Ugh

Both of the magazines I subscribe to had double issues for the holidays. I’ve had nothing to read at the gym or before bed for the past week. It’s times like this I wish I liked Law

Something I'll Never Do To My Kids ...

… Give them a name with a unique spelling. Who wants to spend their whole life explaining it’s Jayson with a Y?

In The Mood To Give Money Away?

In the two and a half years since I graduated from college, the only thing I can say I’ve done for the world is not bought bottled water. Not so for my college friend Stephanie Curry, who has recently started her own charity in Paraguay.

Her organization, The Healthier Homes Project, gives women in rural Paraguay clean stoves, which is healthier for them than cooking
over an open fire.

Stephanie isn’t trying to change the world; she’s trying to help people, which is way better. She’s making a real difference in people’s lives, and not in some abstract way like giving money to the Met.

You can piggyback off of her goodwill by donating to her charity. Drop her a line and give her some dimes. Because not buying bottled water is probably not enough.

Existential Realization

In high school, I didn’t start skateboarding and I didn’t join cheerleading. But I did go through my own existentialist phase.

By the time I was taking A.P. tests, I had read most everything Albert Camus had published humously and posthumously. But like a skateboarding teenager, I knew deep down I was a fake. I mean, how much could I understand about existentialism if my mom had to drive me to Borders to buy The Last Man?

But for as little as I got existentialism, all those French translations have burrowed their way into my brain. And my limited grasp of the theory has become a foggy lens through which I see the world.

It’s funny how pretense plus time equals reality. The high school skateboarders who keep it up through college become real skaters, not just posers who buy their clothes from

The Year In Read, 2007

Last year, I was nearly sued over a flippant review. Considering my own literary ambitions and incredibly googable name, I’ll save my nasty comments for family functions. This year, I read, or tried to read, 45 books. I live pretty deep in Brooklyn and enjoy taking the subway. Also, I’m a loser. Full list after the jump. A Heart Breaking Work A Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
The Long Tail, Chris Anderson
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
The Missing Peace,* Dennis Ross

After I came back from Israel and had my life changing experience or whatever, I decided to read up on the subject. A friend from the trip recommended this book, which seriously never ended. Every time you think there’s going to be peace, psyche, there’s not going to be. Even though the book is 800 pages, after I got through the first 100, I had emotionally committed. This book was so heavy I had to start carrying a bigger bag. With 150 pages to the end, I left it on the Chinatown bus to D.C. And now I’m never reading a book because of a life changing experience again.

Little Children, Tom Perrotta

I was so eager to finish this book that I read the last pages in the Starbucks in Union Square. His writing feels so effortless, but clearly isn’t.

I Wish I Could Be There, Allen Shawn
Fun Home, Allison Bechdel

Bechel got me going into graphic novels. I even wrote her an email to let her know how much I loved it. This summer, I went to hear her speak at Barnes & Noble, and recognized quite a few Barnard alums, one of whom is now a man!

The Bronx Is Burning, Jonathan Mahler
Maus, Art Spiegelman
Then We Came To The End, Joshua Ferris

Related: Are We at the End Yet?

Urban Tribes, Ethan Waters

An anthropology book about co-dependent urbanites. If you are single and live in a city, this is your life.

The Watchmen, DC Comics

After Maus and Fun Home, I thought I was into comics. I was wrong.

I Married A Communist, Philip Roth
The View From Castle Rock, Alice Munro
Moneyball, Michael Lewis

Yeah, I don’t like baseball. Michael Lewis is pretty good though.

Bad Haircuts, Tom Perrotta
Under The Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer
Scoop,* Evelyn Waugh
Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas

Guess what? New York rules

Candide,** Voltaire
Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
This Is Not Chick Lit, Anthology

Related: No Boys Allowed

Dishwasher, Pete Jordan
The Shadow of The Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Down and Out in Paris and London,** George Orwell

Checking in on an old favorite. George Orwell still rules, but he’s a bit more anti-Semitic than I remembered.

The Line Of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst
Junky, William Burroughs
Honor Thy Father, Gay Talese
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
The Kingdom and the Power,* Gay Talese
On Love, Alain de Botton
Veronica, Mary Gaitskill
Heat, Bill Buford
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

Stop reading this blog and start reading this book.
Related:‘Your Adoring Audience Is Clamoring For More Heavy-Handed Sarcastic Wit And Cynicism.’

