I did some quick reviews of Domino: The Book of Decorating and Todd Oldham's Handmade Modern for my guest blogging gig.

True story: I got the Domino book from the library and accidentally dropped it into the bathtub as I was reading. Bad. Very bad.

Today I finished Fara Warner's The Power of the Purse: How Smart Businesses Are Adapting to the World's Most Important Consumers - Women. The title is a mouthful, but boy, is it saying something that needs to be said.

Writing about online marketing in the past few months, especially pertaining to demographics and targeting, is really stimulating. As a kid, I was very intrigued by advertisements. I saw through many of them, though I wasn't impervious to the campaigns of certain beauty products. Damn them - they're some of the worst.

I'm savvier now and am looking for ways to become a self-taught "expert" on marketing to women. That's the short-term goal anyway. Stuff like this makes me tick, and I don't mean in some biological clock sort of way.

So that's work talk, I guess. But let me share an excerpt that took me by surprise. It's about how America worked as recently as the sixties. It gave me one of those moments I had when recently watching Milk - the realization that we've come so far, but must keep working to advance. (Milk, by the way, is wonderful. Sean Penn amazes me).

"Over time, barriers that held women back from controlling their own money were also breaking down. In the 1960s, women couldn't open a bank account alone or sign for a home mortgage without a man to cosign for them. Just 20 years later, such restrictions had become unthinkable. By the 21st century, single women had become the second-biggest purchasers of homes."

I just BookBinged Banksy's Wall and Piece. You may want to check it out.

There was this wooden scaffolding monstrosity that went up on campus in my first year of college. It was an unsightly structure with tons of foot traffic each day. I went out there one night with my roommate and vandalized it. She stood guard; I wrote poems off of a printout I'd prepared.

For days, I watched passersby stop and slow down to read my graffiti. I felt so good about it. Then the walls were painted over in sterile white. Disappointing.

Someone later scribbled, "What happened to the poems?" Then that was painted over, too.

When I went to the Toni Morrison reading at The New York Public Library last week, I didn’t have high hopes for the conversation part of the event. I’ve been to countless readings over the years, and the moderated discussion is never very thought-provoking.

To my delight, Toni Morrison’s conversation with Fran Lebowitz was just that, a conversation. Both women had interesting things to say and very different personalities. Toni Morrison has this calm, Earth Mother kind of vibe, whereas Fran Lebowitz peppers her speech with one-liners and bemused grins. I read that some people call her “a modern Dorothy Parker,” and I can see what they mean. (I love me some Dorothy Parker, though, and I resist the idea that she can - or should - be replicated).

I’ve often heard people say that they just can’t get into Toni Morrison’s books, that they’re too metaphorical or inaccessible or slow-moving. Personally, I think that page upon page of her writing is gorgeous. I don’t mind letting something marinate.

In the conversation, Fran Lebowitz said that the problem with too many readers - the kind who may reject Toni Morrison’s work - is that they seem to think literature should be a mirror, instead of a door. It’s easier to digest a book that looks like your life with characters who look like you and the people you know.

I think Lebowitz was right on. Books are meant to challenge us and make us see things in a new way, perhaps even see things we never knew of. Not every read should be difficult, and comfort ones can be great once in awhile, but books give us chances to be someone else somewhere else. A relatable book is not necessarily the most relevant or helpful.

Next time you pick out a book, go for the door. Maybe it’s uncomfortable or heavy, so slowly go inside. Go somewhere you do not call home.

Jing's book reviews really capture her unique voice. I'd like to, but I just don't think I can take credit.

Tonight I'm seeing Toni Morrison, a writer I've wanted to adopt me for a very long time. I'm planning to sit on her foot and refuse to get up. I will tell her that this is a metaphor, though not one anywhere near as brilliant as one she could craft.

Me: I'm going to see Toni Morrison.

Mike: Oh? The r&b singer?

Me: Uh. Are you kidding?

Mike: Huh? You said Toni Morrison, right?

Me: Right. The writer.

Mike: Oh.

Me: I think you're thinking Toni Braxton.

Mike: Maybe.

