newest entry 2001-10-15 2:09 p.m.


My neighborhood is mostly blue-collar Chinese and Hispanic, and the local library is geared toward schoolkids rather than adult readers. What this means for a nerdy white girl like me is that I can breeze in there and net whatever new, hot title they have, without weeks of waiting.

(Please note, I am observing my everyday reality here, not making some racist wisecrack, so lay off.)

Todays' coup is Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, which apparently has waiting lists a hundred names long at the other local libraries. (There are two more copies on the shelf at the Sunset Park branch.) I'm a little embarrassed to be reading an Oprah book, but hey I guess her taste is getting better.

I'll let you know how it goes. This is my first crack at fiction since my abortive attempt at Charming Billy


Standing on line for my bean-curds-and-broccoli, watching the intensely bashful, pretty counter-girl: a reverie, a memory of being a library clerk (followed by a comic book store clerk, a furniture showroom clerk, a receptionist....) Feeling vulnerable, my hair held back in an ugly braid, 24 years old but looking and feeling like a teenager, people always asking me, "Which high school do you go to?"...Never knowing what to say, how to keep a small talk volley going. Ugh. It's a wonder I ever got the nerve to get up on a stage, although of course I feel exactly as awkward onstage as I used to feel behind the library desk...

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