jezebel 25

The reason I was in NYC city the past couple of days was to be photographed for the Jezebel 25 list - and attend the party afterwards. I feel both incredibly honored and a little bemused to be on this list, with luminaries like Jennifer Baumgardner and Sheila Heti and Mac McClelland - it's a little surreal. I will try to live up to it. And exciting that Lindy West wrote the write-up of me for Jezebel, as I've loved her since that insane insane review of the Sex and the City film for the Seattle Stranger. At the party I asked the art director Christine why the art team chose an image of my eyes shut for the close-up - I mean I like it, my face looks symmetrical, if a little death mask of Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven as hidden in the closet of Djuna Barnes - and she said that my gaze was very intense, and that this was a softer image. I find this very interesting and will have to think about this later, especially since I'm working on an essay on notions of the self-portrait, mostly dealing with Kathy Acker. Also - was lovely to see Jenna Sauers again, whose interview with me should be up on Bookforum online very soon, if not already. It was wonderful also  to meet Sheila, after really enjoying her new book - we are posed together in the portrait shot they're posting Monday, which admittedly makes me look like the mother-of-the-bride.

I am now back thankfully in the humid greenness of North Carolina. Am thrilled to have my puppy Genet back, snoring like a beast right now, at 5am, my body has decided now to be jetlagged from Europe after surviving fine in New York for several days. Am wondering what to do with myself these weeks without John. Who knows. Maybe I'll write something.