What’s the point of the blog if it has not a theme, is sporadically updated, acts coy and withholding when it comes to intimate details?

I don’t know either. But you care, so I persevere, with vague promises of posting more, and my evident discomfort with really revealing everything is maddening even to me. But I think that anyone who really wants to get to the kernel of what is what with me should read/study/commit to memory the following mundane facts about my week.

1. I have yet another ingrown toenail. I’m suspecting it’s genetic. This one can’t be attributed to running shoes because I haven’t been running because either I’ve been working too much, it’s getting cold, or whenever I’m not working I think “Oh it’s too cold I’d rather crawl under the covers and think about work.” Suspicion: combination of the three.

2. I tore through Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, and now I’m slowly making my way through Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and pretending it’s the book version of Mad Men because I’m sad that the Mad Men season is over.

3. I remain enthralled by the Larry King video podcast and I don’t care who knows it. I watched Kid Rock. I watched Eric Clapton. I watched Jenny McCarthy for chrissakes. I don’t care who it is, if it’s Larry King and it’s on a 2×2″ screen, I am rapt.

4. I started watching The Wire. I never like to admit anything is too hard, but I am having a hard time understanding what the hell.

5. I went to a spelling bee. I felt I could have outspelled the pants off everyone there but that’s an ego thing. I pride myself on being a really good speller. I make typos sometimes and this is painful for me because I kind of think of myself as also a really good typist. And a show-off. I’m braggy.

6. I can’t dress for this shit. I mean, I know: LAYERS. But I hate any season that’s not summer.

7. I felt overwhelmed by malignant envy maybe 2 times this week. This is average for me.

8. I felt sorry for myself maybe 4 times this week. This is a lot for me.

9. I got a new gear shift on my 15-year-old bike that is a non-stop target for neighborhood vandals and man, gear-shift technology has really come a long way since I bought my twice-used Specialized Hard Rock Sport in 1992.

10. My new bike basket is not working out. It’s not attaching properly to the handlebars and it slowly or sometimes quickly starts to dump all my stuff into the street while I’m riding. I get a lot of compliments on it, however, so I’m thinking: who needs stuff? The surly guy at the bike shop even complimented me! Thanks, Jean!

11. I almost missed Halloween because I was holed up at Paragraph and then emerged at 2am and nearly got trampled on 14th Street by drunk revelers and I realized eh, Halloween, not my holiday. My holiday, for those who keep track of these things, is Bastille Day because it’s French and it’s in the summer. And it involves heads on poles. No, not for that reason.

12. I stood behind the so so so pregnant Drea DeMatteo at my pharmacy (or should I say “our pharmacy,” since it’s mine and Drea’s) and eavesdropped on her conversation but held myself back from chuckling along or making a calculatedly clever comment because in spite of the fact that we share a pharmacy and I found her black suede hobo bag with tassels that TOUCHED THE FLOOR remarkable, she is not my friend and I am not a starfucker.

13. Two friends’ bands are playing tonight and I want to go to both. I don’t like going to see bands but I happen to have a minimum of three friends who are in legitimately good bands.

14. I have connected with more random people from my past on Facebook than is healthy or seemingly necessary and it makes me nervous that my policy of being apparently personal but not divulging anything truly personal is going to start getting dicey.

15. I realized that when you interview someone for a story, they Google you. Sometimes you interview like 20 people and you see in your site logs that they all Googled you. I find this creepy and I think this is me just being ridiculous because I mean, everyone GoogleS everyone, and of course I’d Google a reporter who called me. I think Google etiquette involves not admitting you Googled someone, as one of my sources did and I got very “this call is coming from inside the house” scared.

16. I am nursing a very cautious crush.

17. Julie brought me a big bottle of 100% aloe vera and I drank the whole thing as the directions advised me, 2oz. twice a day, and I don’t know what it’s supposed to do but it hasn’t done it yet.

18. Don’t not return an email, especially a business email. Don’t not return a call unless you never want to hear from someone again. Never forget to thank people whom you ask for advice. Don’t take the advice and run. People are busy being important/famous/having ingrown toenails and they took the time to give you, a total stranger, advice via email. Say thanks.

