Tuesday started (I mean the fun part started, nobody wants to know how my 8am class and later campus errands went, right?) with
Mandie calling and saying "I feel like I just bought a time machine." (The reference was to Monday's Big Bang Theory, and if you ever get to the point that you realize your nerdiness is reaching new levels and maybe it's gone too far, you know the feeling...)
Fast forward a couple hours, we both figured out both what we're wearing and what we're knitting (because dude, it's early afternoon and we're in this thing till late evening, we can't risk running out!), and we headed north - because a Harlot kind of day wouldn't be complete without a stop at a yarn shop. Stitches & Scones was full of people and totally psyched. They were complimentary of my Tuscany shawl, which was kind of cool. Spent lots of time, petted lots of yarn (S&S is very good about having lots of Dream in Color and feeding my addiction in that direction), and left at a time that felt dangerously late. Seriously. It was four. She was speaking at 7. Of course, the other magic thing about S&S is that it feels like a really long way from anywhere when you're driving there, but not that far on the way back. Also the Barnes and Noble in question is basically in Westfield, but anyway.
We get there and get settled, between
Tammany and
Kristen, with
spicyfleece Holly and a group on the other side. And wow, was that place a vortex of knitterly energy. People were talking, knitting, laughing at the staff who betrayed some iota of how freaked out they had to have been, all that. Mandie and I spent some time talking about Traveling Salesman problems, as it relates to the Harlot's tour. Good times. Signing tickets were gotten, books were prepurchased (I got three, for me, my mother-in-law, and for
Paige - who had the rotten luck of having a math final the very hour that the Harlot was speaking.), and after we found food, it was about time.
She came, we did the wave. She spoke, we laughed. There were books signed and pictures taken, and man, but it was awesome.
She's an amazing person, no doubt, and I thank her for her time and energy. I came home entirely drained from just attending, I can't imagine what it's like to be at the center of that vortex.
She's posted
her account of Indianapolis, and it's remarkable. I still sometimes feel like I just moved here, even though it's been twenty months now. I read her post and I realized that I recognize those people. Never mind that most of them I met that day, either at Stitches and Scones or in line, but we're all connected now. It's really cool. I'm not sure where I'd be without this yarn-obsessed community, but I am thankful for it.
(And those dinosaurs are right near where I work, isn't that cool?!?)
