Nobody reads these blog post titles anyway, right?

So, as Carrie rightfully pointed out in her last post, things have been a bit...shall we say quiet around here as of late? And the funny thing is I think we actually posted more when there weren't a ton of things going on in our lives. Navel gazing is funny like that.

Anyway, big things have been afoot! I was just glancing at my goals list, that "25 things to do before I turn 25" thing, and I've actually managed to complete some of them, especially the big ones. Observe:

1. Read 80 books (I'm at 51 right now; I don't know how many I'll actually get to, it being October, but, well, we'll see.)
2. Redesign my blog (Eric is "working" on this, and when I say "working" I mean "not working on it at all because Jenny is visiting")
3. Get an agent
4. Get a book deal (ha!)
5. Finish my next book
6. Go on a date
7. Go to California
8. Go on an interview
9. Get a review published in Contrary (I'm pretty sure this is never going to happen, because the editor of Contrary blew me off months ago.)
10. Go to Chicago (Sadly, this will not happen before my birthday, but it will happen right afterwards if I have my way.)
11. Save $300 (The advance will pretty much make me go way beyond this.)
12. Pay off half my credit card debt (I'm planning on paying off all of it with my advance money.)
13. Send birthday cards to all my close friends before their birthdays! (fugged this up, maybe next year)
14. Write 1 letter a month and actually send it (again, maybe next year)
15. Get a raise (I'm hoping this will happen on my jobiversary in November)
16. Volunteer for Seeds of Peace (I just submitted a volunteer form online today)
17. Go to Boston (I guess not this year, no time)
18. Attend a concert
19. Attend a Broadway musical
20. Do at least one thing in each of the boroughs (Well, I've done this if you don't count Staten Island. If you do, I probably won't make it this year)
21. Lose 10 pounds (to start!) (YAR! 13 pounds and counting!)
22. Go to Atlantic City (did you know all the properties in Monopoly are named after Atlantic City streets?) (I, uh, don't even really want to do this anymore. AC is expensive!)
23. Cook real meals (I do this sometimes)
24. Go to a book signing for an author I really love (I'm going to give this to myself right now, since I'm planning on going to John Green's October 16 signing in New York)
25. Um, I guess this one's for me? Because I'm a lemming? (To tell you the truth, I have no idea what this one is. Whoops!)

Now, perhaps I should back-back-back it up a little. Book deal? "Ha!" as I said. Except that actually happened a few weeks ago. My lovely agent was able to sell my graduate school thesis (a young adult novel) in a two-book deal to Delacorte, an imprint of Random House. Very exciting, I know. I've already got a second book done, but now I have to edit it so my editor can see it and make a decision of which book to debut with (I'm going to take bets right now, and my money's on the first book, AUT). So I'm hoping to finish that this weekend and then send it to my agent on Monday so that she can read and comment so that I can incorporate her changes and then send it off to my editor in a few weeks. I'll probably get my editorial letter from my editor on the first book by Thanksgiving, so I'll probably be really frantic and ridiculous at Thanksgiving. Get excited!

So that's my news. Anyone else have any? MAGGIE PERHAPS?!

Sick day

Kim was complaining on the phone about how nobody posts to this anymore, so I thought I'd give a stab at it, although I don't really have a whole lot to say, really. I took a sick day today, because I had a really annoying sinus headache, which only got worse in the morning after I called out and went back to bed. I got up at noon and took the bus about 20 blocks in a complete fog and went to the grocery store to get some cheese and a green pepper, then went back up to my apartment, took some Excedrin, ate a quesadilla and started to feel better. I watched some X-Files and read some of the new David Sedaris book and watched my favorite scene of Penelope about a frillion times.

I also got an email from my agent, who said that she's gearing up to send out my manuscript after Labor Day, because that's when all the publishers will be settling back into their routines after all the conferences and vacations during the summer. So I'm impatient, but I also know this is the best idea, so that the book doesn't fall through the cracks. I'm so lucky to have somebody behind me that believes in the project so much--I only hope that it all lives up to our expectations.

That's really all that's going on in my life. Sorry to be so boring, but oh well. My life is boring. Oh, also I saw Wanted, which stars the amazing James McAvoy, who was typically wonderful. The movie was violent, but for an action film it had quite a quirky, ridiculous personality--only a crazy person could've made it, but a brilliant crazy person. I highly recommend.