Can I pause here and just say that about 9 months ago, in the throes of doing publicity for my book, a stranger emailed me for advice. I feel no compunction in revealing the details of the scenario because I think she acted abominably. She was trying to decide between the MFA programs at Columbia and NYU, both of which had accepted her, and an old professor of mine suggested she contact me. I gave her a whole boatload of advice, a thorough compare/contrast of NYU/Columbia, based on my experience at NYU and friends’ experiences teaching at/attending Columbia–even though I found her sort of supercilious and full of herself. I was in primo advice-giving mode at the time as I was touring-slash-doing a lot of interviews where I was being asked for my opinion a lot. But I tried to abide by my “all unsolicited advice is self-serving” motto and really help her. We should all be so lucky to have such “problems,” but anyone who ever really wanted to get into one of those programs knows that. Anyway, I never heard from her. And I’m kind of pissed about it. Because if there’s one thing I hate it’s people who don’t express gratitude. I’m old-fashioned: I like to send cards. I like to send gifts. I don’t want to appear entitled, even if I feel entitled. I’m showing off again. Anyway. It’s shitty not to thank someone.

It is also shitty to not RSVP to a party; it is shitty to work very, very closely with someone on their book and then not acknowledge its publication (more common than you’d think!), it’s a good idea to kiss someone’s ass just a tiny bit when you ask them for a big favor, but in a genuine way that shows that you respect them and their time. I’m getting ranty now. I forgive you all. But come on people. Be human. Be nice to each other. Acknowledge people. It’s not a zero-sum game. Even if I am totally winning.

19. I think I should turn this more positive. I like my new shoes. Even if they look a little Wednesday-Addams-ish.

20. I worked hard this week and think I will reward myself this weekend. This means I will go running for pleasure and not beat myself up for only doing half my normal distance because I’ve not been running in weeks. This sounds like a dumb reward but I tend to be extraordinarily hard on myself and I think I will try to give myself this gift. Oh who am I kidding. I’m going to get that Cole Haan bag.

Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t ask me, “You’ve written The Girl’s Guide to Absolutely Everything, so now why don’t you write one for guys?!” The answer to that question, my friends, provides a sad-but-evidently-true commentary on what guys want to know.

My answer is always two-fold. 1. Guys don’t buy/read advice books in the same way women do. It’s not that they’re not curious, but both sales statistics and biology show that men don’t ask for help, think they need help, or if they do, they don’t tend to buy books containing info on stuff like self-esteem or how to dress for their figures. 2. The Guy’s Guide to Absolutely Everything appears to already have been written The success of books like Maddox’s The Alphabet of Manliness and Neil Strauss’ The Game, both NYT bestsellers, would appear to indicate that guys will buy books if they teach them how to pick up girls and get laid. If that book happened to teach them how to get rich in the process, then it would definitely be a hit. That’s it. It’s not that men don’t need — or even desperately need — advice on etiquette or how to ask for a raise or prepare for an interview or prepare dinner. It’s that they don’t think they need it.

I am totally willing to be contradicted about my Guy’s Guide theory. In fact, I’m dying to be contradicted. I’m not saying there aren’t sensitive men, or men who aren’t interested in getting laid and making money. As far as a book for men, however, my informal research has shown that, in the self-improvement realm, little else sells.

PS I’ve read both Maddox & Neil Strauss’ books. They’re both worth a gander, and The Game is actually a fairly compelling read, should you be low on bathroom reading.

A compassionate but finally blistering review of The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts in Sunday’s NYT Book Review.

I have been curious about these “Mommy Wars,” if exhausted by the prospect of reading all the disciplinary tomes that have emerged on the topic of stay-at-home vs. go-back-to-work mothers. The issue seems to be coming to the fore as baby boomers approach retirement, look back on their lives, and feel they have something urgent to teach their daughters. Or this is the supposed rationalization for writing these “I did it my way, and my way is the only way” books about working/mothering.

I think most of these books are truly written as a means to shame women who made different choices from the books’ authors. It’s really all so tedious. If we got good, solid education on the women’s movement in school (which, if you’re me, you didn’t), if we were actually shown what our mothers’ generations worked for and fought for and what we stand to lose by not acknowledging and celebrating it and working to further it, we wouldn’t need such excoriating reminders from people like Leslie Bennetts and Linda Hirshman or the Dread Pirate Caitlin Flanagan. Why isn’t Betty Friedan required reading in high school history classes? Why do we learn about the civil rights movement but not the women’s movement? The issues of both “movements” are still on the table, they’re still present in our everyday conversations, in Supreme Court decisions, in our selection of presidential candidates, in our payscales and secret and not-so-secret prejudices. Why are we so grossly undereducated?

