In case you missed or were wilfully ignoring the previous announcement, I’ll be reading tonight at this party. Stalk me and Mimi and Sour Bob and other pretty people. I’ll be the one in the denim jacket. You’ll be the one in camouflage, right? Ooh, you know what it takes to impress me.

You don’t even want to know how wiggy I got when a friend referred me to this StitchGuide site, which features cunning little Quicktime videos demonstrating various knitting stitches. I could lie to you and tell you that I like watching these clips because they’re helpful. However, the truth is that I do not view them for educational purposes: I watch them because, well, they sort of excite me. I mean when I first clicked on this one, I got this little mental tingle, like, “Yeah! That’s it! Just like that! Yeah!” I played it a couple more times and I swear I thought, “I can’t wait to go home and do that to some YARN.” This is pure stitch-on-stitch action and I can’t get enough.

And come on: look at the nails on those hands. Do I not have a point? While I don’t mean to cast skanky aspersions on the skilled and likely very wholesome owner of those hands, you usually don’t see nails like that onscreen unless they’re pressed into Ron Jeremy’s ass cheeks. However the lighting in these videos is very nice: soft and tasteful, like Cinemax.

I’m not so much into this stuff. I don’t know, it just looks uncomfortable. I’d want to use a safe word.

I’m not saying I’m freaky or anything. But you can’t ignore the fact that the word “knit” is “kink” spelled, you know, backwards and wrong. SO WRONG IT’S RIGHT, BABY. So wrong it’s right.

I’m pretty sure that yesterday I had a visual migraine. The kindly elder doctor on that page describes precisely what happened to me and his nice friendly face and very informative article reassures me that I probably do not have a brain parasite. I had been knitting and I hadn’t really been paying attention to the sort of swimmy motion going on in the peripheral vision to the right of me; I just assumed that things in that corner of the room were really… uh, busy. Then I realized something was up and I FREAKED OUT just a little.

Okay, so when I was in NYC Doug picked me up from the airport and gave me a ride back, so the very least I can do is vote for his band to win this big battle of the band thingy. If they win they’ll get a chance for a record contract with Epic, which is almost as cool as a free ride to LaGuardia, I think. Did you ever have anyone do something like that for you and you felt like you couldn’t thank them enough? Well, then you should vote for Doug’s band, too.

Also, to be fair, I listened to the other bands. The other bands sound like poo and their band names are tepid and silly. We don’t need any more groups using the Adjectivenoun Smooshedtogether formula, or calling themselves American Vaguely High-Concept Something-Or-Other, or being all serious and going by a name that sounds like a book about recovery. (I don’t know what to say about the extremely meek-sounding solo artist stage name. The only thing really going for it is that it doesn’t end with “Imbruglia.”) Anyway: they’re pure ass, those other bands. They’re mouth-breathers who don’t have it in them to do brilliant songs like this in their spare time.

Also? I feel bad for when Doug parked his car by Central Park so we could visit the Met, and I thought he checked the meter so I didn’t ask if he’d paid it, even though I’m usually really compulsive about that thing, and it turned out he didn’t check the meter and he got a BIG TICKET. You know how that happens sometimes with people you know and their cars? And you’re like, “God, sorry, man,” and they’re all “that’s okay, it’s not your fault,” and you know that of course it’s not your fault at all but you still feel an icy little pit of helpless regret deep inside? VOTE FOR DOUG’S BAND AND THAT FEELING WILL GO AWAY FOREVER.

What are you doing on Friday? You could come to this thing at Ann Sather’s and see me read. Or you could come to see other people read and just, you know, humor me. You can BYOB. You can B me YB. Chances are I’ll be a little nervous and could use a little B. B it on. Yes.

I really should just show you my photos from New York and end it at that. Not pictured: Flocks of wild turkeys seen on the Merritt Parkway between Connecticut and New York, causing occasional traffic delays; buskers on the subway trains who used paper bags full of change as nifty little rhythmical instruments to such charming effect that I was afraid of being caught smiling (nobody else was on the R train); a hot knish; a mind-bogglingly slow wiener dog in a sweater on Sixth Avenue; Doug and his wife being swell hosts (though there are some pics on his site and audio commentary, too); sunrise on Sheepshead Bay; Kat; patterned hose; the very cozy House Of Dana; White Castle, and a sign in Chinatown for the Dream Come True Beautiful Hair Salon.

Many have written to explain the straws. In general the mouths of New York are more cautious than my own. I’m told that unspeakably filthy things happen on and around innocent East Coast soda cans while they are in storage. It’s not like out here, where hymn-singing Mennonite children carefully wipe the morning dew off each can of Diet Coke with a fresh towel. Fine, so I never thought much about where the top of my can has been. But come on, not every can is on top of the pallet where the rats scurry. Maybe I’ll take my chances.

I’m sorry to everyone I haven’t emailed back lately on account of being in New York and I’m sorry to everyone in New York that I didn’t get to see while in New York, and to everyone I haven’t yet emailed about how I didn’t get to see them while I was, well, you-know-where. I hope to return in the fall.