Back when I had my first meeting about Living in Northampton and Amherst, the publisher told me she wanted to re-design the cover with some new photos. I told her I have a BA in photojournalism and she agreed to take a look at any pictures I'd like to submit.

Flash-forward three months. I sent her nine pictures last night, and today received this response: “THANK YOU SO MUCH, I love the photos, I will use several of them.”

So, it'll be “written, researched, and cover photos by” Motormouth. Woo-HOO! And, if I make my deadline of early November, it'll be available for you (yes, you) to purchase for all of your holiday gift-giving needs.

Monstro's got fewer than 10 items left to read/view for his comps. I'm balancing out all his scholastic reading by reading, well, in my family we like to call it beach trash. Two of the books I just bought were of this ilk.

The first, Butterfly, I read while I was in college. I remembered it fondly, so I chose it as my “free” option (buy two, get one free at Cherry Picked Books). Read it over one evening and the next morning. Just as trashy as I remembered, and trés 80s — the main bad guy is a hypocritical televangelist. Oh, and there's a fantasy bordello that caters to straight women. Good stuff.

The second, Elegance, was not so much beach trash as chick-lit, a genre I haven't plumbed because most of the books in its ilk are so gawd-awful. This one started with an interesting premise — unfulfilled newlywed adopts a secondhand tome on elegance as her Bible — and I bought it because the secondhand book in the book I bought (confusing, sorry) actually exists in real life. But halfway through the book, with no warning, the main character casts Elegance aside for no reason. The story unraveled at that point (ok, maybe a little before that point), so I just read each chapter as its own short story. Finished it the same night I started it.

Before I went to bed I cracked the Campbell Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake and have learned more about FW in four pages than I did from 150 pages of the source material. I'm thinking it was a good investment.

And now? I need to finish reading my workbook chapter for tonight's Bible study!

I took my paycheck to my local used-book store and bought the following:

Elegance

Butterfly (subtitle: Every Woman's Ultimate Fantasy)

and A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson.

Really, people. I think I need help.

Ten-Four, little buddy!!!

I think it's funny that Becky e-mailed me about the honor bestowed upon my town's Main Street, and then chastised herself in a comment here on the blog. Let it be known, Becky, that the way I found out about the Northampton honor was by following a link from a news story — a news story I read at the San Francisco Chronicle online. If not for that site, I wouldn't know about it. Nothing like getting your local news from across the country! So thanks anyway for the heads-up, Mrs. S, and it's always a pleasure to hear from you, even if it's old news. 🙂

For real? Honest and for true? Man, I want some of the crack THEY were smoking. Putting pedestrians first? Yeah, so that you can run 'em over with your Subaru. What-ever.

OK, I don't know if the women of Western MA are upset because of David Letterman's public skewering of Paris Hilton, or because Brit-Brit got her babies taken away, but today has been a day of crabby mean switchboard operators and marketing departments. Seriously, people! I'm offering to put your company/hospital/whatever in a book and y'all could not be nastier. Sigh. Here's hoping it all blows over by tomorrow; I will NOT be able to maintain my cheery exterior if this goes on.