I recommend the book Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women’s Liberation Movement, whose font is way too small but whose content is a necessary and entertaining Women’s Lib 101.

Also Jennifer Baumgardner & Amy Richards’ Manifesta: Young Women Feminism and the Future and, of course, the Friedan classic.

From the final paragraph of Eugenie Allen’s review of The Feminine Mistake:

Bennetts is right to dread an exodus of accomplished women from the work force. But this book is so unwieldy, and so polarizing, that it is unlikely to convince many stay-at-home mothers to return to work — or to develop that backup plan. Friedan wrote with elegance, authority and empathy for the readers whose lives she hoped to change. Bennetts seems to have little but disdain for the women she is trying to reach. When I finished the book, I didn’t feel the need to give it to my daughters, as Tina Brown’s back-cover blurb urges. Instead, I dug up an old copy of “The Feminine Mystique.” I hear it’s really great for teenage girls.

To The iBook G4 Which It May (And, In Fact, Does) Concern:

What the hell is wrong with you? Why do you keep fading to a black screen, as if taking a huge gasp of air, then cycle through a blue screen then black then blue before you come back to regular computer land? Why are you acting like you’re about to die? Why are you doing this to me? Why?

Is it because your AppleCare ran out last week? Is that why? Is it because I’m planning on taking you on the road for a week? How come I verify your permissions (whatever the hell that means) and you are telling me everything is fine? How come I run some diagnostic tests and follow the advice on the Apple Support site and your condition appears to be getting worse?

What have I done to deserve this disrespect? I’m a writer, for the love of god. I need to write. I need YOU in order to properly carry out my metier! I can’t stand it! I can’t get through a blog post without you freaking the crap out on me!

Quit playing games with my heart, iBook G4. Tell it to me straight: are you dying or are you just bored? Is this some kind of sick joke you’re playing just for kicks? I don’t have time for your kicks. I tolerated the whole “Hey! I’m dead! Send me in!” game from five iPods before I broke down and bought a new one, but NOT YOU. You and I have been TIGHT for three years! I wrote a book on you! You never failed me, except that one time when you totally failed me but I’d backed up so it wasn’t that bad. What am I supposed to do with you? I can’t afford to have you fixed, you have no insurance anymore, you’re a liability.

I loved you, now I can barely stand to look at you. Your little flash-and-fake-death game only draws attention to your unsightly scratched cover and the oil spots on your screen. Yeah, I said it. You look like hell. I’m just not that into you. I am just not that into this whole charade anymore and I don’t know how I’m going to handle it but rest assured I will and this could very well be curtains for you, iBook G4, and for that I am truly sorry. You have pushed me to the edge. I have no choice. I can’t take the insanity anymore.

Angrily,
Melissa

PS WHY??!??!?!!
PPS I love you.
PPPS Longer Letter Later

A few nights ago, on my way to Cusi & Peter’s for dinner, an only-in-New York moment. I was leaving the wine store, putting on my scarf to ward off the ridiculous freeze-your-organs winds and spied approaching a handsome, bespectacled fellow, zipping up his coat. In typical city-streets fashion, we traded glances.

We looked at each other just long enough for the glance to transcend “casual appraisal” and venture into “if we weren’t strangers passing in the night with no connection whatsoever, we’d be married by now” territory. After we passed, I thought to myself, “I should look back. Because I bet he’s looking back. Because we just passed through about ten dates in a single glance.” Lo and behold (which I did), he was looking back. So I turned around and walked over to chat.

I live for these moments. The odd and often gorgeous collisions of strangers are my stock in trade. I’m so constantly revising the narrative of my life while I’m living it that I think I attract spontaneous interraction. I would call it “Amelie Syndrome” but any reference to her is self-congratulatory in a “look how whimsical and adorable and devil-may-care my magic-tinged, technicolor life is” way, so I’ll just let you identify or let it go. Either way, you know what I mean.

So his name was Alex and he was indeed quite adorable and he lived in the neighborhood and I was off for dinner and so we shook hands and chatted and then parted ways which, if you think about it, was the only option. Which is to say we parted as friends, which is how I prefer relationships to end. I mean, if they have to end.

