So I’m pretty into this whole Tiger Woods shitshow, as you would guess. As soon as it broke I was all over it trying to find something that I could get all Oh Hell No Did You See What He Went And Diiiiiiid?!? about. It wasn’t too hard. And I came down staunchly on the side of Mrs Woods, and even though domestic violence is about the least funny thing in the world to me, I believe that she physically came after her husband when she found out about it and I kind of want to high-five her for it. Nothing baffles me more than seeing the Mrs Stanfords and Spitzers of the world matching their pearls to their smart business suits that they have never actually done any business in and heading out to a podium to stand by a man that has made a complete ass of himself and a complete mockery of his marriage and his family. If that were me, I would spend the whole night before wide awake, staring at the ceiling of my master bedroom (where I would be sleeping while the pile of crap that I married slept, I don’t know, in a sewage treatment plant somewhere) and planning the exact moment during the next day’s public apology where I would pull the ultimate Kanye, grabbing the microphone to tell the whole nation about all of his sexual shortcomings and how he cried whenever he watched the Lindsay Lohan version of The Parent Trap on ABC Family before declaring “Stickles- OUT” and slamming the mic to the ground.

I don’t think anyone in a relationship is ever justified in physically hurting their partner, so if they prove that she really did try to go par 4 on that Nike-clad dome of his, I might retract my offer of a high five for Ellin, but if she winds up calling me for life advice (which, to be honest, happens to me at least 4 times a week from various celebrities that have heard about the fountain of rational judgement that is Me) I will tell her to stay the course, just like I would tell anyone in her situation: You get your kids and you get the fuck out of there, then you get the money, then you get the book deal, then you get a full hour with Oprah, then you get a new man that worships and glorifies you the way the old one was supposed to. I don’t understand exactly what is so hard about this line of action.

I was on a week long staycation when Tiger decided to issue a public apology, which means that I slept through it and had no idea it had happened because instead of being in front of a computer all day at work I was watching Bones on DVD and eating SweeTart Gummy Sour Bunnies and wondering if it’s actually possible to see God through a candy you bought in Target’s Easter miniseasonal section. When I’m not at work on a work day I have some trouble keeping up with basic human tasks like Connecting With The World Outside My Apartment Before I Finally Put Pants On To Go Pick Up Chinese Food Circa 8pm. Sometimes I think that the universe plans things this way to make sure I don’t have a heart attack. The Balloon Boy drama happened during the one day in October when I wasn’t at my desk; I was at home in NJ with my brothers, conspiring to have the matching sweater photos taken for our parents. Had I been at my computer and able to follow along with that media shitstorm, I am almost positive that my head would have blown clear off my body, which would make the 5th grade version of me happy, as her wish to be the normal height of 5′6 would finally be granted. I just love crap like this way too much. Thank God I was sleeping when Robot Tiger took the podium to talk about the Issues He Is Working Through. I would have caused a one-person riot. At minimum, I would have spent an hour rewinding it (which I have since done) and whipping my head around to my turtle tanks for lack of better company and shouting “Are you HEARING THIS??!?” from the other side of my apartment.

All of my Super Fun Opinions about this scandal have been reeeeallly fun for The Boyfriend to deflect. I feel like there should be some kind of social anthropological term for this (now that I spend all of my vacation time watching Bones which is, for my money, one of the most ridiculous forensics drama on television, I am attributing everything to Anthropology, with a big A). How many other girlfriends in the world used the Tiger Woods scandal as a Teachable Moment? I didn’t even realize I had done this until last week, when one of my coworkers had a baby and I unconsciously used that news to make sure that The Boyfriend wasn’t attached to any ridiculous ideas like, say, not having babies or having babies but giving them dumbass names like Storey or Madigan or whatever the hell people think is okay to do just because they had unprotected sex and it took. “Do you know how much I would kill you for this?” I told him over the Thanksgiving weekend as we ate lo mein and watched surveillance video footage of the Woods estate along with a reenactment of what might have happened when Tiger fled the scene. “I would never stop killing you. I would kill you and then bring you back to life so I could kill you again.”  The Boyfriend, seeing a wiiiiiiide open door that I had hung from its pretty new hinges and then stained to the most perfect shade of wood to match the Crazy House I was building with words, came back at me with something about how maybe we just all need to realize that, anthropologically, one man can never be satisfied by just one woman, and then he laughed into his eggroll for the next 20 minutes while I talked about how much I would kill him for cheating on me. Really, he was masterful in stoking that fire. It was like he found the Chatty Cathy pull string on my back that was only open for operation while Tiger Woods was doing something asshole-y.

