2004-01-11 - 7:06 p.m. quirkyalone It was my coworker Adrienne who first loaned me her copies of the first two issues of "To Do List" magazine. Like me, Adrienne was an insatiable (maga)zine junky. After particularly life-sucking meetings, we'd often catch up to each other in the lobby, each on our way to our neighborhood magazine stand to cleanse our heads of the corporate doublespeak we'd just endured. Sharing our finds with each other helped feed the insatiable quest for new reading while saving us from bankruptcy (or dying in an earthquake, trapped under 6-foot stacks of magazines.) We both connected to Sasha Cagen's essay on the "quirkyalone" in "To Do List", marveling that someone had come up with a word and a description that better-sited us than anything we'd ever been able to come up with on our own. Fast forward a few years to the release of Cagen's book "Quirkyalone: a manifesto for uncompromising romantics." Despite my enthusiasm for the essay, I was concerned the book, which had been promoted as a guidebook for modern unconventional single life, might have ended up in the same vein as those allegedly humorous lifestyle/trend guides that clog up the book publicity machines every year or two. I'm pleased to report the concern was unnecessary. The book opens with a 10-question quiz to help you determine if you're a quirkyalone or not, and thus whether you should continue to flip the pages. After scoring on the high side, I dove in. With its charts, random bios of quirkyalones, sideways running text, and other added bits that augment the main text, the book is designed to feel more like a zine or blog than a conventional book, which works well with Cagen's engaging, friendly writing style. The book surprisingly (a very nice surprise) includes some demographics on who the quirkyalones are as a /community. It would have been nice though to know if these entertaining statistics were based on 50 or 500 responses to her emails though. I wasn't surprised that the geography data indicates it's more of an urban phenomena, but did get caught up in the assertion that these urban dwellers were the types who were as apt to fall in love with a City as with a person, and to do things like throw anniversary parties that marked 10-years in that city, for instance. This made me laugh, since I am always quick to come clean about my love affair with this City I live in. More after I finish reading. any comments? (0 so far) previous - next recently on almostgoldsf... in defense of an email box I came to do battle with SPAM - 2008-05-17 hello 2006 - 2005-12-31 Happy Thanksgiving - 2005-11-14 bon voyage - 2005-11-05 October already? - 2005-10-09