Sometimes I Scare Myself

Wasn't this weekend amazing?! It was so warm out! It felt like Summer! It was the perfect weather to sit in the park, go to the beach, or . . . lose your boyfriend's keys when he is out of town, pay $200 to get the locks changed, and spend two days trapped indoors because the only way to get a new key to the front door of the building is to ask the landlord who won't be around until Monday and you don't feel like being creepy and sneaking in behind someone every time you want to get in.

Anyone who knows me will be shocked to learn that this is the first time in the 7 years I've lived in New York that I've lost my (or anyone else's) keys. This is the person who once managed to misplace her favorite gold belt while she was wearing it. They will not, however, be shocked to hear that when I finally did manage to do this, it was at the most inconvenient possible time.

Instead of going out to brunch, going bra shopping, and getting dinner with friends, I spent the weekend eating cheese for three meals, watching reruns of The Millionaire Matchmaker, and reading a 600 page graphic novel. Clearly, I cannot be left alone.

Lists Are Fun

Because I am a strange and obsessive creature of habit I always start the list of books I’ve read each year over in the Spring. I began doing this in college because the end of April/beginning of May was when school let out and it just seemed like an appropriate time for renewal and fresh starts or something. Anyway, here is the list of books I’ve read in the past year. I have it in my head that I should have some kind of specific objective in mind as I begin my new list, “Shoot for a book a week!” or “Try to tackle some of the classics that are always referenced in your writing workshops and that you have been too lazy to actually pick up.” At the moment I’m not feeling very creative however, so I’m going to tell myself that keeping a list at all is ambitious enough . . .

Books Read 2008-2009 (Favorites are in purple. Meaning they either made me cry or I
forced my boyfriend to listen to me read passages aloud to him.)

* Blankets by Craig Thompson (Heartbreaking graphic novel that I read in a few hours. It's amazing.)
* Magic For Beginners by Kelly Link
* Little Children by Tom Perrotta
* Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
* A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
* Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
* Demons in the Spring by Joe Meno
* The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
* Samuel Johnson is Indignant by Lydia Davis
* The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
* Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
* White Noise by Don DeLillo
* The Girls in 3-B by Valerie Taylor
* Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
* Farewell Navigator by Leni Zumas
* Tyrants by Marshall N. Klimasewiski
* You Must Be This Happy to Enter by Elizabeth Crane
* Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar
* The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal by J. Patrick O'Connor
* Fine Just the Way It Is by Annie Proulx
* The Greatest Story Ever Sold by Frank Rich
* Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
* Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen
* The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
* Vox by Nicholson Baker
* Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
* The Corner by David Simon and Edward Burns
* Against Love by Laura Kipnis
* AVA by Carole Maso
* Museum Pieces by Elizabeth Tallent
* So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
* The Female Thing by Laura Kipnis
* The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker