2.  Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me (Even better than the Dud Avocado, because this one involves a very subtle attempt to murder somebody.)

3.  Lee Israel, Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Ok, so I haven’t actually read this yet, but I bought a copy for three dollars from the scuffed book sale on campus the other day, and it is obviously going to be wonderful because it is the autobiography of a woman who had a successful career as a biographer, but then became not-so-successful, and so supplemented her income by creating elaborate and realistic fake letters from people like Noel Coward and Louise Brooks and Dorothy Parker, until one day, she was charged with fraud.  SOUNDS GREAT.)

4.  Arthur Marwick, British Society Since 1945 (NO, REALLY.  Marwick was apparently something of an alcoholic womanizer, so reading this book is kind of like hanging out with a drunk, curmudgeonly old man who is telling you all about what it was like after the war, and is only not hitting on you because you are his niece.  I realize this is not exactly something that sounds like a ringing endorsement, but it turns what would otherwise be just another boring chapter about how bacon was still being rationed in 1954 into a slightly hilarious jaunt.)

5.  Nicole J. Georges, Invicible Summer, vols. 1 and 2 (Collected editions of the Invincible Summer zines.  Wonderful and lovely and full of beautiful drawings of animals and advice on growing your very own beehive.)

“I used open my bottle of wine at 6:00 pm on the dot and start reading.  And that’s what I did every evening.  I had my little dog.  I had my fire.  I had my book.  And I had my wine.  And the problem with this is that people talk of it as if it’s a problem, the solitary spinster drinker.  But, far from being a problem, it’s lovely.”

Amen, Nuala!  There are very few things I cherish more than beautiful moments of solitude (often supplemented by wine or gin martinis).

Other news:  I am in Canada!  And boy golly, I sure am getting rudely reacquainted with what humidity is like.  A year in the desert has clearly made me weak.  Or at least has dried me out.

Other, other news:  I am finally sitting down and watching Mad Men, after two years of everybody telling me I should.  I’m only part way through the first season right now, and, yeah, it’s good.  One thing though:  Yes, I totally get why everyone is all gaga over Joan Holloway.  I get it.  The clothes, the hair, the femme fatale schtick.  But that’s the problem:  I totally get the Joan Holloway character.  There is nothing new and exciting for me in Joan Holloway.  I have seen her in a million Joan Crawford movies.  Now, Peggy Olsen?  She is fascinating.  I don’t understand her yet, and I want to know what’s going on with her, and that’s why I like her.  I want more Peggy.

And yesterday was a lovely, lovely day because I went into Toronto for the day (my dad had a meeting in the city so I went along for the ride) and met up with Tanya and Emily and Amy B., fabulous all, for lunch and ice cream, and I’m excited to go back to Toronto in a few weeks for more friends and lunches and ice cream.

And there is another author who has recently met with the spinster Stamp of Approval, this time from myself and Spinster Sister Amy G., and that is Elaine Dundy, and I don’t know why we’ve never heard of her.  I walked into Stories a few weeks ago and picked up a copy of The Dud Avocado, based solely on its title, and it is pure wonderful, a fabulous, fabulous tale of Sally Jay Gorce, an American ex-pat in Paris in the 1950s, and you should read it because it’s lovely and hilarious.  And I have decided to call myself an ex-pat when I’m in LA from now on, because it sounds so very glamourous.  But right now I am really enjoying sitting around my parents’ house in my pyjamas, being not glamourous at all.

2.  Dear American Cinematheque:  Thank you for having a Valentine’s day double bill of Baz Luhrmann films about how if you fall in love, things become horrible and then you die (poison or the consumption, your choice), which is basically consistent with my worldview these days.

3.  Remember in Anne of Green Gables when Ruby Gillis had the consumption and everybody talked about how beautiful it made her and I was eleven years old and had never heard of the consumption before and didn’t know what Lucy Maud was talking about?  Actually, I think it was in Anne of the Island.  Anyhow, I think of Ruby Gillis every time someone dies of the consumption.

