Blogging! It’s so 2007! But this site needs an overhaul. I know it, you know it, it’s getting obvious even to those who have been in deep denial about it. Until then, because I know you’re dying to know what you should be reading, listening to, watching, &c.

What’s Consuming Melissa/What Melissa Has Consumed Lately:

Books:
Commencement, by J. Courtney Sullivan
My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor
Netherland, by Joseph O’Neill
This Is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper
The Heart of the the Buddha’s Teaching, by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery
Seeking the Heart of Wisdom, by Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield
A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore

Music:
Laura Marling
Florence + the Machine
Gossip (Music for Men)

TV:
Friday Night Lights
Peep Show, Series 6
Mad Men
Glee (”You know what Sue Sylvester’s never done? Paid income tax.”)
Project Runway & Top Chef (even though I can feel the inanity brittling my bones)

Movies
Slim pickings lately. I’m excited about a screening I’m attending today, but it’s a surprise for a friend so maybe I can post about it later. Also anticipating The Fantastic Mr. Fox eagerly.

I’ve become one of those people who makes a lot of smoothies since Lynn gave me a Vita-Mix and it changed my life forever.

I’m going to be blogging occasionally on The Interdependence Project blog at Beliefnet. I’ll try to update here when I do. I meant to blog about A-Rod’s Sudden Buddhism, but, Q.E.D., I’m not the most consistent blogger. Still, it’s a good blog to add to your feed if you’re feeling like you don’t have enough to consume already.

I wrote about where to dispose of your old electronics in NYC.

You know it’s amazing how much time & toil can go into something like this. The amount of fact-finding research that goes into something so seemingly straightforward is never visible to the eye after it’s published. I’d venture it’s easier to write a long, expansive feature than it is to write a no-full-sentences chart.

The info is quite useful. I just saw an air conditioner on the street outside my apartment yesterday. I’ve become more of pious recycler since researching this. I wonder if I was subliminally influenced to use the word “pious” because I’ve been up since 6am and am on my second round of Morning Edition and they are going nuts over the Pope’s visit. And the airline merger. And taxes.

Dump Your Junk [NY Mag]

Dear Hillary & Barack:

The emails are getting out of control. I’m on both of your mailing lists and you and your “surrogates” are totally spamming the crap out of me.

Related: I know you and Tim Russert like to vacillate between calling you by your first names during debates. But you really need to stop signing your emails with your first names. It’s totally unpresidential. I like when you call me “Friend–” or use a mail merge to address the email “Dear Melissa,” but we are not dating. Nor are we pals. You want to be the leader of the free world. I want you to sign your mash notes “Senator.” Because once you’re elected or not elected, I have a feeling I’m never going to hear from you again. All this chummy , one-way epistolary affection is going to cease, and I’m going to feel abandoned.

That’s it. For now. I’m freaked out by a lot of other stuff going on in the campaign, but I thought I’d start here, since the Huffington Post’s reporting and much of the Times’ opinion page are much more incisive. By the way, you’re still on my list, MoDo.

Sincerely,
Ms. Melissa Kirsch

Previously: I work myself up into a (gentle) lather over email signing.

Let me just be frank with you. I am a late-in-life addict of Gilmore Girls. There’s not even anything quietly subversive about that show that would make this a fake confession. I did whisper that I had been watching it to my lunch date the other day and was informed that that was not something I had to hide and everyone watches it. I don’t think anyone should admit to liking this show so freely. It’s got this “Hey I’m kind of edgy what with my whippersnapper banter and teenage mom gone mild” affect, but then it turns out that the show is about white people (and one token Korean friend) in a fake Connecticut village (and I know from Connecticut villages) who are so obsessed with coffee! And they have a lot of town pageants! And people dress up like soldiers and got to DAR meetings and when the weird daughter misses her mom’s community college graduation she apologizes so profusely that you would think she knifed someone. But I digress.

I spent Saturday afternoon to last night completely indoors working. (I know that’s horrible. It was indeed horrible. What can I say? What can I say besides: flow. Just kidding. I’ve been to Stars Hollow more times than I’ve been in a flow state.) It was important. I had to get about ten things done and it was the culmination of a week of worrying about deadlines and avoiding them and even having Leigh come over to sit with me while I worked which helped a little but not enough. I missed Amichai’s Oscar party. I missed the two days of sunlight. I was inside typing and so I decided it would be a good idea to watch Across the Universe, that Julie Taymor Beatles movie, which it was not. Then I decided I could not go wrong with some GG. I dozed off immediately. I am sure the plot had something to do with the town green and a fair or a pageant or a snowman-making contest.

I didn’t sleep well. You know when you think you’re sleeping and then you realize you are not asleep and you are kind of using all your energy to try to be asleep and you toss and turn in the dark and realize you are so very awake? That is what happened. And of course it was then impossible to wake up this morning. Even though the hoist thing on the construction site has developed a totally superfluous creaky wheel so it makes extra, non-essential noise now on top of its groaning and rumbling and the saw noise that you feel in your brain, you hear it but it also hits your brain metalically.

All work and no play makes me a dull boy. Seriously. I’m a boy now. No one warned me.

