NOW, MORE THAN EVER,
NOT THE NEW ANYONE

If I weren’t travelling for the holidays this year I might have had time for another gingerbread project. In keeping with the neighborhood theme, I was really hoping to make Governor Blagojevich’s house, complete with a little gingerbread media circus lovingly made with gumdrop cameras, licorice cables, graham cracker TV vans, etc. But since I’m leaving for Michigan tomorrow morning and had to spend the past week in a shopping/working/gift-wrapping/working/driving through stupidly deep snow/working frenzy, I guess I have to give up on my little dream of making corrupt little cookie Blagojeviches (using half a jar of chocolate jimmies just on the hair) and just wish all of you a very Merry Christmas.

And stay warm. This afternoon we went out to see friends (yes, INSTEAD of making gingerbread spectacles, sorry) and the temperature was a degree. One degree, not plural!  Though of course the windchill was negative plural multiple minus ABC-blackout googleplex degrees, so cold that the world ceases to make sense, and you travel backwards through time, and your fingers and toes hurt like hell because invisible dinosaurs are stomping on them, but it’s good that they hurt, right? It means something. Don’t ask me to explain because it’s cold. Too cold for sciencey thinking! So bundle up.

And, hey! If you’re anywhere near NYC in a couple of weeks, come see me and Attenberg read at Good World Bar on January 11th.

More in the new year, when I’ll get to tell you what else I’ve been up to these days. Happy everything!

Home; gainful employment; the very nice electric kettle that goes off with a ding when the water is done so that it doesn’t all boil away; baba ganoush; that the refreshingly non-dysfunctional part of my family is in fact my entire family and my boyfriend’s family too; the president-elect; that I have resisted reading the terrible Twilight books this whole time and can now just see the terrible Twilight movie to get caught up culturally; Maker’s Mark; hilarious and kind boyfriend who charms everyone and supports me unconditionally; I-Pass; Cesar Millan the Dog Whisperer; that I have friends who give me encouragement and inspiration and funny-as-hell emails and free oatmeal; Google Docs; the sense of relative wholeness that I have enjoyed for at least three years now and never want to take for granted; peanut butter; zoos; heated car seats; art; you. HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE.

You guys, please buy books for Christmas. I know times are tough and the economy is horrible and soon we’re all going to be going around wearing barrels with suspenders, but that’s all the more reason to buy books, so you should buy books.

(Though, just to digress for a moment, how did wearing a BARREL come to be the classic visual shorthand for being destitute anyway? What is the origin of that exactly? Chris and I keep discussing it, and really I would’ve looked it up on the internet by now if I didn’t also suspect that the actual history of barrel-wearin’ involves some icky tar-and-featherish kind of tradition that’s just unpleasant enough to ruin the cartoon fun. Chris did submit the question to “Ask Dr. Maddow,” though, and I’m sure Rachel could relate the gruesome truth quite adorably, because that’s her job.)

(Edited to add: while I was working on this entry, I went over to read Comics Curmudgeon, and Josh is wondering the same thing! Ha.)

But anyway, about the books: buy them. You need to buy them. Even if there’s only one book on your holiday shopping list, buy it new, and even better, buy it from a brick-and-mortar bookseller that you’d miss if it weren’t around, because it’s been coming to that lately for a lot of places. Booksellers might have to wear barrels, people! You don’t want to see that, not even on Barnes & Noble, who would need a very big barrel indeed and massive suspenders to hold it up. So buy books. If you can’t think of any books to buy, I’ve got some that I contributed to recently, and for each one of those books you’ll notice there are links to a whole slew of places where you can buy them, or buy other people’s books; really, I don’t care whose books you buy as long as they’re books and as long as they’re new (as in “not used”). Maybe the book thing is on my mind more these days because my job involves books, but really, people need to buy more books, okay? Thank you.

Like everyone else, I am pretty underwhelmed at how this America’s Next Top Model cycle turned out, even though McKey seems perfectly nice and frankly more modelesque than most of the contestants on that show. The best thing about her is her boxing skills and the fact that she likes to grab people and pick them up like the Hulk, so Chris and I are very much hoping that all her My Life as A Cover Girl commercials next cycle will involve punching and feats of strength, i.e., lifting entire pallets of lip gloss product; holding up runways; etc. We’re going to need something to look forward to in Cycle 12.

