Thank you, Sun-Times and Channel 2 fellas, for exposing those Dove billboards for the anti-erection propaganda that they are. That's right: in their menacing white panties, the Dove women are chunky size-ten threats to the fantasies that Chicago newsmen clearly feel entitled to enjoy at all times, or at least while commuting or running errands, or rushing out to cover a breaking story about a fire or a murder or whatever, or otherwise cavorting through the vast, roofless Playboy mansion that is our entire goddamn city. Because apparently it's bad enough that actual women are allowed to walk around Michigan Avenue or Navy Pier with their real live fleshy-flesh sticking out from under shorts and halter tops as if it were hot out or something, as if Richard Roeper's boner wasn't totally at stake. (Does he think it's like his thumb and that he gets to vote with it?)

Plus I love it when these editorials say stuff like "ads should be about the beautiful people" (see the second segment), and "if I want to see plump gals baring too much skin, I'll go to Taste of Chicago," as if it were all just a matter of venue--because, what, it's of great masturbatory importance to see chubby chicks in one place and not another? Like are there secret freaky Old Testament-style Jerk-Off Laws that prohibit getting off on "real women" when they're served up on the same platter used for taut model fantasy fucktoys? I know these guys are talking out of their asses, but there's a whiff of righteous outrage coming out of there, too, and it's creepy.

And don't even get me started on this guy's remark about these ads encouraging people to be out of shape. Uh, yeah, we can see right through that, and it doesn't help the "obesity epidemic" any when the chub you're most concerned about is the one in your pants, dude. We know what's up with that. (Or what's not up. Or... ew.)

The panel is NEXT week. Not tonight. I am stupid. And busy.

But I live stupidly close to Sulzer Library, so I'll walk by there anyway, just to relieve my guilt. If you don't read this in time and show up anyway we can browse the paperbacks together and do catalog searches for titles with dirty words. It'll rock!

Pulling myself out from this little online hiatus is to some extent a matter of digging myself out from under a couple hundred backlogged manuscripts at work (including YOURS, probably, but don't ask), but I'm getting to the point where my office is normal office colors again and not caste in a queasy yellow-beige light from so many manila envelopes. I seem to be making some progress.

If you're in Chicago, you might wanna hit Sulzer library Monday night to see me at this thing. More later...

I keep hearing about how Chicago is ungodly hot right now, and it's so strange to be here in San Francisco where it's almost kind of cold. Sadly, my hotel has an outdoor pool. Even more sadly, it has no internet access. But I'm getting out and taking photos.

Here is a quick LA summary. I ate: curried wild boar, an In-N-Out burger, and fresh scallops at a restuarant somewhere around where the Manson Family lived. I saw: Hollywood Blvd., the Scientology Celebrity Center, my friend Amy, some improv, the stage where Thai Elvis plays (but not Thai Elvis himself), my friend Brian, Glenn Danzig's house, the ocean, about seven thousand promotional signs for Herbie: Fully Loaded, for fuck's sake. Celebrities I met: the woman who makes the 30-Second Bunnies films; Pamie. I drove: The 5, the 110, the 101, the 105, and the 134, though not at all in that order.

I talked to Eve at SFist this weekend, and the interview should be posted there later on today. And my reading is tomorrow night at A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books. See you there...

(And yes, I know that's a stupid way to get there from LA.)

1.) Take pictures with cameraphone (as shown.
2.) Lose one whole dollar in the slot machines. Decide that being easily discouraged is a good thing sometimes.
3.) Consider buying chocolate poker chips.
4.) Discover there's free wireless. Decide that being a twitchily compulsive email checker is also a good thing sometimes.
5.) Check your boarding pass. HOLY SHIT, YOU'RE IN "GROUP 1." YOU NEVER GET GROUP 1.

More (and LA pictures) when I get to San Francisco.

