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Mariko sent me the BEST list of running tips. I can’t thank her enough for that. Especially this one: – Please don’t knit yourself a jogbra. I don’t think it will be very effective (you are, after all, a loose knitter).

I’ve got errands to run today, and I just hate that. I wish that you could do EVERYTHING on the internet sometimes. I was one of the first people to order groceries from WebVan when they went into business. I abhor grocery shopping (and most kinds of shopping, yarn excluded), so I thought it was brilliant that I could sit up in the wee sma’s clicking on what kind of tomato I preferred most, and that some strong young man would deliver it two days later, bringing the boxes down my stairs for me! It was like a miracle.

*Sniff*

The good old days….. WebVan’s gone now, and I can’t afford the actual store delivery prices…..

Today I have to go spend my monthly hundred dollars on the prescription cat food that keeps Digit alive and grumpy. Then I have to go stand in a huge line for the birth control pills that are obviously not necessary for anything but pain management, and which my insurance will not dispense to me in any greater quantity than one month at a time. Because I might sell them on the black market? Pssst…. Gotcher top-grade progesterone right now, kid. Dime bag. Innerested?

Then, what else? I know I have to go somewhere else. Oh, yeah. The grocery store. I’ll hit Trader Joe’s, which lessens the overload on my system by being easier than somewhere like Safeway. At least I like most of their stuff and don’t have to navigate through Processed Cheese and Chip land quite so much. But Bay Area Trader Joe’s stores might kill you. Really. People are crazy inside, and it’s worse in the parking lots. At the Emeryville one, I used to park across the street in the hotel parking lot and then walk back to my car with my loaded bags, just so I could avoid the BMWs vying for first place in the I-Beat-You-To-The-Stoplight race.

Then, though, I have to go to the yarn store. No, really. I do. I have to go. I lost my Article Pract measuring tape somewhere on the trip, probably on the plane home, since I know I saw it there last. I rarely lose anything, but this is a GREAT thing to lose. I should lose it more often. Not only does it promote my fave store, but it means I have to go back and visit Christina. I swear I won’t look at yarn. Uh-huh.

Ugh. Besides that last, I don’t want to leave the house. Family’s coming in to town, though, for sister Christy’s graduation from Berkeley with her master’s (whoo hoooooo!), so I kinda have to possess the rough approximation of nourishment in my house. A remainder of gouda (ooh! Hungry!) and fourteen beers left over from camping ain’t gonna convince my mother I’m living healthy. I am, Mom, I swear. I ate two bananas yesterday…..

Off to it. Mwah.

Just a couple of things:
A dead fish sachet. Wins as funniest knitted object I’ve seen in a long time.
And the whole wide world, knitted. Wanderlust, indeed.

https://rachaelherron.com/just_a_couple_o/

With her permission, I give you the only work-safe campin’ photo I have, Kelly knitting. This doesn’t show the beer or the dog at her feet:

It is a little odd, this new home. Yarn-A-Go-Go. I write. I knit. I yarn. Brenna has fixed me all up, and you can officially update your links. Please? Yippee!

Okay, now I can’t think of anything I want to say. Huh.

Actually, there’s too much I want to say. I wrote today, in the sun, outside, writing for the first time on my garden swing. I KNEW I bought the one with a sun-shade for a reason. It’s my writing swing (and my reading and napping swing, too). Damn, it feels really good to re-claim what I know was already true, and give it voice and authority in my on-line life.

I never meant to have a knitting blog. Really. When I started blogging two years ago, it was just a place for me to write, to get my thoughts focused, to jumpstart the real writing. But I was a knitter, too, and I liked to read the knitting sites. When I moved to Typepad last year, it was easier for me to connect with knittin’ buddies, what with that elegant commenting feature ‘n’all. But I never joined the big knitting ring, never described myself as a knit-blog, although that is what I became. And I’m happy about it, too. I’ve made some of the best friends I’ve ever had, right here, because of the knittin’.

But really, I’m a writer. Yup.

[Aside, does my kitty up there really look like he’s heaving up a hair ball? I’ll have to change him again….. Yes, my cats throw up yarn. Now there’s some yarn-a-go-go for you. Ah, well. There’s only so much playing around one can do with copyright-free graphics and not lose one’s mind…. I’ll do it later.]

Speaking of losing one’s mind, I canNOT focus today and track a single thought. I’m thinking about too many things. Right now, I’m primarily trying not to think about the fact that I’m trying to turn into a runner. I know. I don’t run. As Greta says, I’ll run only if something is chasing me. Or if the ice-cream truck is moving too quickly down the street. Why, oh, WHY is the desire to run taking me over right now? I called a friend on Monday and asked her to lunch, knowing full well that she’s my shopping buddy. I pretty much hate to shop, so whenever I have a shopping chore, she comes along. I told, “I need to buy running shoes.” Instead of snorting, which my other friends have done with much glee, she asked me to run a marathon.

Let me say that again: She asked me to run a marathon. In Hawaii. The AIDS marathon. In December.

I said yes.

It might be the most stupid yes I’ve ever said, and maybe that’s why I couldn’t think of what to write today, because I’m trying not to confess what I did to y’all, my readers, who might somehow think they should hold me accountable FOR RUNNING A MARATHON. Mariko? Honey? We need to talk. Mariko and her friend Hedi are marathon queens. Hedi told me recently, “I think I’m going to run a marathon in every state.” (I think I’m going to eat ice-cream in every state, is that kind of the same thing?) And they’re about the size of both of my cats put together. Now, I’m a healthy girl. Shall I call myself big-boned? Sure, why not?

A marathon? Cripes.

I’m reserving the right to flake. But I’m going to put my shoes on in a minute here and go for my second (ever) run. Training starts second week of June, and I don’t want them to know I can’t even run up two flights of stairs without turning beet-red. Good god.

See? As soon as I got honest with you, the tongue was loosened, wasn’t it? Oy.

Still fiddling with the site and its new name. It’ll take a few days to go-go all the way over to yarnagogo, but with BRENNA’S awesome help, it’ll happen. Seriously, typepad users? How much do we love her, our technical support? I haven’t yet asked her a question to which the answer wasn’t glaringly obvious once I understood it, but she never makes me feel stooopid. Not like the domain registrar’s customer service dude today, with his heavy sighs and unwillingness to listen to me (and his ultimately wrong answers). And Brenna, I swear, works about 27 hours a day, 8 days a week. Props to you, gal. To Brenna’s boss: Brenna needs a raise. A big one.

I added a kitty up top to the new graphic, see?

Such a dork, me. Mwah.

Dude. Weird, huh? You like? I needed a clean-up, a little change. It’s like reorganizing the cupboards – addictive late at night.

Yarnagogo.com. That’s me now. You’ll see me around blogland with my new name. You can update your links, or you can leave ‘em (rachaelherron.com will also get to me). I’ll always be in a glass house, but I was ready to honor both parts of me: the writing and the knitting. I feel like I’ve spent too much time lately being a knitter. I’m forgetting that primarily, I’m a writer. My little writing/yarn gal up there will serve to remind me that the yarn is behind the desk, ready to be pulled out and played with after the writing is done for the day. I tell yarns, and I knit them. In that order.

You know?

Camping rocked. Y’all were right, I got there and had a magnificent time. Rippin’ and roarin’, both were going on. For the first time ever on a camping trip, I wasn’t mocked for knitting; I was actually joined by one gal. And two or three others did knit and regretting not bringing it along. I didn’t get much done. There was a lot of beer. And I mean a LOT of beer. I’m detoxifying now. Lordy. Somehow I missed getting an official hangover, but I have that old college ache in my knees. You know that muscle pain you get? After that much alcohol? No? You forgot? Yeah, I had too. I am 31, not 21. One doesn’t process the booze the same way, thank god. No one could keep up that pace. Or at least, no one should. Happy to be home, happy to be alone in my little house. No camping photos. They could be considered quite incriminating.

And thanks for the tank compliments! To several requests for the pattern, I tell you, I ain’t got one, since I ripped off both top and bottom from different patterns. But here’s the idea:

Find a lace pattern you like. Swatch, find your gauge. Figure out how big around you want it to be (I used my bust measurment) and futz (the official term) with the numbers until the lace matches up (or don’t, like I did, and just throw in some yarn overs under the arm every once in a while. Makeshift lace). Knit straight up, no shaping, it is lace after all, for about 12 inches. Then use the shapely tank top pattern (thanks, Joan!), knitting stockinette stitch for a couple of inches and then jumping in at the armhole part. Put in 2 yarn over/decrease combos of your choosing in the middle of the tank after the lace section, every four rows or so. Enough to run a tie through, that’s all y’need. That’s it. I didn’t even finish the underarms, cause they don’t matter. You know? Try it! Let me know how it goes.