In other news, it was cool to get mentioned (on page 3)  in this Onion A/V Club article on blog books. (Buy those books, too! Well, maybe you don’t need to buy Tucker Max’s, not now at least, because if the publishing and book retail industry falls the hell apart and becomes one creepy company, you can definitely count on being able to buy a Tucker Max book with extra big Helvetica print at the Tucker & Max Bookstore in every airport terminal in America WOO HOO AWESOME and then you can prop up your copy on the edge of your barrel and read to your heart’s content. I’m just saying! Buy BOOKS.)

Finally, I’m hosting Thanksgiving this year. Does anybody have a good green bean recipe? The fried onions are standing by…

The night before Election Day, both Chris and I slept fitfully and then got up early to vote. A little before 6 am we walked around the corner to the place where we vote—a Mexican restaurant with amazing chicken burritos and a kind of janky sign—and there was a line already, almost to the end of the block, waiting for the doors to open.

We went back there for dinner later that night, after the polls had closed and it was a mostly empty restaurant again. We had the chicken burritos and every now and then checked the TV in the corner to see how the electoral votes were doing. It was a Spanish-language station but of course all you needed to see were the numbers, and Obama’s were already in the hundreds.

We were short on sleep and nursing cruddy colds and worn out from the constant effort of trying to live an ordinary day on Election Day. We didn’t go to Grant Park. We wanted to be home when it happened, and as we sat on the couch switching the channels from one big garish map to another, it happened sooner than we thought, sooner and even more perfectly than I’d ever thought in my most audaciously jinxy thoughts.

After a few minutes I got up and stepped out on the back porch to see if I could hear horns honking or people cheering or any sign that this thing had really happened, but the neighborhood was quiet. I went back to the couch and our laptops and sat there while Obama’s win became more and more real on every screen I looked at. And then we finally sat still and watched the speech. And that was it!  It feels so strange to feel proud and thrilled of a president, and also to think of him as a president and not the just the guy who won for the blue team.

All the same, I was exhausted this whole week and somehow Barack Obama did not cure my stupid cold. And while I know I got a little teary Tuesday night, it wasn’t until Friday when I was home sick that I really felt what happened—and I was happy he’d won, yes, but I also couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the thought of how much was at stake (is still at stake) and how we wouldn’t be feeling joy and relief of this magnitude if we didn’t also sense, on some level, how unprecedentedly screwed-up this country as become. I thought I knew how awful it all was (how awful it still is) but I didn’t understand it emotionally until this week, when I have been just wrung out by gladness. And so for a little while I cried and coughed, and then I went back to sleep. But it feels like things are getting better, my cold and everything else.

Also, and this is sort of a little thing and sort of not: while I’ve never been one to romanticize the First Family, I am extremely heartened to think that in a few months’ time the “American Princesses” will be these two beautiful little girls who are not white or blond or licensed Disney characters.  I can’t help but think that will good for six-year-old daughters everywhere.

Anyway, hello, and how are you?

1. The dark chocolate Bounty Bars that disappeared last December are back in stores around here (or at least one store) and we are pleased. A lot of you wrote in to tell me where we could order cases of the bars online and some of you even offered to send them from across the pond, and thank you, but we just held out and hoped the universe would return them to the place where we found them in the first place. Sometimes you want that little gesture even more than you want chocolately coconut goodness. As for those of you in Chicago, DON’T EAT THEM ALL PLEASE.

2. Sometime between 9 and 10 am CST today you can hear me reading my most recent Field-Tested Books piece on Chicago Public Radio WBEZ. If you miss it this morning (and you probably will, because I am posting this at the last minute), the segment will be archived here on the Eight Forty-Eight page.

Have a great weekend, chickens!

All weekend I couldn’t stop reading about Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin and her babies, and her guns, and the polar bears, and the book banning, and all her babies, and her ethics, and which babies are her babies and which babies are her babies’ babies, and her “foreign policy experience,” and her babies babies BABIES and holy mooseburgers hit me with a hockey stick I’M DONE. I’m not watching her speak tonight and next time that lurchy updo of hers pops up on my browser I am going to close the window and walk away. Yes, I am.

Other than that, though, I had a fine time the past few days, painting the TV room, going to Chicago Jazz Fest, and putting all my white shoes away. I have more or less accomplished my three summer goals, which were: 1.) Run a 5K, 2.) Start a garden, and 3.) Paint apartment. Notice I said start a garden. I wasn’t so great on the follow-through for that, but the sunflowers survived, and so did the basil, and the lettuce has long since ceased to be lettuce and has morphed instead into some kind of spindly Dr. Seuss-looking botanical freakout, but that’s okay.

