Posts under ‘Overbooked’
Self-Made Man
I’ve long believed that as much as it can be painful to be a woman, I wouldn’t want to be a man. Men are allowed less freedom of expression than women. It’s more difficult for them to live sexuality and gender as fluid constructs. And men’s clothes are really boring.
Four on 10/17/2006
I recently checked out four books from the New York Public Library - a daunting amount for someone who adheres to a schedule of teaching middle school Reading and being obsessed with Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model - but I finished all of them about a week before the due date.
Letting go clean as kite string
From Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner:
Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it… I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.
Overheard in New York
A few days ago, I read Overheard in New York: Conversations from the Streets, Stores, and Subways. I used to visit the site fairly often, but found that it suffered from the PostSecret curse - as it got more popular, it became more trite and unbelievable. I think a lot of people just wanted to make something absurd up to have something to tell their friends about. You can’t promise integrity with anything written or reported.
Jhumpa for joy
On Saturday, Cade and I ventured to the Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival in Brooklyn. Subway service was completely discombobulated, as it always is on the weekends. We transferred from train to train and finally arrived to find that Fort Greene Park is actually big. Not Central Park big, but big enough. I thought there would be a large sign with “Jhumpa Lahiri’s reading here” printed in bold letters, but no such luck. We did stumble upon a mediocre farmer’s market, some kids playing around, and a former foster child who now sells magazines written by and for foster children. My boyfriend, ever enthusiastic to interject, “But I’m half-Jewish!”, haggled with the guy over the price of this fine literary publication. The organization of philanthropic peddlers/publishers wants $3, Cade talked him down to $2.
I said “duh” so derisively that I may have dislocated my jaw
It’s okay if you haven’t heard of Jhumpa Lahiri. And it’s okay if you haven’t heard of the books The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies.
10 new experiences/discoveries to share
10. This summer, I’ve begun to ride MTA city buses rather than take the subway. Sometimes it’s because a bus will drop me off right at a destination, instead of a few blocks away. Sometimes, it’s because I’m walking and a bus just pulls up and I don’t have to coyly ask, “Going my way?” I know it is, so I get on. I’ve seen ridiculous, albeit interesting, things happen on subways - people rolling joints, drunken ensembles singing showtunes, men in verbal altercations with rival gang members. Bus riders are more sedate. It’s also incredibly hot on subway platforms in the summer, and I don’t need to swelter any more than I already do. I still love the subway system, but I implore ye, “Take the bus!”
Back to civilization
And now back to our regularly scheduled program…
I finally have the Internet again! I feel like that kid in Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet when he was rescued from the Alaskan wilderness after living on his own post-plane crash, surviving a forest of bears, diarrhea-inducing berries, and a water table prone to disruption.
