Upcoming readings

Thurs., 2/26 Word Books, Greenpoint, 7:30 p.m., with Deb Olin Unferth (Vacation) and Brian Baise

Tues., 3/10 Talk/panel at the New York Society Library, 10 a.m.

Thurs., 3/12 Gallatin Teachers' Reading, 6:30 p.m., Bronfman Center (7 East 10th St.), first floor

Tue., 3/31, First Proof Series at Vassar College, 5 p.m., Class of '51 Reading Room, Vassar Library. (More info here.)

Tue., 4/21, Pacific Standard, 7 p.m., 82 Fourth Ave., Brooklyn. With Nathaniel Rich (The Mayor's Tongue). (More here.)

Thinking inside the box

(Via Doretta)

Yo!

Ms. Piotrowski said she received cover letters that had no salutation at all or began with “Hey there” — not a strong start. —"A Cover Letter Is Not Expendable," NYT

Skateboarding dog

February is Personal Month

Two readings this month!

1. On Wednesday, Feb. 18, I'll be reading at the Ding Dong Lounge (929 Columbus Ave., btw. 105 & 106), along with James Yeh and other gifted students from Columbia's Writing Division. Starts at 8.

2. On Thursday, Feb. 26, I'll be reading at Word bookstore (126 Franklin St.) in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. My co-readers are Deb Olin Unferth and Brian Baise. Starts at 7:30. (Map here. I'm going to need it!)

These two locales could not be farther apart.

Elephants and dogs

Yo, Big Sal!

More insane key phrases from PD's Amazon page:


Original Jack, The Jilliad, Big Sal, Personal Daze, Pru Lizzie, Sporting Proposition, Half Asian British Accent Woman, New York, Percival Davis, New Jersey

Women and men

"Of the thousands of job cuts, 82 percent of those getting laid off are dudes."

—New York on a NYT article.

Not thinking about Kit-Kats

Correspondent: Interesting. I want to actually talk about this notion of self-esteem. I mean, you were fighting, I think, esteem issues on multiple fronts. You had the weight loss and the job scenario and the unemployment. How much do you feel that, for example, your employment history and your employment scenarios tied into the obstacle of losing weight? You point out that staying busy at work “didn’t give you time to think about Kit-Kats and hamburgers and your general state of fatness.” And I’m curious. When did you detect these particular connections? Or by compartmentalizing them, as you indicate in your last answer, this was a way for you to tie all the various threads together.

Reid: Yeah, I think the more I tried to compartmentalize everything, the more I realized they were all connected. And it was pointless for me to try and separate everything. Because one issue rolled into another. Staying busy at work, like I said. Not thinking about Kit-Kats. And then when things got really stressful at work, I would find myself reaching for the Kit-Kats. So it’s all quite a big mess, I think, in the end. It’s not possible. I think I kept it up for about five years — these two separate identities and everything. But in the end, I think when I finally came out of the closet and stopped trying to hide parts of my personality from other people, that’s when I did tackle all of the problems and come out of the other side.

—Bat Segundo Show with Shauna Reid

You are here

chart 1 from ml on Vimeo.

The liar

From Stephen Fry's Twitter (via Glenn)

The last of the jobs

"Is that the last of the jobs? I'm getting really tired of having to hear about layoffs all the time."
—"55,000 Laid off Monday," The Onion

Aprés moi

"I like it when they dress up like middle managers," said Nakajima, twirling her girlish pigtails with one alabaster finger. "You know, with the sweat-stained dress shirts, and the office clipboards, and the khaki pants that are 2 inches too short."

—"Asian Teen has Sweaty Middle-Aged Man Fetish," The Onion