Hissy Cat

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September 30, 2005

Critical Ass

Well, that was cute. The sitting sleep still in my car for fifteen minutes as a horde of Hipsters On Wheels swarmed around me. It had slipped my mind what day it was-- last friday of the month, i.e. Critical Mass-- and that, returning somewhat later than usual (I had to stop to get some Critical Gas, and also to put some air in my tires), I would be plum in the middle of it just as I started to turn left up 15th to look for a parking spot, always a Critical Task. Oh, I could see the glimmer of superiority in their horn-rimmed eyes. One man, cycling past to me, lowered his head and stuck out his tongue.

Apart from the irritatingly art-school-junk-store(-damn-I'll-never-look-that-cool) chic of the crowd, I don't have any strong feelings one way or another about the event. Yes, I know I'm "progressive," "a writer," and "infrequent taker of showers" who "has a blog" and "lives in San Francisco," in fact in "the Mission" that "bastion of hipster and Mexican." With a track record like that, you'd best bet on the side of my being a dedicated, community-loving, eco-aware, D.I.Y., proud rider of a '70s vintage Ladies Schwinn. But, in fact, no.

I did have such a bike-- hipper, in fact; an old white Peugot with a big wire basket. I'd ride around on that thing feeling like Odille, and then I'd fall. Oh, how I'd fall. Not in the serious-enough-to-legitmately-warrent-concern-and-doting-and-Vicoden style of the Tess (who if she hadn't already had my undying love and admiration would have won it on the drive back from the ER when she took a picture of arm in plaster and sling slung across her fantastic rack and sent it to her-- at the time new-- beau with the text message, "Ever done it with a gimp?"). No, no tragedies through which my Admirable Strength, Stoicism and Wit might shine. Bicycle, name of Rocinante, ever my noble steed, was a few inches too tall for me with howling, rusty breaks that never breaked. I'd fall at least once a week. With the exception of a few falls that left me with respectable bruises and one fall which busted my lip, requiring stitches, my mishaps happened slowly. I'd have just mounted or have just braked and ever so slowly, my bike would fall to one side and deposit me on the ground. They were the kind of falls that, rather than elicit the sympathy and concern from bystanders, caused onlookers to look away, embaressed for me, embaressed for themselves for witnessing such pathetictude, just all around embaressed. When I was finally rewarded with a flat tire, I never bothered to put air in. I just rolled my bike alongside my hip with all my books in the basket. It was, essentialy, wheeled luggage. When the basket was stolen, I abandoned it with the lock ajar. That was eight months ago. Last time I drove past that bike rack was about two months ago. Rocinante, poor thing, was still there.

But I digress; Critical Mass. I don't feel part of the cool-kid bike-gang that is Critical Mass, but I don't have anything against it, either. I'll even say it's kind of charming, in its way, so long as you are not trapped in your car during it feeling like a total ass. And I know part of the point is to choke up traffic to punish drivers for consuming gas (ok, they probably wouldn't phrase it quite like that), but, guys: it's a friday afternoon, I've just made an hour's commute from penninsula, and gas is more than three bucks a gallon. Now-- and here I am addressing you, Man Who Impudently Extended His Tongue In My Direction-- did you think I was out for a joy ride, because it is so much fun to cruise around on a Friday evening? Do you think I wanted to idle my engine for fifteen minutes and waste all that gas? I didn't

Posted by hissycat at 08:15 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

This Confederacy Of Dunces (Better Late Than Never)

How on earth did I miss this? Ignatius J. Riley nominates himself for Head of FEMA, and I, for one, support him.

I also, incidentally, support this guy for president.

Posted by hissycat at 05:57 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Elephant And Cat

A Thai elephant who had lost half a leg to a land mine was recently fitted with a prosthetic leg.

Perhaps the same scientists would rig up something similair for Gerty?

Posted by hissycat at 10:25 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 29, 2005

Sea Creature Smackdown

For the first time ever, a Giant Squid has been caught on film. The rather nasty creature was lured with bait to a video camera at a depth of 3,000 feet. Like so many reality TV sadbags before him, squidy will no doubt come to regret his shameless antics.

I foresee all hell breaking loose when these guys find out. A small but well-armed battalion of military dolphins are still at large following Katrina.

Also, from a certain angle, giant squid sure look a lot like, uh, this.

Posted by hissycat at 02:11 PM | Comments (22) | TrackBack

Yes, I Am Bragging

Did I mention thatThe Literary Dick has answered a second question of mine, this time about Mary McCarthy's The Group? Oboy. I highly endorse the Literary Dick's informative service.

It's kind of like that time Tony Kushner answered my question. I was giddy for days.

Posted by hissycat at 01:31 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

September 28, 2005

My Sick Day

My sick day was given over largely to particpitating in a very involved debate at Twisty's about, among other things, mysoginy and corset piercings. I may post further/ revised/ better articulated thoughts on the topic later this week. Then again, I may not.

I still want that tattoo, though I'm not unaware of the irony that as my surface area expands, my choice of locales affording an attractive backdrop for a tattoo shrinks. I am gaining weight.

Posted by hissycat at 11:52 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Uh-Oh

Looks like the Suicide Girls aren't happy.

Posted by hissycat at 09:41 PM | Comments (1209) | TrackBack

The Man Who Cried "Wolfe"

In the spirit of Banned Books Week, as well as the news that henceforth, I Am Charlotte Simmons shall be the paperback that dare not speak its name, I feel the time has come, dear readers, for a wee discussion of Tom Wolfe.

A month or so ago, I was listening to an interview on NPR (isn't this how all my posts start) in which Tom Wolfe was promoting I Am Charlotte Simmons while simultaneously making a jackass of himself. Admittedly, this is not too dificult to do, true, but the man it so splendidly it would be a sin of omission not to mention it here.

If you follow anything about books, no doubt you already know how charmingly Wolfe comes off in interviews. For instance, this gem:

The Internet is the modern form of knitting. In the old days women who had nothing to do would knit, but at least you got something out of it -- a pair of socks, maybe a scarf, occasionally a little bedspread. That's mostly what the Internet is, just passing the time. But unfortunately you are dealing with words that can have meaning.

Tom Wolfe, apparently, is not aware that women "in the old days" didn't knit because they "had nothing to do" but because they were making things both useful and decorative. Maybe he thinks 'making things' is "nothing," though. Yeah, that's it. Because I'm sure that's how he would describe 'writing novels and essays'-- passing the time. Call me a crazy, hypersensitve, communist feminazi bitch, but I get the sense his disdain of the frivolous extends beyond knitten goods to knitters themselves. You know, women. Heavens forbid women fill their idle time with "words that can have meaning" instead of making him amusing curios, such as blankets.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, though. The old man, after all, is evidently confused by wacky computer technology:

The other problem is that you have to scroll. It is primitive in the sense that the Internet is a scrolling medium. A printed book with pages was such an advance over scrolling. To go back to scrolls is to step into the past. That goes back to monks in the 13th century.

Right. I so don't get this. It seems he has confused scrolling on a browser window with scrolling, you know, scrolls. I'm not saying I want to trade in my lovelies for ebooks or what-have-you, but I daresay depressing the downwards-pointing-arrow key is a bit less taxing than the scrolling of 13th century monks.

Mr. Wolfe, by the way, did some of his research for Charlotte at Stanford. It's cute the way he tries to make Stanford seem really debauched and depraved. For the record, Stanford, with its goddamn Christian accapella groups singing in White Plaza, its round-the-clock computer lairs that are always fucking packed, its fistfulls of Marshal scholars, is, if anything, not debauched or depraved enough. The Stanford I went to was Nerdtown. I guess he fell in with a bad crowd. He also has this to say:

But as far as I can tell they are really not bothering with [political correctness]. There is always a faction of activists. When I was visiting Stanford, students were protesting that the catering staff -- they weren't even university employees -- were underpaid. If that's as big an issue as you can come up with, then political correctness is not having a big effect on the students.

