Some non-lawn related items

August 24th, 2006

1. Fun Home has been nominated for a Quill Book Award in the graphic novel category. I’m sorry to say that I had never heard of the Quill Book Awards before this, but apparently they’re some kind consumer’s choice deal, and everyone can cast a vote. So my publicist said I should put it on my blog.

2. If you live in Seattle, come hear me read at the Bumbershoot Festival. I’m doing a reading Monday, September 4th at 6:30, in some place called the Alki Room, with Sean Wilsey. He’s the author of a wild memoir called Oh, the Glory of it All, and he’s also the guy who reviewed Fun Home for the New York Times Book Review–as you may recall he actually drove to my home town to fact-check me. It should be an interesting evening.

We normally don’t delight in the misfortune of others, but Sean Wilsey and Alison Bechdel have written such hilarious memoirs, that they’ve redeemed a good many of their readers’ horrible childhoods. John Douglas Marshall, Seattle P-I book critic and himself an award-winning memoirist, moderates the session of family therapy guaranteed to make you laugh.

3. Sorry about all the trouble people are having reading the strip and tweaking their browsers. Eventually I’ll get this sorted out. I promise.

4. If you get tired of voting for Fun Home to get a Quill award, you can vote for my high school boyfriend to win the HGTV Design Star contest. It’s one of them crazy Survivor-derivative shows, you know, where people compete to be the last person standing? Or in this case, the last interior designer standing. Normally I find those things excruciating to watch, but knowing someone–even if I only really knew him thirty years ago–makes it much more interesting.

Anyhow, you can go to the Design Star site, scroll down to “You Be The Judge” and vote through Friday for Tym. He used to be Tim. I guess Tym is his designer name.

the march of progress

August 24th, 2006

I got a lawnmower. A guy down the road said he could refurbish one for me for fifty bucks. He didn’t think the scythe was such a good idea. And I didn’t think the goat was such a good idea.

So I terrorized a beautiful snake and countless frogs, I cut down the stand of Queen Anne’s lace, the peppermint that had run amok, the bright jewelweed. And now my lush, verdant lawn is a brownish field of stubble strewn with unseemly clods of chewed up grass.

But despite the tingling in my hands and the lingering aroma of gasoline, I feel strangely virtuous. Maybe next I’ll tackle my email backlog.