Valerie Frankel's
Palace of Love

Okay, here we go. Drunk blogging, for the first time ever. I expect to leave a trail of typos and grammatical errors behind me. So, the good news: The kids are at camp! Which explains why I'm hammered at 6PM on a Tuesday night. I worked out (yes, post surgery, I'm back to my gym compulsion; good thing, since I gained some weight while lulling in post-surgical sloth). I interviewed a source for my upcoming article for Self about THRIVING DURING A SEXUAL DRY SPELL (anyone who had ANY sight on the subject, I'm BEGGING you to email me right now), and then Steve and I decided to have lunch at Pete's, our local bar. Two hours later, here I blog, shit faced on vodka tonics (three!). No kids to pester me for dinner. No deadlines crushing. Just my handsome hubbie, four cats, a hot night, and a swimmy brain.

I love summer.

The source for the article: Hephzibah Anderson (say that ten times fast), a London-based journalist and author of the memoir "Chastened," about her one year self sanctioned celibacy. She was a decent interview. It went well. I need more sources, though. Seriously, five blog readers (except my parents): Send me emails about how you took yourself to new thrills and chills during a libidinous drought. I've learned, in my years on Earth, to ask for help when needed. I NEED HELP! Sexual droughts, for me, have been low points, not a time to learn and grow, not a golden opportunity to figure out the deeper meaning of desire. Sex is the deeper meaning of desire! But that might just be me. I am, by all accounts, and on the record, as very shallow.

Besides drinking in the middle of the afternoon, I have been immersing myself in inspiration, that is to say, reading, watching movies and going to shows. Some cultural reviews:

New Janet Evanovich: I don't even know what number she's up to. Sixteen? It's okay. Better than the last few, but still not as great and hilarious as back in the day (numbers 5 through 10) which were comic gold. Not to spoil the plot, but I'd like at least one decent sexy scene in 250+ pages from Evanovich, a romance novelist, instead of one set piece after another about about Stephanie Plum's reluctant bad-assness. I mean, in Plum books gone by, she gave us four or five sex scenes, with both Ranger and Morelli, within a single novel. The last few? We're lucky to get a kiss.

New Stieg Lawson, Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Genius, of course. Nora Ephron wrote a funny parady in the current New Yorker, about the Swedish names and places, how Lisbeth never smiles or emotes. Funny. I'd post the link if I had the technical know-how. The novel starts slow, but picks up fast. It's a great series, if sadistic, depressing, miserable, sad, fucked up and generally down-lifting.

The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti: YA (what? you don't read YA books for fun? What kind of adult are you??). I absolutely loved this novel. Dickenisian, about an orphan who goes on a fabulous, if gritty, adventure to discover his true identity. The best character introduction of the year: A man who'd been been dug up by grave robbers, and turned out to have been buried alive. I mean, can you get more creative? It's brilliant! I heard from friends that Trini lives in my neighborhood. If you're reading this, Hannah: E-me! Let's lunch! Two cocktails! On me! (An offer to buy someone lunch? Proof I'm drunk.)

American Idiot on Broadway: Went with the kids and Daryl Chen before camp. So much fun. The most remarkable aspect: Hearing the songs I know so well sung by FEMALE characters. I loved it! Punk rock musical! A whole new animal for Bway, which could use some fresh ideas. It'll run for years and years (you heard it here last).

Race by David Mamet: Great play. We saw the new cast, with Eddie Izzard in the lead role. Typical Mamet, with blustering male leads and women who seduce/​betray them. Funny, smart, provocative, compelling. The topic of race in America is dangerous, huge, emotional. The character could have gone on all night, and the audience would have been captivated. Great show. Go see.

Sondheim on Sondheim: A review of the legend and his work. We saw the very last performance, actually, so I can't send you out to see. Great to see the old songs sung by virtuoso voices, including the original Marion the Librarian, Barbara Cook. A nice night in the theater, but not as exciting intellectually as Race.

W.C. Fields' It's A Gift/​The Bank Job: Steve has been educating me on the classics of comedy. I have to say, this broad slapstick stuff holds up. In "Gift," the marriage portrayed is, perhaps, the original put-upon husband, battle-ax wife act in comedy. I've decided to use that as the inspiration for my new novel, the one I started yesterday. It's just so FUNNY, how the wife nagged and ranted incessantly at her brow-beaten spouse. Don't know why it's so funny, but it just is. There's some vodka insight for you.

Big Lebowski: A movie I've seen about ten times now, and I notice new lines and jokes every single viewing. Good to watch every few years, for a fresher.

Escape From New York: Kurt Russell in his prime. Not very good, but he sure was cute!

That is all for now. I think I might need another drink to freshen my buzz. Steve, oh Steve!? Darling?! Fix me a drink, dear, and I'll blow you.

I hear him in the kitchen. He's such a good husband.

We've been bracing for thunder storms for three days now, but they don't come. It's been like holding your breath, except the air in your lungs is 90 degrees and thick as soup. Not to complain! I love hazy, horrible heat. It's my very favorite type of weather.

The kids get out of school next week, which means Steve and I can sleep late every morning. As I do every year, I'm looking forward to dropping the kids at camp, and having 3.5 blissful weeks of child-free debauchery with my sexy husband, especially so since he got a haircut last week.

Like women all over the world, I sent Steve to the barber with a downloaded image of George Clooney from "Up In the Air" (a good, not great, movie; best thing about it was GC's HAIRCUT). Steve dutifully handed it to the barber, who said, "You're the third guy to walk in with a George Clooney picture this week." As soon as I get batteries for my camera, I'm shooting and posting so you can see for yourself the beautiful end result. What have I ever done right, to be blessed with a husband who makes George Clooney look like the dog's dinner? Steve makes Daniel Craig look like the class dork.

Cultural report:
The Passage by Justin Cronin: Satisfying. Inventive, chilling and engrossing. Compared to Stephen King's The Stand (which is inevitable), The Passage lacks an visceral connection to the characters. I didn't feel an emotional connection with any of them, although I wanted to know what happened next. B+

Sex and the City 2: Like a two and a half hour TV ad. But what a beautiful ad! I agree with the criticisms—thin plot, few laughs, crassly commerical—but I enjoyed it anyway. For fans of the show only. B-

Real Housewives of New York: I had an Ambien dream that I WAS Bethenny Frankel (no relation). I felt it all, the tension, stress, indignity, suffocation. What a relief it was, I thought after jerking awake, to be me. And I like Bethenny. She's my favorite RHONY. Imagine the nightmare of dreaming I'd turned into Jill Zarin! I might die in my sleep. Fascinating TV, of course. Of all of Kelly Bensimone's incredible comments, I was most mystified by her insistence that expressing emotion was "So 1979." People haven't had feelings for the last 31 years?? Meanwhile, the words "hate" "unhappy" and "hurt" roll off her tongue with ease. Doesn't she realize saying "I hate Bethenny" is expressing a FEELING? A+

Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunnant: I have LOVED Dunnant's previous novels (Company of the Courtesan, Birth of Venus), but this one, about a young woman forced into an Italian nunnery circa 1500, didn't get its hooks into me. I read half of it, skimmed the rest. A disappointment. Not Dunnant's fault. She wrote with lyrical beauty, raw emotion, fascinating period detail. I just couldn't get into the characters or setting as much as I wanted to. Oh, well. C+ (as a personal reading experience), A (for literary effort)

Two weeks to the day of my surgery. I feel pretty good. Honestly, the pain was bad for two or three days only. I kept taking the Oxycodone, though, for a full week, just for fun. The worst part of recovery has been abdominal swelling, what I've learned to call "swelly belly." Considering that my belly was already swelly BEFORE I went under the knife, the additional bloat means no jeans for the foreseeable future. My doc says it'll go away—eventually. Could be months! All the way through bathing suit season. Eh, who cares about a little sloshing? Not me! I'll let my belly slosh all over town if I want to. Hopefully, it won't come to that. But if it does, consider yourself warned.

I worked this week. The shopping novel (ghost project) is officially DONE. I've finished the final, final first draft edits. Next up, round two edits of "It's Hard Not to Hate You," the memoir. Then round two edits of "Four of a Kind," formerly knowns as "Poker Playing Mamas," my novel for Ballantine (release date: July 11, 2011). Then a few magazine article revises for Self and Good Housekeeping. And ONLY THEN, sometime in mid-June, can I work on something TOTALLY new, whatever that might be. I have a good idea (for a novel), and am looking forward to getting to it.

The container garden is AWESOME! I will post a very boring video shortly, that my sister can mock at her pleasure.

Special shout out to my friends and family: Mom, Dad, Alison, Dan, Rebecca, Daryl, Nancy, Dana, Judy McG, Paula. You made me feel loved and cared for before, during and after the surgery, which, despite my glib tone, was not fun in the least. I am so grateful for all of you.

Steve: You are a supreme human being, endlessly patient, sweet and adoring, and I do NOT deserve you, at all. Not even close. I'll try to make you remember why you married me soon, in a few weeks, when I've been given the go-ahead by my doctor.

Political note: For the first time since I went freelance in 1998, I am getting a tax refund. The ONLY reason, according to Curtis, my lovely and talented accountant, is the Obama tax cuts. My quarterly estimates, income and deductions were nearly identical to last years. And yet, for 2009, I will find relief (spelled C-H-E-C-K) in my mailbox soon.

So that's some good news! By now, my five blog readers have figured out: I am NOT among the nation's top ten percent earners. Ooops. Must have slipped my mind on the way to 45. Got married. Had kids. Bought an apartment. Published a book. Made my fortune?? Not yet. But that'll give me something to look forward to in my old age.

My mother complained about my bad blogger behavior. Okay, Mom. I'm SORRY! I've been BUSY, scraping and clawing to make my meager, bottom 90 percent earner income. I finished the revise of "It's Hard Not to Hate You." As usual, editorial comments always make a manuscript better. Thanks, Jen, for your guidance! I'm am humble and grateful, and finding it hard not to LOVE you! The ghost novel is on the very edge of being completed. And then, I'm going to take a break, relax with some magazine writing only for a while.