I am also working a lot right now. Someone posted on my Facebook wall and said that she missed my blog, even though she understood I have “bigger fish to fry.” I wouldn’t say that the fish are bigger, just different fish that require a lot of my energy and attention and, uh, frying oil. Okay, never mind that analogy. But it’s true. Lots of oil! Not so much oil that Sarah Palin would need to build A PIPELINE ENDORSED BY GOD, AND YES I REALLY NEED TO STOP READING ABOUT THIS STUFF, but enough to keep me from updating more often. So kindly grab my RSS feed, if you haven’t done so already, and let me drop in once in awhile when I can.

I was in awe of all the lady-funniness going on around me at the Hideout last week, so thanks to everyone who came to see us! In addition to girl comedy, the night’s fun included being held hostage by the Ting-Tings, who apparently decided to shoot five seconds of their music video right outside the Hideout, which meant that for nearly an hour or so nobody could really leave or even go sit out on the breezy little brokedown patio and instead we were all forced to stay inside and sweat and drink our compensatory drinks, and oh, it was a nightmare. Well, except not really.

One of the things I read was based on my Bad Times entry a few years ago, but of course I had to revise and update it in order to cite new developments in the world of chain-store shopping discomfort, such as the Extreme Value Item Transaction at Jewel supermarkets. The Extreme Value Item Transaction doesn’t quite count as Bad Times, but it always confounds me just the same, because I inevitably fail to come up with a satisfactory response to the Extreme Value Item. The Extreme Value Item, for those of you who do not shop at Jewel, is a daily designated grocery item that has been deployed to a special location right there at the cash register, where the cashier can point out the fabulous savings opportunity it presents.

Is the value of the Extreme Value Item truly extreme? I have no idea because it’s never an item I’d buy. It’s always a can of nuts, or fruit roll-ups, or one of the more dubious flavors of Doritos. And the cashier has to point to it and say something like, “Have you seen our Extreme Value of the day?” Even when there isn’t a distinct subtext of I’d rather I didn’t have to ask you this the whole thing is extremely awkward. One time I tried just going, hmm! while pretending to deliberate about buying the Extreme Value, but that felt really pathetic and on some level unfair to the cashier. I’ve tried to say just, “no thanks,” but even that seems too much somehow, because when it comes down to it, I suppose I deeply resent having to take a position regarding the Extreme Value appeal of Blue Gatorade. Unsubscribe please! Now I find that most of the time I just avert my eyes and mumble uhnuhnuhnuhthanks, which is also my standard response for panhandlers and people handing out flyers and Hair Question Men. It’s still not the best response to the Extreme Value Item Transaction, but it’s all I’ve got, other than using the self-checkout or shopping somewhere where the bargains do not actually accost me.

I meant to tell you about the 5K but there isn’t much to say, other than: I ran it! Very slowly! I did the Couch to 5K program, in which you drive yourself apeshit for 7 weeks trying to measure and keep track of the myriad running/walking intervals until suddenly you really do find yourself sprinting along gazelle-like for miles, plural miles! Of course then at the 5K you see that you are are not at all a gazelle and that other slow runners are faster than you, as are some powerwalkers, people on crutches, and glaciers. But never mind! I’m probably going to do at least one more later this summer or in the fall.

There’s more to catch up on, but I really want to just be in bed now, continuing my Little House series reading kick. I’m on These Happy Golden Years now and can’t get enough of all the euphemistic horse-lust, cute little schoolhouses, and endless confounding descriptions of dress-sewing. Oh, behold the cambric basque with the darted polonaise and the lace jabot! Whatever the hell that is! Good night!

It is what it is, people.

First there is this, and you should come:

If you show up at the Hideout on Wednesday night at 7pm you’ll see me and the other funny ladies read wacky stories about female stuff like housework and ovaries and how chocolate is better than husbands. Or… something. Just be there!

Also the new BUST is out, where you can read my PopTart column on Miley Cyrus, poor little flutterbudget that she is. I just turned in the next issue’s column on Monday, which is one of the 1,472 reasons why I haven’t been able to update.

(I am rereading all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books right now, which is why I am saying a word like “flutterbudget.” I will tell you more about it when I get back.)

Oh, and I ran a 5K somehow. I have to tell you about that when I get back, too. NEXT WEEK I PROMISE, and look, here’s some ice cream and a five dollar bill, go buy yourself anything you want in the Walgreen’s toy aisle and DON’T GIVE ME THAT SAD FACE OKAY? Okay.

