Look, this isn't going to be a great post because I got nothing. Seriously, nothing to report. I hardly leave the house except to walk the Pug. I could write a long post about the walking the Pug: how he goes ape-shit batty when he sees me put on my shoes; how he gets himself work into such a spazmatic tizzy that he yips and moans and whines for at least the first two blocks; how his ears bounce as he weeble-wobbles down the street; his strange habit of mounting the low-growing shrubs in front of the Lutheran church before he pees on them. The Pug and I are so tangled up in each other's lives and emotions that I don't know what kind of separation anxiety is going to go down when school starts this fall.

*

It's pretty bad to resort to dreams for material, but I guess I could write about how I had a dream about how I went to the Albertson's in Grand Junction to buy a pack of cigarettes while wearing just a tee shirt and a pair of polka-dot undies. Even dreaming, I knew it was socially inappropriate to go out into public in that outfit, I knew I shouldn't do it, but I just couldn't bring myself to put on a pair of pants. So I got in my truck and drove to Albertson's, got to the electric doors, and stopped myself. I thought, I can't go in there! I don't have any pants on! So I stood outside the doors trying to figure out a route back to the truck that would shield me, you know, hiding myself by darting between cars. After several minutes of plotting, during which time people walked past me, and I felt pretty sure they saw my underwear, I dashed back to my truck. Once there, I thought about how there should be a No Shame, No Pants Day, a national day where no one is shamed for not wearing pants. I felt positive if I made that into a status update on Facebook, that No Shame, No Pants would catch on internationally. Then I woke up.

*

There is how I saw a psychic in Minnetonka who told me she saw me surrounded by little dogs, lots and lots of little dogs. She suggested I adopt a terrier. She also told me my spirit guide's name is Marcus.

*

There's how Mary Roach's book Spook is really, really good. So is Season Three of Big Love.

*

And this: I love people who like my book. I love them a lot.

You already know how much VH1 and E! TV I watch, and if you don't already know, it's a lot. A lot a lot. I sit on the couch with my remote control and I flip back and forth--channel 41, channel 44, channel 41, channel 44. I watched all the cycles of Rock of Love, Flavor of Love, I Love NY, I Love Money, Daisy of Love, Keeping up with the Kardashians, The Girls Next Door, Charm School, Sober House and Celebrity Rehab; I watched True Hollywood Story--yes, even the ones about Miley Cyrus, about Kelly Ripa, about Saved by the Bell, and Rapper Wives. I watched 101 Cutest Child Stars, 101 Hottest Hollywood Bodies, 101 Most Memorable Things that Happened on the Internet.

All of it is mind-numbingly dumb and even sort of boring but it doesn't ask much of me, the viewer. I can zone in and zone out, which exactly what I want to do while I do my homework, check my email, update my Facebook status, and look up random shit on Wikipedia. I think what I like is the white trashiness of these shows, the familial dysfunction, the gossip, the intrigue, and the opportunity to comment on oh, yeah, Bret Michaels is totally wearing a wig, and Holly Madison is my favorite Girl Next Door while Kloe is my favorite Kardashian, and Flava Flav reminds me of a California raisin.








So I was sad the morning when I turned on the television and channel 41 and channel 44--Vh1 and E!--were fuzzy, snowy, not coming in. Neither were certain other channels: not CNN, not Oxygen, not Lifetime. In fact, I wasn't getting any channels between 20-100. But I was getting channels under 20 and over 100. It was baffling, but it had been raining a lot. I chalked it up to the weather.

A few days later, I was still sad because my channels still weren't coming in. And the fuzzy, snowing VH1/E! wasn't just impacting me, either. My friend D. felt the loss. When D. comes over, she usually sits on the couch, too, The Pug in between us, and she watches with me, and our eyes glaze over, and our breathing becomes slack-jawed, and we don't talk much until it's to say do you want to go to Dairy Queen during the next commercial. Because from my house, Dairy Queen is a skip away. Then we eat Blizzards and we flip between VH1 and E!. Once, just once, we tried to watch something smart. It was a documentary about quantum physics that neither of us could wrap our minds around. About fifteen minutes into it, I got sleepy and D. got antsy, and VH1 was playing Pop-Up Videos, and that's what we watched, even though that episode of Pop-Up Videos was from 2003, and I'd seen it at least a dozen times before.

Since it wasn't raining anymore, I told D. there must be something wrong with my television since I couldn't get our channels. Did you pay your cable bill? she asked.