So I’ve had time to discover that I don’t hate celery anymore! I cannot brook one chunk of it in my tuna salad, but I’m cool with it by itself raw or cooked in a melange of steamed vegetables. I used to not be able to eat anything that had been in the same room with celery. Now I can tolerate it. All work and no play makes me ridiculous.

Did I mention my skin is still shit? Also that I am strangely fascinated by Diablo Cody? Even though I know I’m supposed to hate her and be jealous of her and feel somehow like she’s treading on my turf because she’s a wiseass and is working this rockabilly thing (that I am so decidedly not working, but girls tend to hate on other girls, and girl writers–forget it.). Anyway, I don’t hate her. I liked Juno. As I said, I’d walk a mile in the snow in uninsulated boots to see Michael Cera sneeze. And I think her blog is kind of amazing and certainly entertaining. I don’t suppose it really makes one whit of difference what I think of a famous screenwriter. But I’d just like to say that I am not interested in taking part in the Diablo Cody Backlash. Not that anyone’s tapped me to join in any convincing way.

Oh and make no mistake: I am jealous of her. Where did “make no mistake” come from? I think it was George Bush. Presidential candidates say that. They also refer to all people as “folks” and Ben says it’s a Bush cowboy thing and Catherine says it’s an effort to be folksy but I say what the hell, what’s wrong with people? What is wrong with you people? That packs a much harder punch than “What is wrong with you folks?” I see. If I say “folks” you think I like you. It’s gentler. What I hate is when they say “There’s folks.” As in “there’s folks in Ohio who don’t have a pot to piss in.” Yeah, they say “pot to piss in” too. Presidential candidates.

It may interest you to know that I am multitasking, i.e. waiting for the Chelsea Clinton Nightline interview to happen which means I have the TV on and I have twice seen this repulsive NYC Health commercial about smoking that shows disgusting rotten teeth among other disgusting things. Probably a black lung in a jar. They always show that. I cannot see anything gross involving teeth. I can see a lot of gross stuff like people eating grubs but I cannot see teeth getting ripped out. Like how they keep showing Joanie getting her teeth ripped out on America’s Next Top Model? Or the moment at which I stopped watching that horrid Ashley Judd movie Bug when the paranoid boyfriend starts pulling his teeth out with pliers. Ugh. I’m sick. I will watch someone vomit his/her guts out but I will not watch you pull your teeth out. Please. Stop making me watch you pull your teeth out. I beg you, folks.

If you were to assume I have been shut inside my apartment for the entire season watching bad TV and bad movies, you would be mistaken. I go out a lot and I hate every second of it. Because it’s cold and rainy and I take this personally, folks. Oh! If I address you as folks, I’m breaking some bad news. If I refer to others in the third person as folks “There’s folks in Afghanistan…” or “Folks just want someone to be a a uniter, not a divider,” I seem gentle.

It now seems that the Chelsea Clinton interview is on and I have never heard Chelsea Clinton speak before. Have you? Chelsea’s in Lubbock, Texas. She’s got a folksy way about her! She just said “Forgive my voice, I’ve been workin’ hard.” Droppin’ your Gs is very folksy. Chelsea’s boyfriend is very good looking. Gossip columnist Lloyd Grove is awful. I think Chelsea’s long layers must take a lot of blowing out and flat-ironing. And then sometimes a curling iron.

Okay. I am not going to live-blog Nightline. That would be terribly depressing. I’d like to announce that things are happening. The work has not been for naught and I’m making progress. Someday I’ll emerge, like a Chelsea Clinton from an Applebee’s in Lubbock.

PS I am actually going to Texas!!! This weekend! A light (literally) on the horizon!

PPS I made a dermatologist appointment. Of course she can’t see me until the end of March. At which point I will probably have magically flawless skin.

PPPS That Chelsea Clinton interview was lame. And not an interview.

“So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one?”

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

…

[W]hat worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.

What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.

What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.

What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.

            –Gloria Steinem, “Women Are Never Front-Runners,” today’s NYT

I’m so frustrated.

I have some ongoing gripes about Maureen Dowd, but today’s column, “Should Hillary Pretend to Be a Flight Attendant?,” manages to sum up a bunch of recent studies about intelligent women and their attractiveness to men, young women’s income superiority as a hindrance in dating, what men and men are really looking for &c. without crapping all over Hillary Clinton in the process, as is her wont.

I do wish she had mentioned one additional Times article, August’s “Be Yourselves, Girls, Order the Rib-Eye” by Allen Salkin, which would have made this column a comprehensive roundup of the current “state of the sexes” with a sly nod to presidential politics that doesn’t, like her usual fare, hit you over the head with an agenda-mallet (you can buy one from Sky Mall) or read like a Sex and the City episode with each paragraph turning on one bad pun.

I’ve been complaining about Maureen for a long time because she has a powerful pulpit whose potential impact she often squanders. She asks to be taken seriously as a feminist (Or does she? I can never tell.) and then publishes some infuriated screed in which she complains that young women have squandered the wages of feminism, tarring all women of my generation with the same (unfair) brush. Then she retreats into her cutesy, pun-laden columns whose point is typically obscured by the need to hit a nonsensical punchline at the kicker.

Does Maureen Dowd have a “duty” or “responsibility” as the only female NYT Op-Ed columnist to deliver balanced, NOW-approved opinions? No — just because she’s a woman with a widely read column doesn’t mean she should toe a feminist line. Should she be unequivocally supporting Hillary? Of course not. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that her best columns lately have included consultation with experts or been written by Stephen Colbert (whose job it is to be funny; and who, not incidentally actually is funny). Her usual slapsticky style detracts from the moments (like today) when her columns are actually interesting and insightful. She doesn’t need to incarnate some distaff version Krugman or Kristof, but regardless of her gender, she should strive for relevance over performance.

NB: This blog post is riling people up over at the Huffington Post.

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.

I launched myself out of bed with fervent purpose today, showered vigorously, and dashed out to vote in the democratic primary. Wouldn’t you know it.

Instead of the “VOTE AQUI” signs that normally plaster the senior citizen’s home across the street where I vote, said citizens clearly saw an opportunity to snag some unsuspecting wannabe-voters and decided to throw a large, sprawling tag sale. It occurs to me that there is nothing to vote for in my district. Which is such a drag. I’d like to know when I am going to be eligible to vote again. After last week’s jury duty bust, my bureaucratic participation quotient (BPQ) is running dangerously low.

I’m totally done with The View now that I 1. leave the house before 11 and 2. don’t care but this is fantastic.

TMZ has learned that legendary singer Barry Manilow has pulled out of his scheduled appearance on The View tomorrow — because he strongly disagrees with host Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s conservative views.

Barry says, “I strongly disagree with her views. I think she’s dangerous and offensive. I will not be on the same stage as her.”

Brilliant.

via TMZ

Here I am, on Day 2 of Jury Duty, ensconced in my study carrel in the “Jurors Lounge,” and dammit I feel like a chump.

Listen up, County Clerk, New York County. I did not ride my bike down here to sit on my ass doing my actual work with your Wi-Fi while you mysteriously had no cases for which you needed my desperate-to-adjudicate physical presence. After a 2.5-hour lunch during which I could not enjoy the sunlight and free time because I was thinking about what a total waste a good juror this whole exercise has been, how they are probably going to send me home after lunch and that is going to be IT, I am back at my study carrel doing more actual work and feeling really undervalued.

I’ve said it before. Civic duty is MY BAG. I like jury duty! Even though I’ve been on the run from it for about three years and only came this week because I got a very-realistic-looking threat to throw me in jail if I didn’t show! I love voting (got my voter confirmation in the mail yesterday, yes I will be voting in the primary, yes I am available for any/all exit polls, you can have my direct line, pollsters), as we all know.

Here is what I have to report, on location for probably my last five seconds at 111 Centre Street:

1. You people can stop calling your little invitation to breeze in at 9:30am (I was under the impression that JUSTICE DOES NOT SLEEP), use your air-conditioned offices, take a leisurely lunch and knock off at 3pm a SUMMONS. “IMPORTANT: JURY SUMMONS ENCLOSED”? You should have just sent me an eVite.

2. People dress up for jury duty. They don’t come in in their robes, as I was tempted to this morning. Why did I dress up like I was going to a job interview? Well I know why: I was totally psyched to smack the ball out of the park during the voir dire that NEVER HAPPENED. Now I know the real reason I wore this dress was so I could drool sriacha down my front while eating lunch and have to send a perfectly clean voir dire outfit to the dry cleaner.

3. I am that person you don’t want to be sitting next to at jury duty. Stricken with what I’ve been told is definitely a ragweed allergy, I have been sputtering and blowing my nose into my decorative Sniff travel hankies. Then whispering to my neighbor “Don’t worry — allergies!” to allay their inner monologue that was screaming: “Oh great, not only do I have jury duty, but I have to sit next to the woman with TB for the duration. This sucks.”

4. Last time I served was in August and there were no cases. Ditto the first week of September. People said that was good because you would only be on duty for a couple days and then let go early. These people did not take into account that I am chomping (champing?) at the bit to be sequestered in a Ramada Inn out by JFK, nor did they mention that if you don’t serve on a trial, they can haul you back in here in as few as two years. Two years! I’m here NOW. I want to serve NOW!

5. Access to MySpace is denied in the courthouse! How do you like that? Just like a real office!

It’s 2:27 on a Friday. There is still a slim chance they will have an urgent case. I need to be called in. I need to be called in FIRST so I get to be foreman because I would be so AWESOME at delivering the verdict and also because I know I would be the de facto leader of the jury deliberations anyway because I’d be so into it, and also so good at it, and also really ready to lead my fellow jurors in a spirited debate. I can just hear myself enunciating, all-Debra-Winger-in-Legal Eagles, about the shadow of a doubt. I live in the shadow of a doubt. This is my terrain. God I could shine brightly as jury foreman.

Meanwhile, there is zero difference between being here and being at my writing space–laptop, wi-fi, A/C, headphones, work. Did I mention I feel like a chump?