For all you Bay Area Brawlaz–I will be interviewed on Upfront: Dispatches from the New Majorities on 91.7 KALW on your FM dial. The show will be on at 2:30 this Sunday. You can however listen to it LIVE on your computing device if you do not A) live in the Bay Area or B) own a radio. You may need to download a player of some kind, like RealAudio. I do believe they’ll have a podcast but it’s not up yet. I’ll hitch a link when it comes out. I’m about 3/4 way into the program, so grab a snack and pull up a chair.

I can tell you right now, I sound funny on the radio. It’s kind of weird to hear yourself. All I can think is, oh my GOD do I really sound like that? How do I even have friends with a voice like that? Seriously. It makes me rethink the whole talking thing.

And in other news: Come to KGB Bar on May 1 Tuesday at 7:20 to hear me read in person. KGB is located in the Village of the East in the fair City of New York, on Fourth Street between Avenue the Second and Avenue the Third. It’s on the second floor. There will be many kinds of adult beverages available. I’ll be reading with David Silverman and Darcey Steinke.

I plan on recording the show and putting it up on Annietown so if you plan on going, please bring friends and also LAUGH REALLY LOUDLY. Preferably in inappropriate moments.

Someone sneaky and mysterious has given me hand putty to help with my carpel tunnel. I do not know who this mystery person is. Today a nice man in a brown outfit delivered a package in which there was a can of putty from Crazy Aaron’s Putty World. It must be a pretty crazy world because my putty is purple but turns pink as you play with it. Who sent it? There is no card that identifies this most generous person. So thank you, whoever you are. I am enjoying and maybe wincing a little from the pain. It also makes very satisfying popping noises and bounces, but I do not like to bounce it because then it will get dirty. Dirty putty is unhappy putty. However, I am happy. Please identify yourself.

Dear Dog,

Please stop barking. Please. Please stop it. Or else I will destroy you and then eat you. Turn you into a pie and serve you to my friends who will say oh this is delicious did you make that yourself and I will say no actually I got it from Marie Callendar’s and then someone will say oh I believe this is the best dog pie I’ve ever eaten and I will say thank you and we will share a good laugh and a hug. STOP BARKING YOU ARE VEXING ME.

Best,
Annie

Dear Construction,

You are loud. I hate you. Please find a better time to dig up my street. May I suggest NEVER? Nothing is improving, you are just digging a hole and filling it back up. Did I mention you were loud? And that I hate you? No? OK well you are loud and I hate you. Stop.

Best,
Annie

Dear Mr. Millipede,

Why do you have so many legs? Why are you disgusting? Why do you make me anxious and sad? Why must you be in my apartment? Why must I scream like a little girl and run around waving my hands and getting someone to “take care of the situation”? Why must you cause a “situation” and turn my apartment into a Situation Room? Anderson Cooper will come here and be vexed. Why must you bring your friend cockroach here too? There are too many legs in this apartment and only two belong to a human. You do not pay rent, you do not get to stay. Take your friends and leave the premises.

Best,
Annie

I wrote an article for Publisher’s Weekly you can peep it here. It’s about reading at Cody’s in San Francisco a few days before it goes out of business. Very sad. People said it really never had a chance, so take what you will from that.

In other news, I am back in NYC and my subway stop smells INCREDIBLY BAD. If you guys want a quick way to lose weight, go to the C/E Spring St. station. Seriously you will never, ever eat again. It smells like raw pork wrapped around a dead rat dipped in elephant shit. I’ve never smelled anything like it, which isn’t saying much because when you live in New York you refrain from smelling as much as possible. Oh man just writing about this is making me squeamish. Apparently the smell has been there for weeks. Weeks! WEEKS!!!! I don’t know if it’s going to get better or worse with time. Hard to say. I will keep you updated.