Of course, I had--it's automatically deducted every month. There's just something wrong with the signal or something, I told her. Maybe it's because of the switch to digital or something. Or maybe the boy messed it up somehow when he messed with the DVD player.

What are we going to watch? she said. We flipped through the channels I did have and settled on a certain kind of show that I never watch. Ever. It was called C.S.I. or maybe it was called Special Victims Unit or maybe it was called Cold Cases or maybe it was called MOST BORING TELEVISION SHOW EVER. It was about some girl who played tennis and then she was dead, somebody killed her, and then the police interviewed a bunch of people in their investigation to find out who did it. They acted like each person they talked to was indeed the killer until the moment that person gave them a piece of information that lead them to some other person. Then the cops talked to that person as if he/she was indeed the killer until that person gave them a piece of information about some other person.

I couldn't believe I was watching this. I can't believe we're watching this, I told D.

D. said sometimes she watches one episode after another; she falls into a trance, watching the formulaic plots and the oh-so-clever one liners, and the intentionally intense, hyperbolically serious deliveries.

You need to call the cable company, D. said.

Which I did. Yesterday. I called the cable company and I talked to Jeremy who first walked me through the process of unplugging my cable box so he could reset the signal. When that didn't restore my channels, Jeremy asked me what cable package I had. Did I have basic cable or did I have extended basic.

I told him I didn't know, but that for the four years I lived here, I had the cable that included VH1 and E! and since I seemed to have developed this habit of hassling people who work in customer service by talking talking talking to them about everything there is to know about my life, I told Jeremy all about how much I love VH1 and E! and how happy I'll be to get those channels back.

Jeremy said he understood. He did some tapping on his computer and said Hmmmmmmmm. I hate to tell you this, he said, but I think I found the reason you're not getting your channels. VH1 and E! are part of the extended basic cable package; you're only paying for basic.

I had a hard time wrapping my mind around quantum physics so what Jeremy said blew my mind. How could this be? I asked him. Somebody made a mistake, he said. But it's been four years, I said. Four years ago, somebody made a mistake, he said. But, I said. But-but-but, I sputtered.

Jeremy said I could get my channels back if I upgraded to extended basic, and when I asked him how much that would cost me, and he said well, I was paying 25 dollars a month for basic, and extended basic would be 40 dollars more, so $65 a month for me to get back my VH1 and E!, my eyeballs rolled back in my head, and my head spun around on my neck. That's like 800 bucks a year! I told him. For television!

Jeremy said my estimation sounded right.

Eight hundred dollars a year! For television! Who pays eight hundred dollars a year for television? That's crazy! I told Jeremy who stated it wasn't crazy if I loved VH1 and E! as much as I claimed I did.

I was about to argue that this wasn't fair, and it wasn't right, and I shouldn't have to pay that since I hadn't been paying that when it occurred to me that what I'd done was call the cable company to complain that I was no longer getting free cable. I called the cable company to insist on free cable.

I'm sorry, I told Jeremy. I'm being unreasonable. I know that. But I'm at a loss here. I don't know what to do.

That's when he asked me if I'd ever seen any of the shows on HBO. The Wire, he said. Big Love. Entourage. A lot of his customers really enjoy True Blood, he said. He offered me HBO and Cinemax for five dollars a month, and while I'd heard people talk about the shows on HBO, how good those shows are, how well-written, how well-acted, I was never much interested in them. If I was interesting in quality, I wouldn't be hooked on Rock of Skank Bus 3. But I didn't want Jeremy to think I was crazy. So I said okay and I stayed up late late late into the night last night watching Big Love through HBO On Demand. They only offered Season Three, which meant I had to Wikipedia summaries of episodes from Seasons One and Two, which helped some, but nonetheless, while watching I felt like I'd walked into a conversation that started without me a long time before.

I've heard from a lot of readers. Their responses to the book have been sweet, funny, smart, moving and incredibly flattering. But this one, this one is my favorite:

hi my name is josh im in gr 8 and im reading your book for a book report and i had to do a biography and i chose yours because it didnt seem boring like all the others, and i have to say that your son reminded me of me. all in all i loved your book and its definatley my fav book of all time

Tote Bag Nation

This is Winchester, a St. Bernard from Pennsylvania.

Tote Bag Nation

Brian of California--a Borders employee, he made ISYFTW his staff pick.

Tote Bag Nation

Carolyn, a reader in Illinois who has the same birthday as me. Carolyn teaches 8th grade, and in the background is a mural of literary reductions her students have completed on over 200 books.)

I have always had a sizable crush on Isabella Rossellini, and this only makes me love her all the more. This is good, too. Actually, they're all good.