4.  So Sam and I are doing this thing where we are only going to eat fresh fruits and vegetables for an entire week (STOP LAUGHING AT ME, I KNOW YOU’RE LAUGHING AT ME) because we think it will make us feel better and healthier, and I am personally hoping it makes me feel less depressed as fuck all the time.  So basically we are having a week without carbs and dairy and unnecessary sugar.  So, of course, today I went to Cafe Audrey to drink tea and grade midterms and this dude sits at the table beside me and proceeds to consume (and I am not even kidding) buttered bread with french fries on it.  “Would you like a fry?” he said.  “No thanks,” I replied, and my heart wept, for my heart loves carbs.

5.  This is mostly of interest to Tanya:  Apparently there is this goth bar in Downtown LA that has mod night on Thursdays?  So, like mod goth night?  Or goth mod night?  It sounds…important.

6.  Because of a conversation I had today, I’ve been thinking a lot about these things and these things, and about how I don’t understand the impulse to lie and to hurt people. It’s frustrating.  It’s even more frustrating when people just get away with it.

7.  Because of the Oscars (seriously) my bus stop up near the Egyptian was moved from its normal, well-lit corner to a sketchy, scary corner.  Please join me in boycotting the Academy Awards to protest this injustice (not that I was going to watch them anyhow).

8.  I am 25 years old and I have never owned my own car and this realization makes me feel kind of inadequate, even though I don’t even want a car.  What I really want is, like,  a unicorn.

9.  This is my 600th blog post!  Only 66 more until I have the blog of the beast.  I think I will celebrate that momentous occasion by drinking red wine out of a teacup and then falling asleep in front of a rerun of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Of course this was not true.  CNN was doing a piece on Micheal Crichton, who is an author who is dead for real, not theoretically.

1.  A Nigella Lawson cookbook.   Either How to Eat or Nigella Express, but preferably Nigella Express because it has more pictures and we all know that the entire point of cookbooks is FOOD PORN.  (Yesss!  And now I will get a hundred hits to my blog from people googling for pornography featuring naked ladies covered in food.  Hello, creepy weirdos!  Thank you for making the internet a wildly uncomfortable place!)

2.  A citrus reamer like the one my mom got from the Pampered Chef.  Not only is it perfect for margarita making, it also serves double-duty as a self-defense device because it weighs approximately 57 pounds.

3.  A pair of really good headphones.

4.  A solution to my boy problem (problem being:  boys exist and are stupid but I still want to make out with them) that does not involve celibacy.

5.  A North America presided over by a team of kind, fair, benevolent, intelligent, democratically elected Philosopher Monarch-type people who just happen to agree with and enforce all of my opinions.

6.  Another new X-Files movie.  One that isn’t TERRIBLE.  I know it is possible.  I just watched Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.  I know it is possible.

7.  Somebody to go out dancing with.  I miss going dancing with my Sassyladyfriends.

8.  UNICORN.  (Item 8 could also be combined with Item 7:  A unicorn to go out dancing with.  That would be quite acceptable.)

I know I can count on you, Santa!  Don’t let me down!

Yours,

Xandra A.

Also, as a result of my delirium, I am incapable of reading anything other than children’s literature because everything else makes my brain hurt. This unfortunately means that my plans to get through a stack of pretentious books (see sidebar) have also been shelved, but I’m really not that disappointed because I’ve worked my way through the Louise Fitzhugh catalog and tomorrow I plan to start on Patricia C. Wrede. Louise Fitzhugh is funny – there are times when her novels definitely come across as products of their time and sometimes there is some weird race/class stuff that makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable (especially in The Long Secret) but I can generally move beyond these issues, because her young, female protagonists, have such genuine character and really manage to speak to my Quirkyalone condition even though they are all around eleven years old. They’re all these quiet, smart girls who don’t fit in anywhere and read books and write a lot, which is kind of what I was like as an eleven year old. I have re-read Harriet the Spy SO MANY TIMES, and for some reason there are parts in it now that make me cry and cry and cry that never used to, and I love it so much and Harriet is my favourite fictional character ever, hands down.

Anyhow, my mother thinks my Mystery Ailment is a result of me doing too much gallivanting about and not enough resting while I’ve been in Canada, so here is my plan for when I come home next summer: I am going to sit in the backyard with a pitcher of margaritas. And you can all come to me. And my dad will make us pizza in his pizza oven and we will get good and shitfaced and it will be amazing.