Last night I read at Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica and it kicked some monster ass, which is fitting since I am on my MONSTERS OF MEMOIR SOLD OUT 2007 TOUR. Thanks to Guns n’ Roses and Usher for opening. I have to admit it harshed my nerves a bit to read in front of my family, and I tried to choose a piece that they weren’t in too much, which is actually impossible since the book is about them, so I read from “Period Piece” which is, uh, about my period and pretty embarrassing and while I was reading it I was thinking OH MY GOD WHY AM I READING THIS WHY NOT SOMETHING ELSE, MAYBE SOMETHING BETTER, MAYBE SOMETHING BY DAVE EGGERS PEOPLE REALLY LIKE HIM. Anyway, thanks to everyone who came out. Also note to self: Do not drink coffee right before you read. I could feel the caffeine in my blood. In fact my blood was asking for some half and half and two sugars.

I got some good news: I just saved money on my car insurance. No wait, there’s other news too. We did a second printing of 1,500 yesterday, bringing the grand total up to 15,700. Basically, my parents bought 1,500 of them last night. They were all 20% off so they were very pleased. Everyone likes a good sale, right? Come on, it’s 20% off. Now there’s no excuse for you not to buy it. So thanks to everyone who bought a book. And to those who didn’t: I hate you. No wait, I am just totes kidding as the kids say.

Thanks to all who came out to Cody’s last night. They’re closing on April 20, so everyone go and buy something and say farewell and make peace with the store. Cody’s is a solid bookstore and when the one on Telegraph closed, I think a little piece of me died. And then it was replaced by RAGE AND FURY. Now the San Francisco store is going under. It hasn’t been there that long which makes it even more depressing. Like it never had a shot to begin with. There’s a Border’s around the corner. Anyway, it was a great reading and Cody’s has this cool tradition where the readers/authors write book recommendations in this notebook. I wanted to flip through it and see what people had suggested. I kind of think people might have really bad taste or something, but you know if they had bad taste they’d just recommend someone everyone would agree with, like Mark Twain. Who doesn’t like Mark Twain? I hate him, he was such a jackass. JK JK JK JK

Last night after the reading I hung out with a high school classmate I haven’t seen in a hundred years, plus or minus a few years. Anyway her nickname was the Deerslayer because she hit a deer with her car. There was blood and tufts of hair and everything. Kind of awesome, right? No? I’ve never actually hit a deer, but once I hit a rabbit and I knew it was probably suffering, so I turned the car around and psyched myself up so I could “finish the job” but I couldn’t find it. I also ran over a rattlesnake. California man, it’s a jungle.

Barnes and Noble Astor Place is closing, Steve just told me. You can check out the story here. And Cody’s is closing too. So basically, I go to a place, I read there, and then it closes. So what I’m trying to say is, I’ll be reading at every American Apparel in the city now. So if you want a gold leotard and some leggings, you’ll have to go elsewhere. But first you’ll need to build a time machine to go back to the 80s.

In other news, I would be your BFF 4-eva if you write a review for me on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You can write many things like “Choi is such a master wordsmith, you’d think she invented the English language herself” or “I laughed so hard I peed a little” or “1 cup of butter, 1 cup of flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, 1.5 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup raisins”. See? So easy, the review practically writes itself.

Here’s a link to review on Amazon and here’s one for Barnes and Noble. BN has a bad review up there, from Kirkus, who for the record, doesn’t like anything and one might say that they did not “get the book.” But anyway, they are entitled to their opinion, even though their opinion is full of the stuff that comes out the backend of a mule if you know what I mean, and I think you do (hint: not the tail). Ha ha ha!

San Francisco is treating me well. My friend just got a spinach, kale, parsley, mint, ginger, lime, apple, celery juice. No kidding. It looked like pond scum. Or like a smoothie made from a lawn.

Thanks to everyone who came out to Oakland last night! I saw some people I haven’t seen in like, oh maybe TEN YEARS, including some high school friends and old Berkeley housemates. Sarah Baig who is now Sarah Stevenson because she married some guy whose last name I presume is Stevenson, funny how that works, gave me some pictures from when we were in college. Holy crap. I’m going to BURN THESE RIGHT NOW before they get into the hands of some evildoers. If anyone’s doing evil, I rather it be me, thanks. Anyway she has green (blue?) hair and I have purple hair. Look how edgy we are! So alternative! Look at me! Look at how special I am! I made bad choices with my hair! Heather, a college roommate, had an architect license exam the next day and she still made it out because she is so hardcore and in addition awesome. And tall.