Tomorrow I fly to LA for my reading at Dutton's on Wednesday, and then next Tuesday I'll be in San Francisco at this wonderful place. (More info here.) And in between I hope to be posting some photos, if not some entries. When I get back I'll be launching the new version of this site and reprinting some classic old poundy.com stuff, and God willing, it'll be the beginning of the end of rushed, exhausted entries like this one. But then, maybe you're all at the beach. I hope you are.

If you come to one of the readings I'll be happy to entertain you with the droll little title-page cartoon I draw on EACH AND EVERY PERSONALIZED COPY of my book, as shown in this photo that Not Martha took at one of the Seattle readings.

In San Francisco I hope to say hi to this dude, whose book I will be reading on the plane. I might also make a pilgrimage to this store. Any other suggestions about what to do/where to go in LA and SF, post 'em in the comments.

See you in California...

It seems Flea is wondering if perhaps I, too, was stricken with the RedEye Curse that caused her to break her toe and Justin Kaufmann to get a speeding ticket after being featured in yesterday's paper. The answer is no, because, clever me, I didn't even READ the RedEye yesterday. I'd seen the cover online and I'd meant to get a copy, but I work in the surburbs where I couldn't just run out to a newsstand. I knew l'd see it eventually because my boyfriend picked up a couple copies, so I didn't go out of my way to find one and bwah hah hah, I CHEATED THE NEWSPRINT-SMEARED HAND OF FATE, SO THERE.

If you're not coming from the RedEye, perhaps you've somehow made your way here from a link in a a Salon article which referred to the '74 Recipe Cards. It's nice to have a nod, though I can't help wishing that for all the attention Salon has been giving fat people they'd notice my book, too. Moreover the last pargraph of this article bugs the hell out of me from the way he felt compelled to describe a newly widowed woman "gnawing away" on a cake and "smearing icing down her chin" just because she happened to be bereaved while fat and at a Jenny Craig center. Because see, the fatties, they grieve, too. Really, it's lovely that Dale Hrabi is touched by our chubby, grease-stained humanity, even if it is "a bit gross." Oh, for fuck's sake.

The revamped Poundy.com is just days from launching, as soon as the Moveable Type-Wrangler works out some kinks and I eat three or four whole roast chickens or something.

I read in Oak Park on Thursday! It's freaking me out a little, since it's my hometown. Maybe more on that later.

I was looking at earrings at a jewelry stand on State Street outside the student union. As I browsed, I became aware of a voice behind me a few yards away.

"Hi! Can you spare a moment to help out the environment?"

I could tell it was a girl and that I sure as hell was in a college town. When I was walking around Cambridge a couple weeks ago there were scary kids in yellow T-shirts and clipboards lurching around the sidewalks saying, "You’ve got a minute, RIGHT?" I dodged two of them, since I was pretty sure that my out-of-town-just-passing-through-minute would be worthless to their cause and thus wasted. At one point I’d had to turn around and backtrack half a block, which meant I had to pass one of them again, a tall lanky kid. "I knew you’d come back!" he’d said exuberantly. "No." I’d mumbled, rushing by. But the girl here in Madison wasn’t accosting me. I couldn’t even really see her but as I tried to decide on a pair of earrings I kept hearing her try to engage passerby.

"Hi there! Can you spare a moment to help out the environment?"

(Silence and footsteps)

"Hi! Can you spare a moment to help out the environment?"

(Muttered, noncommittal reply)

"Okay! Hi! Can you spare a moment to help out the environment?"

I handed the earrings I’d chosen to the jewelry vendor, who wrote the receipt slowly. Someone had stopped to help out the environment. From what I could hear, the environment required a monthly debit amount from a checking account. Someone would think about it.

"Yeah, that’s fine!" I heard the girl call after him or her.

Then she said, "Hi! Can you spare a moment to help out the environment?"

The vendor gave me my earrings and pointed out some necklaces that were twenty percent off. I started examining some silver pendant.

