So my parents came to NYC for the holiday and they, my sister and I glamorously played a ton of Canasta, watched the whole season of Top Chef so far, and also had the seven-course tasting menu at Gramercy Tavern, which made me decide that I must GET RICH IMMEDIATELY so that every day I may eat dishes that are served to me in shimmery little dollops with accompanying descriptions that sound like poems. I'm not even sure I understand what it was that I ate, but it sparkled in my mouth and caused a great many emotions and sparks to fly through me, and I'm quite sure it whispered untoward things to me in an inappropriate yet seductive manner involving seared scallops and cilantro reductions and many many other things that slipped flirtily through my brain and over my tongue before vanishing into mist. The restaurant also smells like burning wood and could be in the middle of Pennsylvania, with the twigs and branches twisting over everything, the voluptuously slutty pumpkin and apple displays, and these perfect wide-planked wood floors. I love going into big NYC places and feeling like they is somewhere else. We also spent time at my favorite place, The Algonquin Hotel, which is all Christmas-y and even more glittery now, and sort of feels fancy and literary but also like your grandparents' house.

And we saw Happy Feet, despite my many many protestations and unassailable arguments to see Volver, and my father read my book--it is so weird and disconcerting to have so many people I know reading it now--while I read the amazing, painful, stunning Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. !!!

Also, yesterday I booked a crazy flight from NYC to San Francisco (where I will read at Codys on January 14th) to Portland, Oregon (I'm reading at the main Powells on January 17th, and my friend Lanas's friend's beautiful club Someday Lounge on the 15th, with a bunch of Victorian-style circus peoples), to Shreveport, Louisiana, from where I shall travel to Marshall, Texas, for the Pulpwood Queens girly weekend and then back to NYC. And the next weekend is this amazing thing in Vermont, where yours truly shall eat cheese in front of fireplaces and glamorously roll down snow slopes in a vain but not vainglorious attempt to ski.

Oh, and I just got word that i will be reading at Women and Children First in Chicago on Friday February 23.

Also, this Friday I am reading at the Lucky Cat, and then Sunday down the street from my lovely homestead at the new mall in GLENDALE.

Here is the Lucky Cat blurb:

EARSHOT!

Join us for the next installment of EARSHOT at The Lucky Cat, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn! EARSHOT is a bi-monthly reading series, dedicated to featuring new and emerging literary talent in the NYC area.
Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 8 PM, hosted by Nicole Steinberg
*co-sponsored by Book Court ( http://www.bookcourt.org)*

Featuring:
Carolyn Turgeon (author of Rain Village)
Erica Kaufman (poet and host of the belladonna* reading series)
Liesel Tarquini (The New School)
Sharon Fishfeld (City College)
Jared Bezzant (Brooklyn College)

Admission is a mere $5 plus one free drink (beer, wine or well drinks only)!
The Lucky Cat is located at 245 Grand Street in Brooklyn, between Driggs and Roebling. Visit their website for directions: http://www.theluckycat.com.

Also visit http://www.earshotnyc.com for more information on Earshot or e-mail Nicole Steinberg at earshotnyc@gmail.com.