Regardless, I’m glad that we have these threats on the books, as they, coupled with the lo mein, are clearly the hallmarks of a healthy relationship. And I am reassured by the things I said and the things no one had to say, and that he knew how to answer my underlying “You’re not going to emotionally destroy me for loving you, right?” with an encrypted “you are so beautiful when you’re insane.” Or so I like to tell myself.

Unrelated, But Awesome: I got a package at work today from The Excellent Camilla that contained books she thought I might like to read. I saw the first one, and immediately dropped it like a hot potato because I thought there was some weird Truman Show shit going on and that someone had written a cheeky middle grade novel about my childhood and forgotten to tell me about it.

This, Sports Fans, is The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place Book 1: The Mysterious Howling. I joyfully freaked out over this title because Ashton Place is the name of the first street where I grew up on, and I’ve never seen that word used elsewhere in the world except alongside “Kutcher” which is not something I like to brag about. Also, the cover art shows three children (which, happily, the flap copy explains are FERAL children of Ashton Place- amazing) in the exact gender and birth order arrangement of me and my brothers, the original Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place.

It’s only been a few hours since this discovery, and already a variety of delightful things have happened. Most notably, my father’s response over email, which proclaimed this “GRRRRRRRRREAT!” in the style of one Tony the Tiger. This came on the heels of a response he sent to my Earlier In The Day email regarding a museum exhibit being curated about his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers in which he stated “WE ARE ABSOLUTELY GOING TO SEE THIS EXHIBIT!!!! WOW!!!!” which I think signifies the beginning of my dad’s long awaited (by me, anyway) transition from Stodgy Lawyer Type to Hyperactive Teenage Girl.

The Unsolicited Recommendation: Ricky Gervais was on The Daily Show last night. I’ve never seen Jon Stewart stumble away from his desk while interviewing someone before. I almost choked on my egg whites while watching it this morning.

Such as, for example, my autographed book collection. But first I had to record all of the titles and ISBNs in excel for insurance purposes and then wrap everything in plastic JUST IN CASE something floods. I hear you laughing and I know you think I’m kidding.

I’m not kidding. This was the first 2 boxes.

Peej helped me move this one back into my childhood bedroom. “Shouldn’t we poke airholes in it or something?”

But it’s just my {inanimate} turtle collection, the live ones will come home to roost some time in may.

While I was at home at my mom’s house, I started paging through some of the scrapbooks she keeps in her office, because I like nothing more than reading my old english essays from 7th grade or admiring my work on the middle school newspaper. She has one scrapbook where she’s only used two of the 50 available pages. Page one is a program from one of the many, many honor societies my little brother has been inducted into over the last four years. Page two is a phone message that my Aunt Roe took down for my mom when I called home at one point three years ago.

