Wide Eyed (Little House on the Bowery)

This is a short story collection, but "stories" isn't really the best thing to call her writing. It was more like short musings...almost like a really stoned Livejournal-er, but not as bargain bin as that sounds. She's an interesting writer. Sometimes her analogies are a little too hippy for me, but she's funny and interesting. I should look her up to see if she's got anything else published.

Hey, that's right... I'm a woman. I have very different sensibilities than a lot of my friends -- men. Seriously, I think I'd forgotten.

Disillusionment, sensuality, nurturing, sleepovers with scary movies... maybe it's because I'm really trying to find myself again, but this, to me, was some wacky celebration of femininity -- the pity for weird stalkers, the incense, the spontaneous, overpowering emotional reactions...

"You'll wake up from a dream with a physical craving to touch cat hair. Going into cat mode is usually fine and entertaining, nothing too psychological. But death and nighttime complicate cat mode."

"There's something evil about a world in which I can think of a hundred jobs I'd like, and none of them will support me. Puppy show more rancher, wild mushroom collector, designer of fantasy postal stamps, incense critic."

"I thought of my sleeping bag, covered with Snoopies and Belles, Snoopy's twin dog girlfriend, and how it should have me inside it. It should have been keeping me warm that very minute. Instead, a guy was pushing me against a towel rack." show less

Wide-eyed meaning "naive and curious", and wide-eyed meaning "spiritual and fluid". And an exploration of how the first develops into the second. The book's groundless atmosphere reminds me of Simon Hanselmann's comics (found at girlmountain.tumblr.com), though less gritty.

I love this sweet and strange book.