We Must We Must We Must Increase Our ...

I'm writing a Sunday Top Ten, I promise. Seriously: RIGHT NOW.

In the meantime: this book, The Bigger, The Better, The Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women On Beauty, Body Image & Other Hazards of Being Female, is now available for purchase. If you buy it through that link, I get about seven cents. So, if all of you buy it, I will be able to feed not only myself but my/TB's pet monkey, Squirrel/Rocinante. Squirrel's not a real monkey, he's a stuffed monkey. Still, we all get a little hungry sometimes. Hungry for life, love, and literature, as well as all other things, like Metrocards and games-for-the-thief's-new-cell-phone.

Seriously though, clearly you like to read, and it's like supporting meeeeee AND getting a free gift. It's been in the sidebar forevs, 'cause of viral marketing.

Here's a review from BUST magazine. I've highlighted, in yellow, the part where they say my essay specifically is one of the highlights of the book. If you can't read it, just trust me.



Also, my essay from this book'll be printed, condensed, in August's Marie Claire magazine, the women's magazine devoted to women named Marie. This won't be like last year, when the photo/misquote combo in September's MC inspired me to cry/wail violently and hurl the magazine at the wall like a psycho. 'Cause this time I'm not just IN the article, I sorta wrote it, and there's no photo! [Read: Essay needed to be cut in half for magazine, I said: Do whatever you want to it, I trust you. See that? I BELIEVE, forgive, etc.]

AND if you live in New York City, we're reading at the KGB Bar on July 24th. Put it on your calendars now, 'cause you're all clearly very busy, and if you've gotta work there's still time to quit your job. Also, I'm not actually listed as being a reader, 'cause clearly whomever's in charge hasn't checked her email in forever-ever, 'cause then she woulda gotten the publicist's email about how I was somehow left out of this listing and subsequently added me to that page linked above. I assure you I am indeed reading.

I just re-read my contract, and I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to do this ... hmmm ... okay, I'm posting, below, the first graf of my essay, "Feels Like Teen Spirit." I learned this technique from RKB, obvs, who entices readers to buy the book by printing excerpts on her blog. Probs most authors do this. But I'm weird, so I don't. Actually, based on the last few posts, you might think I'm a real writer with a booming career. I assure you this's not the case. I am still Marie from the Block, eating Ramen. Seriously, I just had some Ramen. I'm still hungry, oh, how we are HUNGRY!

Excerpt from "Feels Like Teen Spirit," by Marie Lyn Bernard. The essay's about hyperhidrosis:

I started sweating during the summer of 1994, between seventh and eighth grades. This development, which was clearly an Adult Thing, was entirely incongruous with the rest of my Ascent to Womanhood. I was sweating but I did not have my period or breasts or a boyfriend.

“Is this like when you said you needed a bra?” my mom asked when I added deodorant to our K-Mart shopping list.

“I wanted a bra just for under white shirts, Mom,” I reminded her. “So that no one can, you know—see through—when it rains —”

“When I was your age, I was already a B cup,” she told me. “It was terrible.”

One of my favorite things about being thirteen was comments such as that one. Other favorite things: boys who were three to four inches shorter than I was, passing notes, spreading rumors, braces with rubber bands, Kurt Cobain and his big fat flannel shirts, Lurlene McDaniel novels about girls who were dying of fatal illnesses, Christopher Pike novels about girls and boys being chased by dead people. And sweating.

Also, speaking of books I'm in, I'd like to share a quote with you from a piece of fan mail I received IN THE MAIL (Yeah, the postal kind! Sent to my agent! Crafty fellow!), re: my story in The Best American Erotica 2007:

"It wasn't simply a hot, sensuous tale--instead it seemed to contain an emptiness--a void that yearned for intimacy--that longing for acceptance and with it, love. If he loved her, why didn't he eat her before he entered her? Why didn't he [sic] her with his lips and tongue and accompany her into the realm of ecstatic bliss?"

Since he asked where he can find more of my work, obvs I'll be mailing him a Bigger the Better postcard. While (obvs) reading this letter out loud to Cameron, the line printed above required me to stop reading: "Doesn't he know talking about sex makes me squeamish? Ack! I can't read this, let alone answer that question! Can't handle!"

Still Waiting for My Big Debut: I Ain't Gonna Work on Maggie's Farm No More

I know when magazines come out. I don't know a lot of things, like calculus (or how to spell calcualaus) or how to spell the word for the fourth day of the week that starts with "W," or how to make a plain box with HTML, or anything about that TV show "Lost," or how to read minds. But I know that Marie Claire has never come out after Glamour, Lucky, Vanity Fair, Cosmo, jesus christ. The Year-End issue of Life magazine with all the best photos of 2007 is obviously going to come out first. Then I saw this:

According to the New York Times, this is the first issue with the new editor, which means perhaps they are switching things up a bit. As in taking longer for it to come out. It's like I just want the dentist to pull my teeth already. The irony of all of this is that I am on the cover!!

"You should just tell people that you're gonna be on the cover."
-Haviland

Before I went blonde again, I got a lot of comments about lookin' like Maggie G, which I sometimes suspected was because we are both lanky and "quirky" and willing to carry heavy objects on our bony backs for James Spader. I mean, other than that, we really don't have that much in common, looks-wise.