I'm not sure I understand why he's using a campaign for living wages as an example of political correctness. Maybe he means political awareness, since he spends a good deal of the interview yapping about how youngsters don't pay attention to the news. Maybe he mentions the students agitating for a living wage for workers because it's a totally great example of how self-involved and oblivious to reality college students are. Except that it's totally not. (F.Y.I., the "catering staff" that-- gasp-- "weren't even university employees" that Mr. Wolfe mentions are workers brought in by third-party contractors. In fact, one of the issues central to the living wage campaign is that it is unethical for the university to use contractors whose standards of fair pay and practices fall short of the university's own.)

I mention this all today because it has come to my attention, it being Banned Book Week and all, that Tom Wolfe's books are among the most frequently challenged and banned. Which is funny. See, the NPR interview I spoke of earlier was bubbling over with remarks deriding those residing in the wayward "parentheses" states for being out of touch with 'the real America.' A retarded, tired statement from anyone's mouth, it is just that much more delightful when the mouth in question belongs to an effete intellectual from New York and writer of what 'the real America' calls regard as pornographic filth. Yes, kids. Bonfire of The Vanities made the top hundred and even Charlotte Simmons got pulled from a radio program.

So yes, Tom Wolfe. You are so in touch with the Heartland. I bet, on Sundays, you even ban yourself. Right. And Thomas Freedman is one with the rabble on the street.

P.S. If anyone knows what the fuck he is referring to here, where he tells John Stuart about some "Filofax diaries" that, apparently, no girl goes without these days, please, please do share.

Posted by hissycat at 03:03 PM | Comments (23) | TrackBack

September 27, 2005

More Wacky Crooks

FEMA is now paying, as a consultant to look into what went wrong with Katrina,-- Michael Brown. Yes, that Michael Brown. I'm not actually speechless, but for your sake, dear reader, I'm going to pretend to be.

Posted by hissycat at 03:34 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Good, Not Good

Good:
This thoughtful, intelligent post about rights that fetuses have but adult women do not.

Not Good:
Call-in radio talk shows about "What's Wrong With Women!" Zuzka and I were in the deli this morning while the most obnoxious man on the radio was inviting callers to call in and to share what about women do you hate. "What does your girl do that gets on your nerves? Is she moody, sulky? Does she brood after a fight?" We left at the announcement that "after this commercial break we have a woman on the line who called up to complain about women," unable to stomach any more.

Posted by hissycat at 10:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

And One Pill Will Make You Fucking Confused

Marketplace ran a story about the new Medicare prescription drug benefit plan for senior citizens that will start advertising in October and go into effect January. As with all plans that purport to use the private sector for public services, the touted benefit of the plan lies in the mythical power of consumer choice: choose what you like and let the companies compete for you (never mind that there is more power in being part of a group than in being a lone customer with nothing in the way of bargainning power). The angle presented on Marketplace emphasized the difficulty of choosing a plan. They played a clip of an insurance rep. explaining one of the plans which, incendentally, was explained to me by the H.R. rep. at the new employee orientation a few weeks ago (the particular scheme in question begins with a deductable; after the deducatble the insurance picks up a certain percent of cost until you hit the "roof," after which the insurance picks up none of the cost until another roof is hit and the insurance company pays either all or some percentage of costs thereafter). Then they played a clip in which another insurance rep. starts a conversation with two delightfully grumpy old men who croak at the young whippersnapper, "Are you selling insurance?" "Who is paying you?, eh?"

It was an interesting way to report the story, but I would take their line of skeptical inquiry a step or two further. Having just had the experience of having to pick a plan myself, I can testify that the unnecessary complexties of these plans are truly astounding. I'm a bright enough girl, and I couldn't make sense of it all. I'm sure there are plenty of people more confused than me. Which isn't even to get into the fact that if your government or employer is making you choose among different plans, they are basically admitting that none of the choices is wholly satisfactory in itself, that you are being asked to gamble on which deficienies will harm you least. Companies and governments, if they wanted to provide good coverage, would offer one plan they feel is comprehensive enough to cover everyone's needs.

It's not accidental that the choices are so ridiculously complicated and confusing. Health insurance policies profit off the confusion of policy holders. In the same way that cell phone/ computer/ electronic outfits profit enormously off of "free" deals that are free only after a mail-in rebate because a certain percentage of the customers loose their receipts, make a mistake filling out a form, or just plain forget to mail the rebate in, health insurance companies rake it in by confusing and/ or inconveniencing their policy holders so thoroughly that the consumer ends up footing much more of the bill than he or she should. I was a pained witness to this strategy at work when, last winter, Brett had to jump through hoops (and really, really small hoops very high up and enwreathed in flames, at that) to get the insurance to cover doctor's bills. Every time Brett called the insurance, he was given a new representative to speak to so that in all eleventy-hundred of the conversations he had with the company, he never spoke to the same individual twice (incidentally, this is a practice very similair in method to a practice called "cramming"that most phone companies use and is considered an unfair business practice. Phone companies routinely overbill-- most of the time the customer doesn't even notice-- and then make it near impossible to get the charges removed. They do this by making it so frustrating and inconveniest that most customers just give up. Listen to This American Life's story #253, The Middle of Nowhere). He was never told the last name of the person he was speaking to, even when Brett asked; one might guess this is to respect the privacy of the employee, but I don't think so. Not knowing the last name makes it impossible for the client to request to the same person again (phone companies have this policy, too). Needless to say, each new representetive Brett spoke to was unfamiliar with Brett's case and so had to be filled in by Brett, after which they would tell Brett to do things he had already done; he would tell them, and then he'd get transferred to speak with somebody else. It's very shrewd of them, really: the entire burden of explaining things rests on the shoulders of the patient while it is impossible to ever hold anyone at the insurance company responsible since you can't ever hold anyone to what they tell you.

The process dragged on for months, and at one point, his petition for partial reimbursement was flat-out denied. When he called to ask why (since earlier, a representative had explicitly told him to go ahead and pay out of pocket and he would be reimbursed), he was told that, somehow, a digit of his social security number had been entered wrongly into their system. Rather than correct their error, rather than calling Brett to verify his informatioin, they very deliberately chose to deny the petition instead. Brett hounded them, filled out more and still more forms until they finally aceeded, but it would have been no mark on Brett's credit and capabilities if he had thrown up his hands and given up. There is only so much a person can do. Especially (duh) a sick person.

Another, though less prologned, example of this kind of disingeniousness occured when I needed an abortion last winter. When I figured out I was pregnant (not all that difficult to verify: I missed my period, I got sick and weepy with hormones, my body felt sort of funny and wrong, and all the pee sticks showed two brilliant pink lines), I wanted to deal with it immedeately. I knew I wanted an abortion, so the quicker I could go to the gynecologist and have the procedure scheduled the better. Since it was obvious I was pregnant, I didn't bother to go to the Student Health clinic to pee in a cup, but instead went to see someone at the hospital right away. I was later told that because I had not checked in with my primary providor (the student clinic), the insurance would not cover the tab for the visit, lab and ultra-sound that totalled, if I remember correctly, just shy of $700. Whenever Brett or I would explain to someone on the phone that even if I'd peed in a dozen clincic cups I would have had to go to the hospital in any event since there aren't real doctors at the clinic, only NPs, and that the only thing that NPs do is administer pee tests, which I had already done, we were met with maddening repititions of a handful of lines that reflected a complete lack of absorption of anything we had just told them. The only way I was finally able to get a retroactive referral (at least two people told me that there was no such thing, which is patently untrue) was by going in towards the end of the day, crying and pitching a fit until I was permitted to speak with some heigher-up who, after I related my story, finally showed me some mercy. While annoying, the frustrations and stress of battling the insurance company did not prevent me from getting what I needed; I had the abortion and the insurance, however reluctant, did cough up the money. Not everybody, though, has the advantage of being a hysterical, demanding bitch from New York raised by two psychaitrists and therefore aware of the need to self-advocate in the medical system. They shouldn't be punished for a lack of bitchery. Why, if anything, they should be celebrated. Getting health insurance to cover what they are contractually obligated to should not require being a loud fucking bitch.

