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That is, bar none, my favorite street sign in San Francisco. Click for big and crazy-pants-edness. Which way are you going? (ATTN: NICOLE PEELER: That sign is mere blocks — BLOCKS! — from the House of Meat Prime Rib.)

I remember when I didn't like driving in the city. I hated it. I was scared of it. I'm not one of those drivers who worries I'll go the wrong way on a one-way street — I just didn't know where things were. I was worried I'd accidentally end up on the freeway and shunted out of the freeway into Daly City or something (oh, wait, that happened once).

But somehow, in the past five years or so, I've gotten so that I like driving in San Francisco. There's a kind of thrill to it. When I was growing up, we spent some years in the East Bay, and I remember my dad driving us around the city in one of our many VW vans, careening up and down hills, yelling that old Bill Cosby line, "Come around, idiot, come around!" One of those vans lost its bumper and Dad made one out of wood. I remember thinking that was cool. And he always said that driving in the city took a certain amount of daring, and said that people who drove in San Francisco were CRAZY.

Well, they are crazy, but not including the taxis (who are out of their frikken minds), they're no crazier than anywhere else, and Oakland has WAY crazier drivers. I've lived in Oakland now for thirteen years, and nowhere in the world have I seen some of the things I see there on a regular basis. So when I go to the city, it's almost relaxing in comparison. Sometimes, when I'm a little lost, I get on the tail of a taxi and make their moves, following in their wake, and it's like a carnival ride, all honking and ahOOgahs, and I usually end up figuring out where I need to go eventually.

And I just realized this: I think the reason I'm more relaxed about driving now is the fact that I always have an interactive map in my pocket. When I get lost, I can pull over, figure out where I am, zoom in and out, look at satellite images, and figure it out. Isn't that AMAZING? When we were driving back from Yosemite the other day and took that back road, it wasn't until we were kind of lost that I realized we had neither a cell phone signal nor a California map in the car. So we followed our noses, and asked the advice of a very nice woman at a gas station (just like in the old days!) and found our way home.

But it's nice to be (mostly) unafraid of driving in San Francisco. And I love that crazy-pants sign.

I'm writing you a little note here to remind you of some things that you would do well to keep in mind for camping at Strawberry Music Festival next year.

#1 – Three cases and six 6-packs of beer is too much. I know you ran out of beer in 2009, but dude, you won't run out if you bring two cases. Not even close.

#2 – Along the same lines, five boxes of cookies were too much. Three would have been enough. A metric crapload of potato chips, however, especially the Salted Kettle chips, is appropriate. 

#3 – Start the drive at 6am. Not kidding. You almost didn't get a good spot this year because you left at 7am.

#4 – Arlo Guthrie is never, ever to be missed. Remember when you wrote in a blog post about the Strawberry Festival of 2001:

My best memory of a festival (and I have so many) was when Arlo Guthrie sang "City of New Orleans." I remember
standing in the kitchen, years ago, and the song came on whatever radio
show Mom was listening to. I said, "God, I love this song. I don't know
why I love this so much, but I really do. It's weird." Mom just
stopped, and stared. She said, "You know, this was our song. I used to
dance you to sleep to this every night." When Arlo sang it, I was
sitting next to Mom, who had just been diagnosed with colon cancer (in
remission now, thank God). We held hands while he sang, and I was so
happy, to be there next to her, in the dark, the moon behind us, the
family around us. Couldn't be better.

Well, when he sang it this year, your heart broke wide open and you cried like a baby in the dark. You were the only Herron to make it to Strawberry this year, and you missed your family something fierce although you were happy to camp with people who are also, in another way, your family. 

#5 – When you are called upon to perform "Hungry Like the Wolf" in front of hundreds of people at the Chickwagon stage, it's best to do so in full wolf face paint (picture of face to follow in another post — the camera is buried in a bag somewhere right now). Also, howling helps.The audience has been drinking free margaritas and will help.

#6 – That night, it's best to take off the face paint with a wet wipe before you go to bed. Trust me on this.

#7 – Do not, under any circumstances, buy a goldurned pool toy to use in the lake. You always buy one, you always blow it up, you never use it, and you always throw it out as you leave, because you never remember this rule. 