Miscommunication

State of the 4S Nation Part 1: Anna

Okey dokey clowns, it's catch up time! I propose we do a little informal survey, where EVERYBODY ANSWERS EVERY QUESTION, so we can kind of get a feel for how everybody's doing. It's sort of like an annual physical, except for your life. Please be as specific as possible, and thank you in advance for participating. (PLEASE PARTICIPATE)

1. What is your name?
Anna

2. Where do you live?
The Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.

3. Of what type is your domicile?
I live in a two bedroom apartment with a very cool lady named Eesha who is beginning to succumb to my love of The X-Files yay! We also have one bathroom, one heater, a kitchen that used to be a doorway, and a new couch. Our building is 100 years old.

4. Do you like where you live? (City, neighborhood, domicile, etc.) If not, where would you rather live?
Yes, for now. I like Manhattan, and right now it's pretty much the only place I could be happy at this point in time according to myself. I'd be too lonely in California and Chicago (except for San Diego, but I couldn't work in publishing there), even though I have family in each location and eventually I want to live in either of those two places. I like my neighborhood for now, but I would prefer to live lower, like in the 90s or 100s on the Upper West Side, so maybe someday. I like my apartment well enough and I love my roommate, but eventually I'd like to live on my own. On the other hand, I could not live closer to the subway, which is very convenient especially in the nighttimes.

5. What do you do for a living?
I am an online marketing assistant at an independent book marketing firm. I basically read blogs and websites all day and then pitch them books that they and their readers may enjoy, then I send them those books (or arrange for them to be sent), and then I gather all the blog mentions/reviews that I arranged so that my boss can create a report.

Do you think you'll be doing this forever?
Probably not, but I don't know. I'd like to work for a publishing house relatively soon, and while I think I could be happy doing Internet marketing, I'm pretty sure I'd still rather work in editorial. Not to mention that what I'd really like is to make enough money off my own writing that I could live in New York or anywhere else I like and afford health insurance and not have to work. That'd be the best.

Describe a perfect day.
I sleep as late as I want, then I get up and take a shower and eat, then I sit down at my computer and read or write, then I take a walk in Central Park, then I have a sandwich at Lenny's and a cupcake from Magnolia and then I go see a movie with James McAvoy in it, then I have dinner and wine with Cambria, then I go home and read and write and go to bed late. Also, I complete a New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle ALL BY MYSELF.

Pirates or ninjas?
Ninjas. Sorry Kim.

What's the best book you've read lately?
I Was Told There Would Be Cake by Sloane Crosley.

What's the best movie you've seen lately?
I really liked Penelope.

If you were a cliche, which cliche would you be?
Good things come to those who wait.

BONUS KIM QUESTION: What's your favorite part of every day?
Crossword puzzle!

What's your least favorite part of every day?
Dragging myself out of bed in the morning.

Cheese or chocolate?
Hmmmm...cheese, but by a very small margin. It's seriously in everything I eat, though.

What was your first concert?
Jewel, in Tinley Park, IL

Would you prefer invisibility or time travel?
Absolutely invisibility. Time travel would freak me the fuck out.

What's your favorite part of your life?
The possibility that my agent and I might someday sell my book. That's pretty fucking awesome.

What are you looking forward to?
Getting my tax return money and stimulus check, Rilo Kiley in June, Tim and Carmen coming in June/July, Kim and Jenny coming in July, my sister coming in July for film camp, GOING BACK TO CALIFORNIA IN AUGUST WOOT! X-Files movie. Possibly looking for a new job in the future?

What are you not looking forward to?
More manuscript revisions, rejections from publishers (it will happen--I may sell it, but someone WILL reject it, it's the nature of the business), heat and humidity.

What cool stuff has happened recently?
People (Brigitte, my mom) visited, I got an agent, I went to a City Breathing show and it was totally awesome, I joined a trivia team (Yeah, go Trivia Newton John!), met some new people, saw Spring Awakening

What crappy stuff happened recently?
No more living across the park from Cambria :(, being poor (this is a chronic condition)

Who is your favorite Spice Girl?
Hmm...Ginger.

If anyone wants to suggest/add new questions to the survey and demand we answer them, that'd be great. But please fill out the survey! I will love you forever.

