January 22, 2006
Although I strongly feel the word “random” is extremely overused in most weblog contexts, I am forced to admit that it’s the best word to describe this here entry
I’ve felt too scatterbrained to update lately, but I don’t want to just leave that last entry up and continue giving you all the impression that I’m dwelling in some kind of hormonal never-never-land. I am now fully in the present, both with my Estrostep and, well, this site. And I am drinking Three Buck Chuck to wind down after a busy weekend of cooking, cleaning, and also, dodging huge wet blobs of snow. No, really: on Friday night a whole bunch of lovely wet snow descended and stuck to trees, lightposts, overpasses, etc., only to start falling spectacularly in big clumps on streets, cars, children, etc., as soon as the temperature rose Saturday morning. Chris and I ran errands on Saturday and got to see the transition from “Winter Wonderland” to “Slush Apocalypse” firsthand, as massive snow loogies fell all around us and other hapless pedestrians. We thought we’d be safe in the car until we reached a stop sign and dislodged a massive glacier on the roof of my car, which coursed down my windshield in much the way I imagine the melting polar ice caps are going to smear all over Canada and Siberia one day.
Someone emailed me to say they’re doing a research paper on blogs and they “need some research.” And my business address. And… that’s all they said. Could you, er, be a little more specific, Researcher Person? Or maybe you are studying my response to your very vague research request, the sending of which is part of the research process in itself? I don’t mind answering a few questions (well, maybe three), as long as one of them isn’t “What is blogging?” because, dude, we answered that already.
Also, in the past twelve hours or so I have been heralded, via email, as Starbucks Customer #469744876, Target Customer #787288174FGY, Walmart Valued Customer #70718516, Ebay Customer-836A1-836, and JCPenney Customer #975R-VBEC40. It’s true that at one time or another I have either set foot in or clicked upon all these establishments, but if I were to believe that each one dutifullly assigned me a number based on a few instances of buying coffee or Diet Coke or whatever the hell, then by extension I would also have to believe that I am walking around with a subcutaneous microchip somewhere on my person, or else a fiber optic transmitter bio-implant, or even one of those good old-fashioned Mark of The Beast UPC codes. And I’d be able to go up to ATMs and just blink at them to get money. So why would I need your silly gift cards, Starbucks and Target and Walmart?
(When I start thinking like this, it’s time for bed.)
Posted by Wendy | Sun 01.22.06 10:27 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack | send link
January 9, 2006
Kontraceptive Question Korner!*
For the past week I have been taking my birth control pills one day ahead of schedule. What can I say? I live for the future. I took my Monday pill on Sunday and I took Tuesday’s pill today. I’m trying to figure out how this happened. Possible explanations: a.) took two pills in one day by mistake; b.) traversed a wormhole and then space curved back over on itself; c.) briefly lapsed into an undiagnosed multiple personality, also on the Pill; d.) neglected to calculate variations between menstrual cycle and Gregorian calendar and forgot to take the special Leap Pill that I need to take once every four years, or months, or… something.
But really I think I just took two pills in one day by mistake, most likely sometime over the holidays when I had a lot of days off and the weekends were long. I do remember one day around 10 am where I glanced at my pill card and thought, oh my stars! A pill untook! and popped it, because Heaven knows, I need to keep my skin clear. I’ve checked online and asked around enough to know there isn’t any immediate problem, but now I’m wondering what the hell to do when I get to the end of the pack. Do I just skip a day when I get to the Mystery Pills in the final week? Will my Start Day be henceforth one day ahead? Can I fix all this if I fly west to Japan? Any ideas? Anyone?
And lest you worry that I’m letting a bunch of online strangers tinker with my pharmaceutically-regulated woman-rhythms, I am waiting to hear back from my doctor about this. Just thought I’d share in the meantime.
*Kutesy title spelling intended to evade Google searches by kurious folks, konfused teens, or extremist kooks.
Posted by Wendy | Mon 01.09.06 02:28 PM | Comments (25) | TrackBack | send link
December 20, 2005
Holiday Photo Spectacular (because I have no time to write an entry)
Maybe you thought your weekend was hot shit, but you weren’t riding the CTA Santa Train when it totally derailed. (Again!) And you probably didn’t build a Gingerbread Currency Exchange either. Then again, you might have actually gotten all your shopping done and your presents wrapped and all your cards finished. And you might actually have time to do things like post to your weblog, and make thoughtful crafts. and participate in the liberal conspiracy against Christmas, because you weren’t out fucking around. Good for you!
(More later if I have the, um, time.)