#8 – Make sure that in your camp you have at least one player for each of these: banjo, guitar, accordion, stand-up bass, and ukulele. If you can get a fiddler also, that's nice, but not necessary. The aforementioned combination ensures your site will RULE, and no one will ever get to sleep before 3am (except on the last day when you're too cumulatively hungover to stay up past 10pm. This is the night the teenagers rule the campground). 

#9 – When you leave, drive 30 minutes away from camp and then make that
left turn toward Coulterville and follow 132 to Modesto, then north on
99. What an incredibly gorgeous drive — exactly what your dream of California looks like — without that terrifying drop down Old Priest Grade and none of the backup at the 120 turn. You made the right choice taking that
one. (Except this: If you ever get the teardrop trailer of your dreams,
stick to 120).

#10 – Always hire Josephina if possible to petsit the menagerie. They looked almost disappointed to see you when you got home because you weren't her. 

#11 – When you get home, write yourself a list of everything that's in both the camping box and the camp-kitchen box, and then write yourself a big note to put in there that says READ BLOG POST 09/06/10. Because you'll never remember you posted this if you don't.

Good morning! After this evening, I'm going OFFLINE. (I know — what lurks out there in that wasteland? I have no idea. It's been a really long time, and I'm looking forward to it.) So if you need me, send up a flare or call one of my sisters, because I'll be camping, without even so much as a single bar of cell reception. (Attention burglars: We have a fantastic petsitter who isn't scared of anything, and our pit bull Clementine doesn't like intruders. That said, the tomatoes are finally getting ripe — please don't enter the house (as stated, Clemmy won't appreciate it), but if you take a tomato or two, no one will mind.) 

(Wait. On second thought, don't take the tomatoes. I've only had four.)

While I'm gone, I'm posting this great bit on genre vs. literary fiction. It's a battle I still fight within myself, because I'm trained in the literary tradition — I feel like I know what it's supposed to look like, taste like. However, my tastes (and my writing style) run right to genre and plop down crosslegged, pulling out the knitting and staying a while. So when Jenny Crusie gabs with Jennifer Weiner about genre and Franzen's new book (which I don't think I'm going to read, but feel free to try to change my mind), I listen. (I LOVE Crusie's writing workshops. Oh, but had I attended something like that in grad school. Seriously. My mind would have BLOWN. She is good at craft.)

Excerpted from the excellent and much longer blog HERE:

Have you been
following the controversy over the praise and attention lavished on
Jonathan Franzen for his new novel, FREEDOM? Are you planning on
reading the book? Do you think there’s a difference between the way
women’s stories and men’s stories are perceived, and reviewed? Do you
think things are getting better?

I’ve had my knife
out for Franzen ever since he dissed Oprah viewers as Not His Kind, so
no, I won’t be reading his book since he made it very clear he didn’t
want me (“Hi, I’m from the Midwest, I’m female, and I wear a lot of
knits!”). I haven’t read the reviews, but didn’t somebody call it the
best book of the twenty-first century? Making the next ninety years
irrelevant? That’s fanboy stuff—“BEST BOOK EVAH!”—so I’m not paying
much attention, but it appears to be part and parcel of the whole
Literary Group Think, something I got more than my share of doing an
MFA in fiction. One of my profs said, “Jenny, you write so well. Have
you ever thought about writing literature?” I said, “No,” because it
was easier than explaining that literary fiction is just another genre,
not God’s Library. The people who say, “I write for the canon” have
forgotten or never knew that the canon doesn’t read. People read.
Fiction is not beautiful writing although that’s wonderful; fiction is
storytelling. It’s putting narrative on the page that moves and
transforms people, and because there are many, many different kinds of
people in the world, there are many, many different kinds of fiction.
There’s nothing wrong with The Literary Group—they know what they like
when they read it—until they start insisting that what they like is
what everybody should like, and refusing to teach anything but literary
fiction in creative writing programs and refusing to review anything
but their definition of literary fiction in their publications. That’s
a mistake: I think they’ve marginalized themselves and are becoming
more and more irrelevant. Jon Stewart sells more books than a rave
review in the NYT. Nora Roberts and Stephen King reach more people than
Franzen ever will. There’s the real world full of a multitude of
readers with a multiplicity of reading tastes, and it’s thriving and
alive and interacting on the net, changing and growing and exciting
because of its fluidity and passion, and then there’s the New York
Times Book Review which is born ceaselessly back into the past by the
literary version of the Tea Party who keep moaning that they want their
America back, oblivious to the fact that their exclusive white, male
America died with Gatsby. I’m much happier being part of the “All right
then, I’ll go to hell” bunch. That’s where the party is.

