Post 54

Ok, so about New York, what can I say? I LOVED IT. I think I'm loving it more and more everyday, and I'm no longer there. I visited NYC once when I was 14, of that visit I remember the Empire States Building, a horse carriage ride in Central Park, ice skating in Rockefeller Center and visiting my dads cousin at work, in one of the towers, but that was a kids memory of the city. Going back when your an adult, everything is different. I think my impressions of the city are different because I live in a large city myself, now, so the constant noise and traffic, is normal. There's a trade-off between Manhattan and Chicago, where Manhattan kicks our ass is in their mass transit system, but then we Chicagoans have no trouble walking the streets here because we don't have trash piling up all over the place, you win some, you loss some. Of the YarnHarlot lecture, well that was as expected, very funny, very big and a nice excuse to go on this trip. If you're a knitter I would recommend letting the yarnstores be the anchoring points for visiting the different neighborhoods. Linda and I went to 8 yarn stores over the weekend, yes, 8, and each in a different area. We went downtown, uptown, upper east, upperwest, soho, gramercy park, and the west village. If you want to read a more detailed version go to Linda's blog here:www.gardenpurls.blogspot.com, she wrote up a little something for our guild newsletter, and if you want to see pictures, check out flickr.com/photos/misslunablu. I'm still in the slow process of writing the details, there are alot of pictures of yarn stores, central park, the Dakota and food. (yea, I'm weird) Speaking of the Dakota and the city, now that I've been there and walked around it ALOT, I find myself watching TV shows, movies and reading books that take place in the city and trying to figure out where that is and if I went there. I'm really fascinated with the history, I even checked out where the Gangs of New York storyline took place, which was a couple of blocks east of Seaport Yarns. I usually keep a movie in my vhs player at night and fall asleep to a it, I think I'm going to have to dig up The Age of Innocence, it takes place there, albeit 1oo years ago. More perks of the trip beside some awesome sock yarn is that I met Guido from It's a Purl, Man, I had never listened to his podcast, so I'm starting from episode 1. On the otherhand, during our conversation I casually mentioned I had met Franklin of The Panopticon, so he was a little envious. As naive as this sounds, what the trip taught me, was not to be ashamed to be a knitter, to live and breathe it. We all need a hobbie to keep ourselves occupied and at least by making something there's a tangible record of your existence. I'm dork eh?