About four weeks ago I was in Portland feeding $20 bill to a TriMet fare machine and getting totally buried under a pile of Sacajawea coins. Three weeks ago I had houseguests and got just a glimpse of the Pilcrow Lit Fest and had dinner with assorted amazing ladies (Jami, Zulkey, Diantha, and then Lauren and Dana the next night). Two weeks ago I planted a garden. Last week had another houseguest (Chris’s mom!) and we took her to IKEA. Four days ago I went to see Lynda Barry and buy her new book. And this weekend I made salads, did laundry, and took a whole bunch of junk to Salvation Army so that now, for the love of Jiminy Cricket on a cracker, we finally have room to fit the Christmas tree in the storage space where it’s supposed to go and will henceforth get it the hell out of the back sunroom where I’ve been keeping random stuff like suitcases and plastic milk crates and undiscarded boxes and spare crock pots and THIS BLOG. Hello! I’m sorry I’ve been treating this site like the Christmas tree.

But I trust you know that I’ve been alive, especially if you’ve been following me elsewhere. There’s been writing (not enough, as always) and gardening (in the sense that I put some seeds in the dirt one day, and a week later they actually sprouted, and I know I’m new to all this, but still, I did not quite expect that, and what speedy service this Nature thing has) and running (very slowly, so slow I can’t stand to see my sad shuffling shadow lurching shakily across the pavement and I’m sure that in actual 3D I look like a Ray Harryhausen animation or something). But it’s all for a better good.

It’s been hard to look at photos and news footage of the flooding in Iowa City this past week, because it’s even more extensive than what happened when I was there in 1993. It was the summer before I went to grad school, and the water went over the Coralville Dam spillway for the first time ever and eroded the floodplain down to bedrock and trilobites and dead dinosaurs. There were sandbags everywhere, and dead fish in the Hardee’s parking lot, and more than once the evening news urged everyone to stockpile jugs of water and fill our bathtubs at night, in case the floodwaters polluted the water supply the way it did in Des Moines. I had a hideous telemarketing job selling supplemental homeowner’s insurance to Sears credit cardholders, and there was a part in the pitch where I had to say, “What would you do if your home was damaged in one of the strong storms we’ve been having?” Shift to serious tone here, the script specified. I winced every time I said it. Somehow I talked the shift manager into letting me work the no-annual-fee Discover card campaign instead, because, GOD. Anyway, it’s strange to imagine that it’s even worse this time around. The flooding, I mean, not the telemarketing industry. And hang in there, all ye Hawkeyes. You too, Cedar Rapids folks—may the waters recede and your town go back to smelling like cereal.

Oh, and for the librarians and other publishing folks among you, I’m going to be at ALA at the end of the month. I’ll be repping the company I work for (Albert Whitman & Co!) at booth 2428. Stop by and say hi!

So about a month ago I quietly snuck away for another two weeks of Writey Camp to work on something. (Okay, there is a book. At least one book and maybe another book.) I guess I didn’t say much about it (the book, and the maybe-other book) because I didn’t want to give anyone the impression that I would be returning with a book, a finished and fully realized entity with a title cover page printed with that classy Garamond font, because that’s still a long time from happening, people. This thing (the book) is really only a few months along and not yet viable outside parentheses, so please continue to go about your business, because, well, it’s gonna be awhile. Right now all that exists are some printouts that frankly looked a lot better when I was at Writey Camp, because apparently there’s something about artists’ colonies that gives you literary beer goggles when you read your own stuff. But still! It’s progress. And it felt good to be doing more than flailing around, or at the very least flailing around on a consistent schedule and in a picturesque location. Somehow by 8 am every morning I managed to be at my desk, showered and dressed and working. And holy crap, just the thought of that is so stupidly inspiring it makes me want to close my browser and work on the you-know-what, but just for you I’ll carry on.

In the middle of my time at Ragdale I woke up one night feeling something weirdly alive going on under the floorboards and hearing things in the house softly rattling. I had the vague sense that there was a lot more going on there than ought to be in a very old house in a semi-rural neighborhood in the middle of the night. I thought, well, that was something, and I went back to sleep. In the morning I found out it had been an earthquake. An earthquake! That means I got felt up by the world and you better believe I’m thrilled.

But now I am back in civilization, where my windows rattle from the boomy bass Albany Park cars driving through the alley, and I am working to get caught up with the rest of my life, in addition to being deep in the middle of doing a column and critiquing manuscripts for a writing conference in Portland next weekend. So I’ll post here when I can, but I feel like I’ve been tuned to a somewhat different frequency at the moment, one that isn’t much good for public broadcast. So please stand by. Before too long there will be another little seismic shift that will bring me more fully back to you guys, but for now I need just a bit more time to do my real world work, as well as listen to the things that are softly rattling in my head.