* Rachael, back again. I agree with all of this, wholeheartedly. However, there's a subsection of writers she doesn't mention, and that's the one into which Cari Luna fits (along with others, I'm sure) — Cari writes gorgeous literary fiction and still appreciates moderately-well-written genre fiction (into which category I hope I fit). Yep. (And then there are the readers who gobble up both literary and genre fiction — me again — and and and…) 

Anyway. Food for thought. Offline soon, and have a good Labor Day Weekend!

Ahem. They released the promo pictures for Off The Needles, the knitting pin-up calendar! And I was thrilled silly to see that Jasmin of the Knitmore Girls is not only my fellow month, but she's my birth month, Miss July! And since it's much easier to blog a picture of someone else, here's Jasmin, looking sexy as hell:

Look how cute she is! Ooops! Did I drop my yarn? Can you help me with that?  

For those of you not in the know (all seven of you), Jasmin and her mother Gigi run the extremely popular podcast, the Knitmore Girls. I absolutely love this podcast, and here's why: They're real knitters and lovely, lovely women. The knitting is part of their lives, it's in their blood, and they just sit and chat. Mother and daughter together, they shoot the breeze about what's gone on with each of them recently, what has and hasn't worked in their knitting (or in their lives).

Jasmin is a fellow Mills alum, something we had immediately in common. Mills women often feel an immediate kinship with each other, and when you marry knitting with Mills? Back off, everyone else in the room. When those connections are uncovered, instant BFFs are created. She's smart as a whip, has an amazing radio/podcast voice, and I could listen to her talk about burnt toast.

And mom Gigi? I'm not sure if you know this, but she's as gorgeous as Jasmin. Amazing hair, and oh, the STRUCTURE of her cheekbones. One of my favorite features of the podcast is the segment called "Mother Knows Best." Because, you know, she does.

You know what I love most about the podcast? I love hearing two women take so much pleasure in talking to each other — Mom and daughter obviously love each other, and more than that, respect each other. The way they talk speaks volumes about their relationship. I would adore their show even if I didn't miss my mother like I do, and I love it more because of it.

Plus, Jasmin is just plain COOL. You know? You see her coming, and you think, DAMN, she's awesome, and then she smiles at you and talks to you and you think: YAY! I try to pick up any cool points she drops when I'm around her.

She's blogging my picture over at her blog, because we should both  promote the calendar, but it's HARD to put up pics like these, for some reason. I can know that you read my book with its spicy bits, and I blog pictures of myself like there's no tomorrow, but I'm shy about this for some reason. (And if you'd like to pre-order one of the calendars, more pics are up HERE and by purchasing one HERE, you can help assure that they make their fund raising goal.)

I have ten minutes to do the drawing! I said I'd do it on Saturday, and so I will, but I have to hurry!

Quick drumroll…. 

GALLEY WINNERS

The winner from mailing list (I'll be giving more galleys away, make sure you're on it!) is…. E.Amber! Woot!

And the winner from the comments is…. Jody Knitnthings! Yay!

I'll be emailing you (now) and thanks all, for commenting and huzzah!

Now I'm off to bed. Yep. Mwah.

My reading tomorrow at Rabbit Ears has been postponed! It will now be on November 7th. Sorry for any hassle that creates!

And also this, just in — the cover of Book Two in the Cypress Hollow series in Australia, known there as Lucy's Kiss. I LOVE this cover. It goes so well with the first one, Eliza's Gift, and it's just so damn CUTE.

Isn't it funny how different it is from the American version, How to Knit a Heart Back Home? (Shown yesterday, don't forget to enter that post's comments for a chance to win a galley!) I love both covers. I'm so lucky!