Okay, here's the deal: I'll read Barbara Ehrenreich's Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, because a lot of my proto-thoughts are swirling around what makes individuals and families move back and forth across the line she demarcates in Nickel and Dimed.

And then I'll go see Bartleby, because I'm noodling around with what it means to have a desk job, and how that plays into the aforementioned line.

And then I'll fork over my two cents about Nickel and Dimed.

In the meantime, I just finished Aimee Bender's The Girl in the Flammable Skirt. Most of the copy on her Random House author page is a load of trite, inadequate hooey ("Aimee Bender's stories are a breath of fresh air" only if your idea of "fresh air" includes a generous helping of nitrous oxide laced with the scent of sex and decay), but the page has links to some of her stories. The first sentence of "The Rememberer" made me buy the book, and "Call My Name" made me wish I owned a maroon satin floor-length dress with a V back and matching sandals with criss-cross straps, which is saying something, because I'm not really a maroon satin floor-length dress with a V back and matching sandals with criss-cross straps wearing kinda girl.