I'm having surgery in early May (I'll blog about that another time; not in the mood now), and have been warned not to expect to do much of anything for at least two weeks after. Honestly, I'm kind of looking forward to forced down time on pain meds, chilling, not working out or working at all. My friends are already forming a line for drug samples. They say that want to "help," bring me dinners, entertain the kids, but I know what they're really after! I might have to sleep with my vial of pills in my underwear.

Container garden: Nearly all my perennials came back, except one coreopsis. Jasmine, salvia, lavendar, clematis, pansies, daisies, there've all returned, despite a dry Spring and many sprays of cat urine. Damn that Ed. He's been a very naughty role model for Bunny, who has been digging in my planters all week. If they weren't so adorable, I might have a stern conversation with them.

Finishing up the ghostwriting project, so not much time to post.
Cultural quickies:
1. Tim Burton at MoMA: Portraits by the artist as a young genius. Very inspiring, moving, and fangirl fun. Seeing the custom designed Sweeney Todd razors alone was worth the price ($20 for adults; free for kids and MoMA members). See it now, before the exhibit closes in April.
2. Dead in the Family. Sookie Stackhouse ten? Nine? Coming out soon. Loyal fans will love it, but not as exciting as previous installments in the series.
3. Hurt Locker. Finally saw it last night. Wow! The first war movie I could stand watching. Jeremy Renner, if only I'd know about you earlier. My Johnny Depp fixation could have gotten a rest.
4. Mary Karr's Lit; JR Moeringer's Tender Bar. Alcoholic/​crazy family memoirs. Both fascinating, especially for a perspective into booze love (I'm not much of a drinker myself; two vodka tonics is my limit). If I had to say, gun to head, I prefer JR's. It's funnier, more entertaining, and less religious.
5. Shutter Island. I love a movie with lots of red herrings. But when the entire movie is a red herring? Feels a bit like a swindle. BUT—Leo can do no wrong, and I felt wonderfully tense and engaged throughout.
And pix:

No apologies for my non-blogging these past few weeks. I have been editing "It's Hard Not to Hate You" aka memoir 2. I didn't do ANYTHING but edit, ten hours a day, seven days a week, until last night when I sent it to Jen, my lovely+talented editor at St. Martin's. This might come as a shock to my five blog readers: I didn't even go to the the gym for nearly all of February. Incredibly, due to meals missed while in the editing zone, my clothes still fit. I'm a bit softer, I can tell. But roughly the same general size. Other things I didn't do while editing:
1. Talk to my children.
2. Talk to my friends, the few, the filthy.
3. Work on the ghostwriting novel project.
4. Work on any magazine assignments.
5. Bathe.
6. Brush teeth.
7. Clean apartment.

I DID manage to:
1. Watch about a thousand hours of Olympic figure skating and alpine skiing. Fun fact: Approximately 1 in 400 citizens of Norwich, Vermont (the town upon which The Girlfriend Curse's Manshire, VT, was based) is a member of the U.S. Ski Team. And a few of them medaled! Go, Vermont! Leading the nation in gay equality, progressive state representation and snowboarding!
2. Attend Fashion Week at Bryant Park. One of the woman on the ghostwriting project took me to the Isaac Mizrahi show, and it was absolutely beautiful and glittery. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Russell Simmons were there, as well as many magazine luminaries. I was told not to speak to anyone, because friendliness was simply not DONE at Fashion Week. I broke the rule to say hello to Suze Yaloff, former camp friend, current fashion editor at large for Glamour. She looked gorgeous as always. It was excellent to see her.
3. Watch some new/​old movies. Wolfman (B-). Percy Jackson (C). District 9 (A). Extract (B+).
4. Read some books. Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth (A). The Heights by neighborhood writer Peter Hedges (B+). Little Stalker by Jennifer Belle (B+). Bite Me by Christopher Moore (A+).
5. Saw "Daughter of the Regiment" by Donizetti (A) at the Met with the kids. Lucy was as entranced by the opera house as the opera itself. Her review: "Best chandeliers and chocolate dipped strawberries ever!"
and
6. Saw "West Side Story" on Broadway (A++++) with a fam. I blubbered. Like, a lot.

First free day in a month, I spent most of the afternoon at the gym, reacquainting myself with pain and sweat. That was pleasant. A very sexy young guy took the treadmill next to me and PICKED A HUGE SNOT CAKE OUT OF HIS NOSTRIL AND WIPED IT ON HIS SHORTS. In plain view. As if he were invisible, or didn't realize the people around him had fully functional eyes. Shocking. If he'd pulled down his pants and taken a crap on the treadmill, I doubt I'd've been as disgusted.
But he was very cute, even with his finger knuckle-deep in his nose.
I'm giving myself one more free day, and then back to the ghostwriting project and making stuff up. A very welcome relief after intensive memoiring.
Glad to be back, peops!

I don't usually get pleas for advice about romance anymore (once upon a time, I wrote the Q&A love column for Mademoiselle), but I do try to help when called upon. With his permission, I've posted the lament of emailer Kevin:

Dear Valerie,
My name is Kevin and I recently moved here from Scotland. I understand you wrote the book Thin is the New Happy and thought you might have some good insight on an experience I had involving an American woman's image of her body.
I met a really attractive and intelligent woman at a party a few weeks ago. It was a public event at an art gallery. She was a high school teacher in her early thirties. We had been talking for a good half hour and really seemed to be hitting it off. We had even made tentative plans to meet for coffee sometime.
Then, things suddenly went downhill. I commented that she had a “nice, full, hourglass figure”. I thought she would take it as a compliment but instead she became deeply offended. She snapped, “Oh really….well perhaps I should do some plus size modeling!” I went into damage control mode and tried to clarify my comments but I think I only exacerbated things when I used the term “healthy”. With a look of complete disgust, WHAP!, she slapped my face and departed.
I will never forget those agonizing moments in the immediate aftermath, as I was standing there alone rubbing my cheek, drawing some judgmental stares from onlookers. Needless to say, it was not my proudest moment.
She had a classic hourglass figure - large bust, narrow waist, shapely hips/​legs. I guess she had interpreted “hourglass” as meaning big/​overweight/​full figured. I just thought it meant shapely and well proportioned. When I told a female friend about this she shook her head and said it was never a good idea to comment on a woman’s figure when meeting her for the first time, even if I thought it was complimentary.
I do have her email address. Do you think I should send her an apology note or should I interpret the slap in the face as a definitive statement of rejection?
Kevin

My reply:

Dear Kevin,
You stepped in it, for sure!
Slapping? That seems extreme. Most women would have been offended, though.
In America, "full" and "healthy" and "hourglass" are euphemisms for "fat." Basically, in complete innocence, you told this woman, "You're fat." Unfortunately, this particular woman didn't find the mitigating factor—"You're fat, and I like it"—sufficiently softened the blow. She retaliated with her own blow, to your face.
Your coworker was absolutely right. Even in Scotland—which American women (especially fans of Regency romance novels) think of as the Place for Rogues—men shouldn't assess a woman's body when introduced, as in, "Hi, I'm Kevin. You have excellent tits." Of course, you do it within the first three seconds in your head, just don't verbalize it. If she'd said, "You're a hunk of prime beef," would you have felt flattered, or like you'd been checked out by a meat inspector? (Actually, I'm sure you'd've been flattered...)
Next time, compliment a woman's eyes, her lips, her wit. Act like she's a disembodied head until the third or fourth date. And then, you can say, "You've got a great body." She'll insist that she doesn't. It's your job to reassure her, WITHOUT USING THE WORDS "full" and "healthy." Use "luscious," "sexy" "juicy," etc.
Sure, send her an email apology, but don't expect a reply. Honestly, the greater offense was sizing her up out loud in the first place, and, insult to injury, using the questionable vocabulary.
Live and learn. Welcome to America!
Best (love the haggis!),
Val

His charming reply:

Dear Valerie,
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! I think you're right. I really should have stuck to more neutral topics when it came to compliments and stayed away from physical appearance. It really is unfortunate how a poor choice of words can completely derail communication between a man and a woman. I decided to go ahead and send her an apology note. While I don't have high hopes for a response it certainly can't hurt. I copied it below.

Dear Ericka,
This is Kevin. We met a few weeks ago at the party in the art gallery. I genuinely meant to compliment you, but in so doing used a poor choice of words that deeply offended you. I am so sorry for any hurt I may have caused you. You are an intelligent woman and a person of integrity, and I have great respect for you. You are also quite beautiful. While my comments were not interpreted as I intended them, it was inappropriate for me to comment on your physical appearance after meeting you for the first time. I hope you choose to accept my apology, but if not, I sincerely wish you the best in life and I am still grateful for having met you.


Oh, and by the way, Val, this woman was NOT FAT at all!! Curvy, busty, etc., but no extra weight. In fact, she was in much better shape than me, a 220 lb, bald Scottish guy, with no insecurities about my appearance at all, lol.
Thanks again,
Kevin

Thank you, Kevin, for being a trueheart who loves curvy women. Ericka, if you are reading this, give the guy a friggin' break! He's from Scotland! His people throw trees for sport and wears kilts in the dead of winter. They mean well, but sheesh, talk about clueless. Email Kevin back. I'm sure he's 220 pounds of broguey fun.

According to experts (who ARE they?), January 25th is the most depressing day of the year. A lot of seasonal affected disorder weepies. New Year's resolutions are officially kaput. Today in Brooklyn, you can't believe the rain and wind! Ghastly weather. Not fit for freaking ducks. My roof should start leaking right about . . . now. Perfect. Right on cue.

BUT—I am not depressed, my dear five blog readers. Sure, I was down on my birthday last week. Turning 45—smack dab the middle of life—didn't hit me as a cause for celebration. Also, my kids had food poisoning. Three days of puking and retching. And two checks stubbornly refused to arrive. (Such is the life of a freelancer. One must extract money from clients like rotten teeth. I finally got things sorted out. A snafu at Conde Nast and a book payment gone astray. So now, per my agent and editor, the checks are REALLY in the mail. Before, heh, they were just kidding.) Steve has left me—again—for a week. He's in Tennessee, Major General-ing for rednecks. Hope they don't come after him with hog prods.

Like I said, I am not depressed. The year has had its downers. But also, the highlights:

1. Bunny, our new cat. She makes me crazy when she crawls under the deck and won't come out for hours, but otherwise, she's a doll.