The fact that this plan is being unleashed onto senior citizens is especially concerning. It reeks of scam to me.

Posted by hissycat at 09:41 AM | Comments (23) | TrackBack

September 26, 2005

I'm Heartbroken

I so want to see Joan Didion when she comes to San Francisco. I tried to buy a ticket to see her at City Arts & Lectures, but they-- sniff-- were-- sniff, sniff-- sold out. If anyone has a ticket they won't be using or if you have any leads on where I might find one, please please help me out. I'll be sitting at my computer crying and obsessively checking on Craigslist.

Posted by hissycat at 03:32 PM | Comments (30) | TrackBack

Read Something Dirty This Week

Happy Banned Books Week!

Posted by hissycat at 02:45 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

Drinking In A Hotel Bar

Last night I became exactly the kind of grown-up I always hoped I would grow up to be.

The kind that gets drunk in a hotel bar on a Sunday night and dances to synthesized renditions of Burt Bacharach songs in a skirt that is short enough to make me look like a hotel bar hooker.

Yesterday, after the Folsom Street Fair (which taught me that there are not enough public spankings or bound people accepting large dildos up their asses in the world to make large, organized events not boring), the Tess, the Luke, the Brett, the Ameeth, and I took a cab to the Fairmont hotel where we were meeting Molly and her Dad at the Tonga room in the Fairmont Hotel. We were promised a Korean woman in a boat playing Missy Elliot on a keyboard while the boat motored around the bar. We were not dissappointed.

We should have perhaps taken it as an omen for the rest of the night that the cab we unknowingly climbed into was-- in the driver's words-- "an awesome disco cab." On the dash were half a dozen Chinese dragon bobble-heads angrily bobbing their heads to the blaring 50-cent. There was speculation that the entire trunk of the cab had been turned into a sub-woofer. I believe it. Among the bobble-headed dragons on the dash were, inexplicably, three or four cat miniatures made of animal fur and glass eyes and little rattan baskets. In the space between the back seat headrests and the rear window pane were a cabaret line of colored spotlights. A star made of blinking Christmas-tree lights adorned the ceiling and there was a multi-colored discoball in the center of the cab. Oh, and a TV screen showing Lord of the Rings.

Wedged as I was soundly between lovely, warm bodies in the backseat (four of us were smooshed it), I was largely sheilded from the aggressive rattling and jostling of the car, though those sitting next to doors testified to being slammed around quite a lot, and I believe it. At one point, shooting down a side street the tires shrilled as we came to a sudden halt. A German Shepard was passing by.

The car once again came to a dead halt (this time in the middle of traffic). A cab going in the opposite direction had stopped and running out of that cab, a hunchback waddlyran over to the driver's window, waving a fat stack of bills. "I have three hundred! I have three hundred!" the hunchback said, "but I can only give you ten."

"I'm going to break your fucking legs," said the disco cab driver. And after the hunchback had peeled away in his cab, "I'm going to fucking kick his ass. I'll break his legs. Next time I see him at the airport, I will get out and break his legs."

And then, the Tonga room. Although it was never explained exactly what circumstances had led to Molly paying a visit to the Tonga at age fourteen, she had been so thoroughly impressed that she was able to convince even cheap, lazy motherfuckers like myself to make the visit. The place was Tiki-ed out, and, indeed, the boat rumor was true. There was, in fact, not only a keyboardist but a drummer and girl singer on the boat in the pool as well, playing "Top 40 hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s." So overwhelmed were we by the magic of the Tonga room, we felt it would be wrong not to share the magic with our friends. At our peak, we numbered thirteen.

Did I mention that every half hour there was a "rainstorm" where the lights would dim, monkey and parrot noises would interrupt, and water would fall from the sky over the artificial, indoor lake? And the dancing? There was dancing.

We started drinking when the bar was just opened and empty, around five o'clock, and stayed through the eight and nine o'clock onslaught of what I can only assume were tour groups freshly arrived from Boca Raton. The best part of drinking so damned much so damned early, that we were done by ten and too saturated to not be in bed by eleven.

In other news, Gerty, my three-legged cat, caught a rat on Saturday evening. Though she has been known to chase Orange Leo from Adobe-- a Tom about twice her size and in possession of a full set of limbs-- out of the courtyard, and while she is cat ninja with her cat toys, I didn't think she would actually snag a rat. For one thing, the rats in my courtyard are huge. For another, Gerty only has three legs. Jumping is not really her strong point. Nevertheless, she managed to spring at the wall where the rats congregates under the window of my neighbor Swan, who feeds them (and talks to them, and hears them talk to him), and return to the ground with a fat, wiggling rat in her mouth. I was sitting in the yard having a smoke. The cat took one look at me and came trotting proudly up to me with her prize. I ran inside and shut the door and called Brett on the phone in a state of stupid panic. Brett promised to come clean up the rat remains in the morning, so I could let Gerty have her fun. For maybe ten minutes I heard her playing with her prey. I heard her batting it around in the crunchy fallen leaves and then silence when she picked it up, then more crunching along with awful death wheezing. Then came the most pitiful cat wail I have ever heard. Gerty, who I don't think knows how to kill, had let her rat get away up a tree. With only three legs, she really can't climb and she was pacing back and forth, and looking up to the branches, crying like kid who just watched the sccop of ice cream go falling of the cone. I picked up Gerty and brought her inside for praise and scratching and a can of wet food.

In my heart of hearts, I am proud of my cat.

Posted by hissycat at 09:51 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

September 25, 2005

Sunday Morning Apologies

Yesterday I started finding spam comments on hissycat and now there are at least eleventy-hundred little boogers. Sorry. I will deal soon. Right after I get back from the Folsom Street Fair, where the leashed testicles are.

Posted by hissycat at 12:08 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

Sunday Morning Regrets

Why, oh, why did I think it was a good idea to leave the house tonight wearing both black tights and knee socks of the thick, white cabled variety? It wasn't. I looked ridiculous.

Posted by hissycat at 01:22 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

September 24, 2005

Untitled #53

Having just purchased nearabouts $50 worth of used paperbacks at Adobe, I have to ask myself: why oh why did I just spend more money than my net worth? Is it because I just won the lottery or received a fat advance from a publisher? Did some cultured magnate decide to bless me with his patronage? Did I get a new job, a raise? Did a heretofore unbeknownst to me trust fund come into maturity? No, no, no, no, no, and--to my deepest dismay-- no. Is it because there is copious free space in my grand, penthouse pied-a-terre and empty bookshelves crying for some book loving? No. Is it because have leisure time enough to read these books? No, it is not.

On second thought, I don't have to ask myself anything at all.

Caroline and Zuzka were boozily enthusiastic about starting a reading group. I seem to recall there was talk of make-out contests and squeeze-a-boob fundraisers. I don't know. I'd been drinkning.

My homepage is still an embaressing blank, but I decided on at least one more project I will be using the hissycat domain for. Since my big, fat lesbian pulp thesis is just burning a hole in my desk drawer, I decided I'll be putting it up as a web document so that that information, whatever it's worth, is accessable to anyone who wants/ needs it. I'm going to be doing a whole lesbian pulp resource, actually, with extensive bibbliiographies and directories to further resources. There are a few pages out there already like this, but there is definately room to make one more up-to-date and comprehensive. Plus it gives me a chance to rescue some of the dead darlings I had to cut from the thesis-- writings about the historical backgrounds not directly pertinant to my critical argument, but still possible of use to someone looking for that type of information.

I told Brett and Ameeth I'd meet them an hour and a half from now, which means that in Joannatime, I need to start getting ready to leave the house now. I cannot leave my house without spending at least forty minutes making sure I have everything I could possibly need with me for the next 72 hours, and I can't leave without a bag of supplies to see me through any contingency that might arise, including but not limited to prison, earthquake, famine, psychic discomfit of the type alleviated by pills, pyschic discomfit of the type alleviated by fiction, extreme heat, chapped lips, excessively oily skin, a spontaneous shower in which to condition and comb my hair, frigid cold, draught, a gang of drag queens in need of concealer, mascara and a few other necessities, an on-the-spot assignment, a meeting with an agent or editor. I leave the apartment and return about half a dozen times before I'm satisfied that I have enough of what I need and I have double-checkd that the lights are off and the cat is not on fire.