"Hi there! Spare a moment to help out the environment?"

I decided to buy a necklace, too.

"Hey!" Environment Girl said suddenly. Her voice was different. I froze and was afraid to turn, because for a moment I thought she was talking to me. "So guess where I am," she said, and then I realized she was on her cell phone. "I’m on State Street," she told her friend on the phone. "I’m doing that job? Yeah."

I tried to catch the name of the organization she was working for, but the jewelry vendor was counting out my change.

"…Yeah. Classes are out now. (Pause.) I’m by the bookstore? (Pause.) Yeah. The thing is? I think? Um, this job makes me totally want to shoot myself. Seriously."

I looked at the jewelry lady to see if she was listening, too, but she was busy writing another receipt.

"I mean, my God," the girl went on. "This sucks so bad."

***

I’m back from Wisconsin now. I didn’t get a chance to take many photos, but I’ll post the few that I have this weekend.

And if you've been by the book site, you've noticed you’ll get a chance to see me three times this weekend: 1.) 7:00 pm Saturday for a short reading at at Book Cellar in Lincoln Square 2.) 12:30 pm Sunday for a reading at The Printers Row Book Fair and then 3.) 2:00 pm Sunday at the fair I'll be doing a memoirs panel with Paula Kamen and Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Come see me! It's for the environment! Okay, so it's not, but for the sake of that poor girl, PRETEND IT IS.

The Redeye article where Flea and I are interviewed is most likely going to come out Monday. But you can read about Ron in the New York Times today. I'm happy that they ran one of my favorite photos from his site.

I was sad to hear that Alicia Frantz passed away on Friday. I'd linked to her Audible Frequency blog a couple years ago, and I'd met her a couple times only in passing, but her site was one of the most interesting weblogs in Chicago. Eric Zorn wrote a wonderful tribute to her on his Chicago Tribune blog and I recommend listening to the strange and moving radio noise recording featured on Gapers Block this week. (Chris, I bet you'd like this. I wish I could have introduced you to her.)

I'm leaving now to drive up to Milwaukee, with an iPod full of songs and a mix tape (an actual cassette tape I can't wait to listen to.

See you tonight, Wisconsin. I just might read my story from this book.

I'm back in Chicago now. I've been home since Wednesday night, but it took going through the stacks of mail and all the other crap that accumulated over the past few weeks to feel like I was really home home, and not just shuffling through a familiar landscape of laundry piles and receipts and business cards (am I the only person who doesn't know what to do with other people's cards? Where do I put them? Should I put them in a bowl and have a monthly drawing and send the winner a nice gift certificate to Sizzler? I deliberated this as I went through the cards and about five hundred thousand other pieces of paper today.). But now everything is in its place and so am I.

I stayed in four different hotels on this last trip. I have a recurring bad dream about missing the check-out time. I collected all the complimentary shower caps from the bathrooms. I don't know why. I have this idea I can use them like these things, which I would never buy. That's how homesickness makes you weird, I guess: I began to imagine this domestic existence covering big bowls of homemade salads, even though I've spent the past three months or subsisting on handfuls of dry cereal and frozen burritos from Trader Joes. But it looks like I'll be home long enough this time that it might be possible to have a legitimately kitchenlike experience in my own kitchen. Theoretically, at least.

I updated the book site. Go there! Be informed! Wisconsin is next.

I hate the key situation. I hate not having keys. It's not until I travel that I realize how compulsively necessary it is for me to be able to reach for and clutch and stash and dig out my big jangly set of keys. I especially hate that one of the first things I have to do when I leave to go on a trip is bury my keys deep in my bag and pretend they don't exist for however many days I'm gone. I hate reaching in to find them when I'm almost home and worrying that they've suddenly ceased to exist. I hate that when I travel my reassuring handful of keychain is traded for a plastic hotel key card. A card! How the fuck am I supposed to trust a card? It's barely three dimensional. I put it in my purse and I can practically feel the universe threaten to suck it through any one of its slot-shaped wormholes back into total oblivion.