2. Lucy shone in her star turn in Mikado at City Center. She was riveting as a coolie. I, for one, thought it was like Lucy were the only person on stage. Photos above and below.

3. Maggie and I went with one of the co-authors of my ghost-writing project to the brand new Isaac Mizrahi boutique off Madison Avenue for a private trunk show of his spring couture line. And—wait for it—we got to meet Mr. Mizrahi, who had an chummy chat with Maggie about pursuing a career in the visual arts. Photos above and below.

4. MAJOR CAREER NEWS: After months of nail biting, my new novel, "Poker Playing Mamas," has been bought by Ballantine, an imprint of Random House. Yay! I'll get to work with the handsome and brilliant Sir Dana Isaacson again, who once upon a time, long, long ago (1991-95) edited my mystery series for Pocket Books. Fifteen years later, we're working together again, and I could not be happier.

So, yeah, January. Some bumps and bruises. Some boosts and boons. If I've learned nothing in my FORTY FIVE YEARS, it's that the good and the bad are dance partners.

So sorry, peops! I have been a very lazy ass for weeks in a row. I blame the holidays. Freaking Christmas! I swear, if I could just wave a wand and make it go away so everyone would stop goofing off, chilling out, having fun, and just get BACK TO WORK, I would. I'd also ban drinking on New Year's, and (of COURSE) candy on Halloween.

But for reals, Daryl Chen, one of my five blog readers, lodged a formal complaint about my delinquency. Since I learned years ago to do whatever Daryl says or else suffer severe consequences, I am back at blogging as of today.

We have a new kitty! For those counting, we're up to four, which is still a dozen short of total bat-shit crazy. The little nugget's name is Bunny. She was feral, rescued off the street not long ago by two of Judy McGuire's friends, the lovely and talented Debbie and Jannese. They cared for Bun, tamed her and socialized her with their dog. But no cat is truly happy living with a (gag) drooling canine idiot. Bunny is greatly relieved to be surrounded by her own high-kind, and is already BFFF with Ed. Thanks Debbie and Jannese for letting us adopt her. Muchos gracias to Judy for playing pet match maker.

Tomorrow night, Lucy is making her City Center debut as the axe coolie in the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' production of Mikado. Maggie had the honors when she was in fifth grade, and now it's Lucy's turn. Steve won't be Ko-Ko this season, alas. He's just too sick of the role for now, but he will be in the orchestra pit, tooting his own big polished brass French horn. Those who long to see Steve on stage, in costume, old man wigs and fake facial hair should catch his show-stealing performances at the Major General in Pirates of Penzance, and Joseph Porter (aka, Ruler of the Seas) in HMS Pinafore. SEE LINK BELOW for deets!!!

Celebrity sighting: Lunch today with Tomas and Nancy at Café Cluny on West 12th Street. At the table behind ours sat Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. Both looked bag-ladyish, pale but healthy. I was ten minutes late, and, according to Tomas and Nancy, just missed Julianne Moore who left moments after they sat down. I had a wonderful tarragon spinach omelet, beet salad and marinated fresh berries with mascarpone. All excellent.

Work news: Target sales of TITNH are robust. They've committed to keeping the book on shelves until April, and possibly longer. Yay!

Holiday viewing: Avatar (loved), Sherlock (liked) and It's Complicated (sucked). TV recommendation: This Emotional Life, a shrinky series on PBS about FEELINGS. New season of The Biggest Loser: promising. No wackos have made themselves known yet, but will surely emerge.

That's all for now. Later!

I'd been on a memoir tear lately. Three in a row. Some reviews:

1. Born Round by Frank Bruni. Liked it. The food descriptions were sublime, as well as the portrayal of his Momma's Boy co-dependent relationship with his mother that clearly caused not only his chronic dieting and binge eating, but his erratic romantic history. The best parts of the book were the NYT sections, when Bruni covered the 2000 presidential campaign of George Bush, and become so depressed that he gained 80 pounds. And then, the happy years as the NYT restaurant reviewer, when he got in the best shape of his life despite eating out 10x per week. My take away: If you're happy with your work, you're more likely to care for yourself. The book was a tad long, but I didn't mind.

2. Tweak by Nic Sheff. Young man's drug addiction memoir. My daughter Maggie read it last year and loved it, so I agreed to check it out. The essence of addiction—in Sheff's case, his drug of choice was crystal meth, but he also used heroin, cocaine, and pretty much anything he could get his grubby hands on–is the self-absorption. The addict is the center of the universe, and his news, entertainment, relationships revolve about drug acquisition and use. I got that message loud and clear. For the reader, the cycle of Sheff getting meth, getting high, getting clean, relapsing, over and over and over again, was tedious. I could understand why Sheff's family got tired of helping him, and nearly wrote him off (one of the book's points, I suppose). Halfway through the memoir, I stopped caring if Sheff ever got clean since he seemed to care so little himself. I was not engaged, or sympathetic. Sorry, Maggie! I tried. I prefer a main character, even in an addiction memoir, to offer insight, humor and a solid reason to root for him or her. Even at the conclusion, Sheff still lacked self-awareness, other than how sorry he was for causing his family so much pain, which he knew on page one.

3. Cleaving by Julie Powell. Finished last night, and realized why I was so turned off by it, apart from the previously-mentioned revolting descriptions about butchering animals into meat. The emotional story was supposed to be about her marriage and her affair. In order to fully appreciate those relationships, one would think that at least ONE description, a thumb nail sketch, a tight bio, of the principle players involved would be necessary. But the only person we got to know—and strongly dislike for her sloppy, selfish "I want, I take" approach—was Powell herself. After 300 pages, I still don't know ANYTHING about the husband (what does he do for a living? why is he such a pussy? how could he stand to be treated like a doormat?) except that he looks good in blue and can run a marathon. Nearly every line of dialogue of his is, "I love you." Powell has Eric say "I love you" about 1,000 times. How a man could love a woman who cheated on him, abandoned him, had no respect for him, lied to him, didn't have sex with him for over a year, told him she didn't want to be married to him, was simply impossible to believe. She failed to include a single scene to explain how his alleged "love" survived the affair (we get not one flashback of their marriage when it was good). Powell told us about their deep, eternal "love" a million times, but never once showed it to us. The first rule of writing, as anyone who's taken a college workshop: "Show, don't tell." As a reader, I wanted them to break up. That would have been a decent ending, actually, for Powell to realize how stupefyingly selfish she'd been, keeping her husband on a meat hook so she had someone to fall back on, even though she wasn't in love with him. No woman would treat the man she loved so horribly. Now, her affair, with the mysterious D., same problem. No show. Only tell. The much ballyhooed S&M sex scenes? Only Alluded to. A proper sex SCENE—a present tense, real time unfolding of events, "He kiss me, and then removed my shirt," etc.—does not exist in this book. After 300 pages of her saying "I'm obsessed with D.," do I know anything about him? His life? His feelings? NOTHING! Only how much she desperately wants him.

Relationships can be a mirror. For sane people, the mirror has two sides. Powell's relationships are one sided, another way she looks at herself. Written this way, Powell managed to turn a passionate affair and crumbling marriage—fascinating subjects, you'd thing—boring.

One last thing: Some online defenders say that anyone who doesn't like Cleaving is just jealous of Powell's success. I can say with complete honesty that I AM INTENSELY JEALOUS of her success. Her FIRST BOOK was made into a movie, directed by Nora frigging Ephron, and starring Meryl Frigging Streep. If you weren't jealous of Powell, then you're a saint or dead. Jealousy, however intense, wouldn't make me hate a great book. I'd be grateful, and jealous, for the great book. Instead, I'm jealous and angry that bad books get so much attention.

I've already received a few requests for my eggplant squash pasta parm recipe, so I thought I'd post it for all five of my blog readers.

Ingredients
1 eggplant, 1/​4 inch thick slices
3 zukes, 1/​4 inch thick slices
3 yellow squash, 1/​4 inch thick slices
1 onion, chopped
3 tomatoes sliced thin
1 lb whole wheat rigatoni
1 24 oz jar of marinara sauce (or make your own)
16 oz. whole milk mozzarella
8 oz. shredded parmesan
2 cups bread crumbs
4 eggs
2 tbsp of chopped fresh oregano and/​or basil
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper

Some people (including me) like to sweat eggplant and squash before cooking. For a baked dish, you don't want the veggies to be too wet, so I recommend this extra step. An hour before you plan to start cooking, place the eggplant, zuke and squash slices on paper towels and sprinkle with sea salt. Leave them for an hour. Then rinse in cold water, pat dry, and proceed.

1. Preheat oven to 350. Fill a large pot with water and put on stove to boil. Use olive oil to lube up two baking sheets.
2. Beat two eggs in large bowl for coating eggplant slices. Then dredge in bread crumbs. Place slices on the baking sheets. Put in oven for 15 minutes. Turn slices and bake for another ten minutes. Then put on a plate for later.
2. Do the egg coating and bread crumb dredging of the zuke and squash slices. You'll need to replenish eggs and bread crumbs at some point. Re-oil baking sheets, place dredged zuke and squash on them. Bake on one side for 10 minutes. Turn and bake for another five. Remove from oven and put on a plate for later. Increase oven temp to 475.
3. While squash is cooking, pour one or two tbsps of oil in a medium pot. When it's hot, add onions and cook until clear. Pour in marinara sauce, some salt, pepper and fresh herbs. Stir, lower heat, and cover.
4. Add pasta to boiling water. Boil until nearly done, around 9 or 10 minutes.
5. And now for the fun part. Put one ladle of sauce on the bottom or a large casserole dish. Then a layer of rigatoni. Then sprinkle mozzarella and parm on top. Then a layer of eggplant slices. More sauce, more cheese. Another layer of rigatoni. More sauce. More cheese. Then the zukes and squash. More sauce! More cheese! Then the last layer of sliced tomatoes on the top. Sprinkle with a mixture of parm and bread crumbs.
6. Place casserole dish in oven. Bake for twenty minutes.
7. Remove when the cheese is melted and the top is lightly browned.
8. Let it sit for a few minutes to cool off.

The whole thing takes an hour an a half (not counting the vegetable sweating hour). Totally worth it! And you'll have lots of leftovers. Even better the next day.

