Website up!

As soon as I pony up the money, this blog is going to automatically redirect to the blog at my NEW WEBSITE OMG YOU GUYS! So change your RSS feed and head on over to the new site: there’s a FAQ with both serious and bizarre questions, and if you check out the About the Site page you’ll see that there are some cool things coming. Also, don’t forget about The A Team–Joanna posted yesterday and we’ve had a big couple of weeks with book news that we’re almost ready to share, plus I’ll probably put up a post about copy edits when I get them next week, but this week I plan to post about the site and how we went from this blog to that thing of beauty, so stay tuned.

Say sayonara to this and hello to that!

Growing up

As I think I’ve mentioned, one of my best friends from college is getting married in less than a month and I’m flying to California for the wedding. As I think you might have figured out, I’m not super good at this “adult” thing. I mean, I’m not living under a bridge or anything; I’m employed, I pay my taxes and my rent and have zero debt (I actually beat most adults in that department), I manage to feed and clothe myself and keep myself out of danger. I have insurance. So, you know, it could be worse.

But I don’t own a house, or any property at all. I’m single. I still consider a drink on my tab a more than adequate birthday present, even for my closest friends. I will eat whole wheat pasta with a little Smart Balance and some garlic salt for several meals in a row because it’s easy and I’m lazy and I don’t need that much variety. I’m a New York adult, which for a large percentage of us (i.e. the poor ones) is not a real adult. Being a young adult in New York often means you’re living like a sixteen-year-old would live if they didn’t have to go to high school anymore. It’s a cobbled-together adulthood that involves a lot of dumb mistakes, procrastination, taking a stab at things and hoping they work out (i.e. apartment hunting).

I realized this (or, re-realized this, as I realize and then forget this over and over again) a couple of days ago when I remembered that I was going to have to get my friend a wedding present. Then I gave myself a day to once again be weirded out by the fact that people my age are allowed to get married, and then yet another day to remember that in New York I am normal but outside of New York I’m a stunted adolescent so of course I think it’s weird for people my age to be getting married because I still think of myself as a high school senior.

So, anyway, wedding present. I’ve never bought a wedding present before, which is fairly sad because I’ve actually been to two weddings of people my age and had my name on a card for a present for another wedding I wasn’t able to attend. Twice I just pitched in on a group gift with my friends, which someone else picked, and one time my mother bought the gift because I was a senior in college and it was my cousin getting married. See how effortlessly I maintain this idea that I’m still a teenager?

Now I have a dilemma–buy from the registry or not? First of all, I couldn’t find where they were registered for a while, which confused me. I checked all the usual suspects–Target, Macy’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, Nordstrom, etc.–before finally digging through all my recent mail for the invitation, which didn’t say where they were registered, either. But! They had a profile on The Knot, so I keyed in the address and went to the page.

Can I just say how much I love Carmen and Tim? Some people go so over-the-top with everything that their Knot profiles are usually a nightmare, with all this crazy information and babbling about everlasting love and, you know what, I’m a jaded New York single girl, I don’t believe in everlasting love, so that stuff kind of ticks me off. But Carmen and Tim kept it simple, restrained–who they were, how they met, a couple of sentences about the proposal and a picture, the bridal party, and THE REGISTRY. Turns out they were only registered on Amazon. I didn’t even know Amazon had a bridal registry, although now that I think about it it makes absolutely perfect sense.

Now here’s my problem. Do I buy off the registry or don’t I? It seems like I should because they put it together for a reason and these are things they actually want/need versus something that I just pick out that they could have seven of or have no use for. Plus if I buy it through Amazon I can just have it shipped to my parents’ house no hassle; maybe I can even bribe my sister to wrap it. But buying off the registry seems so…impersonal. It doesn’t seem thought out or special or interesting in any way. I mean, this set of dishes, it doesn’t say, “Carmen, Tim, I really thought about what to get you and I love you and hope you’re happy together forever, Love, Anna.” It says, “I’m a set of white dishes that came in an Amazon box. Who bought me? I don’t know. I’m just a sensible purchase.” I have no ideas for what to get them if I don’t go off the registry. So I probably will. But still. There’s not going to be a whole lot of me in it.

I’m seriously considering getting them the extra Wii controller, as a compromise. At least that’s funny.

Cue head exploding

Have you ever had so much go on within a short span of time that you feel like your head is just going to pop like a party balloon? That’s how I feel right now. Don’t worry, I’m self-medicating with some Chinese food. I’m on top of this.

Yesterday and this morning involved a lot of back and forth over jacket flap copy for AUT, which is exciting but also nerve-wracking. Has anyone else noticed that it’s really hard to describe your own book? As the person who spent six years writing it, I feel like everything is important, and I don’t know how to boil it down to the essentials without frying all my circuits. Thank God for agents and editors, right? I’m so tired.

That might have a little to do with being out so late last night, though. One of the reasons I’m super lucky to be living in New York is that I have so many good friends here, and they’re all cool and interesting and into a hundred different things. I’ve managed over the course of a few months to pick up several guy friends who are amateur stand-up comedians, but until last night I’d never seen any of them up on stage. Me, Cambria and Nikki headed over to Gotham after work (short pit stop at Dallas BBQ for margaritas and chicken fingers, OBVS, as it’s right there) and were able to see our friends David and Brian (both incredibly funny) perform. There were a lot of funny people, and it was nice to see some lady comics, because when Bri and I went to Gutbucket a few weeks ago there was only one and she was…fine.

Speaking of Gutbucket, one of my favorite comics from that show performed at Gotham last night. His name is Luke Cunningham and I think he’s hilarious, that’s all.

Afterwards we went to Trailer Park, which is just down the street. It’s a kitschy little bar made up to resemble (what else?) a trailer park. I personally think it’s a little too expensive to live up to its name ($5 PBR? That’s highway robbery, that is) but the atmosphere is pretty great and the tater tots are to die for. We hung around with David, Brian, and a bunch of other comedians after the show, including one of the ladies, who I’m pretty sure I gave some material to, although quite honestly it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before on Sex and the City, so whatevs. MD also joined us after her date, bringing the party as always.

I got home around midnight, but then of course stayed up until one to finish Wintergirls, which is so wonderful and traumatizing. Some people don’t like sad, emotionally eviscerating books, but those are my favorite kinds, and Wintergirls is the perfect example. In short, I loved it, Laurie Halse Anderson is a rock star.