Tonight I’m reading at Cody’s in San Francisco. FYI: Cody’s is closing its doors next week. Reading in a store that’s about to go under belongs in the “Wow that sucks” department. Other things from the “Wow that sucks” department: my mother called me at 7:51 am this morning and wondered why I was still sleeping. And something from the “Wow that sucks or maybe it’s awesome” department: Hall and Oates. Jared just put on every Hall and Oates song back to back. How do I feel about this? Conflicted. Very conflicted.

I am not going to lie. I woke up yesterday with an X-TREME hangover. My hangover could’ve gone on Fear Factor and kicked everyone’s non X-TREME poseur asses. The only thing that went into my stomach all day was Kashi Good Friends (which, by the way, is a real man’s cereal) and then the whiskey was fast and loose so I got kind of hammered. And when I mean “kind of” I mean “really a lot in an embarrassing way.” So if I didn’t make sense at the Croc Lounge, I apologize. The good news is that I woke up with all my clothes on and in my own apartment so at least some things went well. Or poorly depending on how you look at it I guess.

Yesterday my filthy co-workers over at BrainPOP ambushed the crap out of me with a surprise party to honor the release of the book. Karina had set up this “meeting” with me and some teachers and all week I had been trying to get out of it. Because I hate meetings. Teachers are OK, but meetings got to go. Anyway I figured it out when I was walking down the street and saw a bunch of my co-workers standing on the corner waiting to cross the street and I was like NO NO NO NO NO I’M RUNNING AWAY but Karina basically pushed me into the restaurant, which was the White Horse Tavern, which is where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death. Which was fitting. So there I am in front of all my co-workers who each had a copy of the book and then they asked me to read something aloud, which I did, and then sign books, which I did, and then drink, which, sadly, I did. So the hangover went away, but guess what? Woke up feeling pretty crappy this morning. But maybe that’s because I had to catch an early flight to San Francisco. Which is where I am now.

San Francisco says hi.

Thanks to everyone who came down to Barnes & Noble Astor Place last night. It kicked major ass to see everyone there and all I could think while I was reading was OH MY GOD THIS PIECE IS SO BORING I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M READING THIS even though my mouth was shaping all the words on the page. In my head was ABORT MISSION ANNIE ABORT! ATTENTION THIS ESSAY SUCKS AND WHY ARE YOU STILL READING IT? WHY DIDN’T YOU PICK A DIFFERENT ONE? I can blame that on Mr. John Morrison. That’s the last time I let him make a decision for me. The Croc Lounge was fun too–so much free pizza. The whole ironic part is that I go there all the time and can’t really eat pizza because I’m a lactard, but I enjoy others enjoy free pizza. I mean come on! It’s free! Very few things are free. Sometimes toothpicks are free, I guess.

My friend Erin is opening a new store on the lower east side, called Clarabella and I visited a few days ago and bought a SWEET bracelet. I mean it’s one of those things that you see and you are like OK I guess I’m buying it, it’s not really a choice. Anyway I looked at a necklace that I was sweet on and decided it was too expensive and didn’t get it. Erin, of course, being the horrible person that she is, gave me the necklace as a gift. AND THEN I PROCEEDED TO LOSE IT. I am such a dick, seriously. I looked everywhere and it pretty much harshed my mellow because I felt like such a jackass. Like hey Erin, thanks, your gift is so awesome I’m going to lose it now.

But then wait, WHAT’S THIS? I FOUND IT ON THE FLOOR AT THE BAR. So, guess what? I am a winner. winner = me. I am very happy now.

I’m headed off to the Bay Area to read in Oakland and in San Francisco. If you’re reading and you live in the area, stop by, say hi.