Candy From Friends

Wow, right? This incredibly gorgeous yarn was sent to me by Anna, who shall henceforth be known as Incredibly Generous Anna. Those are two skeins each of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Lakeview, and Lorna's Laces Swirl DK in Valentine. And the colors are even more vibrant and lovely in person. Sigh. They are now sitting in a pile on my chair looking like candy.

She also sent me a soy candle which melts into massage oil. How freakin' cool is that whole concept? And a carry-your-knitting bag from Loopy Yarns. And Miss Kitty got her very own care package, too, comprised of a pair of excellent woolly catnip mice (she went right for them) and a passel of nice and smelly dried fish (which we may be sharing with our neighbor cats, as she kind of licked them and then walked away, which just proves the eternal unpredictability of cat behavior).

Thank you, Anna!!! I think I may have to cast on for some Swirl mittens right this very minute.

It's been a week of realizing that there are real people out there reading these words, just as I am reading theirs, and that we all interact in this strange blind cocktail party that is the Internet. And though it often seems like science fiction, or that we're all characters in a book, we are instead this queer brand of friends who've simply never met. I suppose it is nothing new - penpals have been around for ages, and in the days before quick and (relatively) easy travel, friends who lived in different towns would go months or years between visits.

So maybe it's not so odd.

But it feels odd. Like the magic that allows strangers on a train to get to know each other in an afternoon. Or how I walked into a certain bike shop and suddenly felt right at home. Lately all of human interaction seems a blur and a conundrum to me. I just feel dizzy with it. I fall in love at the drop of a hat - or into infatuations that are hard to explain. I make big decisions on a dime, and stop momentarily to wonder, and decide that it just feels right, and proceed full steam ahead.

The only constants are wind and water and me and my cat. And the cat and I are given to strange nocturnal activities. I find myself dancing on the subway platform a lot lately.