles" (I am in a stitchmarker crisis, more another time) "and the three patterns you have downloaded using Paypal from Ravelry designers this week  – girl, you done used up your yarn money in a budgeting scenario that takes retirement into consideration for the last two YEARS in this week alone and even if you did have a budget you are sticking to which you don’t and which if you did have you would be violating big-time.  And did you not just commit to knit through Vogue Shawls & Wraps?  You know this book would be a distraction.  Put. It. Back.” (Please note that Budget Stasher channels Queen Latifah in kick-him-to-the-curb-sister mode.)

Devil Stasher whispered, “Pretty.  Look how pretty.”

I gazed at the cover.  I wanted to be that woman, confidently meandering on very high heels out of a country house with very high French doors, with an artistic breeze blowing my artistic skirt in a flattering flutter, while I gracefully and effortlessly (think ballerina fingers) shape my hands into accessories that present my main attraction: A Very Green and Lacy Shawl.

Devil Stasher whispered “This belongs to you already… you know it, I know it, the library that fined you $20 in overdue fees because you wouldn’t return it knows it… “

“Shut up.  Just shut up,” I said (probably out loud) . “You had me at ‘Pretty’.”

It was time to leave the yarn books, my oasis, my peoples, my pages and StichnBitch Nation.  I looked again at Victorian Lace Today.  Too big to hold casually until we got to the exit where I could just dash over to the checkout counter and avoid  talking about buying the book until after the deed was done.

I had to be bold.  I held the book out to Meredith.  “I love this and I’m going to get it.  I shouldn’t get it.” I put it back on the shelf.  I pouted.  I took it back off   “No.  I need this. I’m getting it.”

Meredith, clueless to the chattering of Devil Stasher and Budget Stasher continuing in my head, said, “OK.”

I love her.  And I love Victorian Lace Today.  I fondled it proudly all the way to the checkout counter, stroking its smooth virgin covers, front and back, which would likely soon be marked with multiple coffee mug rings.  I looked ridiculous.  I was still moderately in la-la-getting-used-to-and-taking-too-much-of-Lyrica-land.   I didn’t have the guilty flinches at the register, no, I demurely gazed at the book while I forked over her fee, thinking hot thoughts about later. 

Writing about this this morning, I realize that once out of the bookstore, I have not thought about Victorian Lace Today very much.  I have not taken her out of the Wooly Ewe bag I just happened to have with me yesterday in the store and I have not strolled through her pages.  I have not seen That Pattern and scrambled through my stash and needles, and my G.D. stitchmarkers, wondering if I have what it takes. 

I saved that for today. 

(Devil Stasher is gloating.)

_______

* Please notice that I am being politically correct, craft version, to crocheters and weavers and all forms of yarnistas and tatters.  (yes, there is something called tatting, and it’s really quite interesting and my grandmother did it and left me her tatting stuff but I could never quite figure it out.  One day.)  (Don’t laugh.)