Brooklyn - check.

There, nestled between the New Age section and the Bibles, is the sock photo.

I have to admit that I had no idea what to expect. I sat next to the delightfuly cranky Elaine who told me about her recent (5 years ago) hip replacements and kept insisting I move to the Upper West Side and didn't even flinch when I replied "death first". She told me all about her knitting group up there in the nosebleeds and how she knitted the pink scarf on the cover of the Loop-d-Loop book since their knitting group was the primary sample knitters pool. And she pointed out various people in the crowd saying "Now, I may be a yarn slut but that one there, she's a yarn whore. And I can say that because I've known her for a long time. So I know it's true and not just a rumor."

Elaine intends to be in the fashion show at the Union Square Knit Out today, sporting one of several blue lace shawls.

Finally Stephanie's cab drive made it over the Manhattan Bridge (I myself made the trek in 20 minutes on the subway, and was then quite pleased to hear about the traffic because I was thisclose to taking a cab myself from sheer laziness) and she dived right in, with not even a hint of a post-cab-traffic stupor.

She was delightful and witty and tossed excerpts from her book in without sounding stilted or false. Her wit does take on a new level when you hear her timing. She has great timing.

I've seen some authors speak well and some speak poorly. The bad ones make you feel like you're in a high school lecture listening to a nun read Houseman. The good ones make you feel as if you're sitting around a tall table in the corner of a bar, a little too tipsy for 4pm. With Stephanie, I could almost feel the beer trickling down my throat.

So when it was over there was a whole book signing thing. They requested that those with kids, extremely pregnant women, disabled people, etc to come to the front first. I stayed in my seat, thinking "well, I'm not extremely pregnant. I can wait." but when ages passed and the little line of special needs knitters hadn't shrunk, AND I ran out of yarn, I decided to get up and stick myself up there with the feeble and infirm (actually, 2 women with babies, a pregnant woman - definitely qualifying as "extremely" and Elaine with her new hips who truth be told was really worried about getting home in time to give a shot to her diabetic cat).

I was glad I did. the 10ish or so minutes I was tired of standing, tired of being awake at all, and had to go to the bathroom. I remembered that it's not just when you're huge that you need a little special care. That having to pee every 30 seconds thing is pretty overwhelming. So I took my place in the little line.

An on-the-ball organizery type person with a lot of sharipes clipped to her decolletage asked me the spelling of my name and slapped a stickie note to a book and handed it to me. Which, when my turn came, I plunked on the table.

Stephanie asked me if I was Marnie of the comments, to which I kind of shrugged and made an intelligent response like "I've commented I think." I'm not a big commenter. I figured it was her polite way of asking "do you read my blog?" Then she clarified "Marnie Talks or something?" And I said "oh, no. that's the other Marnie. The famous one. I'm the not-famous knitting Marnie."

Marnie McLean has designed a bunch of stuff and actually has had things published by someone not her, unlike this Marnie.

"So," Stephanie asked "Which Marnie are you?" to which I kind of muttered "Curly Purly Marnie." And Stephanie, bless her little heart, said "Oh, of course, you are famous! I know who you are!" and she turned to an assistantly woman who was standing nearby and said "It's Curly Purly Marnie! You know her, right?" to which I got the perfect, completely blank stare. Like you couldn't create a more blank blank stare if you tried. I was instantly relieved because in those 3 seconds in which the onus of fame weighed heavily on my shoulders - should I be behaving differently? Should I have worn something hand-knit? - I had a mild panic attack.

The blank stare sent me back to comforting anonymity and left me assured that I could behave as badly as I wanted. Stephanie glanced at the book, grabbed her pen to sign it, and without looking up kind of nodded at the sock and said "yYou can go ahead and hold the sock now" in a "put your feet in the stirrups" kind of tone.

There was some discussion about the sock or the weasel and we ended up opting for both. I did not get a photo of this, so you're going to have to take my word for it, but I did, in fact, hold both the sock and weasel (on my shoulder, tipping my head in to steady the poor weasel, who incidentally wears a beaded necklace. I never knew that.)

Then, figuring turnabout to be fair play, I took this photo.



Which I thought was terribly clever of me until the Yarn Harlot suggested that my bear carcass resembled a bifurcated willy warmer.