Check Your Local NPR Listings For My Selected Shorts Debut – Immediately!

Yaugh! I would have posted this sooner, but it seems I had the dates wrong. The Symphony Space site has it listed for the week of March 31 – April 6, but I’m getting word from folks that they’ve already heard it. Apparently this week, NPR’s Selected Shorts is airing my story “Football.” Since this program airs at dozens of different times around the country, you’ll have to poke aroundtheir site to find out what time it airs in your town. Strangely, it does not seem like it’s going to be aired in Chicago anytime soon... but, if this is the case in your city as well, I’m pretty sure you can also stream it online! I wish I could be more helpful than this and provide one tidy link but right now it’s all I’ve got so please take some time to look at your local listings online cuz I really happen to like this story a lot and I think you will too. Sorry this bulletin is so long.

New Stuff Elsewhere

Hi Y'all: Check out The Nervous Breakdown today for more stuff from me - now with pictures! Plus read Noria Jablonski's post as well, it's super funny.

I Have Some Questions I'd Like Answered

Why does everyone say relationships are so hard? Do you think relationships are hard?

If so, why?

If not, why not?

And: if I don't think relationships are hard, am I in denial?

Or: Am I asking the wrong question?

On The Weirdness of Plans

Hey kids! I have a new piece up on Writer’s Block Party, check it out.

Look What I Can Do!

I can add a picture from the web!


Fine, so you've all been doing this all along. Nobody said I was a fast learner. Ever.
This is a photo by the artist Loretta Lux who I've been loving for a while.

Me on Litpark!

Hey again! Check out the interview with me on litpark today. It’s got pictures too!

My Nervous Breakdown Debut

Hey kids, I’ve been invited to contribute to The Nervous Breakdown, and my first post is up today. It’s got pictures and everything!

Loser Contest at Maud Newton

Maud Newton has posted proof of the qualificactions of the contributors of the Loser anthology on her site, in the form of photographic evidence. Match the author/loser to their name/excerpt and the winner takes a signed copy of the book plus a Dr. Who iron-on, and frankly, I’m not sure who wouldn’t want a chance at that. My senior yearbook photo is there, and I’m tempted to give a hint, but I’ll leave it to y’all to even the odds.
I feel so totally People Magazine Before They Were Stars!

Welcome Litpark Refugees

Ok, so I figure if you’re here, I’m not alone in my litpark-missing unsteadiness, and I’ll move right on to the question:
How is everyone getting along without a little litpark in their morning coffee?
Personally, I feel like – I have to have a little something internet-related to obsess about in the morning that doesn’t leave me feeling sucked into a vacuum of nothingness, which means if I’m not obsessively checking the comments section of litpark, it’s an hour of looking at gawker and myspace pages when I should have been, oh, I dunno, reading the fifteen stories I need to read before Wednesday.

Attention Writers (and readers)

Another one of my many new BFFs courtesy of myspace (Nina! SBFFI! Supreme BFF Infinity! Not to ever worry!) is a writer named Susan Henderson, the only woman I can think of who's got over a thousand myspace friends that I suspect she is actually friends with. (Much as I'd like to think I'm actually friends with Bill Murray, well, I'm not sure Bill Murray thinks so.) Sue is a real champ for writers and started a website called litpark where she interviews writers and artists, but also really promotes interesting, thoughtful discussions so you should check it out. She's interviewed me for the week of March 12, but you should just jump in now and stick around for a while.

Cover Your Knees

Here’s something I had forgotten about until yesterday. About – eleven years ago or so, I went on a trip to London and Paris with my stepmom and her sister, and my sister. It was a great time, tons of laughs, and frankly I think we’re long overdue for another girl trip. Anyway, it was about our first day or so in London, I know I was very very tired from jet lag, and we were on a bus and I was wearing ripped jeans, which I was fond of at the time definitely for reasons, I’m sure I had them then, these reasons, they may have been style-related, although that seems dubious now, so really, I can’t say for sure what these reasons were anymore. Nevertheless, these jeans prevented me and my family from entering Harrod’s, apparently if my reasons were style-based, Harrod’s and I did not see eye to eye in this regard. So we’re on a bus, leaving Harrod’s to go somewhere else, and this strange old lady sits down next to me, as I recall her own style choices were a bit of a mystery, I seem to remember layers and shrouds and possibly bags or other accoutrements, and this lady, in an almost entirely unplaceable accent except that it was very clearly not anywhere in Great Britain, puts her finger through the hole in my jeans onto my knee and says, in a strong, belivable tone, “You should have shaaaame!” (Voice rising on second half of shaaaame.) Followed by an ominous prophecy, “No man will marry you!” I nearly burst into tears on the spot. It seemed less an opinion than a curse, and I was tired and already had a preexisting condition of fearing that no man would marry me. In following years, I became less concerned about getting married and more concerned that no good man would come into my life at all, but as I said I’d forgotten this until yesterday. At which time I also remembered that I’ve been married for two years. So either the spell has been lifted, or I was never cursed in the first place. Or, I started wearing newer jeans. Of course. I should have known all along why Ben picked me. Because my knees were covered.