Shortcomings, Adrian Tomine
Drown,** Junot Diaz
Into The Wild, Jon Krakauer
Garlic and Sapphire,* Ruth Reichl
Among Thugs, Bill Buford
Amazing Grace,* Jonathan Kozol
The New Kings of Non-Fiction, Ed. Ira Glass
The Bullfighter Checks Her Make Up, Susan Orlean

Anyone who cares about good writing should read Susan Orlean.
Related: A Reluctant Feminist

Learning To Drive, Katha Pollitt
Lenin’s Tomb, David Remnick

*Didn’t finish
**Re-read

Previously read: 2006

2007 Is So Over

Pronouncements about the end of the year come too quickly. There are still sixteen days left of 2007, and as the past fortnight taught me, a lot can happen in two weeks. It’s too soon for definitive statements about 2007, but I’m ready for some unambiguous ambitions for 2008.

A friend once asked me why people wait until the holidays to be nice and resolve to change their lives. A whale oil miracle doesn’t do much for my love of humanity, but New Year’s is just a good excuse to reassess and make goals.

My first resolution is start writing a book. About five months ago, I decided I’d rather be unpublished than never try. I gave myself J1 as a start date and told a lot of people about my plan. My hope is that I’ll feel socially obliged to carry it out.

My second resolution is to stop relying on email and text messages to socialize. I’m an adult, and if I can’t have a two minute conversation about meeting up at a bar, then I don’t deserve a drink.

There you have it: My dreams for 2008 are to become a failed novelist and to have a higher cellphone bill, or a lower one—I’m not too clear on how Verizon works.

As many girls from my high school yearbook put it, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you fail, you’ll be among the stars.” That doesn’t make sense astronomically, but the point is, it’s better to try and fuck up than to just be a fuck up. Feel free to think about that one later.

Dude, It's Not 2004

I’m thinking of boycotting all social events sent via e-vite. Uprisings can’t work alone. Who’s with me?

N.B. Expect a similar post about Facebook events in 2010.

Voyeur's Misdelight

Reading about the decline of my ex-co-worker’s marriage is much more unpleasant than I would have imagined.

Divorce and a Haircut, Two Bits, New York Times

'In 1902, Father Built A House At The Crest Of The Hill Of Broadview Avenue Hill In New Rochelle, New York'

Growing up in Westchester has its perks. For one, my neighbor, E.L. Doctorow, was the author of the sentence above. That line is the opening of Ragtime. The book started off with him staring at the wall of his house on Broadview Avenue and ended with a musical adaption on Broadway.

Another perk of growing up in Westchester is I never carried keys because my parents saw no reason to lock the doors. But when I was about 12, they went through a short lived house locking phase. Since I never kept a key to my house, I came home one afternoon and found myself locked out. I went over to the Doctorows until my mom came home from work. Turns out when you’re a professional fiction writer, a locked out precocious 12 year-old is a good enough reason to take a break as any. So Edgar made me tea, and we chatted about New Rochelle.

His daughters had gone to the same middle school I was attending at the time, and he told me about a letter he had tried to write to one of their teachers. Edgar had decided he was going to write the best sick card ever, the sickest sick card if you will. He went through several drafts trying to explain elegantly why his daughter had missed school the previous day, how her absence wasn’t a reflection on her ambition, or her feelings about the teacher. Twenty minutes later and with dozens of discarded attempts by his side, he realized his daughter had left for school already. She had grown impatient with his literary aspirations and asked her mom, who dashed off a note in a minute.

To make an immodest comparison, I do the same thing as Edgar when I write emails. Wanting words to work together is not something that turns off even when all that’s needed is “please excuse …” If my dinner invitations go beyond time and date, it’s only because I care, not about my dining companion, but about my writing.

'New! AIM Chat In Gmail'

‘The entire point of living in Connecticut or Westchester is to limit your exposure to people who are from Long Island and New Jersey,’ said one magazine editor who has been commuting from Westport, Conn., through Grand Central for over a decade.

-Beneath Their Stations, The New York Observer That’s kind of exactly how I feel about gchat.

Music For The Teenage Years

You’ve Got Yr. Cherry Bomb by Spoon

Killing Machine by How I Became The Bomb

If you’re like every other person in 2007, you probably fell in love with Spoon’s album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. And like most people, “You’ve Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” was probably your favorite track. (Sorry, your taste is not as unique as you had previously hoped.)

Well, if you liked that track, you’ll love How I Became The Bomb’s “Killing Machine.” Their song came out before Spoon’s and sounds almost identical. So when “You’ve Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” comes on at parties, and it will, you should bring up “Killing Machine” and make everyone else feel like a fraud.

Outside of this coincidence, How I Became The Bomb is a fine band, but not nearly as good as Spoon. I was listening to their EP last night, and I was struck by how much better they would have sounded if I had still been a teenager. Not so sadly, I no longer go to New Rochelle High School. But if anything could make me nostalgic for my teenage years, it’s this band.

My Apartment: Now 400% Less Disgusting

Question

Who buys The Catcher in the Rye at Urban Outfitters?

