Marianne Mancusi: marianne mancusi

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Gamer Girl Release Day!

With this tough economy, you're probably checking your bottom line as well as your shopping list. And if so, you're in luck! Books are a great gift for all the teens in your life. You'll be giving them tools to grow a lifelong love of reading -- and they're a lot cheaper than video games!

That said, my book GAMER GIRL hits store shelves today! Hurrah! Hope you will honor me by picking up a copy and checking it out. It's perfect for girls 11 and up - especially for those who love manga, anime, and video games.

In addition to being a fun pop culture heavy book, it also has a serious message about bullying and teaches kids to stand up for themselves and be proud of who they really are. I felt this was so important as I, myself, was a victim of bullying back when I was in junior high school. I remember feeling so helpless and alone. And I had no idea how to crawl out of the hole I was in.

I'm actually guest blogging over at The Story Siren today and wrote a little blog post about the bullying thing and my experience with it, if you want to check it out. You can also comment over there to win a copy of the book.

You can find Gamer Girl at your local bookstore or online at Amazon. If you want to read an excerpt, you can do so here.

Thanks for letting me share. This book really means a lot to me personally and I hope kids will feel empowered after reading it.

Marianne

Monday, November 10, 2008

Saturday Frustrations and Fun

Yesterday was one of those lessons in patience that only New York City can teach you. Nothing went horribly wrong - yet nothing went smoothly either.

Jacob and I woke up and headed down to Soho to get our haircut (him) and colored (me). Yes, now we officially go to the same hairdressing place, which officially makes us geeky couple of the year. What can you do? Maybe you'll give me a few coolness points back if I tell you my new hairdresser is a tranny? She/he did a great job on my hair, too. And the place is nice - small, quiet and you don't feel like you're in a hair factory - something I hate at the larger salons - even the expensive ones like Fredric Fekkai. (Though I must admit I LOVED LOVED LOVED the end result the one time I went to FF. If I could afford them, I'd go everytime, despite the hustle and bustle of the place.)

But I digress. We got out of the hair salon and went to find food. The deli was out of bagels. The crepe girl was out of strawberries and then it started to rain and my beautifully blow dried hair was out of non-frizziness.

Ducking into an East Village Starbucks, we waited in line as a bathroom bouncer checked each stall after each person exited before ushering the next person in. Now a while back, Liz was wondering why everyone took so long in Starbucks bathrooms and I said that it was a great place for people to duck in and do drugs. They're on every corner, after all, and each bathroom is private. I'm not sure she entirely believed this could possibly be true, so I took my chance and asked the bathroom attendent why he was checking the stalls. Sure enough, they were looking for evidence of drug use. If they find it, they call 911. I felt extremely validated, though also a bit shocked when the guy told me he'd had 7-8 episodes of someone trashing the bathroom this week. It seemed impossible - yet I suppose it must be true; after all, they have to pay this guy to run the bathroom line. They must have felt it necessary.

After Starbucks, we headed to the train, which we found out was not going to Astoria since they were working on the tracks. So we walked up to Union Square and hit Forever 21 and H&M (which were both packed beyond belief - rainy Saturday = long dressing room lines). Still I ended up finding an outfit for the party that weekend, so this was good. Leanna met us at H&M and we took a cab back to Astoria. Long, expensive cab ride, I might add, since everyone who couldn't go by subway had the same idea.

We hung out in Astoria and watched a movie as Jacob fixed Leanna's laptop. Then we got dressed and headed out to Elizabeth "Bitsy" Mahon's birthday party. It was held in a very cool bar called The Dove Parlour in the West Village. We mixed, mingled, took a bunch of photos, then walked to the East Village to go to Pyramid Club to dance the night away to classic 80s tunes. Besides an unfortunate incident with a club tool spitting water at everyone on the dance floor, a fun time was had by all.

The night ended with a $30+ cab ride home since there were no trains and the bridge was closed to cars as well. The cabbie had to take the Williamsburg bridge and then completely went the wrong direction to Astoria. Much grr'ness for that.

In any case, here are some pics from the night! Thanks to Morgan for some of these. No thanks to slacker Liz who hasn't uploaded hers yet... :)