...so if I count down nine comments, the lucky winner is... Lisa K.!

Congratulations, Lisa! And thank you, everyone!

I'm going to be honest, I never would've bought this in the store and I didn't think it was going to look cute on me, but then I put it on and it so is!

In fact, I wore it when I went to Boston for the "What's Your Number?" wrap party (which was so. much. fun.) and now I have it with me in LA, too. Here I am wearing it in my "Adventures on the Amtrak" post:

So anyway, telling you about my jacket leads me to three things:

1. You can get 30% off your online Gap purchase today and tomorrow (ends 7/27) by entering the code SAVE30 at checkout.
2. I'm also going to send a lucky reader a gift certificate to get some sun bleached denim of their own from Gap. All you have to do is comment on this post (make sure you enter your email address in the email field; I'm the only person who will see it) and then tonight, around midnight LA time, I'll print out all the comments, cut them up, put them in a fish bowl and pick a winner.
   
3. I'm a BAD Gap Brand Enthusiast because I never gave away all those jeans they sent me a year ago. But I still have all of them in a pile in my apartment (along with a couple $50 gift certificates and some more gift certificates for free jeans) and I'm going to give them away when I get back from LA, I swear! (Also, I'm not making this up, but the new Gap jeans are the only jeans I wear nowadays. I like the Long & Lean the best and have gone through four pairs since they came out.)

Okay, good luck!

It's a collection of related short stories (so it's perfect for someone like me with a short attention span) about people who work in the record industry. Like, in the first story you meet A and it mentions her boss, B. Then the second story goes on to tell you a little more about B and mentions someone named C. The third story is about C and how he knows B. Eventually one of the stories mention A again. It's amazing, amazing, amazing and Jennifer Egan is an awesome writer. All of the stories are told in different ways, in different voices. Some are third-person all knowing, some are first-person... one is told through a power-point presentation. This isn't done to be gimmicky; it just happens to be the best way to tell each story.

Read it! I was hooked by the third story.

I've never been a big fan of the way they look, but I sat in one a few days ago and it was fantastic. It totally molds to your body; I could write in it. (So maybe the $9,500 price tag could be a business expense?)

PS - My friend Mark took this photo and the one below of me and Bev. He's become a master photographer.

After 5.5 hours:

"I'm going crazy!"

After 6 hours:

"The train has turned into a roller coaster!"

"The train has taken me to Paris!"

After 6.5 hours:

"I'm swimming!"

"I'm scuba diving!"

"I'm flying!"

After 7 hours:

"I met someone on the train~I love her."

"We've been holding hands for hours."

"We're getting married!"

I eventually made it home to the relief of everyone on the train.

Marie is so, so bad! I wanted to spank her at times.

I LOVED it from the first line...

"Sometimes, Marie got a little drunk at work."

...to the last. I didn't want it to end. Read it!

More: Marcy Dermansky's website

Wow. Riveting. I had to close the book at times because I couldn't bear to continue reading. I wanted to scream, "No, Bill! Don't do it! Put down the pipe!"

For those of you who don't know, Bill Clegg is a New York literary agent who became addicted to crack. Portrait of an Addict is his memoir. I hope my agent doesn't start doing crack. For more about the book, visit the official website.

Anywho, I'm going to blog more often about the books I'm reading. But I'm going to wait until I finish them to do so because I'd say for every ten books I buy, I start seven and finish three. This has less to do with the quality of the book and more to do with my lack of an attention span. I get bored really easily, so if a book doesn't move forward quickly, I'm out.