That being said, I am putting a hex on Courtney Cox. Every time I see her face staring back at me from the August issue, a little piece of me dies inside.

I think John left me a message that he might come out to New York so we can yell at each other. That might not be what he said. But if it was, that's kinda funny.

Freaking Out About Upcoming Appearance in Marie Claire

I noticed my friendly magazine-salesman (I think he sells other things too, like beverages, tobacco products, candy bars, gum and DVDs featuring aspiring young actresses with disarming facial expressions) unpacking a stack of the brand new Glamour this evening (I had to see him through the FOG OF HEAT) ...

"Um, do you know when the new Marie Claire comes out?"

"Uh," he says, juggling about ten cell phone products in his hands (he might sell those too, I don't even remember the last time I paid my cell bill let alone purchased an accessory, whatever)

"Tomorrow."

Tomorrow! TOMORROW?!!! ONLY A DAY AWAY?

P.S. I did not write an article for Marie Claire. if I had (and I will, someday, because I totally heart marie claire and I will one day be a star), I'd be humble about it. BUT I don't like talking about things that I have done that are legitimately cool, cuz that wouldn't be self-deprecating enough. (and maybe because I don't do cool things, but whatev) No, someone else wrote an article. I'm just in it. Yes, it's true, I saved a village in Mexico, lost twenty pounds and just bought 100 outfits for less than $100.00!

This blog entry, which will be seen by (unfortunately) less than the 1,514,525 Marie Claire readers, is me making peace with this. I am preparing for the Zen.

Like how I shot a bolt of metal through my bellybutton to make piece with my tummy. Which actually worked. Well also I stopped eating so much pizza.

See look!:
Anyhow. E.G., I don't talk about my real-live-personal-life on this blog, but considering I'm writing a book about myself (if you're going to tell me I'm some sort of narcissist, I would say to you "Thanks Captain Obvious!" HA! Gotcha, Suckah!), I should get used to this idea.

like--I've been in stuff before, sharing questionable secrets, but MC has a serious circulation. I mean, SERIOUS. However, clearly MC has me beat on circulation. I mean, you know, right? WAL-MART SERIOUS. But also, no one else salivates over a stack of fresh magazines at the magazine store like I do, so maybe not that many people read mags like I do.

OK really, I'm worried I said something retarded.

Basically, I was put in touch with a writer while I was working at nerve, I thought the story was about girls who were friends with their exes, it turned out they were just looking for girls who were friends with their exes so that these aforementioned girls could get in touch with their exes for a story on match-the-girl-with-her-exes.

Yay fun right?

First I tried to get out of it five or six times, once actually sending an email to the super-sweet editor (I'm being genuine, she's really awesome) containing this paragraph as my conditions to be in the article:

So I need you to put three hundred dollars, a lifetime subscription and a freelance gig in a briefcase and leave it in front of the Hearst Building. I'll show up dressed like Edie Beale and say "The eagle as landed" and you can hand it to me. Not you necessarily, but like, whomever has time. It could even be an intern.

Anyhow because the writer is really sweet, and everyone at marie claire was so cool, and also the beauty bag which enabled Haviland and I to never leave our cabin on the cruise without at least five shimmery products and three shades of eyeshadow......I did it.

I told the writer my CAPTIVATING life story and all my various "exes."

John: Perfect! High school! Love! EX NUMBER ONE.
C.T: Not a very captivating tale.
S.D: I'm athletic and artsy, he's athletic and artsy, we're both super-good in bed—people would guess we were a couple right away, therefore eliminating the "surprise" factor the story is going for.
J.H: Perfect! Older man! Republican! TOTALLY REFUSED TO DO IT. (He's a cop now. I understand ... J, if you're reading this, aren't I funny?).

I know what you're thinking...that's only ONE ex! Well, Marc (him and I had nothing in common whatsoever, except for when he made me see Mission to Mars and we both agreed it was atrocious) and Lo stepped up to be my quasi-exes. Marc's fiancée is unimpressed and will probably kill me with a pitchfork before Labor Day.

A few weeks ago, a fact checker asked me to confirm statements like "You have a weakness for beautiful people." That is when my panic transformed into beyond panic, which is better, because beyond-panic is just another word for nothing left to lose.

Convo circa two weeks ago:

Me: "I wonder if my grandmother is going to see this magazine at Revco or Wall-Mart and call me and say honey, I didn't know you were a lesbo!** Come back to Reeseville and go to Wilmington College!"
Lo: "Yeah..when's it coming out?"
Me: "August. Oh my God, I'm going to have another anxiety attack."
Lo: "I wish it was coming out sooner! I wish it was coming out next week!"

**I am not a lesbo, but I think that word is funny/fun. I think labeling is old school, but that being said, I'm writing a book about bisexuality. So Um. Right.

I'm counting on Lo to support me during this trying time.

When the lady took my photo at my office I wasn't blonde yet and I should have gone tanning more often and I'm pretty sure I said something dumb.

OK.

If anyone sees the article and thinks I sound like a real princess and wants to be my next ex-boyfriend, please email me, thanks.

I'm smoking and listening to Madonna. Things are lookin' up.