A Reluctant Feminist

Back in my Spec days, a female editor made a real effort to connect with me. Usually, I pursue friendships, so I didn’t feel too comfortable that this senior was trying to befriend me, a lowly junior. Adding to my concern, every time we hung out, she’d say something about how we female journalists need to stick together.

At the time, I thought she was crazy. Who exactly were we “female journalists”? More than half of the Spec staff were women. Gender never came up there, or at any internship I had had.

But as I’ve gotten older, I see the importance in seeking out other female writers. When I read Prep last summer, I realized that a lot of the books I had grown up with—The Catcher in the Rye, Huck Finn, Portnoy’s Complaint—were boys stories. They still taught me a lot, but fundamentally, as a woman, there’s a part of them I missed. When I read Prep, I finally felt like a writer was speaking to me, instead of just having me follow the conversation.

I think of all this now because I’m reading The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, a collection of Susan Orlean profiles. Goddamn, can that woman write. She’s masterful with adjectives.

Orlean has had a terrific career as a nonfiction writer. Along with Adaptation, her essay, The Maui Surfer Girls, was inspiration for Blue Crush, she’s a staff writer for the New Yorker and all around writing rock star. But despite that, she isn’t in the popular zeitgeist like male nonfiction writers like Malcolm Gladwell or Adam Gopnik.

On the cover of my edition, Susan Orlean appears dressed up as a bullfighter. If I were a middle-aged, heterosexual man, I’m sure I would find Susan Orlean attractive, but why is her sexuality part of her book sales? You don’t see David Reminck’s mug on the cover of Reporting.

Obviously there are a lot of successful female writers out there, and regardless of her gender, Orlean has done well. But I recently realized that almost all of my favorite writers were men, and I don’t think it’s because all women writers are hacks.

So yeah, we female journalists do need to stick together. Because for some reason, women don’t get read as much as men, and frankly, some of the best writing out there comes from someone with two X-chromosomes.

Music Memories

In college, I inadvertently took a bunch of classes where linguistics came up. We’d spent a lot of time discussing names: what they represent, what they miss and how false they are.

Even though the subject interested me, I realized pretty early on that such lines of thought were a black hole of reasoning: one could spend all their days thinking about the falseness of the word “tree” and be none the wiser for it. Better to call a tree a tree and just order lunch and move on.

But still, there is some difference between what a “tree” suggests and what a tree actually is. I was thinking about this difference in regards to myself. A lot of who I am is a result of who I wanted to be. In 10th grade, I decided I wanted to become well-read; I made a choice to read a lot. Am I different than someone well-read who didn’t have to make that resolution?

Last spring, I fell for “Scenic World” by Beirut. The lyrics resonated with how I was feeling about my life at the time. I decided then that six months hence, I wanted that song to evoke cold mornings in March, walking to the subway, feeling confused about my life. I listened to the song a lot that spring, in part because I liked it, but also because I wanted the song to represent that period in my life.

Tonight “Scenic World” came up on my iPod, and I was instantly transported to one of those mornings. My plan worked, but I can’t help feeling like I fooled myself.

I’m listening to “Scenic World” right now on repeat. In about eight months, when I hear it again, it’ll probably remind me of how obsessive and weird I thought I was for making it remind me of spring. Talk about meta memories.

I've Never Been Prouder Of My Heritage

Enjoy this movie, goys. I’ll be getting Chinese food.

All This Time I Spent Worrying About My Body, And I Could Have Been Learning French!

Q: Why does getting big plastic breast boost your self-esteem more than say, learning a foreign language? - Katha Pollitt
A: This is why people hate feminism. - Everyone else

Secret's Out

In September, I complained that the four post cards I had sent in July from Costa Rica had never made their away ashore. Well, three months later, two have arrived. Exciting! Will the other two make it? Drama!

I was annoyed when I thought the postcards had been lost, but now I’m glad that they ultimately took so long to arrive. It’s like the Costa Rican postal service created a special account for me to deposit good wishes into the future. Travel postcards are perhaps the only form of communication that get better with age. A text message that took three months to arrive would not leave me with the same warm and fuzzy feeling.

'Your Adoring Audience Is Clamoring For More Heavy-Handed Sarcastic Wit And Cynicism.'

Sorry audience, there’s a limit to how many thoughts I can express in Word Press form.

Now that I’m blogging professionally, writing any extra posts seems like a busman’s holiday. If you don’t know what a busman’s holiday is, I’ve included a link with more information right here. How’s that for heavy-handed sarcastic wit?

And here’s a cultural recommendation:

If you’re within 20 miles of a book store, I’d recommend going out and buying Junot Diaz’s

Hey, You Know What's Funny?

Jamba Juice sells Vitamin Water. Don’t people go there for Jamba Juice’s own brand of overpriced juice like drinks?