I've thought long and hard about whether to come clean about this. After much heart ache and a very difficult discussion with my husband, I feel I have little choice but to share my shameful secret.

Here goes.

It's so very hard to write.

The truth is . . .

I had sex with Tiger Woods.

I'm the eleventh mistress. All the rumors are true. He loves to pop a couple Ambien beforehand for that red-hot trancelike sex in a waking dream vibe. He has an extremely large penis. Like a nine iron, but thick as an sequoia. Oh, and, at the moment of orgasm, Tiger yells, "Fore!" Not only the fourth time, but every time.

So. Yeah. Surprising, isn't it? He seems to go for large breasted porn stars, barmaids and Hooters waitresses in their twentise. And then there's me, a large breasted NUDE MODEL in my forties. He likes some middle-aged stuff now and again.

In other news—as if my secret fling with Tiger Woods wasn't enough—we are still vegetarian, going into our second month. I cooked a fab eggplant parm with rigatoni, zuke and yellow squash tonight. (Email me for my recipe!)

I've been reading Julie Powell's Cleaving, a gruesome memoir about butchery, included the grim and stomach-turning five page recipe for head cheese that calls for cutting up the face of a pig, removing its brain, sawing the skull in half, boiling the head, it goes on and on and on. Two things became clear to me as I read this chapter: (1) I will NEVER eat pork again, and (2) I will NEVER read another book by Julie Powell. I understand her groutesque descriptions are supposed to make her seem fearless and gutsy (as well as covered in guts). But, to me, they made her seem cruel and insane. Ah, well, I probably shouldn't have picked it up, knowing the subject matter. But the reviews promised all kinds of kinky sex along with the knife work! Does Not Deliver. The butchery scene to sex scenes ratio is about 100:4. I feel like I got sold a pile of dog food, when I was promised sizzling steak.

Gotta go. Finale of Biggest Loser! And tomorrow, Top Chef! Too much great TV for one large-breasted middle aged nude model to stand.

Maybe Tiger will come watch Top Chef with me. I'm calling him right now . . .

I vote "aye" for Diane Savino!

I had lovely lunch today at Elephant and Castle with my dear pal, Mary T. Browne, psychic and sweetheart, fresh off her triumph on the Larry King Show last week. Mary and I spoke about karma, authentic emotion, the dangers of the positivity trend, and the motivational power of thought, about which she has written a book ("The Five Rules of Thought"). It was great to see her, as always.

Big family news: We are vegetarians now. Last week, at a Chinese restaurant, Maggie, 14, said, "We have got to stop eating animals." I'd been thinking about it, having read about a hundred articles/​reviews/​interviews about J.S. Foer's new book "Eating Animals" ("eating" as a verb, and adjective). Many of Maggie's friends are vegetarians. That is the general direction of her generation. And so, the teens shall lead us. We declared that meal our last as carnivores, and said goodbye to pork fried dumplings. For dinners, I've been cooking risotto, polenta, quiche, a wagon load of farmer's market goodies. I made very tasty tofu "meat" balls (be nice). Lucy, 10, is not so into the flavors but she's on board philosophically. It's been a week. Tomorrow night, broccolini, black olive and sundried tomatoes with whole grain spaghetti.

Check out the trailor below. I have GOT to see this movie! The most cats I've had at one time (so far) was four. Down to three now. Steve and I often talk about getting more cats when the girls grow up and move out. Six, maybe seven, would be a heck of a lot of fun. Is that crazy? My sister's husband drew the line at five (she has four). When this doc come to New York, I'll be there.

Thanks to all the people to emailed with kind words about the Sheri and Bob radio show! Also, much appreciative of all the giveaway hopefuls! I was shocked and amazed that the ten free copies of TITNH were gone within an hour of my posting the notice. I'll send out confirmation emails as I start to organize my address list. I'm humbled and honored that so many of my (apparently more than five) blog readers are keeping tabs, and paying attention to my errant typing here.

Steve and I went to see Jude Law in Hamlet last week. He was an energetic, peripatetic Prince, very sweet indeed. As usual, whenever I see a Broadway Shakespeare production (last time, Henry V with Kevin Kline and Ethan Hawk), I'm reminded just how many famous phrases are in each play. A few from Hamlet: "as easy as lying," "what dreams may come," (which is about death, but I think about that line whenever I have insomnia), "a man of infinite jest." Hamlet can be fatiguing, especially during the long middle stretch, but Jude kept my attention focused. The cast was all Brit, all accomplished. The actor who played Horatio was also quite the scrumptious scone. Major thumbs up, a fresh frantic vision of rotten Denmark. If you can get tickets, go. Discounts available at theatermania.com.

Some reading:
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I took my time getting to this YA series about post-apoc times, but it's never too late to give a rave. Logan's Run meets Survivor for the pubescent set. The fast-paced action plot is packed with emotional depth and insight.

The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips. He lives in my nabe, and I once accosted him ("I'm a fan!") at our local cafe where he goes to write every day. He didn't seem too terrified of me, brave guy. An epistolary novel, The E-ologist is a heartbreaking (in a good way) story of ambition, delusion, war, fantasy, history and sexuality, all wrapped up in mummy ribbons and packed tightly into a sarcophagus.

Balancing Acts by Zoe Fishman. This quarter-life crisis novel was written by the woman who sells foreign rights at my lit agency. Go, Zoe! It's a novel that asks, "What next?" of a handful of recession-struck twenty somethings who wonder if their lives are what they'd hoped for, dreamed about, or are all they can be. And the best part—set in Brooklyn.

The paperback of TITNH is OUT, which means it's giveaway time! The first ten (10; and I do mean TEN) blog readers to send me their name and address will receive a signed first edition PAPERBACK of the body image memoir the NYT called "fucking awesome" (well, not in those exact words). Those of you who have already obtained a copy of the book but wish to pass along another copy to friend, sibling, MOTHER, should feel free to send me your info. All I ask of giveaway winners: In exchange for a free book, including postage, please send a friendly email to ten of your peops, or simply send a facebook alert, tweet, what have you, to spread the word(s). Whatever that word(s) happens to be, I leave to you lucky winners. Ideally, it won't be "suck." It would be a string of bon mots, e.g.: "I highly recommend this I-laughed-I-cried true story. Do check it out," or some such, to that affect, like that there.

I'm going for viral. And I don't mean swine friggin' flu.

Deal? Is this a fair trade? I hope so! It's crassly quid pro quo, but what can a humble author do? I've read about a thousand "what authors need to know to market themselves" articles in recent months. They all say, "Make Pro-active your new middle name."

Click on the "contact" link above and to the right for my email address.

The husband (in makeup and wig) sings his lil heart out, below. Check. It. OUT!!!

Pervs in the news:
1. Roman Polanski. I look at it this way: Say an older man drugged my daughter Maggie (14), and raped her while she begged him to stop. This man then plead guilty for his crime. Instead of appearing at this sentencing, he cowardly fled the country to live in luxury and acclaim, fans and supporters defending him, applauding him and moaning about his self-imposed exile. Meanwhile, my child's life has been ruined (or, at the very least, severely damaged), no famous film directors or movie stars giving the slightest thought to her suffering. Then, thirty years later, this chicken-shit child-rapist is caught?!?! Yay! I'd do cartwheels. I'd throw a party. The stench from his filthy jail cell? Smells like sweet, sweet justice. If Polaski had just gone to jail in 1977, he would have done his time and been a free man for quite some time. Instead, he chose to make himself a fugitive. He dug his own hole. The Swiss government can and should push him into it.

2. David Letterman. Yawn. The strangest aspect of this whole sordid business: What the hell is a 34-year-old woman doing, sleeping with all of those old men? Letterman is, what?, over 60. The extortionist is over 50. This girl is attracted to droopy old man ass? I'm not saying women have to date in their own decade. Steve is eleven years older than me (and his ass, BTW, is still very firm). When is an age difference creepy? Fifteen years? Twenty? How about THIRTY? Yes? Can we all agree that Letterman, a senior citizen of some 64 years, should not be knocking boots with 34 year old women who work on his TV show. The age difference alone implies an authoritarian superiority. Maybe it isn't sexual harassment in the quid pro quo sense. But can anyone honestly say that a much (much) older boss putting the moves on a much (much) younger underling isn't, even a little bit, a power play?

Vid below by our former neighbor Brad Lockwood. At 8:54, you can see Maggie and Lucy walking on our block (just their backs).
Nice job, Brad! You do good work.

I've had a cold and bad cough, peeps! I'm telling you, my five blog readers, because no one give a shit about my horrible condition here at home. Whenever I complain about my sore throat and sleep deprivation, Steve and those two brats I feed just roll their eyes. They offered to throw me a pity party. I am so NOT LAUGHING! In my misery, all I've been able to do is watch Mad Men (can you BELIEVE Peggy? I mean, fuck a DUCK??? Didn't see that one coming, as it were) and read. Oh, and we showed the aforementioned brats The Breakfast Club. Maggie now has a raging crush on Judd Nelson, the bad boy, as I did when I was a yute. Of course they loved the flick. It still holds up, twenty odd years later. Some quickie book reviews:

1. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. Eh. Puzzles within enimgmas within magic squares. Sudoku Lit-lite. Not as fun as the Da Vinci Code, mainly because the Masons are a much smaller target than the Catholic Church. Also, the conclusion was so annoyingly, zeitgeistly Oprahly cloying: You can do anything! Your human potential is limitless! You only use one-tenth of your brain! Be who you wanna be! B-A-R-B-I-E.

2. Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin. I just love her. And the memoir, which I co-authored for Kathy in a very wet dream I once had, was just so funny and moving and gritty and gossipy. It's not a joke fest, either. Kathy tells some disturbing stories about her child molester junkie brother (who died; no libel threat) and her pathological liar husband (who stole $72,000 from her via ATM!). Kathy had much praise for our mutual friend Joan Rivers. The famous comediennes reminded me of each other, actually, in their work ethic. After this read, you will root for Kathy, the eternal outsider underdog.