Squinting a little, are you? Let me narrate. It says: “Cristin called Dan broke up w/ her” in my aunt roe’s handwriting. Immediately under that, it says “Nov ‘05″ in my mother’s handwriting. So not only did my aunt take down the most unfeeling transcription of what I’m sure was a very emotionally wrought message in real life, my mother time stamped it and put it in a scrapbook. My mom laughed so hard when I showed her this I thought she was going to faint. She only stopped long enough to gasp out “Who’s Dan?” which I think makes it even better. (For those of you playing along at home, dan was this guy, aka the only boy who’s ever dumped me, aka the only boy who’s ever dumped me and had it memorialized IN A SCRAPBOOK by my mother). I mean, really. Do I not already have the worst middle child syndrome possible? Let’s go over what happened among the stickles children in April 2008: Bud flew a jet plane over Shea Stadium while thousands and thousands of people applauded, and peej is now an indie music god. The only scrapbook fodder that Cristin provides, though, comes in the form of post-its regarding her failed relationships. Look, I’m sorry, Mom. Maybe May will be the month I give you some real material to work with– maybe a write up in our hometown newspaper’s police blotter if we’re really lucky. Perhaps then we can stop recording my emotional lows for all of posterity, hmm?

Let the record state that as soon as my mom asked who this guy was, her next sentence was “You are not allowed to write about this on the internet.” To which I said “Okay. I just want to take a few pictures so I can always remember this moment.”

Because one move is never enough, I also had to pack up all of my stuff at work and move three feet across the hall. This move you will never in a million years hear me complain about, though, since I now have things like WALLS and a DOOR and it makes me dizzy with happiness just thinking about it. First thing Friday I applied myself to the really important matters at hand.

Like moving all of my stuffed animals before I worried about things like my files and my calculator and other tools with which I conduct business and make my company money.

Much better. (Top shelf library, for you book nerds: Olivia in Latin, the New Yorker Collection of Literary Cartoons, I Like You{the best picture book ever written}, a mini book of Where the While Things Are in either Dutch or German, a book on bling and a book on bracketology both courtesy of The Fee, and Parts, which I’ve talked about before, as it is awesome).

And lastly, what will be my dad’s favorite picture of my office moves, as he thinks my entire life is constructed around the pursuit of books and shoes.

Save that one for your scrapbook, dad.

via WorkFriend Jen

Guys, remember that one time in college?? That was great.

And I had a fantastic time at the wedding, reception, and afterparty.

A united front of C/hristi/ens.

Photo Gallery here!

And I feel like I should have many hilarious things to tell you, but a lot of them fall under the “dude, I’m single now, and it’s weird” camp and I would sooner dig my eyes out with my company issued letter opener than let this blog turn into one of THOSE. But honestly, I feel like I’m in the first half of a really bad romantic comedy or chick lit trade paperback original with the stuff that keeps happening. The only piece that’s fit for public consumption (sorry, Aunt K) is the tale of how one of my relatives recently saw a girl’s name in the newspaper and emailed me the article because her name was spelled EXACTLY like mine which has never happened to me in my whole life aside from one annoying girl at the first summer camp I went to. And I really do find it oddly validating to see my name written somewhere other than all of the magazine subscription offers I get (oh, I subscribed to Maxim this morning. Shut up. Also, in my next life I’m going to use a different name on each of my subscriptions so I can find out who’s selling my name. And then I’m going to hunt them down, duct tape them to a really uncomfortable chair and read Love You Forever to them over and over until they break down and resort to using the poison tablet they keep lodged inside their fake tooth. And while I’m linking to things, I’d like to say that I’m really into the new BN.com redesign. I understand what an enormous loser it makes me to say that), and my mom is fully sick of having heard about how she ruined my life with this name choice, and it’s time for me to get over it. But maybe now isn’t really the time to be sending me New York Times Wedding Announcements, even if the bride has my exact name. “Look! She’s just like you, only MARRIED!” You can’t script this stuff. The only thing that could have made it better would be if the girl had been (a) the aforementioned summer camp nemesis or (b) the author of a critically acclaimed and best selling YA novel. So that’s the level of game the universe has been bringing for me over the last few weeks. I’m expecting Maggie Gyllenhall to show up any moment in the role of my quirky coworker whose off-beat advice on life *just might* turn out to be true.

