14

TUESDAY

Writer Pam Houston ain’t gonna be mistaken for no city slicker. And she won’t be confused with Gloria Steinem, either. The photo of her on the jacket of her new book, A Little More About Me, however, does more than slightly resemble a page from an L.L. Bean catalog. A high-risk adventurer, Houston, like her heroines, is attracted to untamed wilderness, savage whitewater rapids, and rough—very rough—men. In a story in Houston’s collection Cowboys Are My Weakness, the narrator asks her cowboy beau if he wants to make love. “I was just trying to decide whether to do that or go to Ace Hardware,” he replies. Substitute an Appropriations Committee hearing for Ace and loafers for rugged Levi’s, and maybe D.C. men aren’t that different from cowboys after all. See Houston in her city gear, reading from A Little More About Me and Waltzing the Cat, at 7 p.m. at Chapters, 1512 K St. NW. Free. (202) 347-5495. (Elissa Silverman)