Also, I've updated my 25 before 25 list and put all of them in the sidebar--update yours so that we know what you've accomplished and can give you a round of snaps for job well done!

A mid-afternoon email diversion

Cambria to Anna: hey cp it's cp. you're a tranny. are you still going to this? [Referring to an email arranging a little get-together celebrating the birthday of one of my friend Katie's coworkers, who we don't know.]

Anna to Cambria: Eh I don't know. I'm torn. Part of me wants to go, but that is not the part of me that just looked at my bank statement. Also? I went to Trader Joe's last night and have food in my house. Also? Greek is on tonight, live in your apartment! Are you wedded to it? I'd rather just go to trivia tomorrow. If we even do that.

RESPONDEZ S'IL VOUS PLAIT!

Cambria to Anna: i don't know...i think that caroline will be straight pissed if we skip her b-day party...not. we don't even know that clown. but trivia would be fun. i think i can scrounge up $5 for the occasion. as for tonight, i'm kind of feeling my portfolio. you're welcome to come over and watch tv, although i don't think that greek is on tonight. at least not on family channel. america's funniest home videos, nothing but the classiest. i'm sure we can find something. real housewives? pussilicious wasn't on last night and i nearly had a breakdown.

Anna to Cambria: OH, nevermind, Greek was on yesterday...check your DVR, I think I set it to record, because what's yours is mine apparently. Also, I'm rude. But in fairness, I did tell you I was doing it. I'm concerned that if we don't make it to Caroline's celebration, she won't come to yours. Something to think about. Caroline's a little vindictive that way. I'll probs. go home and eat something then head over. Also, do yourself a big favor and go here: http://katherinemarie.muxtape.com/. Then scroll down and listen to Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa". I'm OBSESSED!

Cambria to Anna: that sounds fine. whatever about caroline, i hate that bitch anyway. greek is there, you can stop peeing your pants now.

Anna to Cambria: or START!

Cambria to Anna: eww

Lust, caution

In other news, I am very disappointed in MoCa--what's everybody been doing as of late? I know Bri's been working with ties for the past few days--maybe update us on that, Briz, and also tell everyone your amazing tie joke? Although I will agree it loses something without the in-person delivery. But come on! Doesn't anyone have any life news? Carrie--when do you move back to SD?

My life remains pretty boring, just work and book stuff. My agent Joanna and I have been working on editing my manuscript, but I don't think I'll be able to do something substantial until this weekend. It is overwhelming, I will admit, to finally have to please someone other than myself with my writing, but...I guess that's the price you pay to have other people read it. I hope we sell it! It's getting better by the minute. My roommate and I might be getting a couch off Craigslist, though, so that's exciting. Oh, and I'm really lusting after that dishwasher you see in the photo above, but of course I can't afford it--maybe I'll ask for it for a combined X-Mas/birthday gift this year. I don't even know where we'd put it--we have zero counter space, and all the room on our kitchen cart is being taken up by the microwave and toaster oven, but if I could get a dishwasher I would FIND ROOM.

Update! That is all, you hot tranny messes. Stay fierce.

Everything's just incredibly fierce (when it's not being a hot tranny mess up in here)

Item A:



You are ayza in or you ah outz...vis ze sparklink.

Item B:

So as many of you may know, I wrote a book. Um, so I got an agent yesterday. Woohoo! We're doing edits on the book and then maybe we'll get to sell it to a publisher! That's all.

I have been flagging in my duties

Sorry Carrie! I totally hear your call to arms, but I have to say that not much has been going on lately and I feel like I have nothing to post about. But let me try and think of something...

Well, it's snowing. That sucks. Not in theory, but in practice. I really don't like trudging through the precip. and though snow isn't as bad as rain, it can be pretty nasty, like now, esp. when you didn't expect it and are wearing cheap, ancient Old Navy flats instead of the warm, snuggly UGG boots you wish you were wearing. In any case, it's quite a change from last week.



