Slacker.

I have been a blog slacker the last couple of weeks, and for that I apologize. It's not that I wanted to neglect my dear readers. I've just run out of gas.

I'm sure it's happened to you. Days when a flamethrower couldn't light a fire under your butt. Like the times when you want to pour yourself a nice cup of coffee and plant yourself in a comfy chair and phone an old friend for a nice, long, uninterrupted talk? But petty demands encroach on your time and before you realize it, days, even weeks, have gone by, and you haven't picked up the phone.

The first week of September was consumed with personal obligations, and the lack of any sort of real break in the heat has been dispiriting. But the thermometer nudged down just a tiny squeak last week, and by Tuesday, I was all ready to write a nice chatty post, and put up finished-object pictures. But after I got some morning paperwork done, I turned on the television to see what the noon news had in store and, of course, it was 9-11 all over again.

The calendar date had honestly slipped my mind. I'd brought the newspaper in, but hadn't opened it, so as not to be distracted from a grant application. I had made coffee and diligently crunched away with calculator and paper for a few hours, when my stomach alerted me to lunchtime and I turned on the TV news.

So much for the chatty, cheerful post I had planned.

I wrote about my own recollections of 9-11 last year (see the archives if you'd like to read that). So I couldn't think of anything new to say on Tuesday.

It's different than my feelings about the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I feel that if I don't bang a drum loud and hard on that day, people who were not directly exposed to the storm or the relief efforts will someday forget.

On 9-11, I have a hard time watching TV -- the visual image of the towers falling over and over again all day long messes me up. My grandfather was a firefighter, and I know exactly where he would have been, if he were in New York City on that day.

However, I can tolerate listening to the radio, and I feel that I am honoring the dead if I listen to the oral history of that day. I just can't watch it anymore. My visual memory is far too clear. So I knit.

Sorry for the lack of recent postings. I'm downsizing my office and moving my operations into the spare bedroom in our house, so I've been swamped the past few weeks.

Coming soon:

• Finished Objects
• The Yarn Harlot Visits New Orleans
• Hat Drive for Covenant House in New Orleans
• Mohair from Hawaii

Stay tuned.