It was all very well to insist that art was art and had no sex, but the fact was that the days of men were not in the same way fragmented, atomized by indefinite small tasks. There was such a thing as woman’s work and it consisted chiefly, Hilary sometimes thought, in being able to stand constant interruption and keep your temper. Each single day she fought a war to get to her desk before her little bundle of energy had dissipated, to push aside or cut through an intricate web of slight threads pulling her in a thousand directions–that unanswered letter, that telephone call…

May Sarton, Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing

Some of the items up for bidding:

Katha Pollitt edits your manuscript
Novelist Thisbe Nissen names a character in her next book after you
Former Head Writer for Six Feet Under Jill Soloway edits your script
A shooting script from SCRUBS, signed by all the lead cast members
Legendary cartoonist Jennifer Camper designs your tattoo
An evening of conversation with Cynthia Enloe
A signed limited edition broadside from Margaret Atwood

Hot shit. Go start bidding!

My lovely friend Brynn sent me a package yesterday with the red & black thigh-highs, a new skirt, and many recent issues of the JPS.

“What?” You may ask. “That is Us Magazine, not JPS or whatever you call it.”

If you’ve ever read Mountain Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, you know that we are stealing “JPS,” short for Journal of Popular Studies, from the book’s subject, Dr. Paul Farmer. The book is among my favorites–I sincerely think everyone should read it–and besides the kick in the ass it delivers to Westerners about our lifestyle, it also shares with its readers many of Farmer’s brilliant maxims and nicknames.

Journal of Popular Studies, which he reads on planes from time to time, is one Brynn and I celebrate.  Seriously though, I kind of wish I wasn’t including Britney Spears in the same post as Paul Farmer. His work, as Kidder describes it, is a moral compass for me. A welcome, consistent kick in the ass.

His advice? Take a walk.

And so I do. One of the nice things about working in an office in a city is that I have more to stare at on this five-minute diversion than a parking lot and some office park landscape. If I turn right at the door, I walk past a beautiful old church before reaching the corner where Italian delis mingle with barber shops. If I take a left, I stroll by the incredible red stone structure that is Lafayette High School and inevitably find myself at one of the many traffic circles of Buffalo’s West side.

And after that? It’s back to the grind.

Originally uploaded by Miss Linotte 

Apparently, some subdivisions consider the above image to be a “symbol of Satan.”

More photos from the weekend here.