Posted by Wendy | Tue 12.20.05 11:29 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack | send link
December 11, 2005
Run, run as fast as you can
The other night my boyfriend and I were watching this awesome show about gingerbread houses. You may not think a Food Network documentary about the Gingerbread House Challenge Championship in Asheville, NC would be an awesome show, but it is; it comes in on a special cable signal in the Fucking Awesome frequency that can only be picked up when Chris is near the TV. I mean when I am alone, nothing is ever on besides some Gilmore Girls rerun (typical summary: Lorelai names each of her potato chips after Osmonds; Rory awkwardly takes tea with the Illuminati; something about Kirk and a ladder), but when Chris comes over we are visited by R. Kelly videos, truly glorious Lifetime movies about cybersmut, and the wonder that is Competitive Gingerbread. Which consists of making gingerbread houses that look like the work of Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light™ brought to freakishly goopy third-dimensional life in a parallel universe based on sugar instead of carbon. We are talking some seriously fucked-up candy civil engineering here.
Maybe my capacity for holiday hoke has increased after ingesting massive doses of it at Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland last month (the capitalization is not a typo, you secular pigs!). Or maybe I got so into this show because I've always wanted to make a gingerbread house but have managed to talk myself out of it on the basis of it being messy and time-consuming and obsessive. There were gingerbread castles, gingerbread Victorian mansions, gingerbread Tiki huts, a Diagon Alley made of gingerbread, and a gingerbread carnival with an actual moving carousel on gumball bearings for God's sake, which apparently is so ahead of its time in terms of gingerbread technology that the judges couldn't even recognize it for the interactive kinectic gingerbread sculpture that it was--which is to say, they didn't spin the fucking thing. There were gingerbread controversies and gingerbread tragedy, and we ate it all up (not literally, but technically we could have, even though some of those things didn't look like they'd be very good and would taste mostly like Karo syrup and compulsive disorder, but still).
It got us thinking of what we would do if we found ourselves in a competitive gingerbread situation. We imagined it would be against our wills maybe, sort of like the Thunderdome, which of course started us thinking about how cool it would be to make a gingerbread Thunderdome, because really, there aren't enough post-apocalyptic themes in the mainstream gingerbread milleu, are there? Other ideas for elaborate gingerbread tableaus include: a gingerbread Alamo, a crashed gingerbread UPS plane with its cargo of candy spilling out the broken cookie fuselage, and a fondant Wu-Tang Clan in a gingerbread studio. Or we'd make meta gingerbread and make a replica of the Gingerbread Challenge, with little tables and little candy people looking at teeny tiny gingerbread houses. Then we thought about making gingerbread representations of famous disasters and had to stop once we realized that one needed only a very big tray of gingerbread men to make a gingerbread Jonestown. That probably wouldn't go over so well in Asheville, or, really, anywhere, so we're glad that we are not forced to 1.) make things out of gingerbread 2.) drink deadly Kool-Aid.
All the same though, I was at a craft store on Friday night and couldn't help buying one of those kits to make your own pre-fab gingerbread house, where the walls and roof are already baked and cut so you don't have to make them yourself, and I'm guessing they've already hooked up the licorice gas line and dug the gumdrop septic tank, right? I'll let you know how it turns out.
Posted by Wendy | Sun 12.11.05 04:51 PM | Comments (29) | TrackBack | send link
December 6, 2005
Things on My Wish List That I Am Unlikely to Get for Christmas
New jeans that are like my Jessica Simpson jeans in every way, except for the association with Jessica Simpson.
A perpetual can of Diet Coke that never goes empty, warm, or flat.
One of those heated Japanese bras. Black, please!
The head of Adam Corolla.
A robot servant who can charge my cell phone, update my iPod, pick up prescriptions, and dispense quarters through its mouth.
Exact replicas of the black-heart-skull-and-crossbones earrings worn by Nena in the video for 99 Luftballons.
A faithful ghost dog.
Some process by which to absorb the complete texts of the last two Harry Potter books without having to actually read them.
The amazing ability to turn lights and appliances on and off with the mere clap of my hands.
Posted by Wendy | Tue 12.06.05 11:04 AM | Comments (23) | TrackBack | send link
November 17, 2005
Time for Plan Brat!
Ladies! Are you sick of getting the stink-eye whenever you bring your small children to froofy coffeehouses? Tired of having to take them to some sticky McDonaldLand to turn them loose? Or maybe you keep reading about those snotty parents who seem to feel no compunction about letting their spawn run amok in grown-up places and find yourself wishing that you could act that entitled and self-righteous. Looks fun, doesn’t it?