3. Sookie Stackhouse novels. I've read six of eight, or seven of nine. These are my decadent dessert books. I love the novels, more than the TV series, which is quite different in tone and content. The books are fun, easy, flirty and sexy. Plenty of smoldering sexy supes (short for supernatural being; shape-shifters, werewolves, vamps, demons, fairies). I wish I were a supe! I'd love to be a werehousecat. They can sleep and eat all day long without a moment's guilt.

That's all for now. I have to get back to work on the memoir. BTW: Two articles out this month, both getting some traction:

1. Good Housekeeping article about being a ballbuster mother.
2. Self, the long awaited essay originally titled "Why I Have No Friends," but changed by the mag editors to "You Gotta Have Friends." An oddly positive title for this piece. It's like, in Orwell's 1984, the Ministry of Love was the torture room.

Pretty cool celeb sighting today. While jogging the Bridge (that would the Brooklyn bridge) with Nancy, we saw a Veronica Webb, also jogging, toward us. We saw her again, on her back back to Manhattan and our return to Brooklyn. She was very tall, six feet, thin but not too. Hair: pony. Green tinted sunglasses, pink tank. It was my first bridge run in a couple of weeks. Veronica was doing better than I was, fo sho.

Met with the shopping ladies to discuss chapter one of the novel I'm ghostwriting. This is going to be a swell project, I can already feel the funny (but deep!). The memoir is coming along. It's been very enlightening, to let it all hang out, to be as nasty as I wanna be. I'm writing the chapter now called The Enemies List, about people whose names I've written on scraps of paper and put in a drawer, a la Nancy Mitford's Uncle Matthew in Love in a Cold Climate. What I'm realizing: All my hate for the evil doers comes from their actions, yes, but more from my own fears about the given situation. More and more, it seems that the great struggle isn't against social convention or life's assholes (although they are many), but one's own doubt and fear.

TITNH comes out in paperback shortly. A few weeks. I'm nervous. The hardcover sold great. I hope the paperback does well, too, obviously. Waiting to hear about Target. They'll announce winter purchases in December. It's a biggie, winning a book slot in Target stores. I haven't had one since The Not-So-Perfect Man in 2004! Five years banished from Target seems long enough, right? PLEASE TARGET GENIUSES! GRANT ME SPACE!

Maggie, Lucy and I flipped back and forth between The Biggest Loser and More to Love last night. Re: MtL, we were wholly satisfied by the show's conclusion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this might be the first time in the ten year history of reality TV that a BIG JEW from NEW YORK CITY won. When Luke "let go" of bubble headed, phony blond Melissa, the girls and I yelled, "Yay, Jew!" "Go, Jew!" etc. Steve came in from the deck, and said, "You do realize the neighbors can hear you." Oops. Even in Brooklyn, it's not a good idea to scream "Jew" at the top of your lungs with the deck door and windows wide open.

Bravo to the show for taking on the theme of religious intolerance. When Luke's father insisted that Tali participate in saying grace at dinner, essentially rubbing Jesus in her face, every Jew in America squirmed. It seemed hostile. A diss-grace. He'd probably wanted to serve her bacon wrapped shrimp, cheeseburgers and smoked ham. When Tali said her and Luke's mixed faith children would be raised to be aware of both of their families traditions, the father crossed his arms over his chest and looked disgusted. You could see him thinking, "My flesh and blood, in yarmulkes? Chanting in Hebrew? Over my dead Christian body!" Luke's mother knew better. She said that common religion didn't matter, but common morals and valued did. She was pretty cool. That father? Awful. As usual, religion caused problems, and closed minds (minds that are, granted, pretty small to begin with).

TBL: A good beginning. Lots of criers this season. I'm anticipating going through a full tissue box for each episode. The girls asked whose story I thought was sadder: The woman who was the daughter of a dead junkie, or the woman who'd lost her husband and two daughters in a car accident. In terms habitual suffering, Shay, the junkie kid, had suffered systematic neglect for her entire childhood. The widow had suffered a ghastly lost, and is facing years to come of recovery and grieving. But the tragic accident was a singular event. I nodded when Jillian said, "I'd kill myself." Which would be reacting to a singular tragedy with another singular tragedy. Shay, the 470 pound grown-up foster child, responded to prolonged tragedy with the prolonged suicide of slow self-destruction. Anyway, it's all pretty interesting. The Biggest Loser, this season, seems to be making a push to go deep and explore the backstories from contestants with emotional histories to overcome. In short, good TV.

BTW: I cried more for the widow than the junkie daughter. But their stories are both incredibly, equally sad.

Two months without posting. I have no excuses, except that I'd informally given myself permission to be a lazy, neglectful piece of shit for the entire summer. Posting? Nil. My workouts were down. Drinking was up. I put on, probably, five or ten pounds this summer. Will I freak out and start a crash diet???

No. I won't fall back into ancient habits. I will resist the urge to Atkins. Instead, since we've been back in Brooklyn (a week), I've been v. good about workouts, and cooking dinners at home (healthy and delicious, for the whole family) instead of slacking off and going out. As I get older, the vacation pounds take longer to shed. By the end of September, I should be back at my pre-summer weight. I thought, foolishly, that my post-TITNH life would be free of any body issues. Alas, I still have them. The major difference is emotional. Three years ago, I'd've been freaking out about summer gain. Now, I have regrets (really, just a few), but feel okay about my choices. I didn't go to Aruba to swim laps and guzzle diet Cokes. No! I went to Aruba to bob in the ocean and sip pina coladas. Which is exactly what I did.

Summer highlights:
1. Aruba. A week in paradise. Rum drinks, ocean, snorkeling, wild goat watching, family bonding. No bad sunburns (I was careful about that), good food, good fun. No sex, though. Sharing a hotel room with the kids was not romantic for Steve and me. Oh, well, you can't have everything, all of it, all at once.

2. Green Day at MSG. Greatest show of my life! I know I said that about the Killers in January (we're going to another Killers show at Jones Beach—Maggie, Lucy, niece Lily on Sept. 1). Green Day was even better. Maggie, Lucy, Daryl Chen and I were in rock and roll heaven! Nearly three hours of music, pyrotechnics, amusing banter, sing-along-fever. When the band started playing "Blvd. of Broken Dreams," Mr. Armstrong said, "You know the words." I wonder if he sang a single word in the whole song. Something about singing a beloved song with 25,000 other people, sharing the joy, BJA waving his arms, basking in the mass appreciation and acknowledgment of his work. Choked me up, but GOOD! I was pouring sweat dancing; hands bruised from aggressive clapping. My daughters were inspired by the girl the band called up on stage to play guitar on "Jesus of Suburbia." "Brain Stew" was fast and furious. This show was such a transportive, euphoric experience, I fantasized about being back there for WEEKS afterward!

3. Eight mile run. I ran from my parents' place in Thetford to Dan and Whit's General Store in Norwich, a run I haven't managed to pull off in three years. I did it in 90 minutes, which for me, is pretty fast. I walked up one hill, but otherwise, ran the whole way. I haven't gone on a long run since (mid-July), and might not until again it cools off in September. But that's okay! One or two long runs a year is about my speed.

3. Wilco at Coney Island's Cyclone Stadium. Still my favorite band. The question that comes up: Is Wilco a better live band, or studio band? I've seen them twice, and I have to say, although I loved the show this summer, the music is better appreciated with headphones. Not to say I won't go see Wilco whenever they come to town. I dragged Steve to this concert. Afterwards, he said, "It's just so loud." He's not fit for rock and roll, I'm sorry to say.

5. A month without kids. Steve and I enjoyed the annual reprieve.

6. Seeing the kids again. They both loved camp, and it was a warm and wacky reunion.

7. Theater gluttony. We saw: Rock of Ages, Gods of Carnage, Blithe Spirit, Waiting for Godot. All wonderful and quite different experiences.

8. Winding down. As always, after months of unstructured hedonism, I'm looking forward for school to start, getting back into my routines, having more daily work time, etc.

Speaking of work: I did some decent writing this summer. Two articles for Self. An essay for Good Housekeeping. A novel revise (friend/​editor Dana's notes were spot on; he's a genius; now let's see what happens when I try to sell this baby). I'm got 17,000 words of my new memoir, called "It's Hard Not to Hate You," about my rejection of the emotionally-stunted positivity trend ("The Secret" can kiss my ass). I've just written the chapter about adolescent girl-on-girl meanness, aka, the origins of hate. Did you know that teenage gossiping, lying, back-stabbing, exclusion, etc. is a phenom called "relational aggression?" Bet you didn't. I didn't. I'd always called thought of it as "Junior High Hell."

Not to bury the lead, or anything, but I do have some happy professional news: Fringe Girl, my series of YA novels that, literally, a dozen people have read (seriously, I could have made Xerox copies, passed them out on the street, and done better) has been optioned for a major motion picture or TV series. The option has been in the works for a while. I held off on spilling the news until we had signed contracts. Which we do, finally, as of last week.

My five blog readers are well aware what this really means—approximately two winks more than nothing. Only that someone has given me a small amount of money to reserve the exclusive right to try to get more money from someone else to put the wheels in motion to, ideally, in the best of all possible worlds . . . need I go on? Look: An option is better than no option. But, as I've said before (re: The Accidental Virgin and Smart Vs. Pretty, both having been optioned for movies and TV), I am not holding my breath. Although, when I let myself dream (and dream, ahhh), I do think Fringe Girl would be THE BEST TV SERIES FOR TEENS EVER!!! PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN! I'LL NEVER WRITE ANOTHER NASTY THING ABOUT MY MOTHER AGAIN! I SWEAR!

Check this out. A diet.com book giveaway. Already over 3,000 views on youtube!

According to weather watchers, of the first 20 days of June in New York City, 17 of them were all wet. Including today. Soggy sigh. We're all sick of it. I've had ENOUGH! I'm OUT OF HERE. Tomorrow, I'm driving the kids to Vermont to drop them off at camp. I'll be back on Wednesday, and the sun had better be shining, or someone's head will ROLL! Steve will stay home and tend to the kitties.

Re: kitties, I have an Ed story. Our newest friend, Edward, a black Bombay mix, believes in his heart that he is a flying squirrel. Why else would he make a death-defying leap off of our deck, into the maple tree, miss, and then (gravity is a bitch) fall all the way down, three flights, to our neighbor's garden below? At least, that's the theory of what happened. That he went after a bird or squirrel. We'll never know exactly how/​why he went over.

