for updates & short takes

The reading(s)

Hello, Seattle Weekly readers

If you came to this site by way of this article, welcome to my self-absorbed lightweight chatty little bloggy blog. I hope I can call U "girlfriend," though thats like way 2 long 2 type on a cell phone, duh. i type "GF" instead cuz its EZ. :)

Anyway, if you'd like to make yourself overly familiar with me and my site, feel free to read some of the fluffy things I say about clothes and exercise routines and whatnot, and maybe you'll even want to read my book, which, sadly, is not a collection of essays by academic anthropologists, and for that I sincerely (but not deeply, because, like, I'm just not interested in depth) apologize.

But judge for yourself. And I'll see you next Monday and Tuesday. I'm looking forward to it.

Love (and air-kisses),
Wendy
pounded out by Wendy at 12:26 PM

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Radio oh oh and more

Go and listen to WBEZ today between 10:00 and 11:00 am (CST) to hear my interview on Eight Forty-Eight. If you have RealPlayer, you can listen in even if you're not in Chicago. And it's public radio, so you can impress your co-workers with your fancy intellectual radio-listenin'.

(And if you missed it, it'll be archived, probably.)

I keep wishing that this review could be on my Amazon page. I have been

And yes, tonight is the Women & Children First reading.. Tonight is ALSO the Alternative Comedy Night reading a little later across town at the Double Door.

What this means is that I'll be hopping in a cab after the reading in order to try and get there around 9:30 and then go on stage at 10ish. The lovely ladies at W&CF told me they think things should be wrapping up by 9, but I wanted to give everyone a heads-up that I can't stay indefinitely tonight. So I don't know if I'll have a chance to talk to everyone, which kind of stinks, since I'm sure there will be people I haven't seen in awhile, and readers I've been wanting to meet, and of course I want to sign things. So if I can't do more than wave or say hi, I apologize in advance. But maybe you'll want to come to the Double Door afterwards (heads up: there's an $8 cover). And if you want me to sign a book, I've set up a PO Box where people can send copies. (And I'll post that info soon, as soon as I remember what the address is.) And there will be other Chicago area events, too.

And... and... okay, that's enough. SEE YOU TONIGHT!
pounded out by Wendy at 11:23 AM

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Double fun

Mental hyperventilation

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. Yeah. 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.

(This is also why I haven't emailed you back. I will soon.)
pounded out by Wendy at 8:28 PM

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Recent things in my life that have nothing to do with the book or the fact that it is coming out in less than a week...

Hats: I have it in my head that the new pope doesn't look Pope-y enough, which is based on absolutely nothing but the fact that I'm not used to seeing anyone other than our old pope in pope clothes. It makes me oddly relieved for the modern convention of world leaders who are selected through relatively more lengthy public campaigns and allowed to dress themselves.

Fish: I bought some freeze-dried bloodworms for my Betta fish last week. They sounded much more exotic and appealing than the pellets I feed him, and I suppose I felt deep down that we needed some excitement, Bootsy and I. We were getting into this routine, you know, where he'd come right up to the side of the glass and stare plaintively at me while I dropped his food pellet into the water, and it was always really awkward because he couldn't see that I was trying to feed him, since he'd be all up in my grill (as much as a two-inch fish in a glass-enclosed aquatic environment can be all up in one's grill, which is more than one would think) and therefore oblivious to the food floating on the surface behind him. I'd tried pointing out the food to him--"Hey! Turn around!"--but he never took the hint, and I always felt I had to stick around until he found his dinner. I guess I was starting to resent him a little for not being more demonstrative and yet so demanding at the same time, though of course I never said so.

But I think we've gotten to a new level now in our relationship, thanks to the magic of dessciated red mosquito larvae. Bootsy loves them amd they seem to bring out his feral fish nature! Rarrgh! When he finds one floating nearby he THRASHES at it and chomps it down impressively as if it was a LIVING WORM and a menace to underwater civilization. I think he knows I like it when he shows off.

Also, a bulk quantity of dried bloodworms feels surprisingly soft to the touch, like something you could use to fill a little sachet pillow. Wouldn't that make a nice gift?

Other: The following things already happened and thus they DO NOT COUNT as book talk: on Monday, there was an article in USA Today about Bloggers With Book Deals (a term I'd love to shorten to "BWBD" if it didn't sound like a deviant personal ad abbreviation); they listed the book and interviewed my editor (who is also Wonkette's editor). On Tuesday Eric Zorn mentioned INTNM in his Tribune blog and listed some lines from the book, and I hope that little preview will tide you over until next Tuesday, when the shit hits the fan and I go on the radio and TV and God knows what else (that I swore I wouldn't mention now, so let's move on).

