So I have this book coming out today, which is bad enough. But have you seen the Flickr photo pool? No, really: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SHIT? Someone made the Green Bean and Mushroom Salad. There are two Molded Asparagus Salads. There are one two three four renditions of the Crown Roast of Frankfurter. There are Fish Balls and Slender Quenchers and Jellied Tomato Refreshers and OH MY GOD THE CHICKEN HAS A TIARA. And someone made the Mackerel Pudding and tried it and everything.

I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again.

I’ll be at Barnes & Noble Webster Place the night of Thursday, May 25th, 7:30 pm to read from Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan, And no, I haven’t yet figured out how I’m going to READ from a book that consists entirely of pictures and snickery captions, so it should be a hoot.

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.

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.  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.)  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.  Though maybe I have escaped it at last.

One more day here. More soon. See pictures.