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.

Limping in Lipstick Bernadette’s a paraplegic who dreams of a glamorous world beyond the ceiling she stares at all day. If only someone would move the TV, she thinks. But who knew all she needed was a makeover to give her sciatic nerve some nerve? Girl, who needs physical therapy when you got SPINE?! A story that will make the spastic gimp inside you thump her helmet against the wall and screech with joy. Oh, wait–most paraplegics aren’t retarded? Whatever.

Rock Her World Claudia is an inner-city crack whore who sleeps in an appliance box in a filth-strewn viaduct. One day she has a lucid moment and finds the open end of the box and can crawl out! “Oh my God, that job sucked,” she says. She brushes herself off and buys some strappy sandals with a wad of cash that–I don’t know–a nice old bag lady gives her in like a plot twist or something.

Taliban Annie Tahmeena wishes people could see how fabulous she is under her burqua, but she lets those pesky warlords tell her what to do. All she needs is the sass to tell them off! But first she has to take a good look deep inside. Isn’t she really just flogging herself sometimes? Soon she and her best girlfriends are kicking up their exposed heels and tossing back Cosmos at Immolation, their very own nightclub! Oh, wait–things are still crappy in Afghanistan? Whatever.

Mommy and Daddy Aren’t Divorced Anymore! A truly heartwarming children’s book.

Ericka: what are you going to smack on next for your Jemima J thing
Wendy: I don’t know
Ericka: please please let it be about the part where her FRIENDS put her head on a THIN PERSON’S BODY in photoshop
Wendy: oh yeah! so that she’s riding a bicycle!
Ericka: and it’s a total miracle!
Ericka: since she’s always been WAY TOO FAT to ride a bike!
Ericka: because there’s no place to STASH FOOD on a bicycle!!!
Wendy: I know!
Ericka: I love how they photoshop this FAKE PICTURE of her and she’s NOT TOTALLY OFFENDED
Wendy: I know! Or creeped out.
Ericka: I would kick someone’s ass if they did that
Ericka: if they were like, “look! we made this fake picture of you! where you’re not hideous!!!”
Ericka: “aren’t you HAPPY?!”
Wendy: do you not like this book either?
Ericka: God!