But where can you take your kids, relax a little, and impose your own values on strangers? Forget those twee little bakeries with their overpriced scones and tin ceilings: Why not take your kids to the pharmacy at Target instead? Or Rite Aid? Or Walgreen’s? Any pharmacy, in fact, with a policy of employing pharmacists who believe children are so special, they think it’s a shame when you try to not conceive them. These nice people in white coats will be thrilled to host your rambunctious toddlers for a couple hours while you shop. Sure, they make it hard for you to get Plan B, but you can always count on them for a big dose of Plan Wheeeee!
Who says a pharmacy isn’t a kid-friendly place? Some of these pharmacists like children so much, they want you to have the ones you didn’t even mean to have! And when you think about it, pharmacies are awesome places for young children to run and play, especially behind that door marked PRIVATE (Go on in! These folks don’t care about privacy!) which leads to a wonderful land of bottles and jars to shake shake shake. Plus plenty of childproof caps to challenge them, hundreds of colorful little beadies to count, lots of new words to learn (Say it: “Meth-o-trex-ate.”) and no shortage of arthritic elderly friends to trip up. Really, it’s like a Montessori school with Muzak.
Some folks think the kind of pharmacists who refuse to fill emergency contraception prescriptions are judgmental and stodgy, but that's just not true at all. They're actually spontaneous and fun, always encouraging you to embrace the unknown! Hey, take a chance on that broken condom!, they'll say, or aw, what's another baby? or just because he's a date rapist doesn't mean he can't be a good daddy! This whimsical approach to life means they won't mind at all if your 3-year old wants to repeatedly kick the glass case where the razor blades are kept, stick Nicorette patches on Mrs. DeSimone's leg while she waits to pick up her heart medication, or see what's inside Mr. Thermometer. In the meantime, especially if you're at Target, you can shop for thongs, or liquor, or wholesome toys, content in the knowledge that someone with moral values is looking out for your children, even the children that don't exist yet. Try getting service like that at some dismal Chuck E. Cheese with stained carpet.
Of course, if something happens to your child, you can always sue. Which is more than you can do in the event your pharmacist decides he doesn't want to commit a "pharma-sin" by filling your emergency contraception prescription, but I digress. While I'm not a mother myself (as long as my birth control works, ha ha!), it heartens me to know that should I ever choose to have children (or NOT choose and still have 'em, ha ha!), they are some places where they'll always be welcome.
(Thanks to Gwen for some links.)
Posted by Wendy | Thu 11.17.05 04:16 PM | Comments (36) | TrackBack | send link
October 18, 2005
Various updates
This Thursday’s Chicago reading: will be a benefit for Literacy Works and not some other organization, despite what you may have read on a couple of events listings somewhere. Literacy Works does all kinds of fantastically swell stuff like train ESL teachers and volunteer tutors to help adults learn to read, and while presumably the other organization is devoted to good things as well and not, say, into playing cruel literacy-related tricks such as hiding rubber cockroaches in books, tearing out the final pages of mystery novels, and recommending House of Leaves, they are nonetheless not the same organization as Literacy Works, on whose behalf I am reading on Thursday. So come to Hyde Park! And bring ten dollars! Or more!
(It’s hard not to be nervous about the attendance. For most readings, having a lousy turnout simply means that I’m pathetic. When it comes to this reading, a lousy turnout means that PEOPLE WILL BE DENIED THE GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE THROUGH READING, and that I’m pathetic. So do what you can.)
Last Thursday’s New Jersey reading: was fine, except for all the apocalyptic rain. From my rental car along the Garden State Parkway, New Jersey looked very, er… smeary, though I’m sure it’s way nicer when it’s dry. This state has lovely radio stations, which are great to listen to while you’re trying to find a place to turn around on the highway.
My cold: is much better, thank you. You needn’t have worried at all.
The Beeping Thingy ceased its daily beeping two days after I wrote about it and I KNEW THAT WOULD HAPPEN. I still have no idea what the hell it was.
We did, however, catch a squirrel in my office building today, after the thing came down through the ceiling this weekend and ate some of the office M&M’s. Working for a children’s book publisher means you are always surrounded by enchanted animals. And by “enchanted” I mean “awesomely freaked out on sugar.”
Bootsy the Fish: Still alive after a year and three months. Sort of. He seems to have swim bladder disorder. (Look it up.) From what I’ve read this won’t kill him, but it’s killing me to see him lying listlessly at the bottom of the tank like a junkie, flopping his semi-useless fins around like a thalidomide baby Smurf. I mean, you can’t have a fish “put down,” can you? Something dignified and fast. A tiny harpoon I can shoot into him, maybe.