I do not like that most hotels seem to have Pepsi and not Coke machine. Diet Pepsi in a plastic bottle for $1.50 or more is three kinds of wrong, and it tastes like chemicals and exile.

I wish there was only one kind of alarm clock. Or only one kind for all the hotels in the world. The one this morning had TWO alarm settings and to the best of my ability to decipher the configurations of buttons and light-up dots I thought I'd set them both, but only one went off. I had a wake-up call and I got up anyway, but still, doubt lingers like a fart. Also, how does the "sleep" button work and who are these people who use it? Also, why is the default alarm setting always on radio mode, and why is it always tuned in at the most ragged edge of an AM frequency, at full volume, spraying big blurts of static and unintelligible newstalk? I keep waking up to what sounds like air traffic controllers attacked by bees.

I like those little folding stands that you use to hold up your luggage. I never used to understand the point of using them, but now in every hotel room I find the stand and open it and haul my suitcase up on it and I feel like a very savvy traveler for some reason.

I think I am seriously dyslexic or otherwise cognitively impaired when it comes to reading those signs in hotel hallways, i.e., "Rooms 301-319 -->" The numbers! The arrows! The greater than/less than propostions! Two out of three times I always start out walking in the wrong direction.

I like that I am writing this entry from the Limoliner going from Boston to New York. I checked, and I'm pretty sure that I'm only the 416th person to write a damn blog entry from the Limoliner. Really, it's the pimpingist bus ever. It doesn't have that toilet chemical smell that Amtrak trains totally have, either.

I have new pictures up on the Flickr page. Most of them are of Boston, with a couple of cameraphone pics of the day I spent in Nashua. Note to New Hampshire residents: I'm sorry that the only photos of your state are of a hotel and a gift shop, but I'm afraid that's all I got to see in the very short time I was there. Only a few precious moments there, really.

We just passed a sign for Squantz Pond State Park. Where is that? Are we almost there?

Tonight I discovered I'd misplaced my cell phone. I drove back to work to look for it and when I didn't find it there, in the car, in my apartment, or in my car again, I knew it lost and that in the moring I'd have to drive down to the one Cingular store open at 9 am to replace it before I got on the plane to Boston. And I hadn't packed yet, and my apartment was a mess, and it took all the strength I had not to fall apart, and yes, I know that's a disco line, but I called on my inner Gloria Gaynor and managed to do an evening radio interview, which somehow cheered me up. And then just before 10pm I got a call from the FedEx driver who'd found my phone in front of my office building, and who, thank fucking God, lived just a five minute drive away and let me come by to pick it up. So this is why this entry sucks. It's okay. The real world sucks considerably less now that I have my phone, am almost packed, and have the finale of America's Next Top Model on TiVo.

I am still doing a crazy amount of radio. I look at my calendar planner and that Fishbone song with all the radio call letters goes through my head. I have a nice review in Time this week. You should also get the new Elle, too. It still doesn't make up for the lack of updates, I know, but I wanted to let you know I know about the magazine stuff in case you email me to tell me about it. I'm going to be in Boston this week. I'm going to be in New York. I'm going to see Monica! The Musical on Sunday night. I'm going to write in more complex sentences again someday. I miss you all. I'll tell you stories soon. That is all. For now.

At about 11:30 am CST and then again at 7:30 pm today you can hear me on Tulsa public radio, even if you're not in Tulsa. (Click on the link for 89.5 KWGS.)

I had a lot of fun doing this one, and I think it'll turn out sounding a lot better than the bit I did for a Colorado Springs station this morning: a 45-second live interview which included about 10 seconds of TOTAL BRAIN FART in which I was trying to decide whether "half-assed" was in violation of FCC rules.

And how was your morning?

There is free wireless here in the Portland airport. That's all I have time to say.