People come and go so quickly around here. And by “people,” I mean me. New York, Baltimore: it’s enough to give you whiplash.

New York was fabulous, as usual. It’s lovely to see old friends. Some of you might not realize this, but Beetriss still lives in New York. Beetriss is the grand vizier of Goblin’s interstate empire. No one has ever seen Beetriss, but she very often does the most appalling things. Goblin herself would never dream of doing those things. Goblin is a lady.

So is Faustus, who taught me how to knit.

The lesson took place at a midtown Starbucks, where we claimed a central table and whipped out our balls of yarn amidst the suited wheeler-dealers and the genuine New York Crazies™. Luckily, Faustus is a patient teacher. Knitting for most people is chance to relax or occupy their hands while they focus their minds on something else; knitting for me is a chance to freeze up in anxious consternation and berate myself intensely over the most insignificant of errors. Faustus thinks the point of knitting is to create something, but he is incorrect. The point of knitting (like the point of everything else) is to do something perfectly on the first try. If one cannot manage this, one is doomed to rip out his two rows of work and begin anew as many times as it takes, all while cursing up a storm. Later, in a darkened room, one may curl on the floor with is body tangled in an unraveled skein of yarn and weep inconsolably for all of the knitting projects that will go forever uncreated because he is a fumble-fingered loser who will never amount to anything!

(You should have seen what happened when I took up guitar.)