Posted by hissycat at 03:56 PM | Comments (27) | TrackBack

September 23, 2005

Book Booty

Oprah's book club is back. She's going back to the contemporary works format where authors come on the show to discuss their work* with Queen O and her audience. She'll be adding non-fiction writers into the mix, too. However heartening I find this news to be-- and I do find it heartening; any effort to introduce people to new books can't be a bad thing, and I'm even keener on the idea of fostering discussions about books and ideas among people largely excluded, or at least overlooked, from these kinds of exchanges-- I'm not sure the the publishing business angle that the Times took covering in the piece is the one I most cared to read about. I'm not convinced, either, that the story is important enough to necessitate cover-page placement, even if Friday is a historically light news day at papers, but, hey, it's better than front-page stories on sports. Small beans, my complaints, small beans.

What I'm really, really looking forward to is the dishy, salacious tome on the scandalous sex lives of The Frog and The Beaver, Tete-a-Tete: Simeone de Beouvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre by Hazel Rowley, which Louis Menand writes about in this week's New Yorker. I love this sort of thing, love it; the scrumptious combination of tabloid sexpose and bookfest dorkfest. Sapphic affairs, threesomes, incest fantasies, harems of groupies, sexual competition, deception, seduction, Dangerous Liasons style mind-fucks. What more could a girl ask for? (Suicide, psychosis, male homosexuality and/ or murder, but, hey, I'm not complaining.)

Posted by hissycat at 11:39 PM | Comments (810) | TrackBack

September 22, 2005

Good Ole' Lovable Dave Eggers, King Of Camp

"Dave Eggers can even make freedom seem cloying and precious," says Wonkette.

This prompted byGawker's note on the eBay benefit for The First Ammendment Project in which authors are auctioning off the oportunity to see your name immortalized as the name of a character, titty bar, or alien race in the author's next book. There is a little blurb by each author describing what she or he is offering. As one would expect, there is a range of generosity and thoughtfulness on display. Among the most good-spirited and enthusiastically giving are David Brin who extends a good-natured offer to let the winner choose between "the name of a rogue moon on a collision course with a doomed planet, an exotic and gruesome disease of unknown origin, or an entire species of wise, ancient extraterrestrials;" Stephen King, who is effusive in his invitation to name a character to be devoured by zombies; John Grisham's vow to use your name for a character to be "portrayed in a good light;" Karen Joy Fowler's promise to use the winning name for a secondary character in a novel; and Rick Moody's and Brad Meltzer's promises that the name will go to characters that are not throw-aways and that appear more than once. The prima donna's are more grudging in their offers: Z.Z. Packer, Amy Tan, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman promise only that the name appear "at least once;" Lemony Snickett donates but a single "utterance" off the lips of Sonny Baudelaire (although, there is something so in-character about Snickett's blurb and offer, that perhaps I should move it back to the good-natured, good-humored list); Andrew Sean Greer offers to use a part of your name on a restaurant awning; Jonathon Lethem offers to name a character in a cartoon after you (Jonny, baby, I love you, but if I was going to shell out money to have a character named after me, I'd want the character to be in one of your novels, not a comicbook. Why? Because you write really good novels and most of your fans probably love you firstly as a novelist and not as cartoonist). Well, they're still desirable offers and have fetched big wads of money.

Dave Eggers, though. Dave Eggers writes this:

The winner will be featured in a strange illustrated story I'm working on called The Journey of the Fishes Overland. The winner, or someone of her/his choosing, will be encountered by the traveling fish in question, as they travel over land. It could also be a family, a house, an address, whatever. I get to decide why the fishes see this person/place, and what's said by/to or done by/to the person/place. This story will be finished and published in the fall. The name/s have to be tasteful and be undisruptive to the narrative. I reserve the right to refuse using a name I find offensive.

As is usual with Eggers, I find myself really irritated by him without knowing exactly why. I mean, he's offering this for a very good cause , and, apparently, other people seem to find his proposition appealing as they are bidding large sums on it. I feel like a bad person for having the bad feelings about him that I have.

It's really hard to nail down what it is about Dave Eggers that really gets under my skin. I haven't read anything of his since Heartbreaking, but I rember I quite liked it back then (incedentally, I also quite liked the 'Heartbreaking Jerk of Staggering Genius' t-shirts the English Dept. gave out). He does admirable charity work for children. People whose opinions I respect seem to like him. Writers I adore and admire like him well enough to collaborate with him, or at least with his projects/ publications. You can't talk shit about him without being a petty asshat. To wit, a conversation with Nick a few weeks ago when he was in town:

Nick: . . .and I went into 826 Valencia.
Me: Hmmph. Snort. Ground Zero of the Eggers Empire.
Nick: Isn't it, like, a tutoring center for children of low-income families?
Me: Um, yeah. Yeah, it is. I know.
Nick: Aren't you into literacy skills education?
Me: Yes. Of course I am. It's just that. I don't know. Maybe it's living in San Francisco I'm just a little weary of the Eggers' cool kid club. They think they're so cool. I mean, I guess they are so cool. But I mean, they think they're so cool. I'm a little put-off by the whole cult of personality thing, especially given my impression of Eggers' personality. Also, why are all the 826s called 826? It doesn't make sense. 826 Valencia makes sense. 826 Valencia is the address of 826 Valencia. But 826 Brooklyn doesn't make sense. 826 Seattle doesn't make sense. 826 L.A., 826 Michigan, 826 Chicago. . .
Nick: Ok, ok.
Me: And how everything he touches is so, so precious.
Nick: Yeah, it's not really my style. But it seems benign. I mean, it doesn't really bother me.
Me: Maybe it's the serifs. He uses too many serifs!
Nick: I think serifs are pretty.
Me: I know. I do, too. Sigh.
Brett: Joanna, every character on your website has serifs.

See what I mean?

When I was in Seattle with Alex, we went to the Bumbershoot Festival-- not for crazy music, mind you, but to see one of our favorite stars of print and public radio, Sarah Vowell, read as part of a benefit for 826 Seattle. Vowell was astoundingly funny, Daniel Handler was sharp-witted and winning, but Dave Eggers was, well, less than luminous. During Eggers' reading, Alex played tetris on his cellphone so as to suppress his disruptive urges.

The piece Eggers read was from the perspective of a cartoon dog advising humanity to appreciate the small pleasures of life, etc. He used a voice so saccharine and affected it makes me nauseous just recalling it. Most of what he read was just dumb, not funny, and boring. A lot of writing is dumb, not funny, and boring yet does not rile me like Eggers' does. What gets my goat, in addition to affected voice, the self-satisfied smirk, is when Eggers says things like, "Dick Cheney is so evil he's cute. He is so evil he is campy and endearing." And then people laugh.

No. Please. No. Just no. Dick Cheney's evil makes him neither cute nor endearing; Dick Cheney's evil in combination with his power makes him incredeably dangerous. It makes him a harm and a threat to the world. Camp is so inapporpriate a term for Dick Cheney it makes my head spin. Camp, says Sontag, is a tender feeling, the enjoyment of what is flawed. Because it would take hours for me to write out even a marginally acceptable definition of camp, I will, instead, show by example.

Things that are camp: Pink Flamingos, Weight Watchers Cards from 1974, 1950s advertisements for washing machines, Dolly Parton, Bettie Page, The Goonies, Mary Tyler Moore, Ernest Scared Stupid, The Golden Girls, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, high-school yearbooks, baby Jesus butt plugs, Mai Tais, Barbarella, postcards of kittens playing with balls of yarn, The Village People, Arnold Shwartzenegger in Kindergarden Cop.

Things that are not camp: the Rwandan genocide, Hurricane Katrina, union busting, no-bid government contracts, Operation Rescue, cancer, Adolf Eichmann, Arnold Shwarzenegger in elected office.

