On my new favorite tumblr: “Awesome People Reading.”

I stumbled upon a tumblr which is as simple as it’s title: “Awesome people reading.” I love perusing my dashboard and seeing these lovely artists and authors hanging out with their books. Here are a few of my favorites. I can’t help but imagine how they’d look framed and hung on the walls of a cozy little personal library someday.

Also, I would totally have a one wall of just sexy French ladies reading.

Identify everyone and find more here.

On the highs and lows of glittery crafts.

“The company’s looming revenue problems—and its sinking stock price—­affected Stewart’s mood, and the mood was infectious. The creative rank and file at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia were a mix of proud elitists and wild enthusiasts, prone to almost ecstatic fervor about such matters as glitter and hole punches. They lived for Martha’s approval, and at her best, she could be inspiring. But Stewart was also famous for her drive-bys. A group of stylists and art directors might spend a week away on a shoot, only to have Stewart dismiss their labor with a belittling remark. ‘Martha would say, ‘Ugh, why are there bananas there? I hate ­bananas,’ ’ says someone who edited food stories. ‘There’s a list of things she loathes.’ At times, the offices resembled a shelter for battered crafters. ‘That women’s bathroom,’ the editor adds, ‘there are women in there crying literally all day long.’”
–from “The Comeback that Wasn’t,” a fantastic article about Martha Stewart by Benjamin Wallace in New York magazine, which you can read here.

Penpals, update your contact info!

The sixth annual summer survey 2011 is complete and will be mailing soon!

Two magnificent paragraphs on Katy Perry’s boobs.

“But what she’s really known for, at least on a par with her music, are her spectacular breasts, which she has used to equally spectacular advantage at every opportunity, tassels dangling from their bouncing barely covered tips, whipped cream erupting from them in great, weird, mommy-milky orgasmic spurts. They get all kinds of attention, not all of it good. There was the Sesame Street fiasco. More recently, it was the New York Post printing part of her mother’s proposal for an autobiography, quoting her mother as saying, ‘No mother wants to see the top of her daughter’s boobs,’ like there would be something unusual in that. No matter. Her daughter will do with them as she pleases.

And yet Perry and her breasts have not always been on such happy terms. ‘I started praying for them when I was, like, 11,’ she says, ‘and God answered that prayer above and beyond, by, like, 100 times, until I was like, “Please, stop, God, I can’t see my feet anymore. Please stop!” I was a lot more rectangular then. I didn’t understand my body. Someone in sixth grade called me “over-the-shoulder boulder holder.” I didn’t know I could use them. So, what I did was, I started taping them down. How long did I tape them down for? Probably until I was about 19. And, no, I do’t have any psychological pain because of it.’ Why should she? Once unbound, she put them to good use, and such problems as breasts can solve, they solved, working a crazy kind of irresistible lucky-charms magic on all who came under their influence.”
–Erik Hedegaard in Rolling Stone

On picking your battles.

This post, from The Bloggess, “And that’s why you should pick your battles,” is the funniest thing I have read in a long time. Enjoy.

On amazing women and sure-to-be-amazing books.

Amber recently wrote, “There [are] about 3 lady bloggers right now of whom I regularly devour their stuff. I know this isn’t going to come out the right way no matter how much I edit it, so I’ll just say it: I love them because something about them resonates with me. They’re just kickass. Funny. Brash. Smart. Driven.”

Amber is one of those women for me. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her and she called me “vivacious” and “sweet thing,” and I totally fell in love with her. I’m so inspired by her example and the fact the she just wrote a book and freaking published it herself last year, so I’m going to buy her book during her anniversary sale and you should too. Woman can write. She’s all over the internet, so you can get your Amber fix anytime, but you and I both know I’m a traditionalist and I like books. Plus, I’ve read all the chapter excerpts she’s posted on tumblr and they’re great. Her book is on sale for $9.99, and you can get your own copy here.

On heavy sentences.

“Learning to write sound, interesting, sometimes elegant prose is the work of a lifetime.”
–Joseph Epstein in The New Criterion, read more here

Things are as they should be.

Travel time to Mom’s and Dad’s: five minutes.

Travel time to work: 15 minutes.

Travel time to friends and the rest of the fam: 15 to 30 minutes.

I love living where I live.

Currently enjoying:

A brilliant new NYTimes column, Acts of Mild Subversion. I’m looking forward to subsequent editions.

Go west, young woman!

I am going to Boulder to visit Heather and my favorite children in the world and my favorite dogs in the world. I have never been west of Omaha, and I have never seen mountains (for shame, I know!). Westward-ho, May 26th!