Site: I wasn't bullshitting you when I said the site was going to be redesigned. It'll be done soon. There are all kinds of elaborate things being done with Moveable Type--which, despite being Moveable, is still really heavy and dangerous. I'm only just now allowed to touch it. When the new site goes up I'll add about 10,000 blogs I have been wanting to add to my links list. Including yours. You'll see.
pounded out by Wendy at 10:42 PM

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Brrr

This is the first night all week that my Comcast high-speed internet hasn't repeatedly sputtered and died. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This is also the first night in a while that the radiators in my building have been on, and their clanking heartens me, because fuck "spring"—I would kill baby bunnies and wring the necks of downy little spring ducklings to have a space heater right now but the stores don't carry them because it's "spring," and so I've been forced to go around the house wearing multiple random layers of clothes like an Olsen twin. I shiver at my desk clutching mugs of hot tea. It makes me feel delicate and sleepy.

I am sleepy now, in fact. I should go to bed.

In the meantime, look at the new and improved book site, painstakingly chiselled from rare, imported Bulgarian cybercrystal by Phineas X. Jones. Check out the new dates on the events page!
pounded out by Wendy at 9:37 PM

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Things I didn't get to tell you yesterday

...because work was hectic all day, and then last night I had no internet because Comcast went down (again):

1. As some of you noticed, the Chicago Sun-Times did a brief story on the book. I'm sorry I didn't get to mention it before and have therefore deprived you of the full newsprint smudgy-fingers experience. They ran a picture of the INTNM cover and the picture of me from my About page, both of which you've probably seen before.

2. I'll be at Transitions Bookplace tomorow night, reading as a guest of Amy Krouse Rosenthal, along with Claire Zulkey and others. (You won't be able to buy I'm Not the New Me yet, since it's not out, but you can come and get some nice hot promo postcards for the book. You still have to come to my Women & Children First reading, you know.)

3. Don't ever park on Montrose. I live close enough to this street to be convinced that it's the land of Doomed Street Parking, because in the time I've lived here I've seen THREE seperate instances of tipsy and/or pharmaceutically drowsy drivers veering off course and smashing into multiple parked cars. Okay, not "seen" but "heard," and in the case of the most recent incident, "awakened at 5 am to the sound of." I woke up convinced the world was ending and looked out to see what I guessed was the Swervy Pickup Truck of the Apocalypse pulling over to the curb, with smoke coming from under the chassis, It was just a few car lengths away from a sedan with a big crunchy dent in its side, and in the morning I would notice scrape marks on other cars nearby. The driver got out and threw a bottle into the bushes across the street. It was all very Drivers' Ed Movie. I heard the police eventually showed up but I'd fallen back asleep by then. DON'T PARK THERE. No no!

4. Did I ever mention I am now in the middle of my third damn boot camp class? I am getting too busy to make it to every class, but at least a couple times a week I go there and call upon the Forces of Fitness to trample me like a herd of Clydesdales. Yes indeedy. Little cartoon puffs of steam are still hovering around my head. That is all.
pounded out by Wendy at 8:26 AM

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And yes,

The answers, my friends

If you're on my Notify List you know that I had a contest last week, where I invited you guys to look at this page and guess the year in which each photo was taken. The way I set it up, the first three people who correctly guessed the year of four or more photos would win signed copies of the book, and the first three people to guess three photos correctly would win signed galleys. I suspected that some photos would be hard to guess, so I set the bar low.

As it turned out, only ONE person managed to guess four pictures. But several people managed to guess three right within two hours, so I bumped up the two quickest responders to get books, and three more almost-as-speedy people won galleys, and I threw in some postcards and a really dorky mix cd, too. If you won, you've already heard from me, and I put your packages in the mail yesterday.

And now, the answers:

Photo #1: 1990. Okay, practically none of you got this right. Maybe like two people. I was actually in college when this picture was taken. Apparently freshman year weight gain + no makeup = freakishly young-looking. Most people seemed to guess around fourteen. I think someone even said I was eight.

Photo #2: 1975. I believe I'm four here. The bear's name was Thomas and he had a big beanbag belly that caved in rather unnaturally. Do you dig that mod lamp in the background? My family still has it.