I could go, but I'll spare you and get to the point. See, things that are camp have something likeable and redeeming about them, even if they are corny or flawed. They also don't kill people. So, reruns of M*A*S*H? Campy! The war in Iraq? Not Campy. RuPaul? Campy! Dick Cheney? Not campy. Really, really not campy.

I realize that Eggers probably thought he had written something charmingly campy himself. He hadn't. He had just written something crappy. And it's not that I object to making fun of serious matters. I don't object to political humor. I love Jon Stewart just as much as the next one. But Eggers isn't making a joke about Dick Cheney. Eggers is making a twee little reference to his own twee tweeness and just using Dick Cheney because, apparently, there is nothing in the world that Eggers can't use to his own self-serving psuedo-irony and cutesyness.

Whatevs, yo. Read this.

P.S. In case you needed proof that, in spite of the Snarkwatch business, Dave Eggers is the king of smarm, I give you this "favorable" review of the great Lorrie Moore's Birds of America.

Posted by hissycat at 04:20 PM | Comments (1000) | TrackBack

Office Joy

There was a brief moment yesterday when my paycheck arrived that I thought, 'Ok, I can do this, I can work here. I'll just work harder and focus, because, really, this is fine. Oh, and health insurance.'

But no. I have to get out of here. I really need to start looking for something else.

The window in my hamster cage faces the courtyard where, at least once a week, there is a picnic/ pizza/ buffet thing to which I am never invited. I mean, I think these people are my co-workers, but frankly, I'm not sure, because I don't really know who my coworkers are. I've never been introduced. In four months. So there was one of those charming little events out my window at noon. It's almost three now, and it's happening again. Someone's birthday is today. I gathered that from the singing. I'm just about shoulder level with the action, about two feet and a glass pane away. People have actually leaned back on my window while talking to their phones or each other, the way people sometimes lean on parked cars. Yeah. So annoying. So bizarre. So awkward.

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September 21, 2005

The Sunday Review Of Babes-- Whoops!-- Books, I Meant Books

Now I'm as excited as the next nerd to read the new Zadie Smith. I think. Anyway.

The Frank Rich review in the NYTimes Sunday Book Review was glowing and made me want to read the book. But was it really necessary for the review to devote to the two gigantic glamour shots of the, admittedly quite beautiful, author than is allotted to most book reviews? The online version shows the two headshots, but it really doesn't convey the enormous proportion of the paper was occupied by her (very pretty) face.

And I like pretty people. I like looking at pretty people. I like looking at pretty, colorful photographs. In fashion magazines. Not in literary supplements.

Incidentally, while googling up a Smith bio link for this post I came across this one.

In her midteens, she changed her name from Sadie, to Zadie, because she thought that it would make her sound more exotic, and it certainly shows that she was thinking of words and what they mean from an early age (Sadie means 'mercy' or 'princess', which is a bit girly -ed.). There aren't that many Sadie Smiths out there, if the internet is anything to go by, so she did not really have to change her name to stand out. On the other hand, if you type "Zadie" into Google, all the links are related to her, so she is the most famous Zadie in the world.

There is just so much there I just don't understand. You read it once, you think the writer contradicts himself. You read it again, you think this is a very weird and obscure way to edge in a jab about an author's careerism, celebrity and relation with fame.

Posted by hissycat at 08:55 PM | Comments (23) | TrackBack

A Cry For Help

I have to write a slew of short narrative paragraphs appropriate for third and fourth graders. Things like "Visiting Grandma At The Nursing Home" and "A Funny Story About Birthday Cake." They have to be totally innocuous and can have no mention of religous holidays, Halloween, gay parenting, or monkeys. I'm pulling up blanks. I need your ideas.

Note: if you are planning to slip in subversive messages about feminism, socialism, or independent thinking in an attempt to mold the minds of the young, you are going to have to be pretty fucking subtle. That paragraph "Why Emma Goldman Is My Hero" so did not fly. And in regards to level of diffculty, pretend you are writing to an audience of four-year-old, lobotomized George W. Bush's.

Suggestions? Advice? Sweet, sweet opiates?

On this National Day Of Delurking, help a girl out. Delurk your lovely self. Leave a comment.

Thanks.

Posted by hissycat at 01:39 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

"The Three S's: Self-Indulgent, Solipsistic, and Sophmoric"

There are times when I feel too rotten and blue to will myself out into the world. I allow myself to slump alone in my dirty apartment when it would be far more beneficial to force myself out the door and into some boozy establishment of sociability.

Then there are times when I shouldn't be let out, and I go out anyway I pay; when I push myself stinkingly into the midst of cheerful company when where I ought to be is backed into the white-tiled corner of the shower stall, my dorsal plane flush against the uncomfortably cold ceramic and my front side under the scalding spray of the shower, getting sanitized. Or at the keyboard, working till the darkness lightens to a productive, mechanical blank, pouring amber drinks that attaining such a state may require. Or drinking in the green arm chair and reading me out of myself. Or sleeping it off.

Tonight was the latter. Having slept three hours Monday night, I was already dizzy with sleep deprivation by the time I was home. Twice I almost dropped my face into my Weight Watchers SmartOnes microwave dinner. The utter inefficacy of everything I tried to do at work left me feeling raw and cranky. I should have stayed home and tried to catch up on work work or else work on my work (i.e. my writing) so as to recover some modicum of self-respect. Instead, I went to Tess's movie night. I was too tired to have a nice time, and the pleasantness of everyone there just made me more aware of all the ways I fail as a person. I'm pretty sure I've gotten too fat to be taken out for viewing. Sitting there with all the same faces I sat with a year ago this time, I felt like a car that had stalled on a hill and after some time of merely slowing was now actually fast and wildly rolling backwards. I feel the extra mass of me everytime I move. I must have tacked on fifteen pounds in the last four months. I feel like I'm an embaressment to Brett. A year ago, in front of all the same people, he had a fresh, thin, new girlfriend to trot out before the people he knows and to desire and be proud of, and that's not what I am anymore. I've swelled and decayed like the wood boards of an unvarnished boat abandoned in a body of water.

I ought to go to sleep now. I know this. I state this to myself, but doing so seems to awaken me to every scrap of my worthlessness. I haven't written that review that I wanted to write. I haven't written that article. I haven't finished those stories that are longing for completion. I haven't written that novel. I haven't written those blog posts I've been meaning to and soon my thoughts will be outdated. I haven't written letters to all the people who have written letters to me and are awaiting my reply. I've a stack of books from here to next Thursday I want to get through. There are articles and reports I should read. There is work on the website that needs to be done. And I am still behind in my work work.

The supervisor, who finally gave me a timetable and assignments, is not happy. In fact, I would not be surprised if I was fired. I don't want this job, it's true, but I also don't have anything else. I need to make an effort. Things need to be pulled together.

Posted by hissycat at 12:22 PM | Comments (26) | TrackBack

September 20, 2005

He Forgot To Ask About The Legal Status Of The Undead

I bring to you, in today's post, two wacky current events stories in a just-shy-of-timely manner:

1.

One of the most bizarre, fucked-up crazy and perversely-fascinating episodes of the Roberts conformation hearing was surely the abortion-issue "questioning" of Roberts by Senator Bareback-- oops, I mean, Brownback.

Let's just walk through this one, shall we?

In our legal system, everything's either one of the two: you're either a person or you're a piece of property.

Ok, ok, I can accept this premise. Let's go on.

If you're a person, you have rights; if you're a piece of property, you can be done with as your master chooses.

Right. For example, let's take women. Ok, so if women are people, then they have rights. They have self-determination. Gotcha. But if, on the other hand, we consider women to be but property, then they can be done with as those in power please. Without self-determination or recognized moral agency or, um, complete personhood, a woman could be made to, you know, do things against her will, according to the will of those who have greater power. Like carry a pregnancy to term, for instance. Alright, Brownback, I'm wit'cha.

And I believe everyone agrees that the unborn child is alive. And most agree that biologically it is a life, a separate genetic entity. But many will dispute whether it's a person.

