Waldorf to your Astoria: October 2009

Top 20 of the 2000s - Songs 15-11

Here's part two of our countdown of Bill's best 20 songs of the 2000s. When last we left you, we counted down 20-16:

20. They Say Vision/Res

19. Don't Let Me Get Me/P!nk

18. A Beautiful Mess/Jason Mraz

17. Speak Slow/Tegan & Sara

16. Why Georgia/John Mayer

Here are songs 15-11:

15. The Space Between/Dave Matthews Band (2001)

"The space between what’s wrong and right, is where you’ll find me hiding waiting for you. The space between your heart and mine, is the space we fill with time."

Of all Dave Matthews' songs, this one and "Crash Into Me" are my two favorites. Back when I first heard it, I was serial dating. Every few months, it was someone new.

Oct

Top 20 of the 2000s

The aughts are nearly done. Hard to believe, eh? Soon I'll be 40. That's even harder to believe. Every decade I put together a compilation of my favorite songs of the decade. For instance, here are my top songs of the previous three:

1970s: Dreams/Fleetwood Mac

1980s: Voices Carry/'til Tuesday

1990s: Freedom 90/George Michael

(By the way, that would be my second ever mention of Freedom 90 on this blog, and second in two days. Weird.

Oct

Adam Lambert, the album cover

So here it is, For Your Entertainment:

My first reaction was probably pretty similar to yours. Sort of a 'wow' reaction. I loved Adam on American Idol, and because I am a teenage girl, I am looking forward to the new CD, which will be released on Nov. 23.

So I admit to feeling something along the lines of "oh no" when I saw this. And then, I got to thinking about it.

What it made me think of was how we've changed in 19 years.

Oct

Tranny.

So I'm eating breakfast at Paul's Pancake Parlor in Missoula on Sunday. It's a day after my reception at the LGBT Center there, and I have a copy of Out Words, the area's gay newspaper. I read while eating.

It's the National Coming Out Day edition. There's a fantastic and funny article by Suzie Reahard, executive director of the center, and also one by a guy I met the night before, a guy I really liked and thought was cool.

Oct

Festival of the Book

I've had a great time at the Montana Festival of the Book, and I'm sad that it's ending!

So much to talk about... where to begin?

I had a reading with Michael Harmon (Last Exit to Normal, Skate, Brutal) on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, we were slotted against the MFA Fiction faculty reading, which cut into our audience in a major way. Still, a good time was had by all, and our audience asked very interesting questions.

I read from the new manuscript, Openly Straight.

Oct

Openly Straight - An Update

Last week, I mentioned that I was on a major writing kick. I definitely was, writing well over 100 pages in three days. And about half way through those pages, I kicked into high gear, writing some pages that I felt very, very good about.

I immediately did the math, and figured since I was 193 pages into it, I'd have a full draft within a few days, figuring the draft might run about 250-260.

Well, that's not how it works.

Oct

Montana Festival of the Book

I am heading off tomorrow to Missoula, where I will be taking part in this weekend's Montana Festival of the Book.

I will be reading Friday at 1pm in Boardroom D of the Holiday Inn. And at 7pm that night, the Western Montana Gay & Lesbian Center will be hosting a reception for me. They're doing it at 7 so that everyone can mosey on over to the David Sedaris reading at 8. Yes, I'd rather see David Sedaris than me, too. By a lot.

I'm so excited to be heading out to Missoula for the event.

Oct

Openly Straight

This is, tentatively, the title of my novel-in-progress. It takes place at an all-boys' boarding school in Massachusetts, and involves a previously openly gay character, who decides he wants to drop the label, which seems to be limiting his life.

As I wrote in my last entry, I've been just a TAD obsessive about Openly Straight this week. In three days, I've written 118 pages, for instance.

Oct

I am UNBEARABLE!

Just calling a spade a spade. The last few days I have figured out my second novel, after a record-breaking amount of time (for me) of not knowing what the hell I was wriitng.

So I am literally in a trance right now, a writing trance. Yesterday, I wrote 35 pages. Today, I wrote 41. And compared to the crappy five and six pages a day I was managing a few weeks back, when I was in the dark about my novel, these are some SWEET pages.

Not perfect, mind you. Just real reputable, first-draft pages.

Oct

Hate Crimes

Ever since the news came out last week about the house passage of a bill that would expand hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation, I've been reading a ton of comments on the internet by people who say things like "aren't all crimes hate crimes?"

The short answer is no.

It always burns me up when people who are not impacted by something (ie. people who aren't from a ethnic, religious or sexual minority group) claim to be experts on a subject.

Waldorf to your Astoria

Author Bill Konigsberg's blog.