Once, years ago, a guy walked up to me at a crosswalk and said, “So, are we still on for tonight?” Delighted at the hilarity and brilliance of the gesture, I answered, “Yeah 7:00, right?” and he totally broke character and said, “Wait! Are we really going to go out at 7:00 tonight?” If I’d been free, I would have gone, but I had plans and so gave him my number to make a date for another night. When we eventually went out, he wasn’t nearly as much fun as he’d at first seemed. Come to think of it, I believe he kept trying to convince me it was a good idea for us to ride bikes together to Coney Island at midnight, which, while I’m all for the unconventional assignation, seemed a little too much of a commitment for a near-stranger.

He was actually so very much less interesting after our first encounter that I think this was the incident after which Justin diagnosed me as having “funny filter.” You know funny filter: People say normal things, like he could have said, “Are we stopped at a light? and my funny filter made me hear “Are we still on for tonight?”. Funny filter makes people far more droll and charming than they actually are.

Anyway, there’s supposed to be a story about my book in the New York Post today, the fact of which may be what’s inspired this unusually confessional, self-involved post. Forgive me.

This week: The Change My Life Poll.

Thanks for fulfilling your civic duty!

Forgive me. In what I confess was a totally premeditated moment of weakness and desire for lite rom-com, I went to see The Holiday. I do not recommend you see it, I do not like Cameron Diaz, I still like Kate Winslet in spite of this very bad movie, I present to you the only moment I can remember (and keep remembering) from a truly unmemorable piece of crap.

At some low point, Iris, Kate Winslet’s character, is having dinner with an old legendary Hollywood screenwriter, Arthur, who is, naturally, older and wiser than your great-grandfather. She’s telling him the sad sad story of her unrequited love for who-ever-said-this-guy-is-at-all-attractive
-because-he-is-so-not Rufus Sewell. Arthur says:

Iris, in the movies, we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason, you’re behaving like the best friend.

and she replies,

You’re supposed to be the leading lady in your own life for god’s sake!

Think about it, my friends.

In today’s Times, Alex Witchel admonishes bartenders for not believing that the lady’s poison is indeed a stiff bourbon, hold the fruit chunks. I have an aversion to dark liquors of any sort but I’ve always been impressed enough by friends who can order up a Scotch neat and sip it with as much delight as I do a Diet Coke. Writeth Witchel:

Though I still drink Scotch periodically, at some point I switched to
Maker’s Mark bourbon. These days, I order it in a tall glass to ensure
that the ratio of booze to soda gives me a fighting chance of getting
to the appetizer without falling out of my chair. But among some male
bartenders, I’ve noticed more than a tad of residual resistance to the
notion that the female of the species can drink hard liquor unadorned
by grenadine or chunks of oxidizing pineapple.

Strong Drink Is Not For Men Alone [NYT]

I’m a terrible cliche. It’s 6am on Saturday morning and I’m up listening to Sufjan Stevens, feeling very ninth-grade crush, pretending he’s my valentine.  Morning insomnia is particularly raw. It’s dark and then it’s light. It’s dark, then it’s light, and then there’s YouTube. So there’s a ton of Sufjan on YouTube, although none of it equals the live show I saw of him with Ben in that beautiful glass room at Lincoln Center.

In my madrugada Sufjan trawling I came across the only thing more heartbreaking than a Sufjan Stevens song: earnest indie kids alone in their rooms covering Sufjan Stevens songs. Which brings me to my new obsession, Cougarman7. Cougarman7, age 22, is my new Instanet crush (possibly my first Instanet crush, god please don’t let it be my last). Not only is he going to sit in his room and play acoustic songs and sing, he is going to teach me how to play them. I know it is love because I feel giddy and then immediately like I might cry when his voice cracks on “Chicago,” when he stares meaningfully right at the rakishly tilted camera. My mind sort of shuts down when I think that his name is Cougarman7 and he has 13 completely captivating  instructional videos of himself playing Sufjan Stevens songs on the Internet and sometimes he’s wearing a thoroughly appropriate ski hat. Just look.

Nota bene: Do not miss Cougarman7 playing “For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti” on the banjo while perched on a log in the Redwood Forest. Genius.

For every woman who ever apologized for asking for a glass of water in a restaurant, or wondered why men “can’t communicate,” or anyone who has ever bemoaned the seemingly insurmountable differences between the sexes, my god listen to this. So totally fascinating. How can any of us go one more minute without reading Norah Vincent’s book?