Wait, what? Oh-- oh, I see. . . you're not talking about whether women should have the rights of persons. No, no, no. You were talking about fetuses. Ri-ight, and we all agree that-- wait, wait, we do? Oh, you just mean "alive" as in "a seperate genetic entity" like, um, a virus or, um, a spore. Things that have genetic codes but aren't independently viable and certainly not pers-- oh, wait, are you saying fetuses are persons? Yeah, um, NO? But hey, maybe this is more of your cutting edge "Kansas science." The kind that has really broken ground in the political arena, if not in the scientific or intellectual ones.

I hope you would agree with me that this is at the core of the issue, obviously, the competition between the woman's right to choose and the legal status of the unborn.

Phew. See, for a moment I thought you weren't going to get back to the issue of women. Silly me! Of course you are going to address the rights and status of women. I mean, there's no way you were going to just skip over the rights of half the population that is definately alive--

In Plessy v. Ferguson, it's been cited yesterday along with the Brown decision, which my state is the proud home state host of Brown v. Board of Education. And I personally knew two of the lawyers that practiced in that case, and they were noble gentlemen.

So, you're not going to talk about women?

And I want to take another point on that to tell you -- we talked a lot about the disability community, and well we should, and the protection needed for the disability community. And that's important, because I think it really helps people that need help, but it helps the rest of us to be much more human and caring.

Well, we're moving right along, aren't we?

Senator Kennedy is helping me with a bill because a number of children never get here that have disabilities. Unborn children prenatally diagnosed with Down's Syndrome and other disabilities -- I don't know if you know this, but there was a recent analysis, and 80 percent to 90 percent of children prenatally diagnosed with Down's Syndrome never get here -- never get here. They're aborted in the system.

That's what he said, never get here. Because of prenatal genetic testing (evil, evil, non-Kansas science!), pregnant women and their partners now have access to the information that allows them to chose whether carrying the fetus to term is the correct choice for them or whether terminating the pregnancy is the more manageable, feasable, moral-- yes moral-- action. Outrageous! Those fetuses never get here, the man said. They're aborted in the system. Notice he didn't say in a uterus. He said "system." Because women aren't really individuals, just extensions of the "system," tentacles extending from the Senate floor. And of course he spoke in the passive, because it's not as though women are full agents capable of acting. It's like, women don't make ethical choices. Stuff just happens. They don't choose abortions, or anyway, if they do, they're just being manipulated by the system. Big government. Or something.
I'm gonna warn you: it's just gonna get wackier from here on out.

And people just say: Look, this child's got difficulties. And we even have waiting lists in America of people, today, willing to adopt children with Down's Syndrome. And we will protect that child -- as well we should, under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other issues -- when they get here.

We even have waiting lists in America of people, today, willing to adopt children with Down's Syndrome. You did know that, right? And Sen. Bareback is one of them. You know, the financial, not to mention emotional and psychological, cost of raising a child with Down's Syndrome is so overrated. Because this country so obviously has an affordable, accessable health care system as well as schools with fantastic, widely available Special Education programs for students with severe developmental disabilities. Not to mention the subsidized childcare that allows mothers to ensure that their children are adequately cared for while they working.

But so much of the time, and with our increased ability of genetic testing, they don't get here. Diagnosed in the womb, system that encourages this child to be destroyed at that stage -- and this is all in the records.

And we are the poorer for it as a society.

It's a damn shame all the opportunity, all the resources. If only there were Americans who actually need opportunity and resources. America's offer of opportunity, protection and equality is just withering up on the branches as it waits for any takers. But there aren't any. And we a are a poorer society because of it.

All the members of this body know a young man with Down's Syndrome named Jimmy. Maybe you've met him, even. He runs the elevator that takes the senators up and down on the Senate floors. His warm smile welcomes us every day. We're a better body for him.

See? This isn't about women at all. Never was. It isn't even about the disabled. This is about us, isn't it Bareback? This is about how much more fun Senate hearings can be when they begin with a good-natured ribbing of retarded Jimmy in the elevator. Every abortion deprives you, Sen. Bareback, of more lovable "characters" like Jimmy from the elevator.

He told me the other day -- he frequently gives me a hug in the elevator afterwards. I know he does Senator Hatch often, too, who kindly gives him ties, some of which I question the taste of, Orrin...

(LAUGHTER)

... but he kindly gives ties.

Heartwarming, indeed. Let's all share in a good-natured laugh about Jimmy and those ker-aazy ties Orrin gives him because he thinks it is funny to see a retard in a kooky tie. Ha ha ha. Christ's asscrack, this is creepy.

2.

If in the midst of Katrina, the hearings, and the public radio pledge drive you missed this story about incensensed parents intent to rid the school libraries from "horribly obscene, explicit, pornographic books" by Toni Morrison, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Francesca Lia Block, E.L. Doctorow, Julia Alvarez, Bret Easton Ellis, Alice Sebold and that perennial favorite of book-burners, Judy Blume-- well, consider yourself lucky.

Laurie Taylor, the indignant mother who demanded the school library purge its shelves of such filth, and her organization, the sinesterly titled Parents Protecting The Minds Of Children has posted on its website not only a list of the offending titles but synopsis and juicy excerpts as well. On the page titled Shocking Pornographic Children's Sex Education Books in Arkansas School Libraries the featured link, in bright purple font about thrice the size of the next largest on the page, is Link to Shocking Pictures in Elementary books at Fayetteville, Arkansas School Library. Because we all know that there is nothing that anti-"pornography" nuts love to look at more than anything else, it's porn.

Not that it's not obvious that children need to be protected from vile pornographic images such as this:

or this:

No joke, these images are posted there as examples of pornography. Poor Taylor, what a sad, sad life hers must be for her to see a cartoon woman drawn seemingly by the hand behind a whole line of Hallmark greeting cards examining her vulva in a hand mirror and think "porn! evil, sexy, graphic, obscene, hard-core porn!" Or the couple. I mean, the corny cartoon couple, who are clearly in a loving, committed relationship, as they are shown in a bed canopied by a goddamn sprinkling of hearts-- hearts, for god's sakes, hearts. But maybe it was the caption that offended her so:

Most often, they have sexual intercourse because it feels good

Putrid vice, indeed.

Posted by hissycat at 03:11 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

September 19, 2005

My Net Worth

Is $34.06. Says my bank.

Counting the money I owe people it is more like -$2734.06.

Fun times.

Posted by hissycat at 01:40 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

September 18, 2005

Authors Are So Crazy!

1. Tamara used to work at the Media & Microtext desk in Green Library. One afternoon, an older, professorly man approached her and requested to check out a DVD. "Do you have You've Got Mail?" the man asked, "with, you know, Tom Hanks?" The man handed Tamara his ID card, which Tamara swiped without thought. She had retreived said Tom Hanks DVD and was processing the transaction on the computer when she saw on the name of the Tom Hanks fan on the screen: Tobias Wolfe. In sputtering disbelief, she looked from the screen to the ID card to the man. Yes, it was Tobias Wolf. And he was checking out fucking You've Got Mail!

Ha ha ha.

2. I went across the street to Katz's this morning for a whole wheat bagel with honey-date spread, a large coffee, and the New York Times. I got up to get an apple juice and as I was sitting back down I noticed that the man next to me looked famil-- hey, that's Stephen Elliott! Well, I was about 88% sure it was him, but I couldn't look again because I didn't want to be rude or sad or uncool or creepy. I finished my juice, folded my paper and got up to leave. The tables in Katz's are long, all sticking out like ribs from one wall, lined up almost like in a cafeteria. I was sitting closest to the wall, so to get out I had to side-step behind everyone else at the table, including, yes, he who appeared to be Steven Elliot. As I passed him, I glanced down and saw printed on his white t-shirt, a few inches below his neck, the following lines:
"Happy Baby is surely the most intelligent and beautiful book ever written about juvenile detention centers, sadomasochism and drugs.
-The New York Times"

'No!' I thought, that can't be him. I mean, I was now about 90% sure it was him, but no, please no, please. He can't be wearing a promotional t-shirt for his own book, he just can't. As I go to drop my trash into the bin, I turn and take an impolitely long look. Oh man, totally Steven Elliot. Yeah, no question. And, like the dorky kid who wears his own bar-mitzvah party favor t-shirt to school, he is wearing a t-shirt upon the front of which is emblazoned with Happy Baby and an image from the book's cover and on the shirt's back is an excerpt from its review in the New York Times.