Me: Toni Morrison, r&b singer with the #1 single "Unbreak My Slave Heart." Or "Unbreak The Heart Of My Dead Child."

Mike: You've said too much.

The kids I tutor are awesome, as some of you know. Now they're part of Book Binge!

*I wrote this entry out in longhand a few weeks ago, got sick, and then never blogged it. My immune system has taken a real beating as the seasons have gone from summer to fall. In fact, I just woke up from a much-needed nap and sneezed like an elephant 10 times. How did my head not explode? I think this outdated post was meant to be.

Books will keep your mind and heart flexible and strong, but they don't seem to do much to combat germs. I warned you. Here are some books I not-so-recently enjoyed:

1) When I Knew by Robert Trachtenburg

Almost seven months ago, a cute new guy started an internship at my office. Jim, one of my co-workers immediately started to encourage me. "He keeps looking at you," he'd IM me. (We all worked in the same room). "You should ask him out for lunch."

I didn't have to. One day, he asked me. We stopped by the fruit stand and then ducked into the deli where I occasionally like to get spaghetti. We tried to make ourselves a little more familiar, sharing honest tidbits unwelcome in normal work banter. And then he casually said, "I came out six months ago..." His face was beet red and scanning mine for a sign. Was I judgmental? Surprised?

Honestly, I wanted to slap my head like a really bad Taboo player after reading my partner's cards after a round. Of course! My gaydar is a little wonky sometimes, but I am always ready to morph into BeardMaster 5000 or the most bookingest hag a guy could want. At your service, sir!

When I Knew is a collection of memories and musings by gay men and women about when they - or sometimes, everyone else - realized they were playing for the other team. Funny, bittersweet, and sometimes troubling, it captures the joys and difficulties of being your true self. I highly recommend it to all my gay pals out there and the people who love them.

2) Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

I made a Russian bibliophile friend at the Junot Diaz reading and he got this really passionate look on his face when I mentioned this highly lauded author. "Lahiri is one of our greatest living authors," he proclaimed. Dude's nickname is the same as a Chekhov character, which I think gives him some credibility.

Her latest story collection mostly follows female protagonists as they navigate love and life in unfamiliar lands. With much more of a focus on sex and relationships, I'd say this work is the closer to chick-lit than any of Lahiri's other books. This is not an insult in the least. Unaccustomed Earth is beautifully written with rich details and characters you'll wish you knew better.

3) Chew on This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson

This more accessible version of Fast Food Nation looked like something the kids I tutor could sink their teeth into. (Borun, a seventh-grader I tutor, is currently chewing on it enthusiastically, and he is not a very enthusiastic reader). I wasn't sure if it would make them wholly reject McDonald's fries, but that's not the point. I read Schlosser himself will admit he sometimes caves in to the lure of the extra-value meal.

The point is educating kids about the history and politics of those eating establishments that most target - and employ - them. The book does a good job of interviewing real kids who work in fast food, driving home points about minimum wage , unions, and the living conditions of cows and chickens that make up some of that crud we eat.

And there might be poop in your hamburger. Are you lovin' that?

4) Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

This is one of those short classics you may not have enjoyed the fist time around when it was probably summer homework.

It deserves a second chance!

Really, that's what the story hinges on. Second chances: Do we deserve them? How can we take them when everything - our morals, obligations, and financial situations - gets in the way?

Shortly after reading about Ethan Frome's tale of love 2.0, I read Haruki Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun about a married man who pursues a relationship with his first love after years of separation. Another possible companion piece: "My Boo" by Usher, featuring Alicia Keys.

Last night, Junot Diaz said he would look for my blog, so he could read about the crazy lady. He even signed my copy of Drown "To Amanda who met the crazy lady!" The whole thing - and other assorted happinesses - left me so giddy, I couldn't sleep.

In a few hours, I'm going to a Fashion Week media event with a co-worker. And then worktime. I need to churn out pages and pages of writing this weekend for the cash money and self-actualization, yo.

Seems I'm a freak magnet. I headed to Summerstage in Central Park awhile back to behold the linguistic majesty that is Junot Diaz, the New Jersey dude who bagged this year's Pulitzer Prize and who did I sit next to? Rather, who sat next to me?