One of my work friends (sarah, or NewGirl as I’ll be calling her for the next year or so) recently stayed over with her boyfriend’s family for the weekend. And expressed genuine excitement about this idea before having to do it. I was flabbergasted. There are people in the universe who enjoy this experience? I’ve only ever had to go through this with truly fantastic people on the family side of things and it still made me want to become a nun. Nuns don’t have to worry about these kinds of things, where “things” are defined as “Okay, so, how drunk is TOO drunk in this situation?” Nuns don’t have to deal with older sisters. Which brings me to The Story I Wasn’t Allowed To Tell You Before!

Listen, older sisters are terrifying. I know this because I am one. I love my little brother’s girlfriend but I always feel like I am making her nervous just by existing. I’m sure it doesn’t help that she is frequently forced into situations where large parts of my family are in one room, all acting like loud drunk irishpeople. Like decorating the Christmas tree. The only reason I would ever allow a man to accompany me to Tree Decorating Day would be if I were silently encouraging him to maaaaaybe make a point to stop taking our relationship quite so seriously. Anyway, big sisters are terrifying. All of them. So this one time, the (then)Boyfriend decided that it was a good idea for me to meet his big sister before the rest of his family, like that was any easier. I think this was revenge for the time when my two brothers came into town on a random Tuesday and I made him hang out with them while they got drunk and lamented the recent passing of our family dog, like the Worst Celtic Folk Song, Ever. Going in to that night, I called my little brother on the phone while the two of them were en route to the city and asked if they wanted to meet The (then)Boyfriend, and he replied “Eff yeah I want to meet him!” Except he used the real eff word. And then I asked if he was going to be able to be nice and he said “I’ll try to be nice. No, eff that, I *WILL* be nice,” except, again, he used the real eff word, which kind of set the tone for the whole evening. So I have to deal with the payback for this hate crime, and it comes in the form of an older sister. And I freak out about it for a good month ahead of time, convinced that it will be all fire and brimstone and she will somehow trick me into revealing that I’m a succubus in a very preppy disguise. I am constantly being placated by the (then)Boyfriend, who swears that everything will be fine.

And she comes, and everything is fine. Good, even. We have a great time. Everything is awesome. I say as much to the (then)Boyfriend the following day, and he replies something to the effect of “I told you she was great. Other than that stupid secret code thing.” To which I say “…wait, what?” At which point he explains, in detail, that the sister and the mom had worked out a series of code phrases for the sister to use, so that she could call the mom from dinner, in front of me, and tell her exactly what she thought of me. Even though she and the mom would be seeing each other 12 hours later. Even though I was sitting right in front of her. Did I mention that this happened right in front of me? And I had no idea? Oh, and that the phrase she implemented was “I can’t tell yet” (implied: if I like her, or if we need to hire someone to Take Care Of Her).

Here’s why this story is important: Because I was right. I had every reason to be concerned. I had no idea I would have to go all Will Hunting code breaking on their asses. And I never said this before because you don’t mess with other peoples’ families, so I’m saying it now: I was right, damnit!

…and then the breakup crap hit the fan and something about that apparently invites constant commentary from everyone in your life. Not that I’m not welcoming it– I will use anything helpful you can give me. I swear. But I will also chuckle quietly to myself at some of the things people are saying to me. The following is a list of exact statements I’ve heard over the last two weeks, with one piece of advice of my own to myself mixed in. Two are my mom’s, one from each of my two brothers, one from my dad, and the rest from my friends. See if you can match them up:

*Everything is a learning process.

*I think you should do a triathlon.

* <<plays “Since U Been Gone” on acoustic guitar>>

*If you want to spend all day drinking skim milk and listening to Damien Rice, that is perfectly okay.

*If you feel yourself getting depressed, you should consider going off birth control.

*Now you can go crazy and be all “Waiting to Exhale” all over the place!

*Start binge eating.

*And as I run through these things in my mind, I get flashbacks to that episode of Friends when Chandler tries to quit smoking, and he listens to those inspirational tapes as he goes to bed … “You’re a strong, confident woman …” and I think, God, why I can’t I be better at this?

