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Thisbe Nissen: Tour Diary

Preliminaries - Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 -
Day 7 - Day 8 - Day 9 - Day 10 - Day 11 -Day 12 - Day 13 - Day 14 - Day 15 -
Day 16 - Day 17 - Day 18 - Day 19 - Day 20 - Day 21 - Day 22 -
Day 23 - Day 24 - Day 25 - Day 26 - Day 27 - Day 28 - Day 29 - Home Diary - July 25 - July 26

Day 4: Monday June 5, New York, NY

Still recovering. Erin (Ergenbright, my good friend and co-author of The Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook, due out god-knows when from Harper Collins) arrived in NY from Portland, Oregon late last night, and we laze around the house until I have to go meet folks downtown for a Newsday interview. And of course, now that I'm in NY I am compelled to feel horribly ugly, which is how I show up for the photo shoot. The photographer is very kind and makes it almost painless. The Newsday interviewer appears to have led the exact same life I have and I want to stay at the tea shop chatting with her long after the tape has run out and all her questions answered. Erin and I wander NY for a while and run into my childhood friend / high school friend / prom date/ friend at the Angelika movie theater downtown where none of us can decide what to see. Erin and I go to eat at Dojo where I must come whenever I am in NY for my favorite hijiki salad. Another independent bookstore has closed down -- this one on West Broadway, where Chris and I browsed last time we were in the city. It's a sad thing. We finally do go to the movies and see The Center of the World, which we both liked quite a lot, and which I'd almost be compelled to see again. Really good. After the movie, on the way to the subway at Astor Place we stop into B&N to see where the book is (something I seem to absolutely HAVE to do at every bookstore I pass, which makes me feel very pathetic somehow, but apparently not quite pathetic enough to stop doing it) and it's not anywhere. Not on the front kiosk thing, not on the recently-reviewed-in-the-Times rack, not on the new fiction shelf. I am sad-- do they hate me? what did I do wrong when I last read here? -- but Erin takes matters into her hands and accosts a poor clerk while I hide in the corner and pretend to browse the new sci-fi releases. Turns out they've sold 13 copies in the last few days. "So why haven't you ordered more?" Erin demands. There are promises to get right on that. We slink away.

We stay up too late to watch David Letterman, because Bo Ramsey (local Iowa City guitar legend and friend) is playing with Lucinda Williams. We are nearly asleep when he finally appears on screen in all his glory. Yay Bo! We fall to bed, exhausted.