The day before Black Friday

Thanksgiving looms and Americans are today mentally if not physically preparing for The Meal. And if Wal-Mart is to be believed, some people are even buying special plates and spoons to be used for this one meal only. Like a good New Yorker I will be paying someone else to make my T-Day dinner, mentally and physically. (I blame this on the city, but I'd be doing this wherever I lived. I'm giving someone a job. Yes, you're right to feel shamed, turkey cookers.)

The college is offering a full Thanksgiving buffet for $20, which includes wine. I don't even like turkey, but sleep well knowing that I will eat at least half the ticket price's worth of mashed potatoes and, if all goes well, drink more than the ticket's worth of wine. Judge not; this is my tribute to frugality, and I'd expect you to do no less. In addition, if you haven't noticed, Christmas is the next holiday after Thanksgiving. Christmas is the Dark Ages of the year, a period of cultural decline and the death of all things enlightening and Good, so if I need to drink my way through Advent I think it best you let me. Happy birthday Jesus. Sorry we suck so much.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We've invited our parents down to the big city to spend the food-focused day with us Thursday. Rumor has it a local department store organizes a parade, so we'll be heading downtown Thanksgiving morning to see if this is true. The family is coming in tomorrow night, so we'll be going to watch the balloon inflators do their thing, which will likely be awesome and likely render us less obligated to wake up early on parade morning to get a viewing spot. Fingers crossed, our parade-watching manner will lean more toward lackadaisical than enthusiastic. The weather forecast for Thursday is 56 and cloudy, and for this I am thankful. Then it's back to the hometown for a few days to visit friends and family and rock to Bad Hair Day and watch a friend get married.

So if I don't say it later, have a happy Thanksgiving.

Follow-up/through

I declared recently that I'd be reading more books (that I'm not getting paid to copyedit). I'm happy to report that I finished Love in the Time of Cholera and have begun Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris. Feel free at anytime while reading this to interrupt and congratulate me.

As I also mentioned previously, this week is Independent Bookstore Week NYC. To celebrate, Tim and I hopped the L to Brooklyn last night and heard Jonathan Lethem read from his new book Chronic City at Spoonbill & Sugartown. Here I bought said book and had Mr. Lethem sign it, then soon after lamented my lack of foresight and leaving my copy of Motherless Brooklyn at home. I'll likely bring it with me to the December 4 finale of his marathon reading of the new book (awesome, right?) at BookCourt. So before then I need to read up to where he left off last night so that I can be a good audience member and teacher's pet.

This morning we visited the bookshop I mentioned yesterday, Biography Bookshop. This is another achievement for which you can congratulate me. In the sunshine and our sweaters we browsed the bargain book tables on the sidewalk, making piles of desired books and then, downcast, returning books back to the table in an effort to abate our gluttony. We bought books of course, all but one of which were under $10.00, including an originally $60.00 hardcover collected works of W. B. Yeats. The more expensive book was Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby, a book that is on my list of New York City related books to read (as is Chronic City). So Ms. Tillman's No Lease on Life has been trumped for now, but she is no. 1 on my Borrow from the Library list. (And libraries are awesome. Please don't view my book-purchasing binge as an affront to the glorious opportunity to borrow books for free from your public library, and do feel free to judge my penchant for making books mine - mine! - by buying them and owning them and keeping them in my possession for ever and ever because I. love. them. so. much.)

And as of this minute, I having nothing to edit. In regular-people terms, I have the day off of work. I could fold the clean laundry, or I could read until Glee comes on. I'm not folding laundry. You can congratulate me on this decision too.

A little farther east

Since my previous pronouncement of my favorite part of the city I've unastonishingly made many visits to this pronounced area. I've twice made the mistake of visiting the West Village on the weekend, and because of this became sourly aware of the previously tolerated abundance of Marc Jacobs stores. Oh, hey, there's a Ralph Lauren, too, and they all have lines of faux-fir-vest clad girls with their male chaperones in their rolled up jeans and leather loafers waiting at the door, an occurence that could not be soothed by flourless chocolate cake because Magnolia Bakery, too, has a line, in which I clearly refuse to wait. And now the Biography Bookshop across the street from the cupcake parade is closing.

In an attempt to hate the player not the game, I will not blame this on the fancy retailers who in a capitalist society can put their stores on cobblestone streets if they want to, nor will I blame Magnolia Bakery, whose fault it's not that Carrie Bradshaw ate one of their cupcakes and sent swarms of faux-fir-vest clad Sex and the City lovers to the corner of Bleecker and West 11th. So who are the players to hate?

I watched and liked watching Sex and the City, so I cannot join the chorus of native city dwellers decrying the SATC effect, especially since I've lived here for only three months. It's not the reason I like the West Village nor why I moved to the city, nor will I ever be waiting in a high-end line to buy the patent leather mary janes for $1,500 instead of $2,000, but my deep affection for my new home makes me understand why someone would put it in the title of their show, make it a character, and aim it toward an upper-middle-class chick-lit audience. You can't tell someone how to love something, even if you think they are doing it wrong. "True love can be expressed in only Harlem dive bars and East Village hookah shops, in Chucks and plaid listening to obscure bands on your iPod and cooking vegan split-pea soup for you and your five roommates."

We pick our favorites and then begrudge them success. We don't want to share. Oprah better keep her book-club-wielding hands away from our favorite book. You die a little the minute you hear your favorite indie band played on the radio. Chace Crawford mentions your favorite coffee shop in an interview and it feels like Christmas morning and Santa forgot to stop at your house.

As with any gentrifying neighborhood, locals rightly lament the loss of a loved identity. The players call it progress, but this isn't what it is. It's just change. The closing Biography Bookshop has opened a new store under the name Bookbook a little farther east on Bleecker, a direction I've been walking more lately. It's less quaint, more grittyish, and maybe someday I'll browse the used record store and not look like a poser or a douche. But I still like the stoops on Perry Street and Magnolia's flourless chocolate cake, so I'll still be visiting, just during the week.

I hope that you've had enough to drink. It's going to take courage.

I've been alone a lot since we've moved, exacerbated by the fact that I work from home. Being alone isn't a new state of being for me, but in its new quantity it has become a new state of grace. I don't feel the need to be a piece to fit a puzzle, nor is any role written for me. I'm slowly learning to try to stay out of my own way and avoid the traps I set for myself.

Having followed my husband to the city as he studies at Columbia, I sometimes feel a little like Charlotte in Lost in Translation. I think Hugh Jackman should play Bob.

Vote No on 1

It blows my mind that people would actually vote to take rights away from anyone, especially rights protected by the Constitution, especially in the name of God.

Thankfully love can never be defeated, even if ignorant, hate-filled sociopaths vote to try. My thoughts and prayers are with you today, Maine.