Closet case.

I don't know why I'm showing the blog so much love today. OK, maybe it's because I've barely shown it any written love in a while and didn't want those of you who care enough to come here to think that I'd stopped, you know, writing. I have not given up on the whole writing thing, even though I've become a vlogger, even though newspapers I used to read are dying slow deaths all around, even though I have a boyfriend and such a phenomenon is usually accompanied by me going blog silent.

The boyfriend and I have been dating for five months now, and I think we're in a good place. The roommate situation - warts and all - is going mostly well. I want to go back to improv, and I've made that desire known - or, at least, I think I have - to the people who can make those kinds of calls.

I thought about HOW TO WIN FRIENDS again, picking up and finishing that project. I thought about starting different projects.

For a variety of reasons, I've started reading and writing (and occasionally napping) behind the closed door of my large bathroom closet every night. The close, confined space, the time to be alone with my thoughts with a specific focus and specific goal and the throw pillow I rest my head on while I'm in there have made for a nice, writing-with-the-door-closed sort of creative space. I like it a lot.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and used to find comfort by hiding under beds or reading in closets.

My bathroom closet helps me to feel more like myself. So every night, I take a novel, a suede journal that snaps shut and a copy of WRITING DOWN THE BONES in there, and I have fun with some or all of those things until I get tired. And Stephen, if he's in the bedroom, can surf on the Internet or watch TV. (Some guys wouldn't be OK with a boyfriend who spends time in the closet - a literal closet, which is just a sign that I'm lucky to have found the person that I've found.)

Who knows what might come of the closet time, whether I'll ever write something significant or just make a dent in all the books I own but have never read?

It just feels important to have the time, the space and someone who cares enough not to mock you on the other side of the door.

I'm in the middle of this book and love it.

I've recommended books some of you have liked before, so take this recommendation into consideration. Part of me just wants to have someone to talk about it with when I'm done.

Anyway, Elizabeth Strout's OLIVE KITTERIDGE won the Pulitzer for fiction this year, and it was in paperback already, so I figured I would just pick it up and read it eventually. But it's a novel written as a collection of stories about one gruff, difficult retired schoolteacher named Olive Kitteridge and her whole entire town. Sometimes she's a major character in the stories, sometimes she's on the periphery. Every time, though, she makes an impact on the larger scope. Each story has been individually satisfying, which means that I've gotten the sense of closure and relief at having finished something profound and beautiful every time I pick it up, and I'm only 100 pages in. It's really, really good.

What I want.

I want one of these Kindle devices. I really, really want one. I've been trying to save up money for months in order to get one, and I've been talking and talking and talking about getting one.



Has anyone who reads this blog gotten a Kindle, seen a Kindle, used a Kindle? I want some feedback on them.

The Tate Modern shirt.

Before and after.

The boyfriend snores.

JOB APPLICANT CHALLENGE: Riley.

My friend Will sent me this challenge:

I challenge you to film a response to a job application. It can be a real one or one you make up; you may answer truthfully as yourself or create a persona.

I answered it three times.

JOB APPLICANT CHALLENGE: Daishwalla.

JOB APPLICANT CHALLENGE: John.