My mother sent me a link to a bbc news story about strange book titles with this note:

h, if you decide to write a book, all you may need is a quirky title.

The top honors of the “odd title prize” went to The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification, but I think the best of the top three is Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence. Of the previous years’ winners, Living with Crazy Buttocks is a personal favorite.

forget my recent endeavor to write a good article or book. apparently all i need to wow several thousand people is a weird title. i’ve got a few i’m working on, but if you want to contribute any, i’d love to hear them.

this is my new home in the library of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.

while distracting myself from the much more pressing task of writing, I happened upon this clip from Letterman that aired in November.

I like it.

and that is as profound a critique i can give after spending 80 hours in front of the computer this week.

if you are curious just what the women of Maine Roller Derby look like through the eyes of my photographer (we have a running joke about using the possessive pronoun to refer to and introduce one another) Morrigan McCarthy, go to

www. morriganmccarthy.com.

the photos and the photographer are bad-ass.

Lately I’ve taken up the on-the-verge-of-becoming-crazy habit of talking to myself out loud. While walking home or writing, or making dinner, I’ve found myself audibly voicing the thoughts in my head. Phrases like “nice one girl,” or “maybe you should have thought about that one earlier,” or “damn you’re hilarious woman” keep escaping my lips. When it happens, I look around to make sure no one else is watching. And usually no one is. And it occurs to me that maybe that’s part of the problem in the first place.