*Let’s consider what the Buddhists say in times like these.

*The last time this happened, you told me that the next time it happened I was in charge of reminding you that this isn’t the last boy who will be in love with you. So: This isn’t the last boy who will be in love with you. Feel better?

*I just heard “a fine, fine line” off the Avenue Q soundtrack and I think you should go download it.

*Have you picked a mantra yet? Can I suggest “muskrat?”

*Luckily, awesome people never stop being awesome. And you are awesome.

*Getting married knocks you out of contention for Miss America, so it’s a good thing you dodged that bullet.

*Hey, Facebook told me about your breakup. Just know that within a week or two you’ll have a day where you finally wake up and don’t think about it. I totally live for that day. It’s usually the day I start sleeping around again.

Godless by Pete Hautman

(“Wait, so, no the Ann Coulter one? Huh. Go figure.” Come on, now. I don’t read books for grownups. Let alone crazy grownups). I got a copy of this at a CBC event about 3 years ago (huh, I wonder when that was… oh right, it was when my team won the first kids’ book trivia night. How could I forget) and it’s always been one of those “okay as soon as I have two hours where I’m not doing anything, I’m reading this” particularly after the whole “winning the national book award” thing, which I hear is kind of hard to do. And last week, I had many hours free after burning through season 2 of The Office in about a day (courtesy WorkFriendJen and her vast DVD collection), and I’m really happy I finally got to this one. I haven’t seen anything else that even tries to handle how hard it is to question religion as a teenager (other than Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret… and the marketplace scene at the beginning of Life of Pi where the main character is asking why he can’t be many faiths at once and all the various religious elders can’t come up with anything better than “You just can’t, okay?”), particularly with such humor and flow. (I hate when people use the word flow. Sorry. It was better than “ease.” I think). Kind of Christopher Moore for 14 year olds. And it’s always fun to have a book remind you that you’re a crazy Christian, which somehow lead me to wikipedia to check out the list of patron saints, which never fails to amaze me. There is a patron saint for advertisers. And one for surfers (but it’s St Christopher, who’s allegedly a big fake. Sorry, dudes). And one for computer programmers (don’t make a y2k joke… don’t make a y2k joke…). And, my new favorite, St. Peter Celestine, patron saint of bookbinders, also known as Pope Celestine V, whose wikipedia article has a section that says See Also: Hermit. I hope someday my wikipedia article can be as fantastic.

Bloom by Elizabeth Scott

I’ve been wanting to read this since it came out in May even though I was a little confused about what it’s all about. (1) Good cover. Totally don’t mind the disembodied hand-and-head look that tends to bother me a lot. (2) Slightly odd flap copy, though I bet it’s really hard to write flap copy for books that people go on to describe as “quietly powerful.” (3) Trade paperback original instead of a hardcover, which I think is unusual for a literary author you’re going to build, but at the same time, I wouldn’t have bought it in hardcover so that decision alone got me to read this book. And I’m glad I did! Because now she’s one of those authors where I’m going to read every single thing she writes because this one really felt kind of early Sarah Dessen-ish and we all know how I feel about her.

You Are SO Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah! by Fiona Rosenbloom

