Archives for March 2006

Mackerel on the small screen (and the even smaller screen, too)

March 31, 2006 by Wendy

If you watched Current TV the other day (you know, that Al Gore network), you might have seen their Google Current clip featuring the you-know-what recipe cards and the new book. And if you didn’t, you can watch it here. (It’s the second segment on the clip.) It’s 73 whole seconds of vintage diet food fun, people.

Everything else I haven't mentioned yet (much of it in parentheses) (for some reason)

March 22, 2006 by Wendy

The flight back on Monday night was delayed three hours, because I guess Newark is always like that. I like that it was long enough to justify spending seven bucks on aiport WiFi so I could upload the last batch of photos. I didn’t like getting in so late that Chris and I had to scrap our plans to watch The Warriors and pretend that we recognized the subway stops.

It was a good trip. We spent more on Metrocards than on cabs. We went to that place where that one guy makes pizzas all by himself and everyone stands around watching sadly until they get a slice. I got to make devious plans for the new book. (I’ll show you the cover soon.) I went to see the Girlbomb reading and I bought the book and read the whole thing (and you should, too, and then check out Janice’s old journal entries, which will quietly blow your mind). We went to the Museum of Television and Radio and watched many old things, though I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have the episode of Fantasy Island that scared the crap out of me when I was a kid (the one I described in paragraph 3 of this old TWoP recap). I suppose I was also a little relieved.

Two final questions about New York, both animal-related, one of them hypothetical: 1.) Are there really that many pugs in the West Village, or do people bring them from other parts of the city just to walk them there? 2.) Say you’re waiting on a mostly empty subway platform and you look over and see a rat across the tracks, skittering around happily on its own deserted stretch of platform, and then you see a very nicely dressed woman coming down the stairs and choosing not to stand at the busier end of the platform and instead striding over to the empty end, into rat territory. Do you try to shout across the tracks and warn her? (Okay, maybe this is not hypothetical.) (And no, I wasn’t on the rat side of the tracks.) (And yes, there are rats in Chicago, too, and they come with their own dramatic possibilties.)

And finally finally: come to the reading in Oakbrook on Thursday. Which, by the time you read this, will be tonight.

Live from NY

March 19, 2006 by Wendy

I’m not sure why the intersection under my window (West Broadway and Chambers) is so much noisier than other places I’ve stayed here; all night long it’s full of trucks and squeaky bus hydraulics and some really remarkably audible individuals, God bless them. But otherwise it’s not bad at all. We have had a very nice time getting our pictures in Galleycat, which makes it almost seem like we were truly taking Manhattan and not just stumbling around it and emerging from the subway on the wrong side of the street every single time.

I also did an interview about cupcakes, which technically had nothing to do with my being in New York, except that I got to meet Rachel in person (Do I call her the Cupcake Lady or the Lusty Lady? At least I know she’s not the Muffin Lady). She gave me a few suggestions for the cupcake pilgrimage that Chris and I might attempt tomorrow while we continue to comparison shop for slices. We’re hoping this will be more fun than our deli pilgrimage to Katz’s today, where I did not have a When Harry Met Sally orgasm at all, though I did feel kind of screwed. It was a very good corned beef sandwich but I wasn’t in the mood for the clusterfuck with the tickets and the random service and the busboys on break who you had to step over to get to the ladies room. Whatever, Thug Deli! Meg Ryan faked it, you know.Â And now I wish I’d gone to 2nd Avenue Deli before it closed.

I had a better time Friday night with a whole crowd of ladies including Jami and Hana and E. Flake and Maura (and those are just the ones with urls), where we had pretty drinks and fancy dinner and then wound up someplace in Brooklyn where people bring their own beer cozies. (Or at least this one guy did.)Â The fact that everyone was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day that night was hilarious and terrifying to me: the Chicago parades took place last weekend, the New York parade was on Friday, and it all feels like a big green cloud that I can’t outrun.Â Though maybe I have escaped it at last.

One more day here. More soon. See pictures.

As of tomorrow, I will be

March 16, 2006 by Wendy

in New York.Â Chris and I will be there through Monday.Â And I’ve been so busy finishing columns and celebrating my birthday and getting work stuff taken care of and preparing for my now totally legal presidential campaign that I haven’t had a chance to tell people I’ll be in town.Â So if you live in New York and want to meet up, try writing me.Â (Bonus if I actually know you.) I hope to be on email.Â I also hope I can update on the road.