Augusten’s Blog

AAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH, after searching online like a complete crack addict for months and months for UNIQUE and COOL t-shirts, I had given up.

And then I walked into a new local store in Northampton, MA called Jackson and Connor.

And there, instantly, I found these t-shirts by James Anthony:

http://www.myspace.com/jamesanthonyc

Needless to say, I bought them all. I was in a blissfrenzy, like being locked overnight in a White Castle. OH MY *&%#, I wish you could see these t-shirts in person. I have literally begged the artist to create a Sylvia Plath t-shirt and also an Anne Sexton t-shirt but artists can’t be told what to do, as it should be, so. But he’s 25, so MAYBE!!!!!

If you live in the Five College area, lock the kids in the closet, leave work, screw the dental appointment and forget grocery shopping -drop EVERYTHING and go to Jackson and Connor today, RIGHT NOW. It’s located at Thornes Marketplace, Northampton. The Second floor at the top of the stairs. The owners are two really cool, smart, hot girls and not only do they deserve your business for carrying these shirts and TONS of other cool things (including the Vegas belt that I bought) but they support local artists by selling their stuff. Go TODAY. Tell them Augusten sent you. Also, if you are a Red Sox fan, they have THE coolest Sox stuff ever. Seriously.

Do you know? I walked the streets of New York City for A WEEK looking for cool t-shirts and I saw only garbage -stuff I have seen over and over and over and over. BLECH. Until these James Anthony shirts appeared from the sky, a gift from Jesus’s pet Cow.

As some people know, my BFF is Haven Kimmel, the GENIUS author of A Girl Named Zippy, She Got Up Off The Couch, Something Rising Light and Swift, The Solace of Leaving Early and this summer, a new novel, Iodine -which is, seriously, so astonishing, magnificent, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she won the Pulitzer. It’s gloriously heady, riveting, thrilling, confusing, mysterious, terrifying, and quite over my head. Haven makes Joan Didion seem like an ape at a typewriter. She is also THE funniest writer in America, when she wants to be. And she is the most gracious person I know. Oh, I’m not kidding when I say she’s a genius. My favorite Haven story, in her own words:

I didn’t talk until I was three years old, and also my head was crooked and I was slightly cross-eyed. I’d been born with my cord wrapped around my neck and in a true knot, so everyone assumed I was oxygen deprived and retarded. I was treated as if I had an IQ of about seven by my entire family, which worked out fairly well for me. I never said a word — not mama or dada or any of those prehensile sounds children make automatically. My mother breastfed me for 18 months and then WEANED ME TO A BOTTLE, because I was just a little retarded girl so who cared. Then I got to be three and we were on a camping trip and my dad decided I couldn’t very take the bottle with me forever, so while we were all gathered around the campfire he said, “Zip, you’re a big girl now, and it’s time for you to give up that bottle.” I pulled it out of my mouth with a pop and said, clear as a bell, “I’ll make a deal with ya.” Dad didn’t even blink. He said, “What’s the deal?” I said, “If you let me keep it, I’ll hide it when company comes and I won’t tell nobody.” He thought a moment and said, “No deal.” So I gave it to him and he tossed it in the fire and we watched the plastic melt down to a little pool. Later on that camping trip he taught me to shoot a bow and arrow.

I urge you to pre-order this book, and not just because Haven is my beloved monkey girl, but because this book will blow your mind.