I’ve been wanting to read this for awhile because the title is awesome and the cover is awesome and the general concept is generally awesome, and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s pretty hilarious and comes across as kind of Meg Cabot Does Jewish Coming Of Age Rituals, right down to the dramatic scene at the bat mitzvah in question where the main character has a moment of clarity and does something no teenager would ever actually do in front of hundreds of people if they didn’t want to be That Girl for the rest of her life, as you find in most Meg novels. (I’m not being condescending, just observant. It happens, I’m fine with it). I think I’m actually going to have to read the sequel now. And I can’t decide if I can handle parting with it, but if I can I will obviously be sending it to Carolyn, whose bat mitzvah I enjoyed so thoroughly back in the day when we were wee middle schoolers together. My mom has the truly awesome picture of Cousin Danny and Cousin Erin and I standing in our grandfather’s living room, suited up and ready to head off to Carolyn’s Big Day, and it is priceless. Erin is smiling because she was totally beautiful, even as a 12 year old when no one should be beautiful (and because smiling is what you do for cameras and she wasn’t totally sullen like some of us) and Danny is smiling because he is also good looking and charismatic, and I am a foot taller than the pair of them and not smiling. If I could get my hands on that picture I’d totally put it up here just to keep myself humble. My second thought was to use a picture from my Sweet 16 where I’m wearing converses with my tights and dress at the end of the night because I was impossibly cool by then, if inept with tweezers as I have no eyebrows to speak of, but after scanning in 200 pictures for my Top Secret Project my scanner is in a coma, and fixing it was the domain of The (ex)Boyfriend. (See how I slipped that in there, all stealth like? So, yeah. As of this weekend. And, yeah. It’s pretty awful. Thinking about the reality of it is so upsetting that I’ve switched to trying to look at it like some kind of sociological experiment because so many aspects of my post-breakup life are oddly fascinating… like, I never knew what a small, small amount of fuel the human body needed to keep going. I must have been taking in about 450% more calories than necessary prior to this weekend, because as of right now I am completely off solid foods per constant mandates from my stomach and I’m surprised I have the energy to walk across the living room to check on my turtles, much less walk to my office and function like a {somewhat} normal person. And it was pretty remarkable that, within moments of one another, my dad sent me an email telling me that the Buddhists say “Who knows what is good and what is bad?” {response: sit on it, Buddhists} and my mom sent me an email suggesting I find a mantra to use to get me through this– a “simple positive truth” (she says I can’t use “I can’t believe how much this effing sucks” OR “crap, now I have to manage my own {losing horribly} fantasy baseball team, and cover the engraving on my iPod shuffle.” I picked a line from Finding Nemo. You can probably guess which one). And I can’t believe how amazing some people are about all this, and how some people can just say the exactly perfect thing at the right time and you wind repeating it to yourself for hours, but some other people just aren’t suited to this kind of grief counseling and should not be allowed to talk at all. For example, you should never say to someone in this position “you’ll find someone else.” nor should you start sentences with “You deserve to be with someone…” unless you’d like to be a target of my Misdirected Rage Cannon, which has been firing itself off left and right. On Monday I was sitting at my desk and yelled out “What. The. FUCK!” when I thought someone had taken my calculator while I was on vacation, only to then notice it sitting 6 inches away from where it normally rests, exactly how I had left it. Or when someone asked me what the price of stamps are and I went on an unprompted tirade about what a load of crap the Forever stamp is. {It IS. Ask me sometime} But mostly, it’s just really, really, really sad wanting things to be different but knowing that they can’t be. I know I’ll be fine– I’m already starting to be fine, much earlier than I thought I’d be, despite all of the weird manifestations like how on Sunday all I could think about was making JellO, so I made three boxes of it in individual cups and then later on profusely thanked myself for picking the sugar free kind as it kept me from going into insulin shock when I started inhaling them circa 3am. I am in bad shape now, but I know I’ll be in good shape eventually. Soon, even. Maybe. Thank you for your patience. And for practicing your words in your head before you say them out loud to me. And please keep being nice to me and don’t assume I’m fine just because I’m not crying. And keep sending me books. {thanks feez} Seriously).

The Girls by Lori Lansen

And now for something just as uplifting… a novel about twins joined at the head. Turns out I do read books for grownups sometimes, particularly when Target tells me I should. And I meant to force book club into reading this (we’re on book club “Summer Hours” through september, which seems to mean that we either don’t pick a book, or we do pick a book and no one reads it, or we just give up and pick a movie instead) and I wish I had because it is seriously phenomenal. I don’t even want to tell you about it because I feel like giving away even small and seemingly unimportant details would be taking away from it as a whole, but you should read this, and then give it to your mom to read. It feels very Mommy Book Club, like Water for Elephants and the Memory Keeper’s Daughter. Except awesome-er.