Photo #3: 1987. Homecoming dance. And yes, that thing on my head is a clip-on bow. Shut up.

Photo #4: 2000. Man, all you people who thought this was a current picture are in big trouble. My hair is nothing like that now. Well, not like you can see much of it, but still.

Photo #5: 1999. This was somewhere near El Paso, Texas. It only looks like I went through some crazy Fat Mennonite phase.

Photo #6: 1996. I was drunk, kissing my own foot, and had Capri cigarettes in my purse. Let's not speak of this time again.

Photo #7: 1982. Person in photo is dirtier than she appears. I was playing by the creek at our favorite campground. I was eleven, and this was as long as my hair ever got.

Photo #8: 1971. Clearly I liked my mom's shoulder enough to give it a thumbs-up rating.

Thanks to everyone who entered!
pounded out by Wendy at 2:53 PM

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Fits like teen spirit

So Salon is running a feature article on the teen plus-size store Torrid today. While it's more balanced than most stories I've seen, pretty much all the press coverage of Torrid has touched on the pros and cons and cultural implications of a store that lets America's surly young fat girls have miniskirts. And every time I read some handwringing comment about how size 20 halter tops can only encourage rampant epidemic statistical-life-expectancy-altering morbid obesity, I can't help but think the concern is a little misplaced: that it's not so much about the size of the damn halter top but who it's for.

Maybe Torrid is revolutionary and all that, but it needs to be said that it's one of the first stores of its kind for girls--nobody ever seems to consider that equivalent stores for guys don't really exist, because guys have had far less trouble finding larger sizes in mainstream stores. I grew up understanding that in a typical department store I'd have to tear apart the racks to find an Esprit shirt in a tight size 16 but that the thrasher skateboard t-shirts across the aisle in the young men's department were as big as tents, even on me. Seriously, I remember being fourteen and watching Just One of The Guys on cable and thinking that should I ever be passed over for an important high school journalism prize and thus be forced to switch schools and pass myself off as a guy in order for my talents to be taken seriously, it wouldn't be so fucking hard to buy clothes anymore. I'm not glad there's a rise in obesity statistics, but I would have liked a store like Torrid twenty years ago.

I guess it's no wonder that out of all the different kinds of plus size markets out there, the store that most consistently sets off Fat Apocalyptic alarms is the store for young white girls, because really, hot young white chicks are among our most precious national resources, and without them America's reality shows and porn would suffer. When I read an an article like this where, in the first paragraph, the writer conveys the genteel moral dismay he felt when he passed by a Torrid store and noticed "there were a lot of--how should I put it--well, fat teenage girls inside," the cynic in me can't help but wonder why in the hell Lawrence Goodman, Esteemed Newsweek International Commentator, was paying so much--how should I put it--attention to a girly teen mall store in the first place. Maybe he just wanted to see if the shrug was catching on? And I kind of doubt he could have mistaken the place for a Radio Shack.

I know I'm being a little extreme here, but I'm pretty sure that the problem people have with the Torrid girls is not that they're "unhealthy" or "might have their life expectancy diminished by as much as two years." Nope, it's something else, and don't think that the girls don't know what it is. Don't think that wearing a plus-sized hot pink bustier is just about helping themselves feel better, because for every bit of restored self-esteem they might experience when they wear it, there's likely a little bit of fuck you, world mixed in, too.

Which is exactly how it should be when you're sixteen, so there.
pounded out by Wendy at 7:40 AM

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I am one of those people now, I'm afraid.

I have never gotten to update this weblog from an airport gate, but I'm able to pick up some free wireless access from the internet cafe next to gate c14 at Raleigh Durham Airport, and since my boarding pass has me in "Group 5" for boarding the plane back to Chicago, I guess I have a couple of minutes.

And in case I don't, I guess you can go over and look at my Flickr page with photos from the trip, complete with bonus cat pictures (those are my friend Michael's cats.) I'm planning on using Flickr to post pictures from the reading trips, and so far it seems to be working out. I like them, even if they don't have an "e" in their name and sound like something from IKEA.

Shit. I can tell the plane is going to be packed. I have these precious last few moments of personal space here in my bucket seat at the gate. Aren't you glad I'm sharing them with YOU?!
pounded out by Wendy at 6:50 AM

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And it rhymes, too...

Hey! Kirstie Alley has a blog!

I love TeeVee today. Every year.
pounded out by Wendy at 10:14 AM

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