The saddest part: We didn't know he was missing for hours. We had a busy day. After dinner, Steve said, "Has anyone seen Ed?" Couldn't find him in our apartment. Lucy went down to our neighbors, who told us they thought they saw a black cat out there around noon. This news made all of our hearts clench, collectively. We started walking the street, knocking on doors, calling him, making deals with God and/​or the Devil. After an hour of increasing dread and panic, Maggie and I began making "Lost Cat" flyers, and Steve went back on the deck to call for Ed. I was at the computer, near the window that overlooks the deck, and I heard Steve say simply, "I see him." His eyes, to be specific. Steve ran out of our the apartment, thundered down the stairs and back into the neighbor's garden. Ed had crawled into a hole in their fence, a neat little dry space where he might have been for hours, protected from the (mother fucking) rain, and the (also mother fucking) dog next door. I couldn't believe we'd miss the hole when we were searching near there before. Ed had a scratch on his nose and a hairless spot on his cheek. He was otherwise unscathed. Cats are miracles.

The next day, Steve went to Home Depot, and bought 75 feet of galvanized steel two-feet-high chicken wire, which we (all four of us) wrapped around our deck fence and secured with plastic fasteners. There is no possible way Ed—or the other cats—can fall, jump or slip off the deck again. Suicide missions have been blocked. Now all we need are a few chickens.

We never escalated to full blown panic and misery, since it was only an hour from realizing he was gone to recovering Ed unharmed, if dirty and scared. During that hour, though, I was afraid for how devastated I was going to be, if we couldn't find him, or he was seriously injured. Yuck.

Apropos of the above story, I've realized of late that the majority of my blog content is about (1) my container garden, (2) my cats, and (3) er, not much else. Sorry, peops! How about some media plugs?

Steve and I have been Netflicking all the movies we didn't get around to seeing last year. Including:

1. Doubt. Great movie. Meryl as a strict nun made me glad I'm a Jew.
2. Frost/​Nixon. I was too young to remember this. Nixon was power mad and a crook, but his crimes don't hold a candle to the lies and corruption of GWB.
3. La Vie en Rose. French misery and depression. I loved it! Fun for the whole family. Speaking of which:

The kids and I went to see Constantine Maroulis (my long-lost love) in the Broadway show Rock of Ages. It was an absolute blast! Like Mamma Mia, the conceit is to built a story around great hair rock hits of the 1980s (Benatar, Foreigner, Journey, Whitesnake, etc.). Constantine looked as cute and sounded as soulful as I remembered from American Idol. If you were born between the years 1960 and 1970, this show will take you back, as the narrator described it, "to a sexier time, the Reagen years." The girls and I rocked in our seats and sang along (well, I did; they knew a few tunes, but got into the spirit). Go soon. In September, Constantine (my only heart!) leaves.

Green Day: The new album, 21st Century Breakdown, is GENIUS! Go forth and purchase! A must have for fans and non-fans alike! Seriously. I am piss-in-pants excited for July 27th, the date that Daryl Chen (one of my five blog readers), Maggie, Lucy and I will see Green Day live at MSG. Be still my beating!

Wilco's new album is out in a couple of weeks. I have convinced Steve, who only listens to classical and opera, to go with me to see the band on July 13th at the Cyclone's stadium in Coney Island. A trifecta for me: my beloved husband and favorite band together in Brooklyn, my sweet home. Ahhh. Can't FUCKING wait!

As promised: Here are some container garden pix and a vid. Of interest to approx. three of my five blog readers. The rest of you can ignore at your pleasure.

Very Twilight-y, isn't it? The Authors Guild (keepers of this, and many other websites) is offering dozens of new layouts. It's almost too much excitement to handle. A whole new world, really. I thought I'd try this creepy and vaguely menstrual theme for a while.

Sorry I haven't posted. Since our trip, I have been spending a lot of time in waiting rooms, docs offices and hospitals. Due to a situation that I am not at liberty to discuss, I was motivated to move a battery of lump and bump screenings to the top of my To Do list. I have been 'grammed and 'oscopied' in nearly all of my secret places, peops. Several bits of flesh have been 'ectopied. It was NOT fun, I can tell you that. I am beyond glad that, pending a couple of late breaking 'ology reports, my days of being probed are over for the time being. Not to worry! I am fine. If it turns out that I am less than fine, you, my five blog readers, will be the first to know.

Meanwhile, since I haven't been allowed to workout or have sex (post-probe protocol), I have put all my pent-up energy into my container garden. I probably say this every year: It has never looked better! I plan to put batteries in the camera this very day, take some pix and post here.

I've also been writing a lot of articles. An essay on impatience for Self, an essay on being a mean mom for Good Housekeeping. And, currently, a reported trend story for Self on sex in the recession. On the off chance anyone feels a burning desire to tell me about how the recession has affected your bedroom antics, please e-me. We'll talk.

Once the decks are clear of articles, I will do minor revises on my novel (Dana Isaacson is an gifted editor), and then begin the ghost writing novel project, which is a done deal, minus an actual contract, which is taking for fucking ever to get read by all the appropriate agents and lawyers. It's incredible to me that anything EVER gets done, since every scrap of paper produced must be signed off on by half a dozen "representatives" who all feel the need to leave their mark for fear of not earning their fee.

I mean, SHIT!

Not that I'm grousing. I am grateful to have work, when so many don't. I heard a horrible rumor that, at a certain Conde Nast men's magazine, writers are being paid "on publication," as opposed to the usual "on acceptance." What this means: Since an article can sit in inventory for, literally, years, writers, who might put in a months on a story, are essentially working for free.

Of course, name writers have contracts and can make demands. The up-and-coming writers will suffer most during a downturn. Basically, it's tough out there for a pimple. I fear that a generation of writers will quit, give up or choose another profession. Young voices will be heard on the web, and that is a good thing. I wonder, if I were just out of college, looking for a job, whether there would be ANY print opportunities for me now.

Is print truly dead, or is it, like so many other businesses, just resting during the recession? The next five years will reveal all. Meanwhile, as ever, I'm writing as fast as I can.

Our trip was fab. My piece about it will be up on momlogic.com very shortly. Meanwhile, here's a vid of our room, and some pix.

Presenting below: The TITNH widget! Pretty cool, meh?

Three weeks since my last post?#*^&$#??? How did that happen? I guess I've been distracted by my emotionally consuming lack of work.

Since I turned in my novel to Dana (he loved it; still waiting to hear what his boss thinks), I've been in a holding pattern. One book project requires focusing, which will come in May when I have a lunch with Jen. The other had been in contract negotiation for weeks. Plus, I've been in full-lull, re: magazine work.

So, for the last few weeks, I've been working my ASS off to get work. What this means: Multiple times a day, I've emailed and called magazine editors, pitched ideas, written up said pitches in memo form, fretted, twiddled thumbs, pulled out hair, etc.

The emotional arc of freelancing is predictable, but no less trying. First, terror. Maybe this is it. Maybe I've had my last paying job as a writer. Of course, I'm grateful to have lived the dream. But how depressing would it be if it all came crashing down? I'd have to find an office job, as if anyone's hiring. Perhaps if I make more calls, send more emails. I WILL find something to work on, soon. Or else, sink into a state of bone-deep anxiety. Talk about moving to the country. Actually convince myself that country living is for me. A sliver of light (a half-assurance from an ed that a pitch was met well at an story idea meeting) breaks through the gloom. I rejoice at prolonging our lives in the city. Gain confidence that oodles of work are On The Way. A firm assignment, with contract. Relief (how do I spell it? J-O-B). Excitement about the article itself. Then, another assignment comes through. More relief, more joy, my mind starts working, thinking of the article's structure, some good jokes. Then another assignment. Start to feel concerned that, in my desperate frenzy of nagging/​begging editors, I'd never planned for more than one of my dozen pitches to turning into an assignment.

Any freelancer will tell you: Feeling overwhelmed is the objective. Considering the alternative—three weeks of waiting for something to happen—I'll take pressure and a pile-up of deadlines in a heartbeat. The more work the better. The simple fact is: This very well could be the last year I manage to pull off the writing life. I'm secure again for a while. But a year from now? The end might seem upon me yet again.

Anyway, safe with three mag assignments and two book commitments (the ghostwriting job is, as of yesterday, a done deal; I'll reveal more when sanctioned to do so), my weeks of scrambling are over. My nose will be strapped to the grindstone for the entire spring and summer, and into the fall.

But, first, a jaunt! Tomorrow, Steve, the kids and I are going to Turks and Caicos on a press trip. Yay! Beaches is opening a new family resort, and I will be reporting on how fucking fabulous it is for momlogic.com. Four nights, five days. Makes my eyes moist just typing it.

I've decided to blog from T&C, get some extra publicity for Beaches right here. I'm not sure if my five blog readers are Beaches types. Mom and Dad? Tempted by an all-inclusive river of pina coladas and a new water park with five monster slides? No? Sounds FUCKING AWESOME to me. But I've always been a sucker for rum drinks and aquatic thrills. Ideally, at the same time.

Back tomorrow with some photos from paradise!

Greetings from Brooklyn! It has been twenty days since my last blog, which means, without question, that I totally suck and should be (1) boiled in oil, (2) hung by the armpits or (3) forced to watch five hours of Fox News. I hope, in my humbled heart, that my five blog readers can forgive the lapse. Spring break happened, and is (thank GOD) over. The kids are back in school. I can take care of business again, including posting a few graphs of nonsense right now.

So!

For the first week of break, the girls and I stayed in New Jersey, dog-sitting my parents' mangy mongrel pack of slobbering canine idiots. Forgive me, H&J, but your animals STINK! And they DROOL! They woke me up every morning at 5AM by jumping on the bed and licking my face. Torn from slumber by dog breath and mud-caked fur in the face. I shudder at the hideous memory.

Every minute I spent with those four dogs (about 350 combined pounds of stench), I longed for the cute, clean cuddley companionship of my wonderful cats. Dogs = dependency, like caring for infants. Cats = partnership, like a healthy, happy marriage. Dog people, apparently, crave dependency. They need to be needed. Cat people, on the other paw, are independent, cooperative, highly attractive and of a superior intelligence.

Of course, that's just a theory. I could be wrong.

Our second week of break was spent in Florida, visiting my first husband's parents. They do not have dogs. The weather was lovely. I jogged every single day, the kids swam and chased lizards.

We're home now, with the darling kitties, and Steve, my husband, who'd been on tour, on and off, for the last six weeks. He'd spend a grand total of six day in Brooklyn since February—including a few days the girls and I were in New Jersey and Steve stayed home with the cats.

I'm sure some people (I know) would be thrilled to get rid of their spouses for a month. I hated being apart. I curse Steve's opera company for lining up all those paying gigs. I spit on Wisconsin and South Carolina for taking him away from me. Incredibly, Steve has more shows to do in April and May, including trips to California and Virginia. Don't Gilbert and Sullivan fans realize there's a recession on? Why are they buying tickets? Oh, well. It makes Steve happy to sing, dance, mince and gambol on stage in wig and a costume. Can't say I blame him.

Breaking Biz Update! I have a new book deal! Yippee! It's another self-help cum memoir for St. Martin's, called "It's Hard Not To Hate You." The basic idea: unleash the power of negative thinking by embracing your inner Hater. Otherwise, the can of worms inside will stay locked there forever. You've got to open the can, pore that shit OUT. We've been spoon-fed positivity to the point of projectile vomiting by now, haven't we? Women have to think and feel their a full range of emotion—for the sake of our psychic and physical health. "Everything nice," we're not. Let's stop forcing ourselves to pretend otherwise.

I was inspired to write about the power of negativity by some of the material in TITNH, in particular, the junior high years chapter. I'd willfully suppressed those memories for decades. When I uncorked them, I felt a surge of energy and happiness. Instead of feeling shame about my experiences or guilt (for any number of reasons), I reveled in righteous anger. Let me tell you: reveling in anger is a hell of lot better than drowning in shame and guilt.

Anyway, I'll get started in May. A zippy book about female emotions, power, redemption and moving from point A to point ARRRRH. Can't wait.

In other book news: I can't say for sure until the deal is done, but I will most likely be taking on another co-author writing gig this year. A novel. It'll be a total ghost job (no shared cover credit), conceived by two very interesting women in the garment biz. I'll say more when contractually sanctioned to do so.

Last, since at least one of my five blog readers has asked, my new novel is DONE. Just yesterday, I sent it to my pal Dana Isaacson, the brilliant editor who worked on my mystery series a million years ago. It was his broad-strokes concept, which he kindly asked me to flesh out. He'll spare no feelings at all when he give me the verdict. I think the book is pretty damn good, but I would say that, wouldn't I?

Hamm lovers, here's chunk to chew while you wait for Mad Men season three. Tina Fey said he "looks like a cartoon pilot." She might be the funniest woman alive.

Check this out! My first boyfriend Eric Lebersfeld (sixth grade) posted this movie from 1976 on youtube. I'm in it a lot. Kind of camera piggy, actually. My camera shyness hadn't yet been established. What's fascinating, for me anyway, is how not fat I am in the videos. Sixth grade, as fans of TITNH know, was the year of my first diet. I'm not sure of the timing, but considering my size, I'd say the movies were shot post-first-diet, or pre-second-diet. Hard to tell. I gained back all the weight I dropped almost immediately anyway, so it doesn't really matter. The point: I wasn't fat, and if I hadn't started dieting at age 11, I wouldn't've struggled with weight control and bad body image for the next thirty years. Thanks, Eric, for sending! Also, I look just like Lucy. Freaky!

Sorry so lame. Really. I have only one excuse: I was told (by someone who loves me) to finish my new novel by April 1st, or else. I've been a crazed, writing fiend. Reminds me of last year around this time, when I was Joaning. Anyhoo, I saw this vid and had to share. All of my five blog readers are fans of Mad Men, and most are Hebes (except for Daryl Chen, an honorary Hebe, and half of Laura Lippman). So, blog faithful (hi, Mom and Dad!), this ones's for Jew.

Not to sound like a drooling teenager, but the Killers show was AWESOME! Maggie and I screamed, danced, sang along to every song (yes, we are true fans), and wrung every last fabulous drop of fun out of the 90-minute set. Maggie is a damned lucky kid to have seen her favorite band, in their prime, playing their best tunes. Brandon Flowers is adorable! What a cute little tush he's got. The downside of all that excitement: Two days later, the songs will NOT leave my head. I've lost sleep, replaying the concert over and over again. To quote "This Is Your Life," an excellent song on the new album (which they performed), "This feeling won't GO."

On other news, Tulip the cat is on special allergy food, as of this weekend. After extensive testing to determine the cause of her sudden weight loss, we learned she has inflammatory bowel disease (!). Her new diet? She dines on venison, duck and lamb. The other cats? They'll continue to chow low-rent chicken, beef and fish. Greedy bastards, they all clamor to steal sickly Tulip's cuisine. We've had to fight them back with sticks (not really). I do like to kick them away with my bare feet. They're furry.

I'm doing my pal Jane Greer's radio show today to talk about body image. Last night, I went to the book club of 8th grade moms, all of whom I've known for years, to talk about TITNH. A hearty thanks to Lynn Douglas, for hosting and being such a great supporter. Lynn also hosted a teen book club for her daughter when Fringe Girl came out years ago. You are amazing, Lynn! And your house is breathtaking.

Pre-inaugural thoughts while I watch Stephen King's The Stand on the Chiller Channel:

1. I have a GREAT idea for a "shovel-ready" infrastructure project that would be a fantastic symbol for Obama's administration's accomplishment. How about filling in the giant hole in the ground on the southern tip of Manhattan? It's been eight years, and Ground Zero is still a ghastly scar on the face of this city. I went down to the World Financial Center last week to buy Craigslist Killers tix from a lovely woman who (incredibly) still has a job at Merrill Lynch. A half an hour in that part of town was enough to depress the hell out of me. How that woman can stand it, day-in-day-out, I have no idea. My message to you, Mr. President: If you do nothing else, get the friggin' Freedom Tower built.

2. My kids' school has made arrangements to put large screen TVs in the auditorium and theater, so that every student from 4th grade through 12th, can watch the inauguration in real time. I have to send them to school with bag lunches, so they won't miss a minute going to the cafeteria. Isn't that awesome? I love this school! They sure didn't do this for BUSH. I'm telling you, Brooklyn Heights is so blue, it's almost black. Actually, tomorrow, we're all black.

3. As I mentioned before, I am in possession of 2 (two) tickets to see the Killers, my favorite band right now (forgive me, Jeff Tweedy!) at MSG. Maggie is also a huge fan, maybe even more than I am. We're going together. A mother-daughter slice of rock & roll heaven. In our nose-bleed seats, we'll be as close to heaven you can get in the Garden. If you're wondering, Are we human, or are we dancer? If I find out on Sunday night, I'll let you know. Can't wait!

4. My birthday happened last week. I'm 44. I spend the day—big excitement coming—napping, reading, accepting unconditional sexy love from my husband, and doing a bookstore reading for Paula's anthology. Steve had a cabaret gig, and couldn't come. I got my revenge by reading a section of my essay about our sex life. Ha! That'll show him! His b-day in next Friday. I'm taking him to a surprise lunch on Wednesday at the Palm Tribeca, to savor the $25 three-course restaurant week menu. (Thanks, Howie, for putting my mind on the Palm.) Steve has no idea, and since he is not one of my five blog readers, the surprise should be satisfying.

5. Lucy got me a great gift: a pair of garnet earrings ("the cheapest ones they had!") to match the necklace she gave me last year. She loves to give gifts, and I love her! Thanks, Luce! You rule. Please check out Lucy's blog (link below).

6. Workwise: I'm noveling. It's fun after (can it be?) two years of non-fiction. I should have a draft by March. New memoir proposal is in draft two. I aim to have that in decent shape in a week.

7. My appearance on the Tyra Banks Show is on Wednesday, January 21. The show is called "Bizarre Eating Habits," and I go on to say that the most bizarre and predominant eating habit in America is dieting. Check it out!

That is all for now. Tomorrow is going to be a great day, and I'm sure I'll have some remarks later. Until then!

Some Monday morning treats. Two new videos by my kids. Maggie made the first, the Mrs. Claus one. Lucy made the tribute to kitten Ed. Also, a link to the Sunday Magazine interview with Joan about the book/​plastic surgery/​Bernie Madoff.

Hello! Back from Vermont, and ready to spend my New Year's Eve like it was 1991. That was the last time I was without-a-man on Dec 31. Before anyone gets annoyed by that, let me just say that I was without-a-man for nearly every New Year's before then. I put in PLENTY of time scrounging for something/​someone to do on the big night. There was the one New Year's between Glenn and Steve, which I spend in Vermont with my parents. That was only two months after Glenn died, so no one was in a partying mood.

The plan for tonight: Steve has his usual gig at Symphony Space, which I've dutifully attended for five years in a row. This year, I am FREE to do WHATEVER I WANT! So I'm going to bar hop in the nabe with chums Ann and Nancy. We'll be a trio of hot middle-aged women, roaming the streets of Brooklyn Heights, looking for AC-TION!

Steve has no intention of meeting up with us, the lazy ass. He is highly cynical about NYE, and sees no reason to force himself to socialize after a gig just because it's a "bullshit holiday." Of course, he's right. This will be our first NYE apart since we got together. Oh, well. First time for everything.

The holidays have been fun. Lots of cooking, drinking, etc. The kids are in Vermont with Howie and Judy until Friday. Perhaps my excitement about tonight is a freedom high. No kids, no worries.

I read in the Post that 75% of Americas had a worse year in 2008 than 2007. I have to say, although my finances have taken a deep hit, that 2008 was, for me personally, a great year. My family was happy and healthy. I had two books come out, both of which I'm quite proud. Actually, make that three. The Joan Rivers book is officially out, as of today. I did some solid magazine work. My marriage had its ups and downs, but we're finishing the year strong. I met my work-out goal of 208 (4x/​wk). Yes, I counted. I have a work-out calendar. Maybe I did trade one obsession for another, but, as obsessions go, exercise is a lot healthier than dieting.