It's not much, I'll grant you. I don't know how long it'll end up sticking around, either, but let the record show that, as the New York Times so helpfully pointed out, while it's only really snowed (meaning that some of it actually stayed for longer than than the nanosecond it takes to melt) once this winter in New York, two years ago today there was a HUGE blizzard, with a record 27 inches of snowfall, so...who knows? More could be on the way? I hope not, because my aunt Kika and cousin Emma are coming to visit for the three-day weekend and we're going to see The Lion King on Broadway!!!111ONE



I don't know what else we're going to do. They were here a few years ago and did the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building, etc. I know that Emma wants to do some shopping, but other than that I guess it's sort of open to spontaneity. If anyone has any suggestions from their various forays to NY, let me know.

(Have you noticed I include photos to make this very boring post more interesting?)

Hmmm, what else? Trying to entertain, trying to entertain...Oh! Wanna see something funny?



"...and pick up all that shit!" is my favorite line.

In blogosphere news, I'm sort of a newbie fan of The Anti-9-to-5 Guide, which promises tips and tricks to help you "flee the cube farm." It's probably the best resource for aspiring freelancers, and I'm not sure any of us are, but sometimes there are helpful little hints about other industries as well. Maybe you want to be a freelancer! Well, find out why it's worth it (or not).

Going along with the linkage, if you're not reading Jezebel, you should be (except Scott--it is very lady-focused). You should also be reading my friend Kate's undeniable style, and commenting--then maybe she'll post more!



Okay, and maybe this makes me a bit of a freak, but I'm really enjoying these morbid Barbie murder photos that I found for sale on Etsy. I mean, I don't want to own any of them, but I have to say that I think they're sort of brilliant. I might be inferring, but I see a sort of feminist commentary in them, on the role of the woman and the oppressiveness of the Madonna/whore dichotomy that, in part, is helping to inspire self-hating women to write alarmist essays about how settling is better than being alone. Please don't read the whole article; you'll only feel shitty about yourself, and then you'll feel shitty about letting Lori Gottlieb make you feel shitty about yourself for being single and childless--completely normal things for women our age!

Ugh, seriously, that article assumes so many ridiculous things: (1) That your ultimate goal in life is to get married, (2) that if you concentrate on your career and don't settle that you'll regret it, but that if you concentrate on finding a man and do settle that you won't regret that, (3) that any fucking man will do which he won't, (4) that women fall into two categories--the ones that settle and the ones that have ridiculously unrealistic fairy tale fantasies when it comes to men--which is patently false, and (5) that the women Lori Gottlieb knows represent any statistically significant cross section of women that deserve being written about as if they represent the majority of women, WHICH THEY DO NOT. "Marry Him!" just goes to show that projecting your regrets onto people can result in unwarranted, specious fear mongering. I'm personally of the belief that, barring any chemical imbalance, the way to be happy is to go through life trying to be happy and not sink under the pressure of always wanting more. That doesn't mean you won't want more, or that you shouldn't embrace those desires and strive to fulfill them, but we as human beings can never be perfectly happy and we shouldn't want to be because then we would stop existing and fade away because human nature? Thrives on the struggle. And that's all I have to say about that.

Wow. Very philosophical for a post that started with some "um"s and some blather about the weather. Sorry! But, ooh, check out my pic on my work website...it's my facebook photo but the McDonald's sign in the background is gone!

Okay, I'm tapped. Somebody else grab the baton...I'm Audi.

Ah, 2008...so far, not sucking any less than 2007

Just kidding! Happy new year everybody! I'm back in New York after a rather inconvenient but evidently survivable travel experience yesterday, and let me tell you, when you next see me you may be surprised at my altered appearance, because after all the moving and lugging of heavy objects over the vacation, I'm going to have some GUNS! Gym nothin'. I also have a new red Motorola Razr, a birthday gift from my aunt (an exec at Motorola for those not in the know), which I don't think she was originally planning on giving me, but after I took out my old phone in front of her and asked my brother to fix the battery cover (which has been falling off for months now), she was all, "I'm so disgusted you have an LG phone. I just can't take it anymore. Wait a minute." And brought the red Razr down from upstairs, imploring me to switch ASAP. So...she's a weirdo, but also, awesome. Not as cool as Kim's tacky pirate lamp, but a welcome gift this holiday season.

