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.
Posts under ‘Overbooked’
Me, Junot Diaz, and the crazy lady
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?
Scaling the walls
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.
Boy Vey!
I bought this book at a thrift store tonight, because it was written for me:
Book report to come!
The wisdom of Miranda July
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.
Do you need a spotter?
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:
The tofu of cursing
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?
Book them
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.”
Mountain Man Dance Moves
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.
Three on 5/2/2008
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.
