Editor’s note: The views expressed in I Am So Popular are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the outlook or beliefs of anyone else in the IST network.

Tuesday was the birthday of my young, hot boyfriend, Warren. The good news is, he’s not getting older, he’s getting hotter. The bad news—for me, anyway—is that we were 2,161 miles apart. I was unable to give him a birthday hug. I will never again have the opportunity to hug him on that particular birthday. It’s over, I blew it, missed it, let it slip away.

But there was more than a little good news. First of all, Warren likes time apart, subscribing to the philosophy posed by that age-old question: How can I miss you if you won’t go away? Because it is so true, people—absence does make the heart grow fonder.

Point illustrated: Last week, while PMSing mere inches away from my beloved partner, I was contemplating just which patented Three Stooges method I might use to wedge a couple of my fingers into his eye sockets to let him know that no, I did not think he was being very funny when he… (fill in the blank. Warren can breathe too loud when I’m on the rag and all hell will highly likely break loose.)

Now, here I am, on Monhegan Island, this little remote speck of rocks and trees ten miles off the coast of Maine, and I want to poke my own eyes out because I miss Wa-Wa so much. Which is so fucking awesome. Do you have any idea how fantastic it is to be apart from someone and eagerly anticipate your reunion?

Warren and I, upon co-reflecting on my feelings re: being apart, have decided to incorporate my both-ends-of-the-spectrum emotionality into a new religion in which I can perpetually and simultaneously feel both overwhelmed with guilt and like I’ve just been picked as Teacher’s Favorite to lead Elevator Up during the Rapture. Which is to say, yes, we’re gonna bottle it and sell it. Church of Spike-Wa 2.0.

And what is it that has torn us asunder, at least temporarily, and spurred these feelings of agony and ecstasy that will launch the next great religion? I’ll tell you what. It’s Knitting Camp! That’s right, I have run away for a week to knit my heart out for seven days straight.

Okay, actually? It’s called Knitting and Yoga Adventures and the deal is I’ve come along as the guest blogger. So every day this week, and probably a number of days next week, you can read on their blog all about how I spent my days in wooly bliss.

But I don’t just knit while I’m here. Let me recreate one of several phone calls I had with Warren on his birthday. During this particular call, I was so high I was having an extremely hard time speaking. So, for my part of the chat, imagine slurring.

Me: Happy Birthday Monkey! I am SO HAPPY. SO SO HAPPY. But I feel so bad I missed your birthday. But I am SO HAPPY. Guess why? Guess what I did for your birthday!

Wa-Wa: I…

Me: Oh yeah, never mind, I forgot, you hate the guessing game. Well guess what? I’m not going to make you guess. I am going to tell you! But first let me tell you I AM SO HIGH. And I am high not because of any drugs. I am high because I just took a hike through the forest and saw fairy houses and then I did yoga and then I got this massage from this woman who was like, oh my god it was so trippy, and the whole time I was on the table I kept trying to stay awake so I could memorize this poem I was writing about how much I love you but then I kept drifting off and I was…oh my god I FEEL SO AWFUL I AM MISSING YOUR BIRTHDAY but Oh I Love Knitting Camp!

Wa-Wa: Wait, back up. You just said you took a hike, did yoga, and got a massage for my birthday? Great. I can’t wait for your birthday. I’m getting strippers sent over to my house to celebrate.

Warren, as you might imagine, got me off the phone as quickly as safely possible so I could come down in my safe and happy place. That would be my room at the Monhegan House, which was built about – oh, I don’t know—a hundred? Four hundred? Six hundred years ago? Whatever. It’s old. It’s rustic. You have to run up and down a bunch of stairs a lot and the bathrooms are shared. Every day, in addition to hiking all over these breathtaking cliffs and watching pods of dolphins and seal pups frolic in the frosty Atlantic, and in addition to stretching leisurely in midday yoga, and knitting with over a dozen other people who enjoy puns about Fair Isle technique and think it’s funny to invent a movie called The Termi-knitter… well, in addition to all that? Holden, the guy who owns this place brings us a variety of homemade cookies every day for teatime.

And yesterday? Yesterday he brought us Whoopie Pies which sound like a cross between a famous comedian and a cow patty but, in fact, are these astounding little cream-filled cakes, made on the premises. If you ever had a store bought Devil Dog, you have a very vague idea of what a Whoopie Pie is. (Devil Dog is to Whoopie Pie what Sarah is to Qualified VP Candidate: Palin comparison, if you know what I’m saying.)

So far I have made a pair of fingerless gloves, started a Fair Isle bag, avoided intarsia lessons, and learned a little lace pattern. This makes me giddy to the same degree—though in a very different way—that drinking a six-pack and smoking a carton of cigarettes with a bunch of friends during Beverly Hills 90210 used to make me giddy.

I am recalling last August when I went to the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, for a festival aimed at theatre geeks, especially Shakespeare heads like myself. And last September, when I almost missed Warren’s birthday because I was off getting in a near-fistfight with some dick at Buddhist Camp at a monastery in California.

I guess I am of a certain age now, where I no longer turn up my nose at planned weeks of activities joined to bring together a bunch of people who never met each other before, who might never see each other again, but who, for a few days, get all the fun of a family reunion with none of the stupid old baggage. In short, you get to be a little kid and someone brings you cookies a lot if you’re lucky while you engage in your favorite hobby with others like you.

At long last, I’ve learned to stop making fun of Trekkies, even if I never will understand what they hell they see in that show. At least now I get why they insist on getting together and geeking out in unison.

If you’re not old enough yet to have these sorts of pangs that I do for various Big Kid Camps, you’re just going to have to take my word for it. If you don’t have the financial resources to launch yourself out of Austin and onto some historic hotel on a faraway island, that’s understandable. But I am telling you, if nothing else, you simply must create some faux retreat for yourself right now.

Invite four or five friends over with whom you share a passion for something, anything— nose picking, Gary Numan’s first record, at-home Brazilian waxes, whatever. Send all significant others away. Call in sick for a few days. Now hole up, order food in, do not tidy up the house, and just geek out.

By the fourth day, you will miss your partner (roommate/cat/whatever). You will have o.d.-ed on that pastime you are always swearing you never have enough time for. You will feel so guilty at all the work/classes/parties you missed. And you will be ecstatic at how good it feels to just retreat for awhile and let the world miss you while you immerse yourself in that thing,whatever that thing may be.

Then and only then may you join Warren and me in our new religion. We’ll be hosting a retreat next summer. Start saving now.

Spike Gillespie is still in Maine and she just might never come back. She is blogs regularly at LaunchPad Coworking and www.spikeg.com. She is also head mistress for the Dick Monologues. There are about two tickets left for the October 8th show. Email her if you want them: spike@spikeg.com.