Single, Snarky, and Covered in Canines

by

Andi Miller

I am a firm believer that certain books tend to wiggle into our lives at just the right moment when they can be of the utmost impact and comfort. Such was the case as I read Crazy Aunt Purl’s Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair: The True-Life Misadventures of a 30-Something Who Learned to Knit After He Split, by Laurie Perry (AKA Crazy Aunt Purl). I admit, based on the cover, I thought I might be embarking upon fluff, but I really did not give it so much as a second thought because having arrived back in Texas from North Carolina, having survived a 20+ hour trek with my dog and a Prius full of the junk I affectionately call my possessions, I was not looking for DeLillo when I picked up this book.

Perry’s memoir is a spinoff of her phenomenally successful blog, Crazy Aunt Purl, in which she chronicles her behavior in the wake of her divorce. Not only does she not understand exactly why she is getting a divorce, she is forced to move into a tiny home, has a crisis of confidence, and generally lives in a bottle of wine. Until a friend drags her to a knitting group, she spends the majority of her time contemplating her lot in life and talking to her cats as many pet owners (myself included) do in those lonely moments. After her first introduction to knitting, Perry joins her local Stitch n’ Bitch group, and only then does her loneliness begin to dissipate. With this new hobby to help blast away the empty hours and a pool of potential girlfriends she can finally begin to put her new life into perspective. She budgets, she tries out her wobbly new set of dating legs, she takes comfort in her new independence. In short, she did what the rest of us do or have done in the wake of a broken heart. She just goes on.  

Perry’s strength in writing this book is her humor. There were numerous sections that made me laugh out loud; I even scared my dog a few times. Her voice and wit are distinctive and good-natured, and even when Perry was at her lowest, dragging along in a wine-soaked haze, I still loved her tone and loved her story. In one particularly humorous and painfully embarrassing instance, she writes:

Just a few weeks after my divorce papers arrived, my boss suggested I take a personal day. This is what happens when you cry in a meeting. We were all sitting around the conference room table—me in my schlumpy “soon-to-be-divorced-woman” work uniform (black pants, un-ironed button-down blouse, Cardigan of Constant Sorrow)—and discussing the redesign of a website.  

I became rather more passionate than perhaps the moment warranted and found myself sniffling in front of a roomful of people. “That highlight color is all wrong and…and…it’s so lonely, all by itself, with no high-contrast…and it’s alone…with four cats…and it looks so sad…and and I’m sorry I have to excuse myself…”

…I know there is at least one woman out there right now who is just as scared as I was, who knows what it's like to come home at night and lie in bed next to her husband or lover and feel completely alone. There's only so many ways you can write lonely, and I have tried them all. Nothing feels worse. You can't sleep, it's 3:00 AM, you look over at him snoring on the pillow and wonder why he is so far away, an unreachable distance.