Big Idiot News

Laurie Notario is coming to the Barnes & Noble at Astor Place on Tuesday May 10, at 7:00pm and I will be there. You should probably be there too. Ahem, SuperSkater, I'm looking at you.

Who is Laurie Notaro? I believe in God and I worship him in my own special way (sometimes involving donuts), but after God I worship Laurie Notaro, the Chief Idiot Girl. She writes short essays in the same style that I write in, and it was after reading her first book that I realized, screw the Great American Novel, I can launch an entire literary career writing about my stupid adventures feeling up my own ass in front of an elevator and getting into a revolving door, then forgetting to get out.

To see if you are also an Idiot Girl, take this helpful quiz. By the way, who has all my Idiot Girl books? Bizzy, which ones do you have? I have the new one but I forgot to whom I lent out The Idiot Girls Action Adventure Club, Autobiograpy of a Fat Bride, and I Love Everybody.

Laurie will be coming to Barnes & Noble for the book tour of her new book We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive. Who's coming with? Here's an excerpt from the essay "Attack of the XL Girl":

"I was dying to throw my money away, I was dying to simply give someone my money, I tell you, but alas, no one would take it. Nanette Lepore didn't want it, and neither did Anna Sui or Cynthia Rowley. I might as well have been on a scavenger hunt with no clues, becuase that's the kind of luck I was having trying to find a size L dress in New York City. Fat Money was apparently no good there. Salespeople looked at me as if I were a mythical beast, something only whispered about in the safety of a shadowy stockroom. Even size eights didn't belong in this world, because the only clothers displayed were the zeroes, twos, fours and sixes...

After being submerged in the Land of Protruding Ribs for so long I had a craving for barbecue, I finally lost it when a sales girl asked if she could help me.

'Honnestly, it's useless, because you don't have my size, I need a fourteen, and I am a giant in your world,' I said, throwing up my hands. 'Aparently everyone who shops here is the size of a Keebler elf or a first-grader.'

The salesgirl actually laughed, putting me a little at ease. 'We do have other sizes,' she said nicely. 'Is that the dress you like? I can pull it from the back, where we keep our plus sizes.'

Now, I didn't know whether to run or shove a Suzy-Q in her face in protest. The plus sizes? An eight was a plus size? Okay, sure, my size dress requires more material than say, a dress for an Olsen twin, but come on, it's not the size of a car! I suppose you can never be too careful, though; put a size-fourteen dress on a rack and who would really be surprised if the whole fixture was just ripped right our of the wall and took an entire building down with it?

I left before the salesperson returned with the dress, even though I'm sure she had to hire several men right off the street and maybe a forklift to help her carry it. Even if that dress fit me perfectly, my Fat Money was not going to be burned there."