Posted by hissycat at 03:51 PM | Comments (22) | TrackBack

September 17, 2005

This Happened (Featuring: Gossip, Celebrity, Books)

Last night (Tuesday night, as it is still though just barely Wednesday as I write this), Brett and I hauled it out to Danville after work to catch Nick's reading by its tail. I left my office at oh about 5:40 and proceeded to make at least three wrong turns on my way to pluck Brett from the Googolplex-- an entire seven miles away from my office. We got lost a few more times, and, too, Danville was much farther than I had expected.

Last night (Tuesday night, as it is still though just barely Wednesday as I begin to write this), Brett and I hauled it out to Danville after work to catch Nick's reading by its tail. I left my office at oh about 5:40 and proceeded to make at least three wrong turns on my way to pluck Brett from the Googolplex-- an entire seven miles away from my office. We got lost a few more times, and, too, Danville was much farther than I had expected.

The drive took us past the most intensely Siliconey part of the Valley, where there is nothing but one glass and concrete office building after another, so repetitive they could have been plopped out of sandcastle molds. Each building had the name of a company stuck on its front in big, colorful letters like kitchen magnets. Huge companies, apparently, and even Brett hadn't heard of most of them. I felt like Oedipa Maas, lost in the grids of California highway and the state's many Yoyodines.

East out of the valley, past the mountainettes the land switches with alarming and sudden decisiveness from sterile office sprawl to farmland. There was an office building that seemed to have gotten lost on the way to Silicon Valley, one last mega tech office plex with renegade livestock-- goats and cattle-- grazing on its shocking, sod-tiled lawn. Then there were rickety clapboard Victorians, free-roaming cattle on hillsides, Tracy, and a scattering of post-Levvitown exurb outposts. Brett said we were no longer in the Bay Area. Past the hills, he said, is where Dublin and Pleasanton are, and it's too East to be Bay. I hadn't realized these places did not count as Bay Area: they are always listed on the Bay Area Craigslist.

By the time we found Rakestraw books, it was past 7:30. The reading started at 7:00. Rakestraw was an unexpectedly endearing youngster-oriented bookshop in a town unexpectedly charming in spite of its obviousness newness. Its strip-malls, noted Brett, were elfin. The event was set up with Nick at a podium about ten feet from the door but facing away, so that the only way to get in was to walk across what served, essentially, as a stage and circle past the check-out desk to get to the seats. We were rude and disruptive.

The audience was half nerdy high-school students and half parents. A Q&A was in progress when we got there. Nick was fielding questions from the eager, nerdy nerds asking him (and writing down) favorite books and recommendations ("Could you recommend some books with plain language. We read a lot of complicated things at school and I want to know what books that are very straight-forward you would recommend," one girl asked). Nick was incredibly gracious, I thought, and the students (best word to characterize the crowd) were certainly receptive. Nick's answers were thoughtful and humble, but what most impressed me was that Nick asked questions back. One kid asked about writing; Nick answered, then asked the if he, too, was a writer, what sort of thing he enjoyed writing and so forth. Yes, it was all very sweet.

When the Q&A was done, Nick signed autographs and Brett and I, somewhat awkwardly, browsed books with pictures of pirate ships and cats until the kids went home and we could talk to Nick. I always feel uncomfortable when I am around people I haven't seen in a long time. Plus, of course, there is this thing with Nick that when long amounts of time pass and I don't see him, I start believing that I dislike him. Especially when he is publishing novels while I am caged in an office that smells, like most of the spaces I inhabit, like gently rotting fruit. But then I see him and I remember, oh, Nick is a nice, nifty guy.

Nick needed a lift to the city, and the three of us ended up going to Tosca, a tony bar in North Beach once frequented by Hunter Thompson crowd. In the car, I nervously talked about my cat and Google and the circumstance whereby I and everyone I know are employed in the world o'tech. Nick seemed intrigued by the Googolplex. Next time, Nick, next time. At the bar, I drank on an empty stomach, then Brett popped across the street to order bucket loads of sushi. A bartender Nick chatted with pointed us towards a back room with a pool table where smoking and eating were permissible. "It's where all the writers and smokers end up," he said, and though I realize the two are far from mutually exclusive, I wondered which one I was, whether I was being led back to the inner sanctum because I was a writer or because I was a smoker. The answer, of course, is smoker.

A few scotch & sodas later, two women arrived-- one a younger woman who was, I believe, Nick's West Coast distributor, the other, and old woman, who was proprietress of the bar. The younger woman handed Nick a small stack of books, including, I noticed, a galley of a new novel by Katherine Noel, who, coincidentally, was my writing instructor at Stanford last fall (I have my share of reservations about the benefits of workshops in general, but Katherine was, no question, an excellent teacher as well as probably the best reader I've ever had; meaning, she was a sympathetic reader in that she was skilled at picking up on the author's goals and intentions, the nature of a particular project; as a result her criticisms were extremely productive, as her recommendations directed me towards my goals, not her own. Oh, she's also a babe (why are a disproportionate number of the Stegner Fellows totally hot and obscenely hipster?)). Then came my three coolest seconds of the night, where I got to say, "oh, did you say Katherine Noel? I know her from Stanford." It was the only time all night when I could contribute anything on the topic of Famous Literary People That Are So Our Homies. Of course, I then found out that Nick would be lunching Miss Katherine soon, and then I was suddenly uncool again. I made one last pathetic grasp at 'in'ness: "oh, tell her I say congratulations and hello." As though she is going to remember an undergrad student from one of her workshops. And as though if she did remember it would be for some reason other than said student's habitual tardiness and absences and honest yet nevertheless bizarre explanation that at the time, said student's father was in the midst of going mad. Yeah, I'm sure they all saw right through me. (At the end of the night, I somehow managed to accidentally steal Nick's books (and it was an accident, I swear). He left them in Brett's car, lucky me). (Sorry about the parenthesis frenzy. Totally uncalled for, I know).

The old woman, Jeanette, talked about how she couldn't even deal with going to the memorials for Hunter, so tacky, especially that shit at The Bottom of the Hill, full of young people who never even, like, knew him. She talked about Jan Wenner ("that little homunculus," put in the younger woman, Elise) is totally selling Hunter out by writing a book about him ("so pathetic, so disgusting, writing a book about Hunter now"). I learned, also, that because Rolling Stone's anniversary, or maybe Hunter S. Thompson's anniversary at Rolling Stone, or some other occasion, had been approaching, a couple of weeks before his death Hunter had, apparently, called up "everyone" to say that if RS called to talk about him, to not say a damn thing, then he died, leaving "everyone" unsure as to the proper etiquette. How after the last big earthquake, during which she was trapped at a Giants ballgame with the Copallettes ("I had to call Rome to tell Francis, 'your children and your building are ok. Ha. That's what he cares about.") she decided she needed to pack an emergency kit, namely, a Channel bag with some clothes and a knife from France. I learned that Francis' restaurants are something of an embarrassment. ("I ate there the other day," said Nick. "Ugh," said Jeanette. Tom Waits' apartment is ugly ("every time I'm there, I ask him, 'Did you buy this place in the dark?'").

I sat there with my jaw in my lap, periodically kicking Brett under the table every time another first name that needs no last name was mentioned. Yeah.

I got drunkish. It got late and Brett got tired and wanted to go home. I went with Nick to get a drink at the hotel bar, which was closed, so we went up to his room and emptied the mini-fridge on Morgan Entrenkin's dime instead. We gossiped mostly about mutual friends, people we knew from high school. We started yawning. Nick had an early flight (I had early work, of course, but somehow that wasn't ever a factor). I'd lost my wallet so he lent me the cab money home.