The craziest harpy who ever set foot in a library, that's who.

This wild-eyed woman surely held a graduate degree and might even have an esteemed position in academia. That's the way the world works sometimes. I love crazy people as much as the next person, I really do. But she muttered the entire time that Diaz was addressed and anytime he spoke. As far as I know, she is not a brilliant writer anyone camped out to see.

"He's such a piece of shit. Why does he talk about women like that? Is he married?" she frantically asked as she swiveled in her seat. She tried to make eye contact with me; I didn't return it. The girl next to her briefly turned and got her ear chewed off with the ballbreaking schtick that gives feminists a bad rap, the same kind that might prompt some stupid women to vote for McCain because he clearly supports women's rights, what with asking someone with ovaries to run with him. Because labels make politics so easy.

The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao portrays the lives of men and women of various ages. Adolescence is involved. Sexuality is involved. A portrayal does not necessarily mean an author agrees with each character's actions or beliefs. This is something most people understand, but it's not something to be taken for granted, I guess.

The woman next to me started poking at the man in front of her, asking him if Diaz is divorced and snorting, "I'll bet he is! He makes me sick!" The guy said he wasn't sure, maybe she should ask when questions were turned over to the audience.

Right. And maybe the child predator should lead the local Cub Scout group on a trip to the mountains.

Eventually, the moderators asked anyone with questions to come forward. The woman next to me scrambled to the line that formed, scribbling a tirade onto a scrap of paper. When it was her turn to speak, everyone in my row and the one in front of it cringed. We could only make out a few words, because she was screeching incoherently away from the microphone at a pace that would impress Twista.

Diaz thanked her for her comments, looking like the very explication of WTF. Everyone else booed. Crazycakes headed back to her seat all aglow. It was like she'd just been crowned President of Assholes. The bitch was incumbent.

Tomorrow night, I'm headed to another reading and signing by Junot Diaz. It will be wondrous, and I hope not too brief. And I'm hoping that one outraged critic will be unable to attend. Honestly, I'd love to see her raising hell at the Republican National Convention or Zabar's or any other place where I won't be anytime soon.

It was endless, childish chatter and we put our faces together as we talked. I think Iris was accustomed only to talking properly, as it were: considering, pausing, modifying, weighing her words. To talk like a philosopher and a teacher. Now she babbled like a child... She seemed to be giving way to some deep need of which she had been wholly unconscious: the need to throw away not only the maneuvers and rivalries of intellect but also the emotional fears and fascinations, the power struggles and surrenders of adult loving.

-John Bayley in Elegy for Iris

I went out to dinner with a friend last night and got in late, hence this unusual morning blog entry. We talked about a lot of things, eventually moving to the topic of dating. She said, "You seem to easily find these people you can connect to."

While I corrected her by citing some examples, it made me think about the fact that a surprising number of people have put up with me over the years when I was pretty much just being myself.

No one I've dated has gone through as much tumult as TBID, though. I've been so adamant since meeting him that I don't want a label or a sense of obligation, ixnay on the oyfriendbay. From now on, I don't want a relationship that reminds me too much of others I'd had or most of the ones I've seen.

TBID didn't holler out, "Boo ya!" when we spent Sunday evening together talking and watching a movie and eating sandwiches at my place like a boyfriend and girlfriend might do. (It was only the second time we ever ate in). And he doesn't use my words against me when I bat my eyes and ask for help with technical stuff or manual labor. (If you wanna get the really heavy stuff moved, you often have to hire or date someone).

Now things just are. I don't care so much about the potential of getting hurt again. This very moment is wonderful, and I'll take that. I'm not sure how TBID mustered the tenacity and strength to scale my walls, but I'm glad he did.

I'm posting this again, because I never heard back from my one respondent.

I have a copy of The Time Traveler's Wife that I'd like to swap with someone for something I haven't read. I'm happy to swap by snail mail - if you're comfortable, I'm comfortable.

