Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.

Finishing up the obssessive weekend posts.

I spent Sunday morning blogging and paying my bills. For lunch I had my leftover cha-jang myun, which tasted so much better than it did the day before. I added some tofu stirfried in olive oil, and somehow that did wonders to the sauce.

Then it was off to the Book Fair. That afternoon they had enough volunteers so I was free to go to a couple of panels. I don’t know much about Amiri Baraka, except that he’s a poet, is from my homestate of New Jersey, and was once known as Leroi Jones. It was interesting to hear him speak about race and politics, though I don’t agree with everything he said. His politics are much more radical than mine.

There was one woman who had to respond to almost everything with a very loud, “Mmm-hmm,” or “That’s right,” or whatever. Okay, so you agree. Now shut the fuck up. At one point Baraka mentioned Richard Wright and the woman started applauding. A few claps I can understand, but it went on so long, and no one else joined in.

A couple of rows in front of me, this white woman who had to be closing in on 60 and who had a NOSE RING for God’s sake – if she had had a hip ensemble, I’d have accepted the nose ring, but she had mousy no-style hair, giant glasses, and a librarian-in-the-’80s outfit – kept turning around to beam at the noisy woman. Oh yeah, it’s great, you liberal drone.

I mean, I’m liberal too, but just because the noisy person is African American and wearing some African outfit doesn’t make her any less noisy or disruptive.

Anyway, the second discussion I went to was on graffiti, specifically this book, Burning New York – Graffiti NYC. It was interesting to hear how it’s evolved over the years, from just tags to real art. I’m tempted to buy the book. Maybe I’ll just go to a store and look at the pictures.

In between the sessions, I went out to see if there were any other books I wanted to buy. I glanced at this one, then was looking at the author picture when I sensed a guy behind me so I glanced back. It was the author.

“That’s my book,” he said. He gave me a card. “Let me know if you have any questions.”

For some reason I was freaked out. I mean, to go from looking at the author picture to looking up and seeing him standing before me was weird. Plus the pressure of possibly insulting the author by not buying his book. Plus he was cute.

Nerd alert.

I didn’t buy the book. I didn’t ask any questions though a couple crossed my mind (“Did you self-publish? If no, which press are with you? What’s your number?” haha, just kidding).

“Oh, thanks,” I said brusquely, and moved on.

I’m such an idiot. Not that I expected anything to happen, but I could have at least had a conversation with a cute boy, especially since almost everyone else there was a freak show. Made an at least temporary contact with another writer. See if his press was looking for submissions.

Duh! God. I need to buy some new boots and kick myself in the ass.

And I brought business cards, too.

Anyway, it was well past 5 when I left. Picked up some provisions along the way, including instant miso soup and a gigantour bottle of soy sauce for $3 at Katagiri, and a pound of organic ground coffee from Really Cool Foods. Turns out they have my favorite Get Gorgeous tea so I won’t have to schlep down to the Whole Foods in Union Square for it anymore.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 6:58 am and is filed under food, writing. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.