I also (you'll love this) totally ATE IT at the Public Storage place where all my stuff has been stored for the past eight months or whatever. We had gotten this nonprofit, H.O.M.E., who collect and give furniture to the low-income elderly, to come get my couch and chair. I was walking over to the truck to tell them where to park and I slid on a patch of ice, SLID UNDER THE TRUCK! (thankfully they saw me and weren't moving), completely bruising the crap out of my left hip/thigh area. Also, when I got home from hanging out with my friend Nickie that night and tried taking off my shirt, I found that I'd strained the rotator cuff in my left shoulder! Awesome. But the shoulder is pretty much healed now, and the hip is getting there (still couldn't sleep on my left side last night, though), and my finger (remember my night of shame?) is totally better and all the cuts on my hand are healed! I'm almost whole again. My only regret about falling at Public Storage was that my brother and mother were around the side of a building at the time and neither of them got to enjoy it. It was hilarious, even I know that.

So...how was everybody else's holiday?

One of those "I wish I'd thought of that" ideas

I always really admire people who are fearless, especially on the Internet. Check out the blog of one Sean Aiken, who is doing a new job every week and donating his wages to charity. So far he's done all kinds of cool stuff: baker, fashion buyer, photographer, aquarium "host" (?)...and these are just the recent ones. He's somewhere in the Week #30-ish range--head to his website to check out the latest, read the blogs, watch the videos...even offer him a job as your personal masseuse? Chauffeur? Cook? The possibilities are endless.

Oh, and also, I'm a celebrity on the internets! Just kidding, but my profile is up on the website, so take a look.

New fake boyfriend alert!

Guys. I have a new fake boyfriend. His name is...hold on, let me check how old he is...okay, nineteen, not illegal. Anyway! His name is Michael Cera. You might know him from his work on Arrested Development, on which he played the hilariously awkward George Michael Bluth.



Needless to say, Cambria's roommate, Jessica, and her boyfriend, Shaun, are either fake creeped out or really creeped out by Cambria's insistence that I like the young ones. And while it's true I'm not hot for the ridiculously old frauds like Rob Lowe, I would not actually date somebody younger than me, if only because they'd be really immature. I mean, men mature at vastly a different (and slower) rate than girls, so dating a nineteen-year-old boy (there's really no other word for them) would be like dating an, um, fourteen-year-old boy? I don't know. I can't do math well.

Anyways, in lieu of that, I'm going to pimp wicked MC's blog and Internet video series, Clark and Michael, which he cowrites, produces, directs, what have you, with his BFF Clark Duke, who virtually no one but Kim will recognize from the ABC Family original series "Greek." It's funny to me, at least! So watch it or don't watch it or whatever, but now you know it's there!



P.S. I've moved to New York and found an apartment. Details to come.

Things are lookin' up!

So I've been calling people steadily over the past hour or whatever, but I figure I'd just send out a blanket announcement: I GOT A JOB! It's at a company called The Book Report Network, and it's an Internet marketing job, which is probably not exactly what I want to do long term (although I don't know that for a fact, as I have very little job experience, comparatively), but it's great experience and I think I could do a lot of cool stuff for the company--plus, free books! The perks are amazing, for people who are obsessed with (read: addicted to) books. Thanks for the prayers, chaps--they worked!

Now, of course, I have to find a place to live so that I don't completely alienate Cambria's roommate forever (I officially move to NY next Friday; I start the job on Nov 12). I wasn't worrying about that because I was all, "One thing at a time, or your head will explode," but now that the job thing is taken care of, I kind of have to deal with this. Especially before Kim and Carrie get here, so nobody has to sleep on the fire escape (could be fun, though--think about it and get back to me).

I don't really have any other news, although I would like to say that I'm glad our SoCal members are safe and sound (and, apparently, have mandatory vacay--way to go Kim). I'll leave you with this bit of drunken convo from Jenny and my night on the town when she came home on Tuesday (it's has explicit lyrics):

Jenny: I was dating this guy, but I had to break it off with him--he had a choad.
Anna: Uhhhhh...what's a "choad"?
Jenny: It's (lowers her voice) a really short, thick dick.
Anna: So you're not a girth person?
Jenny: Well, I am, but I'm also a length person.
Anna: So not too long, not too short, not too wide, not too thin--you want it just right?
Jenny: Exactly.
Anna: Jenny. You're Goldicocks*.

You're welcome!

*Okay, so at the time I was a little drunk and the best I could come up with was "Goldifucks", but "Goldicocks" (which I came up with the next morning) is so much better. So that's how I'm going to tell the story from now on--deal with it.