I'd love to read any of the following:
-social science or cultural studies(anything on gender, class, or ethnicity is great!)
-anything by Haruki Murakami
-a classic or neoclassic
-interesting young adult fiction

Make me an offer via comment...please.

I bought this book at a thrift store tonight, because it was written for me:


Book report to come!

Until then, here's the blurb on the back cover:

With humor and emotion, Kristina Girsh celebrates the terrific intricacies of multilayered, interfaith relationships in this girl-meets-boy dating guide. She waxes poetic about why Jewish men are great boyfriend material: They're smart, entrepreneurial, generous, doting, and funny. They love to eat, and they're passionate in bed. Sure, their neuroses have neuroses. But isn't it nice to know there are guys who analyze relationships more than you do?

Chapter such as "Why Choose the Chosen Ones?," "The First Shtup," and "Talk Yiddish to Me" detail how a sexy Shiksa can meet, date, and love a nice Jewish boy of her own.

I have a copy of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Does anyone want to read it?

I'd love to do a book exchange with someone who's got something I want to read.

*By the way, I'm up early to go see Feist on Good Morning America!

Sometimes it is a relief to be told what to do. We are two artists who are trying to come up with new ideas every day. But our most joyful and even profound experiences often come when we are following other people's instructions When we are making crepes from a recipe, attempting to do a handstand in yoga class, or singing someone else's song. Sometimes it feels like the moment we let go of trying to be original, we actually feel something new - which was the point of being artists in the first place.

-Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July in Learning To Love You More

Yesterday, I finished Mary Roach's Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, yet another book that can be mortifying to read on the subway. My sense of humor has always leaned into the inappropriate zone, so it was difficult to stifle giggles when I read the passage below. I warn you, it involves our friend, the vagina:

Kegeling has since been taken a step further, in the form of vaginal weightlifting. The idea being: You don't just flex your muscles if you want to build them up; you train with weights. I once tried the Feminine Personal Trainer for a story. It came with a slip of paper telling me not to be overwhelmed by its weight. I wasn't. I was overwhelmed by its size. Suffice to say, this is the only workout on Earth that calls for vaginal lubricant. The directions tell you to insert and contract, causing the FPT to rise up inside you until all that can be seen protruding is a doorknob-shaped piece of steel, as though you are giving birth to a hardware store. I use mine as a paperweight.

If this doesn't want make you want to rush to your local library or bookstore - after you manage to uncross your legs, of course - I don't know what will.

From When You Are Engulfed By Flames by David Sedaris:

"Me too," her husband said. "It's cold as shit in here." Shit is the tofu of cursing and can be molded to whichever condition the speaker desires. Hot as shit. Windy as shit. I myself was confounded as shit, for how had I so misjudged these people?

As of this afternoon, my dad is visiting for about a week. He'll be helping me set up the apartment, doing all those things that are beyond my skill set, like hanging up my danglies and building a special shelf for the microwave. We'll also be hitting up his favorite eateries, every computer store in Manhattan, and I hope, the musical "In the Heights."

I'm scrambling around to get my apartment ready and have secured some lemonade and clean towels. The "Daddy do" list has been up for a few days. Now I just need some time to do everything else, including finding cans of Dr. Pepper, the beverage of apartment decorating/furniture assembling champions. I haven't seen my dad since Christmas! I'm excited.

If I weren't so busy with houseguest preparations, I'd be reading. Here are some books of late worth mentioning:

1) When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris: The latest essay collection dropped Wednesday and within hours, was a bestseller. I went to a reading and barely snagged a seat. Hundreds of people were there, and Sedaris was charming as always. Maybe it's because he was so late to fame - he got his first piece published at 36 - but Sedaris still seems genuinely humble and surprised that so many people love his writing. I've started the book and chuckled at this one recollection of when Sedaris was passively propositioned by a hitchhiker-friendly truck driver. Overall, though, I don't think this is going to be as hilarious as his early work. How could it?

2) Play With Your Food by Joost Elffers and Saxon Freymann: The woman beside me and I started reading this glossy picture book on the subway. It showcases a zoo of fruit and vegetable animals and includes sections teaching people how to see fruits and vegetables in a creative way and how to transform say, a potato into a mouse. Some of the creations are amazing. Too bad you should eat them after, because I love fruit but am not a vegetable fan. When I visit home, I'm making a point of creating some critters with my mom and sister.

3) Subwayland by Randy Kennedy: I saw this on TBID's bookshelf and had to borrow it. Kennedy writes a regular column for The New York Times, and I was up for digesting nuggets on subway life during my daily commutes. I hated when I reached my stops each day. I wanted to keep reading about the art, people, and stories of NYC transit. The book is highly entertaining and informative. Two subway poles up.

Last week, I read Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists. It wasn't unceasingly hilarious, but it had its comic moments. At times, I found myself wondering if TBID is a McSweeney's contributor who writes under a pseudonym, because he could have randomly said any of these excerpts in normal conversation and I'd have laughed and then we would've given each other that look.

Oh, and it's his birthday today!

Happy birthday to sweet, funny TBID!

Lesser-Known Movie Prequels
by: Sarah Garb

Borderline-Inappropriate Dancing

Four Bachelorette Parties and a Friend in the Hospital

Joseph and the Nondescript Monochrome Sportcoat

There Are Plenty of Mohicans

*

Pickup Lines: The First Drafts
by: Mark Vanderhoff

"Are your legs tired? Oh, well, I'm not surprised; your thighs are almost comically muscular."

"Your father must have been a thief. I don't know, you just have the look of someone raised by criminals."

*

Pickup Lines Used By Mario
by: Christopher Doody

"Are you a magic mushroom? Because you are making me grow."

"If Princess Toadstool looked like you, I would have killed Bowser years ago."

"If you were a warp tube, I'd be in you all day."

*

Little-Known Song Titles that Answer Questions Posed in Better-Known Songs
By: Jacob Sager Weinstein

"Love Has Everything to Do with It, If by 'It,' You Mean Romantic Relationships but Significantly Less If You Were Talking About Auto Repair."

*

Discarded Titles For George Orwell's 1984
By: Jez Burrows

O Brother, Where Art Thou? Oh Right, Everywhere

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Faceless Omnipotent Oppressors

Two Guys, a Girl, and a Chilling Dystopian Landscape

*

Gender-Neutral Grocery Items
By: Tracy Moller

Grandparent Smith apples

Humandarin oranges

Chef Childardee ravioli

Older relative Jemima syrup

*

Things That You Apparently Can't Say In An Office Environment
By: Dan Kennedy

"I may be in late tomorrow; I've been doing this thing in the morning where I just stand in the shower and try to figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life. Just stand there for an hour going, "Why am I even living in New York?"

I have a number of compulsive projects that are constantly going on, most in the form of lists. I've never thought they were detrimental to anything beyond cool points, but I've actually had this nagging worry in my head recently that horror of horrors, I might not fulfill my goal of reading 52 books this year.

[Cue slowed-down "Nooo!"]

It's a big deal to me, a feat I've pulled off for the last three years. I think it keeps my brain limber. It certainly reduces the creepy amount of staring I do while commuting. What will the world come to if I can't complete my mission?

Every week, I'm chipping away at one book. Now I'm working on two, and finishing the third tonight. Deedee and I are reading Fahrenheit 451 together, because she's now a Ray Bradbury fan. I'm currently reading the delightfully macabre Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. It gets a lot of raised eyebrows, as I read it during my lunch break and rush hour commutes. And I often laugh aloud while doing so. After using some Billy Collins poems in the last few weeks of tutoring, I'm now obsessed with reading his work again. Meanwhile, newspaper sections and the May issue of Real Simple sulk on the chest at the foot of my bed. Also, Life Coach gave me a number of magazines he no longer wanted.

I'm slowly working my way up to cat lady, if not the fulfillment of my reading goal. Pilly sweaters and piles of unread literature hoarded until Friday nights in? Check! Let me tell you about some books I recently enjoyed.

1) Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

I heard great things about Ferris's first novel, which captures the ins and out of a Chicago advertising agency. In fact, this is the novel I bought on sale the day I accidentally shoplifted at Barnes & Noble. The characters in Then We Came to the End manage to not come across as ones we've seen before in Office Space and The Office, both of which I love. I initially had a hard time remembering characters' names and bizarre backstories, but didn't want to part with any of them after almost 400 pages. There's a cool jolt of perspective at the end and some chuckle-worthy moments. Here's one:

Since becoming employed full-time again, he had grown aware of a phenomenon that seemed to happen only at work, or at least happened with more frequency at work than other places in life, and the phenomenon was this: one person would say something and the person listening would have positively no idea what he or she meant, but not wanting to appear rude, or worse, stupid, or alternatively, not caring to waste any more time, it was easier just to nod or laugh along than it was to pause and inquire what that person really meant... People were indifferent to what was said, or were preoccupied by other things, or had long ago concluded that what passed for speech during the course of a workday was mostly the babble of idiots. "So I thought, Would it make any difference, really? Would it honestly make a difference if instead of replying the way I would normally, I answered everyone with quotes from The Godfather?"

At the conclusion of the morning meeting, during which he had remained perfectly silent, as everyone was packing up their things, Benny had turned to Heidi Savoca and said, "'I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless, not men.'" Heidi's expression indicated she didn't know where Benny's comment was coming from, but more pressing than her confusion was her distaste for the remark itself. "That's a very sexist thing to say, Benny," she replied. Later that morning, Seth Keegan stopped by Benny's cube to ask him a question about some revision for a project the two had been working on over the course of the previous two weeks. "Do you have a minute?" Seth asked Benny. Benny swiveled in his chair. "'This one time,'" he said. "'This one time I'll let you ask me about my affairs.'"

2) Class Matters

This collection of New York Times articles covers various topics under the umbrella of class. I'm really interested in reading about experiences of gender, class, and ethnicity, because every instant of our lives is affected by them. No one lives in a vacuum; some of us are just better at denying these factors. The articles in Class Matters cover a gamut of subjects, from the implications of partnering with someone outside your class to how three New Yorkers of different castes handled the same medical emergency.

Talking about what kind of financial and consequently, social, legacy people are born into - and what should be done to make up for the unfairness of this - is touchy. Being college-educated and living in a dichotomous city of gross privilege and poverty, I both sighed and thumped my chest in recognition.

So many people want to shrug and say, "What's a person to do? I happen to have lucked out, but I don't owe the world anything." I just don't buy that.

A paradox lies at the heart of this new American meritocracy. Merit has replaced the old system of inherited privilege, in which parents to the manner born handed down the manor to their children. But merit, it turns out, is at least partly class-based. Parents with money, education, and connections cultivate in their children the habits that the meritocracy rewards. When their children then succeed, their success is seen as earned.

I really related to this one. Also, spot the pun:

Now, at thirty-four, she is back home. But her journey has transformed her so thoroughly that she no longer fits in easily. Her change in status has left Justice a little off balance, seeing the world from two vantage points at the same time: the one she grew up in and the one she occupies now.

3) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

I'm proud to say that I was digging this book before Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize a few weeks ago. With multiple narrators, it chronicles the saga of a Dominican immigrant family, including the eponymous "overweight ghetto nerd" Oscar. The verve in its language invoked me to share passages with co-workers, friends, and the kids I tutor. It's been so long since I loved a book, and I loved this book. Oscar WOW! There's so much I'd love to share, but you just need to read it yourself, after you read this snippet:

Maybe he was plain tired after four years of not getting ass, or maybe he'd finally found his zone. Incredibly enough, instead of making an idiot out of himself as one might have expected, given the hard fact that this was the first girl he'd ever had a conversation with, he actually took it a day at a time. He spoke to her plainly and without effort and discovered that his constant self-deprecation pleased her immensely. It was amazing how it was between them; he would say something obvious and uninspired, and she'd say, Oscar, you're really fucking smart. When she said, I love men's hands, he spread both of his across his face and said, faux-casual-like, Oh, really? It cracked her up.

She never talked about what they were; she only said, Man, I'm glad I got to know you.

And he said, I'm glad I'm me knowing you.