Beauty Shop For Rent… Fully Equipped, Inquire Within by Laura Bowers

First off: Look! The girl on the cover HAS A FACE and you can actually SEE it! I don’t know when we started doing the whole face-truncating thing and I get that it was probably after two twelve year olds went “but I like imagining how they look in my head!” and I agree that that is pretty much the entire point of books, but covers are also made with the intention of getting people to buy the books and there has to be a way to marry getting someone to buy the book without ruining their potential image of the characters with a headless horseman on the cover. And this cover is great! And I think it’s really well-representative of the book, which WorkFriend Kara would call “aw, shucks literature” (think: how to eat fried worms, because of winn dixie) with a few darker topics that make it a little older. I keep a notepad next to my bed because I’m always thinking about things I want to write about, either up here or as part of The Novel That Is Sucking My Soul Out, and also because it’s really hilarious to read things that made total sense as I was writing them down but will never make sense again. At one point I woke up and saw that I had written down “Halloween costume: Easter bunny.” What IS that? The worlds’ worst SAT problem? Anyway, when I finished reading this book I wrote down “bipolar parents are the new narrators with asperger’s,” which, while phrased in a manner that’s a little too flip, is something I’m seeing a ton of. I don’t think the mom in Beauty Shop is supposed to be manic, but extremely irresponsible, both with money and peoples’ feelings, but I’ve been reading a lot recently narrated by outstanding characters who have parents dealing with manic depression, which is an interesting topic that I’m worried is going to become repetitive pretty quickly. Like zoo internships. Tifaux Maggie and I were just talking about all the YA novels we’ve been reading that have characters with zoo jobs. Which is a great setting because of the other-worldliness you get without having to go fantasy, as well as all the animal behavior metaphors. Still. What was I talking about? This is a good book.

The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper

Finished this last night– I thought I had already read it, but I think the cover just reminded me of this one. Mostly the font. Okay, fine, I’m crazy. After this, I’m going to read another galley about Lily Dale, NY (Lily Dale: Awakening), a town I’ve never heard of that has recently warranted two YA books in the same season (and, according to my Amazon search, a move with Mary Stuart Masterson), having been founded over a hundred years ago during the American Spiritualism movement (was that really a thing? Maybe I should have taken some American studies classes when I was going to the oldest college in the country. Huh). These kind of trends always fascinate me– two authors got struck with this lightening bolt at the same time? Did Oprah do a show or something? Based just on its description I think the other title (Awakening) is going to be the more intense one, and Sparrow Delaney will be the quirkier one. There’s lots of fun hooks– Sparrow is the 7th daughter of a 7th daugher in a family full of mediums where all the girls are named after birds (quirky, you say?) who has chosen to keep all of her psychic gifts to herself in the hopes of living a “normal” life, even though she’s constantly hounded by ghosts asking her to deliver messages. So it’s kind of A Certain Slant of Light meets John Edwards: Crossing Over meets, uh, The Penderwicks? Maybe? I’ll be interested to read the other one.

2. High School Friend Sherry Ann is captain of the Manhattan Mayhem roller derby team (did you know roller derby was enjoying a resurgence in popularity? Had it not been for Sherry’s MySpace page I would have had no idea. Score one for social networking sites!) and as part of our Doing Things So We Feel Like We Make Productive Use Of Our Free Time project, Emla and I went to go see Sherry’s Mayhem take on the Bronx Gridlock derby team up in Harlem, and it was awesome. First we went to Dinosaur BBQ and ate ribs and pulled pork and drank fountain root beers with no ice and spent the next two hours talking about how full we were and how good the food was. Then we proceeded to the match and were flagged down by Jeremy as we wandered around the gym looking lost and confused. I already knew Jeremy kept excellent company but I had no idea how knowledgeable and useful they were– his friend Heather gave us a very enthusiastic 3 minute tutorial on the derby rules that explained every single thing we needed to know and included anecdotes on the players and got me beyond excited. The Gotham Girls should have Heather on the payroll, as I saw her giving the same song and dance a minimum of five additional times, and as she brought in a section of about 45 spectators. And she goes to circus school. I have a girl crush on Heather. This will become a recurring theme at roller derby for me.