At one point, as we were talking about people we know or used to know, I mentioned that the one person I am most in touch with is Joel, a revered history teacher from Riverdale. "You are in touch with Mr. Doerfler?" Nick gawked. "How? How do you get him to respond to you? I've tried, Jeff's tried, Trina's tried. He won't talk to any of us. I mean, I was writing an article on protesters at the Republican convention, and I called to interview him, and he still would not return my calls. How do you do it-- tell me the secret of getting Mr. Doerfler-- oh, sorry, I guess you call him 'Joel'-- to be friends with you?"

I just smiled, perhaps a little smug. Sure, Nick may be publishing novel number two. Nick may be like this with Francis and P.J. and Sean and Jan and Hunter and Jim. Yes, Nick covers the protesters of the Republican National Convention, and travels to Africa with big money GOP donors, and surfs in Hawaii. He has all that, sure. But I have one thing on Nick.

Joel Doerfler returns my calls.

Posted by hissycat at 10:30 AM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

September 16, 2005

How Pathetic

Brett had to drive me to Pier 70 this morning so I could retrieve my car from the pound. It was towed sometime last weekend (for blocking a driveway, even though I totally left enough room for another car to clear it). Why, you ask, did it take me so goddamn long to get my car back? First, I was too depressed and anxious to call the Dept. of Transportation immedeately. I didn't want to know how much money I would have to pay. Second, I just didn't have the money to get it back. My bank account has $54 in it and my goddamn hard-won credit card had not processed my payment (which, granted, I made about two weeks late), leaving me with only $134 of credit. I get paid on Monday (I think) and, even though the longer it sits in the pound the more money it costs to get it back, I didn't see what else to do but wait for the check to come in. Last night, though, Brett took pity and loaned my the $419.25 it cost to get the car back, and we went down to Bryant street to take care of business, only to find my car had already been moved to the long-term storage facility. So back we were this morning, release slip in hand, to get my car, Rachel Owlglass, back. Oh, Rach, baby, I'm sorry. I missed you.

I still have $189 in unpaid parking tickets. And the moving violation. And the injunction to show the court proof of insurance. And traffic school. Fun.

Oh, and I just went to the bathroom and while I was pooing, I felt myself up. Lump still there. Haven't done anything about that this week, nor have I made progress getting Gerty to the vet. Gerty the cat still has fleas. I'm also concerned that, following my example, the cat's been getting kind of tubby. She's not massive, but she's definately put on some weight. This worries me. Gerty the cat only has three legs. I'm afraid fat will really slow her down and impair her mobility. I've noticed recently that she's been having a harder time clearing certain jumps. She used to be able to clear the footboard when jumping onto my bed. Now when she tries to make that jump, she has to affix her claws to the sheets and then hoist her bottom half up.

Oh, and my parents visit this weekend. Good times.

Posted by hissycat at 11:01 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

Here's Something I Don't Understand

I don't get it. Why do so many people think that pointing to the negligence of state and local government (or, more maliciously, to the negligence of the storm victims themselves) is somehow an adequate defense of the federal government's inaction? I sure as hell do not know enough about the intrastate workings of Louisiana or standard disaster relief protocol to conscionably add my two cents on exactly where the blame should be parceled out and how and in exactly what measurements. Nevertheless, I think it is awfully obvious why most people find it extremely troubling and upsetting that, independtly of the egregiousness of failings on the state and local levels, the federal government's response was so woefully inadequate. One hopes that in times of crisis and chaos and when local authorities are AWOL that the big guys-- the president, the army, the FEMA, the what-have-you-- are there to step up/ swoop down and set things (at least somewhat) right and maintain (at least some degree of) order, to be the deus ex machina, the soldiers at the end of the storm.

On different yet not completely unrelated note, I think that, as far as the Roberts' hearing, this just about sums it up. (via BitchPhD)

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September 15, 2005

"Active Evil Men"

I am in the car as I type this. Brett is driving and I am typing away and Bush, on the radio, is spewing hot, shit-strewn air over the radio. Bush just made what I find a very insensitve comment. In tooting his own horn about going down to Biloxi and talking to firefighter, he relayed one firefighter's message: "I lost my house. I lost my cars [carS!]. But I still have my family. And I still have my spirit."

Maybe it's just me, but seeing as how there are people who don't still have their families, that this particular message is maybe not the most comforting.

Brett is cracking up because Bush just read a Call Now! phone number. Not really funny, I know: refugees from the storm listening on the radio obviously really do need that information. But Brett's right: Bush sounds like he's hawking ProActive. Especially if you've been listening to a radio pledge drive all week.

Actually, this is probably the best-written speech he's given in his life. Not that he wrote it. No way. But he certainly sounds prepped. Maybe they hired some of Clinton's people.

Posted by hissycat at 07:49 PM | Comments (30) | TrackBack

Disaster Preparedness

While in San Francisco the the voices beaming out of the radio buzz with the anticipation of impending earthquake doom and imperitives to possess an emergency hand-crank radio, and New Orleans continues to marinate in pathogen stew, and the pro-active take classes on emergency preparedness and the paranoid blog about the likelihood of liquefaction in the living room, there is one area of disaster management that continues to be tragically disgredarded. With so much worry and attention being frittered on Acts Of God and Acts In God's Name, we leave ourselves vulnerable as parapelegic lambs to the very real possibility of a zombie infestation. Zombies pose a very real threat, one that has received not nearly enough attention from the media and authorities. See for yourself how catastrophic the arrival of a single zombie in this or any other fair city could be by modeling it with this simulator. In a city so dangerously underprepared to cope with this kind of a disaster, it is essential that you educate yourself on how to survive a zombie invasion. Prepare yourself. Protect yourself.

Posted by hissycat at 09:53 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

September 14, 2005

I Didn't Intend To Write About This Today

John Roberts is reminding me of Joe Pitt, the Mormon who is Roy Cohn's law clerk in Kushner's Angels in America. Maybe it's the Reagan connection. Maybe it's the scrubbed, wholesome personna he projects. Maybe it's the utter obliviousness to the moral and ethical consequences of his decisions. Everytime he is asked about a memo he authored he insists that he was acting as the administration's yes-man. I keep thinking of the scene in Angels where Louis confronts Joe about being Roy Cohn's butt-boy. Louis is aghast at the memos and briefs Joe wrote in support of rulings that were anti-gay or otherwise unfair and nasty, and Joe keeps repeating that he was 1. just doing his job and 2. not responsible for the merits of a law only for upholding it. Or something like that.

After listening to creepy pro-life, religous, mysoginistic Senators on the commute to work, I was so, so glad when I got back to my desk after lunch and tuned in just as Chuck Schumer was taking the floor.
just say, sir, in all due respect -- and I respect your intelligence and your career and your family -- this process is getting a little more absurd the further we move.

SCHUMER: You agree we should be finding out your philosophy and method of legal reasoning, modesty, stability, but when we try to find out what modesty and stability mean, what your philosophy means, we don't get any answers.

It's as if I asked you: What kind of movies do you like? Tell me two or three good movies. And you say, I like movies with good acting. I like movies with good directing. I like movies with good cinematography.

And I ask you, No, give me an example of a good movie. You don't name one. I say, Give me an example of a bad movie.

SCHUMER: You won't name one. Then I ask you if you like

Casablanca, and you respond by saying, Lots of people like 'Casablanca.'

(LAUGHTER)

You tell me it's widely settled that Casablanca is one of the great movies.

Damn that Schumer made me proud to be a New Yorker.

Diane Feinstein was no slump either. Oh, and watch how his eyes positively glow with evil as he writes off his snide remark about how it is not a good idea for homemakers to become lawyers as just a an old (boys' club) lawyer joke.

Posted by hissycat at 12:01 PM | Comments (23) | TrackBack

Quiz Show

Which Famous Homosexual Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey



Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.

Posted by hissycat at 10:05 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 13, 2005

I Go To Seattle For Three Puny Days and This Happens

Posted by hissycat at 03:03 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack