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Summary
Summary
If you've ever been dumped, duped, or three minutes from crazy, you'll love Crazy Aunt Purl. Side-splittingly funny and profoundly moving, Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair is the true-life misadventures of Laurie Perry, aka Crazy Aunt Purl, a slightly neurotic, displaced Southerner trying to create a new life after her husband leaves her to 'get his creativity back.' (Whatever that means.) But will she get her groove back in a tiny rented apartment, with a mountain of boxes, visible panty lines, and a slight wine-and-Cheetos problem?
"I was a thirty-something woman living alone with four cats. I was probably going to be divorced. I was on the short bus to crazy. I pictured my grandmother making hoop-skirted yarn cozies for the toilet paper. I pictured myself making doilies for furniture that I did not own. I saw my cats wearing knitted hats with lace appliqués. From my vantage point, knitting seemed like 100 percent of some road I did not want to walk down."
Yet, surprisingly, it's knitting that saves her and emboldens her to become fully engaged in life again--to discover new friends; to take risks, however scary; and to navigate the ins and outs of the modern dating scene.
"Dating has changed in a decade. Now there is a higher chance of meeting someone who has an internet porn addiction than someone who has a job. In Los Angeles, your dinner companion might have served time in Pelican Bay or run a meth lab. Or, worst of all, he might spend all night talking about his agent, his craft, and what it means to grow as an actor. Then he'll ask you to read his screenplay."
And such is life in this quirky, irreverent memoir, a spin-off of the blog phenomenon, www.crazyauntpurl.com, one of the most successful online diaries in history, exploding to an international fan base of enthusiastic readers. But don't worry, you don't have to knit to love Aunt Purl. You just have to know what it feels like to have loved, to have lost, or to have taken a leap of faith. We've all been there: Pass the wine.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Perry, a 33-year-old, Southern-born transplant to L.A., was shocked when her husband announced he was leaving her. Granted, he was more a "safe sedan" than a sports car, but she wasn't ready to be single. Perry started avoiding people for fear of crying in front of them and put on pounds with her divorce diet, 60% wine and 40% jalape?o potato chips and French fries. Fortunately, a friend insisted she try knitting, and Perry got hooked. Knitting not only kept her hands busy but it was reassuring: "No matter what the mistake, you could always go back and make it better." She discovered a weekly get-together of smart and funny knitters, women who weren't just focused on finding male companionship. Slowly, Perry learned how to live without the marital safety net, enjoy her girlfriends and start dating in the brave new text-messaging, e-mailing world. Women suffering from bumpy divorces will find comfort in the self-deprecating humor and easy knitting patterns that have made Perry's "Crazy Aunt Purl" blog so popular. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Is Perry's autobiography about substituting one addiction for another? Or is it about her redemption through a hobby (knitting, in this case) and a rediscovery of self? We'd vote for the latter. It starts when her not-to-be-named-here husband announces he needs to find his creativity and leaves. It continues when friends, yearning to help, suggest that knitting is the new yoga and direct her to a Studio City yarn shop to learn. What happens after that is a whirlwind: Laurie gets her mojo back through a welcoming circle of women and through a short-term relationship with a hardware clerk-cum-underwater welder. (Hey, this is Los Angeles!) Postdivorce, her ever-increasing maturity is showcased in print developing and following a personal budget, recognizing that time alone is time well spent, and creating a list of wanted qualities in a mate. All the while she continues to knit, to regain confidence, and to, yes, share with us her nearly one-dozen recipes for accessories. Although no pictures are incorporated, and instructions are all in the narrative format, these knitting patterns feature primarily scarves and hats.--Jacobs, Barbara Copyright 2007 Booklist
Excerpts
Excerpts
There are three rules every Southern girl has hammered into her consciousness, and they shape you and haunt you until the day you die.Cardinal Rule Number One: Mind your manners. This is of course the most important rule, especially early on in your upbringing, as it applies to everything from 'watch your mouth' to 'mind your elders,' and encompasses all forms of behavior from 'elbows off that table rightnow' to 'do not look at me in that tone of voice.' As you get on up in years you learn to mind your manners by not pitching a hissy fit when a smile and firm but pleasant tone will do, and by always being strong and kind, and of course you never smoke standing upright or while wearing your sorority pin. Because that is just tacky. Cardinal Rule Number Two: Make the best of a situation. When delivered by your Uncle Truman or a male teacher or your softball coach, this rule can sound like 'Keep your chin up' or 'Put your game face on.' Sometimes there's a bait-and-switch approach, where you may have (in a moment of weakness) confessed some sad or upsetting thing to a willing human listener, and they reply back with a long, often horribly detailed story of the so-and-so girl who faces a far worse and more disastrous situation than you yourself could even imagine, which I suppose is meant to make you feel better about your own pathetic sob story but on me has the opposite effect. Cardinal Rule Number Three: Always wear clean panties.This particular gem was amended by my mother when I was sixteen, as she warned me in no uncertain terms to always wear clean panties and keep them on.These rules presented for me a dilemma of decorum at the best of times and a true test of character at the worst of times. My comportment was once again in the crosshairs on the day this story begins, a day like any other, really, a completely normal day. Although I was a married woman of thirty-three years of age living in cosmopolitan Los Angeles, California, and working in a downtown skyscraper (I work at a bank, but it sounds more glamorous to say downtown skyscraper), quite a remarkable departure from my small-town roots, I was now facing the trifecta of Southern Cardinal Rules, brought on by a rather strange and airy sensation in the back regions of my gray pinstripe skirt. I felt a draft. Back there.Today, the day of my inconvenient new rear-facing air-conditioning system, was a day of precarious underwear selection. While I had every intention of going home that very evening and facing Mount Washmore, the laundry pile in my bedroom closet, I was currently Making The Best Of Things. The wash-day panties I was wearing were nothing more than a string holding together some cotton, and not only was it an unfortunate thong-style contraption, it had the novelty of being green and red because I was on my Christmas undies. I had not embarked upon any lunchtime calisthenics, or lobbed kung fu kicks on my coffee break, or done anything, really, aside from si Excerpted from Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair: The True-Life Misadventures of a 30-Something Who Learned to Knit after He Split by Laurie Perry All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
Introduction | p. ix |
Part 1 Tightly Wound | p. 1 |
Part 2 Unraveling | p. 39 |
Part 3 Joining Pieces Together | p. 85 |
Knitting Recipes | p. 195 |
The Basic Beginner Scarf | p. 199 |
Beginner Scarf #2 | p. 200 |
Magic Scarf | p. 201 |
Giant Pom-Pom Scarf | p. 205 |
Faux Lacy Scarf | p. 207 |
Easy Roll-Brim Hat | p. 210 |
Cat Tunnel | p. 217 |
Wide-Rib Brim Hat | p. 221 |
Easy Felted Bracelet Bag | p. 226 |
Flower Pom-Pom | p. 232 |
Stashbuster Flower | p. 234 |
Hand-Knit Handbag | p. 236 |
Devil Baby Blanket | p. 238 |
Sexy Shawl | p. 245 |
Cabled Bucket Bag | p. 250 |
Acknowledgments | p. 255 |
Book Club Discussion Questions | p. 257 |