Weight Watchers: Oh, you shouldn’t ask right now. I’m only mentioning it because I know you want to know, which is my own damn fault for telling you I was doing it again in the first place. You get where I’m going with this? Yeah? There you go. (And this may not be up for discussion, inasmuch as I can control that.)
But never mind that. Most everything else is good.
Posted by Wendy | Tue 10.18.05 04:03 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack | send link
October 12, 2005
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of
being name-checked in the lead story at Salon (okay, just page 4, and wow, thanks, Steve Almond) the night before you leave for a trip on which you’d resolutely decided not to bring your laptop for a change, effectively keeping you from following the various blogospheric reactions and responses and snickering and shitflicking that could ensue as a result of the article (though you don’t imagine any of it will be aimed at you (but if it was, though, you’d prefer to know (which just goes to show how much of a freak you are (which is pretty damn freaky)))). I mean it KILLS YOU to not bring the thing but you know it’s the right thing, philospophically and everything. So despite the temptation to keep logging on to see what everyone has to say about Almond’s article, my honest labor of self-reflection will not involve lugging my iBook and all its cords and attachments through airport security. Not this time, at least.
(But I can check my email, right? If there’s an internet cafe somewhere?)
See you in NJ tonight…
Posted by Wendy | Wed 10.12.05 11:41 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | send link
October 6, 2005
Apparently
I fell into some kind of internet wormhole where time appeared to elapse at a normal rate in my daily life while I worked at my job and bought a car, and watched America’s Next Top Model (my heart beats KIM KIM KIM and CORYN CORYN CORYN and maybe just a little bit for LISA, though she could stand to be medicated a little, okay, a LOT), and counted Weight Watcher points, and then didn’t count Weight Watcher points and pretended it was “core,” and drank beer, and caught up with friends, and danced. The usual. But on the internet, time lost all meaning, and it seems I was sleeping for weeks and weeks in my airtight cyberspace pod. Then again, maybe I needed the rest.
Apparently summer’s over. For months there’s been a Dove Girl in an ad on the side of a bus shelter in my neighborhood, and tonight, when I drove by, I wondered if she was cold now, in her underwear like that.
Posted by Wendy | Thu 10.06.05 11:23 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | send link
August 23, 2005
Odd Daily Occurrence
I believe it has been going on every morning here for at least the last two weeks: at some point around 11 am I’ll hear a short but jubilant burst of mechanical beeps coming from one corner of my office. It’s a little jingle sequence, really—the sort of deetleleety-deetle-deetle that you might hear from a digital watch alarm, or maybe the voice mail alert on older cell phones. I have no fucking idea what it is. I think it may be coming from somewhere in the pile of manuscripts I have in that corner—two or three file boxes of manila envelopes full of stuff I have to return.
I suppose it’s possible that a beeping thingy would have come with one of the manuscripts. People send us all kinds of things with their stories sometimes: stuffed animals, finger puppets, puzzle pieces, bits of felt shaped like dinosaurs, and once, an insect specimen. I’m having trouble imagining what kind of Beeping Thingy could have been sent to me, much less the kind of children’s story it would accompany, but I can’t rule it out. As far as I know, though, I’ve opened everything in that pile and wouldn’t I remember finding, you know, this Beeping Thingy?
I’ve ruled out everything else in the general vicinity of the beeping. No surge protectors; nothing electronic or battery-powered. Nothing, really, that could make a sound on its own, as most things in my office tend to be silent unless kicked or thrown against a wall. But every day the beeping continues, and every day I kind of forget I hear it.
And now that I’ve mentioned it, I bet it will stop.
No, really, what is it? Did I black out one day and buy a Tamagotchi? Is there some Children’s Book Unabomber who has it in for me? Is there a portal to another dimension? What?!
Posted by Wendy | Tue 08.23.05 12:48 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack | send link
August 22, 2005
One of those book meme thingies that I keep meaning to do
Because Kevin Smokler tagged me. And because I went to the lakefront after work instead of writing a real update.
1. How many books I own: I just counted; I have about 400. This doesn’t include my books at work, though most of those are editorial copies that I wouldn’t necessarily claim as my own. And do perfect-bound lit magazines count as books? I didn’t include those, either, though I suppose one could claim that anything with a flat spine is technically a book. But that’s dumb, because then the IKEA catalog counts as a book. Okay, never mind.
2.) The last book I bought: Paradise by A.L. Kennedy. I don’t have it yet. I just ordered it. I couldn’t say which book I bought before that, because it’s a gift, so Paradise by A.L. Kennedy is totally my beard. Plus I really want to read it.
