You should know that when the leaves change color and the weather gets cooler I become a total gaylord. I buy the little pumpkins and line them up on my windowsill; I hang up the precious indian corn; I set out, and I’m not kidding here, a Bowl o’ Gourds on my coffee room table. Decorative gourds for purposes of thoughtful Autumn Contemplation should my guests feel the need. Do not tell me that they look “all freaky and shit;” do not call them Nature’s Ass Toys. That’s nasty and I don’t want to hear about it. I take my Fall Fun very seriously.

Moreover, you need to appreciate the scented candle that I got. It comes in a mason jar and lighting it is like setting off a fucking Pumpkin Spice Bomb in my living room. It’s great. I am pretty sure I can burn this candle, a cigar, a pile of tires, and a big bowl of hair all at the same time and my place will still smell all spicy cozy like Cottages of Yore where families would spend evenings at the hearth lighting sticks of cinnamon and tossing pumpkins back and forth or some damn thing. I love it, I tell you. Fall. FALL!!!

I hope that by now you’ll have read about how Pinky was a winning contestant on Remote Control.

Now I need to tell you about how that show played an indirect but pivotal role in helping me discover something about myself. Something VERY STUPID.

In 1989 Remote Control went on a college tour and they came to my school and sent out a call for contestants. Okay–no, I didn’t apply to be on the show. I wasn’t on the show. They had the show in Hancher Auditorium and I went to see it with two dull girls from my dorm floor; some frat guy was the winner. But the next day I read in the paper about the contestant selection process and how you had only a few seconds to give the producers a funny and convincing reason to put you on the show. And how one girl made the cut because she said, “Well, I can put my entire fist in my mouth.”

I read that and thought for a second, and then I put my fist in my mouth. I’d never done that before but clearly it was not a big deal. But that week people I knew kept mentioning the story of The Girl Who Could Put Her Fist In Her Mouth. “Like this?” I’d said. “OH MY GOD,” everyone else said.

I never actually met The Girl Who Could Put Her Fist In Her Mouth but a year later, when America’s Funniest People put out a local casting call, I read about her again. I figured if she could get so much mileage out of this stunt then maybe I could, too.

And I’m sorry to say I did. I’m sorry so many of you had to see me do it. You want to see me do it now?

Bizarre Encounter #1: Saturday at Trader Joe’s. An employee was mopping the floor by the refrigerator cases and I had to stand still and wait until she was finished. I looked around. Another woman was getting something out of the case just a couple of feet away, and her little girl sat in the child seat of her shopping cart. The child was a toddler and she had a pacifier in her mouth and she had that dispassionate look about her that two-year-olds have sometimes, when it seems like their world is in a completely different pattern of orbit from ours. It didn’t seem like she’d ever be old enough to talk. I didn’t notice what she had in her hand. But about two seconds after I smiled at her she dropped it. Deliberately. It was a plastic case of blueberries and they scattered as smoothly as ball bearings.

Her mother turned back. “Oh,” she said, as if she’d just missed seeing a traffic light change back to Go. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

I don’t care what other people say. I think it’s great that you have your own book club. This is just what we expect from the guy who got an entire generation of awkward girls to read William Blake. Sometimes it was hard to decide whether a fedora or a copy of Songs of Innocence and Experience was the coolest Duran Duran accessory. I suppose we could have waited until college for various creepy-but-compelling herbal-cigarette-smoking grad student guys to help us shape our passionate and misinformed opinions of Blake, but no–because of you, Simon, we all had our first Deep Blake Thoughts at the precocious age of 14. Never mind that sometimes we were also wondering about the fearful symmetry in your trousers, Simon. It was an important early literary experience.

But I have to tell you, Simon: after two years (from 1983 to 1985) of sustaining a complete faith in your genius in lyrics such as no steel reproaches on the table from before and on the razors edge you trail because there’s murder by the roadside in a sore afraid new world, don’t you even fucking make me try to read House of Leaves. No way, Mr. Union of the Snake, I have about had it with the stylish esoteric shit. No, no, no.

Still, your book reviews are really kind of charming, and they make me want to sit on your lap and teach you stuff about commas.

Love, Wendy

I’ve moved the reader testimonies here. There are plenty more where these came from, and maybe I’ll add to the page later.

But I feel I ought to let Pinky report how she got rid of her copy of Jemima J.

I put it in the book drop at the library and hoped that no one would find my fingerprints on it and somehow mail it back to me. Thus far (it’s been quite a long time) my plan has worked. Whew.

Thanks to everyone for sharing the hate this past week.

My other site usually gets twice as much traffic as Pound because of the 1974 recipe cards. But yesterday Pound got far more visits than Candyboots.com thanks to Jemima J hate (and also nods from Pamie and Bookslut and Big Fat Blog).

Well, okay, I guess some of you are coming for the Googlesmacking tutorial, too.