I think my favorite part of being there was seeing how many of the skaters had their entire families come out to support them. Sherry’s parents and little sister were there (her dad evidentally picked me out from across the room based on our time together in the YMCA father-daughter group Indian Princesses when I was 8. Did anyone else ever get in on this politically incorrect action? Like everything else I ever did that approached Needlessly Girly– the cheerleading, the horseback riding, the sorority– my dad was 100% in favor of Indian Princesses despite the fact that we had to do things like make leather vests and headbands and pick Indian names for ourselves {mine was Busy Beaver. Laugh all you want} and beat on an Indian drum as you reported what good deed you had done that week. Even though we were all, you know, white and from Glen Rock and would have been better suited to Irish Catholic Princesses. Anyway, Sherry’s family knows me best from the performance of Stone Soup our “tribe” put on at the overnight weekend {the videos of which include about 30 seconds of me hiking or fishing or doing other wholesome things and 4 hours of my dad and his drinking buddies laughing and filming each other snoring at night and generally having the time of their lives} wherein Sherry was a green bean and I played a mushroom by putting a laundry basket on my head and gathering a white sheet around me. Oscar! For a group of 20 or so girls I went to school with, Indian Princesses will always be the tie that binds, and for their fathers, I will always be 8 years old and a foot taller than normal with bangs) Sherry’s family all wore her team color and had signs for her, and there was a couple sitting near us that was very obviously the parents of Luna Impact on the Gridlock, as they had polo shirts made with her name splashed across the back. It’s like how Texas high school football families put up billboards of their players in their front yards, only way cooler because it’s roller derby.

The next best thing about roller derby is the puns. It’s the most pun-tastic display of physical ability I’ve ever seen in my life. Everyone has a punny derby name (Beyonslay and Beatrix Slaugher were at the top of my list) and a punny number (Sherry’s is our hometown area code, Beyonslay’s is “Top 40″) and you wind up spending most of the match wondering if you pick your own name, or if it’s like navy pilots and someone else gives you your call sign, and musing about what you would go by as a derby chick (Emla settled on “tyra tanks.” I am still undecided after running through millions of kids book, baseball, and pirate names, and coming up with nil).

I also developed several mad girl crushes on the skaters– Tankerbell had the best outfit, Bitchie Slambora really appealed to the jersey in me, and Lil Miss Stuffit was basically the cutest thing that ever lived. I’m not exaggerating:

That sound you hear is her phoning in a restraining order against me.

You should really see this once, or several times, before you die/ leave new york (six of one, half a dozen…). Events listing here. I will happily join you.

I only act this awkward on weekends.

I’ve also grown to love attending wedding masses because I get to act as Catholic Interpreter for everyone around me. “Okay, now stand up. Kneel. Shake everyone’s hand and smile.” This worked right up until when the priest read a blessing that the Pope had sent and everyone looked at me all “Is that normal? Does that Pope do that for everyone?” and I had to be like, um, no, not normal. To my knowledge, anyway. That was one of my favorite parts of the day, up there with the mashed potato bar during cocktail hour (mashed potatoes! Who doesn’t love those!), along with the fact that the band played the Muppet “Somebody’s Gettin’ Married” song when Alanna and Kevin walked into the reception, and that one of our classmate’s recent graduations from dental school warranted her a listing as “Dr. Sarah” on her place card. Oh, and that Allison genuinely believed that one of the band members was Sting, and that she spent the better part of an hour trying to get them to play Journey.

Going for the Windblown look. Or, in my case, the Frighteningly Pale look.