3.) The last book I read: That I finished? And that I wasn’t paid to read? I think it’s The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank.
4.) Five books that mean a lot to me:
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brönte
2. The Dream Songs by John Berryman
3. Short Talks by Anne Carson
4. Metamorphoses by Ovid
5. A foreign edition of Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever with words in English, Hungarian and German. It belonged to my grandmother. It’s how I know “szalonna” means “bacon,” “szállítókocsi” means “delivery van” and “robot” means “robot.”
5.) Five people I’ve tagged: (Assuming they haven’t been tagged already.)
Marianne
Pinky
Dana
Pamie
Tara
Posted by Wendy | Mon 08.22.05 10:50 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | send link
June 10, 2005
A Madison moment
I was looking at earrings at a jewelry stand on State Street outside the student union. As I browsed, I became aware of a voice behind me a few yards away.
“Hi! Can you spare a moment to help out the environment?”
I could tell it was a girl and that I sure as hell was in a college town.
When I was walking around Cambridge a couple weeks ago there were scary kids in yellow T-shirts and clipboards lurching around the sidewalks saying, "You’ve got a minute, RIGHT?" I dodged two of them, since I was pretty sure that my out-of-town-just-passing-through-minute would be worthless to their cause and thus wasted. At one point I’d had to turn around and backtrack half a block, which meant I had to pass one of them again, a tall lanky kid. "I knew you’d come back!" he’d said exuberantly. "No." I’d mumbled, rushing by. But the girl here in Madison wasn’t accosting me. I couldn’t even really see her but as I deliberated over a pair of earrings I kept hearing her try to engage passerby.
"Hi there! Can you spare a moment to help out the environment?"
(Silence and footsteps)
"Hi! Can you spare a moment to help out the environment?"
(Muttered, noncommittal reply)"Okay! Hi! Can you spare a moment to help out the environment?"
I handed the earrings I’d chosen to the jewelry vendor, who wrote the receipt slowly. Someone had stopped to help out the environment. From what I could hear, the environment required a monthly debit amount from a checking account. Someone would think about it.
"Yeah, that’s fine!" I heard the girl call after him or her.
Then she said, "Hi! Can you spare a moment to help out the environment?"
The vendor gave me my earrings and pointed out some necklaces that were twenty percent off. I started examining some silver pendants.
"Hi there! Spare a moment to help out the environment?"
I decided to buy a necklace, too.
"Hey!" Environment Girl said suddenly. Her voice was different. I froze and was afraid to turn, because for a moment I thought she was talking to me. "So guess where I am," she said, and then I realized she was on her cell phone. "I’m on State Street," she told her friend on the phone. "I’m doing that job? Yeah."
I tried to catch the name of the organization she was working for, but the jewelry vendor was counting out my change. "…Yeah. Classes are out now. (Pause.) I’m by the bookstore? (Pause.) Yeah. The thing is? I think? Um, this job makes me totally want to shoot myself. Seriously."
I looked at the jewelry lady to see if she was listening, too, but she was busy writing another receipt.
"I mean, my God," the girl went on. "This sucks so bad."
* * *
I’m back from Wisconsin now. I didn’t get a chance to take many photos, but I’ll post the few that I have this weekend.
And if you've been by the book site, you've noticed you’ll get a chance to see me three times this weekend: 1.) 7:00 pm Saturday for a short reading at at Book Cellar in Lincoln Square 2.) 12:30 pm Sunday for a reading at The Printers Row Book Fair and then 3.) 2:00 pm Sunday at the fair I'll be doing a memoirs panel with Paula Kamen and Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Come see me! It's for the environment! Okay, so it's not, but for the sake of that poor girl, PRETEND IT IS.
Posted by Wendy | Fri 06.10.05 03:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | send link
April 25, 2005
If my brain could breathe
If my brain could breathe it would be making Darth Vader noises right now. Fwoooh, fwhihhh, fwoooh, fwhihhh. Like that. Fwoooh, fwhihhh, the you-know-what is out; fwoooh, fwhihhh, fwoooh, live TV Tuesday morning; fwoooh, fwhihhh,the reading Wednesday night; fwoooh, fwhihhh, the other reading Wednesday night. Fwoooh, radio Wednesday. Fwihh, radio Thursday. Fwoooh, fwhihhh, fwoooh, Seattle Friday.
Yes: give me a paper bag. For my head to breathe in. And also, just so I can be really, stupidly, annoyingly shy just for a minute, okay? And then I’ll be fine. Fwoooh, thanks. Fwhihhh.
Posted by Wendy | Mon 04.25.05 08:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | send link