Let's not forget the universally exhilarating part of 2008, what made it special, one-of-a-kind, what kept us engaged and excited all year long: The historic, inspiring, thrilling and ultimately soul-healing and satisfying presidential election. New Year's 2007, who could have believed we'd be poised for the new great era in American history? Despite all the bad news of today, we DO and SHOULD have hope for our future—immediate and long term. That'll be my mindset tonight. Hope! Change! A better future.

Have a Great One, peops!

Holy Christ, it's been two weeks since I last posted! Curses, and drat, double. I've been trying to get organized in my thoughts about my new book proposal for my ed at St. Martin's. The lying-on-the-bed formulation stage is taking up quite a lot of time. More time than the sitting-at-the-desk, actually. But that's good! The more sorting out that goes on before typing, the better the proposal. And then, I find, the typing brings on better thinking. The mental work has to be done, no matter where it happens.

I never got to make the turducken, I'm sad to say. That weekend got eaten up with kids' activities and sleepovers. No time to shop, let alone STUFF and roast. I plan on making my cherry popping turducken on Xmas eve for my sister and her fam. I hope it works! On the actual Xmas day, Steve and I are taking the girls to Peter Lugar's steakhouse in Williamsburg. It's a once a year delicacy. Cash only. Yum.

But in the meantime, Thanksgiving in Maine. We leave tonight. Steve's mom has been sick, so we're going to be caretakers and house guests at the same time. We're bringing up two HUGE bags of clothes and toys to give to Steve's younger nieces, including the newest Quint, Macy, a baby Nancy and Kelly just adopted from Vietnam. She's been an American for less than a month now, and will be pleased (or confused) by Lucy's gift of about thirty old Barbies, many with missing limbs and asymmetrical hair cuts, that is, if they still have heads.

We'll be boarding Ollie (bad cat) for the first time this week. The other three cats can be relied on to use the Cat Genies in our absence. Ollie? Not so much. He get upset to be left alone, and then takes his revenge on our rugs. I didn't spend four hours, hunting through hundreds of rugs at ABC Carpet's clearance sale so that my cat could, in a fit of spite, shit all over them when I wasn't looking. So. He will be taken to a pet "resort" called Woofs & Whiskers, over by the Fairway, and spend a relaxing several days in his own little "apartment." I just hope he doesn't hate me too much when we pick him up.

General note to all of you who have send me emails about TITNH: Thanks you so so sososososo much for taking the time to write. I still hope to send personal responses to everyone, but I've been kinda of amazed by the volume and can't catch up in my correspondence. I am reading every word of every letter (including the bitchy ones; you know who you are!) and I love them all! This holiday, I'll be giving thanks to all the woman who have written to me, thereby validating my work and ideas. There's no deeper gratification for me than knowing I've made a positive impact on your lives!

HAPPY Thanksgiving!

We voted. District 108, Brooklyn, New York. The lines for our neighboring districts were about 30 to 60 minutes, but 108 was free and clear. We walked right up. Maggie went into the booth with me, and we pulled the lever together. A historic moment. Lucy went in with Steve, and he let her pulled the lever all by herself. In the primary, Maggie and Lucy got to vote for an amazing woman. In the election, they voted for an inspirational (not white) man. These girls are so fortunate to be old enough to remember this moment, and to register the seismic transitional shift away from the past into the future. This election is all about them, and they know it.

At Obama rallies, we get Bill Clinton.
At McCain rallies, we get . . . Joe the Plumber?

A good idea (you read it here first): William Jefferson Clinton, Secretary of State.

I've received many fantastic emails from TITNH readers. Got one today that perplexed me. The fan said she enjoyed the book, and, BTW, voted Republican. Attn: Republican readers. I have always said that bad body image is nonpartisan. Chronic dieting isn't red or blue. It's bleak! From coast to coast! Just because I think Sarah Palin is a vapid meglomanic and a disgrace to women everywhere doesn't mean that her sympathizers have healthy body images. I'm sure they don't! I welcome readers from all political stripe. Bring on the Republicans. The Libertarians. Even (yes) the SOCIALISTS! If we, as women, can unify under our common hatred of bad body image, we'll be stronger for it!

Just wanted to clear that up...

Okay, very much looking forward to Tuesday, and the end of this all consuming election. I'll be able to focus on more important things, like my slavish worship and lust for Daniel Craig! I am drooling in anticipation for the next Bond, despite the kooky title. I have always thought Steve looks a lot like Daniel. See for yourself.

A couple of things:

1. The $150,000 Sarah Palin wardrobe scandal. Isn't this the ultimate (meaning LAST) clue that Ms. Palin was always along for the ride, that she never really thought she had a shot in hell of winning, that she figured, "Might as well milk these suckers for every last drop of fame and CLOTHES I can get." I mean, Anna Wintour's annual clothing budget is only $40,000! Pay-lin has taken advantage of the Republican Party—and taken them to the cleaners! I wonder if she'll submit her dry cleaning bill as a campaign expense. It's probably the same amount as the annual income of "pro-America" small town folk. I wonder how all those plumbers will react to her seven-week spending spree. Somehow I doubt her red leather jacket and knee-high boots were what they had in mind when they donated their hard earned cash to the campaign. The McCain people are saying her "strategic" wardrobe decisions are besides the point. But this flagrant indulgence is EXACTLY the point. Does she support reform, or retail? Ms. Pay-lin's judgment is no better than Blinky McCain's. Is this how she demonstrates her Alaskan values? Nieman-Marcus? Louis Vuitton? Couldn't she go to the frigging Gap?

I tell you, it's just too easy to ridicule this woman. Like shooting wolves from a helicopter.

2. I like this vid comp, of fake McCain ads in the style of famous directors. The John Woo drags, but I love the Kevin Smith, and especially the Wes Anderson.

Quick post re: the vp debate. Maggie and I counted how many times Palin said "nucular." TEN TIMES. How many times did she wink and say "maverick?" EIGHT TIMES. She's like a wind up doll. Pull a string and she spews "maverick. . . Wall Street greed . . . tax cuts . . ." Biden was masterful, on the other hand. He sounded like a populist, but a super smart, informed one.

More reactions tomorrow.

I haven't posted since before the debate (and you better believe I'll post after tomorrow night's Palin pile-up), and so much has happened. I know, understatement of the year. Barack is now safely ahead in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, so we can all breathe a big sigh of relief. That is, when we're not fretting about the Dow. I have to say, these are difficult times to be a freelance writer. I cannot stop reading the blogs and news updates! It's a fever! A sickness! News junkyitis. If I could tear myself away for, like, an hour, I might be able to get some work done. Er, Good Housekeeping? My article is going to be a little bit late...

"Thin Is the New Happy" or TITNH (pronounced "tit 'n' heysh") has enjoyed a lot of attention this week thanks to an item on Page Six in the NYPost (the hed: "Mag Editor Dopes to Stay Thin"), about my first two years at Mademoiselle in the early 1990s. Ancient history to some; breaking news to others. The Page Six nugget has been recycled on dozens of websites, including HuffPo, New York mag's The Cut, and jossip. Proof of how far Page Six reaches: I got an email today from a reporter in CHILE, asking me to comment.

Naturally, since we're talking about trickle-down coverage of an item on a tabloid gossip page, the point I was trying to make in the book was completely lost on those who regurgitated the Page Six material (but didn't, natch, read the book). Not to say I haven't enjoyed the attention. I so have! I figure, people might buy the book looking for a Devil Wears Prada-ish expose on fashion mags—and they'll get some of that, but a lot more, too, which they'll be pleasantly surprised by.

Greetings to all who are here because of Page Six and other gossip outlets! Yes, I did snort coke and smoke cigarettes in 1991 in order to stay thin. I admit it!

Also, greetings to visitors who saw me on CBS's "The Insider" tonight. I hope it went well. I missed it (they told me the segment would appear on Entertainment Tonight; I was confused; Steve is furious because he sent an email telling his peops to watch ET; oops). Please email me and let me know if I embarrassed myself. My friend Nancy says I didn't. But I'm suppose to take her word for it???

This week has also brought other endorsements from people who have read the whole book, not only the juicy parts about sex and drugs. Some links below.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Thanks a mil to all the people who came to my reading on Monday! It was about as much fun as I've ever had with my hair blown dry. So many great surprises: my psychic friend Mary T. Browne showed up and predicted big things for the book. Mary, I love your bag/​shoe combo! My old friend Bonnie came by, and laughed in the back row. Judy McGuire came—AND SO DID HER FATHER and step-mother! That was super cool. Perhaps the most shocking thing about the event: I didn't know some of the people! Yes, some bona fide, actual fans took time out of their evening to listen to me read. Incredible. Anyway, I told Maggie I'd buy her boots if she converted the recording of the reading into an actual movie for youtube. I'll embed when that happens.

More fun TITNH news:

1. The New York Daily News named Thin Is the New Happy their Thersday section must-have book of the week! Here's the reviews:

"Valerie Frankel is a prolific writer who lives in Brooklyn Heights, is in a loving marriage and has two lovely daughters. But she also had an issue that chased her throughout her life: her stomach.

She was 11, living in Short Hills, N.J., when her fat-phobic mother forced her on the scales and then burst into tears when it registered 100 pounds. The family was going on a Club Med vacation, and her mother wasn't about to be embarrassed by a chubby daughter in a two-piece.

So a six-week diet was instituted, and at the end there were tears again. Valerie was down to only 88 pounds.

After the trip, she starting eating again, gained some weight and figured it out pretty quickly. "I could have food. Or I could have approval. I couldn't have both."

That's when she became a diet addict. "I'm not an emotional eater, per se. I'm an emotional dieter."

In the end, every diet took her further from her goal weight (at 5-feet-5, she was aiming for 135 pounds). She realized that she would be dieting until she was too old to feed herself. Even when her beloved husband was dying of lung cancer and she was awash in fear and sorrow, she took "supreme joy" at the weight she was losing.

She festered for five years until a lovely man, who would later become her second husband, told her "I adore every inch of your body. And it would be even better if you could get rid of the stomach."

In her early 40s, Valerie decided it was time to go cold turkey on dieting. She took unusual steps to exercise her malevolent body image. For instance, she posed nude for Self, the magazine where she worked. And, yes, she had a little talk with her mother.

Valerie reports that as a committed nondieter, she has come down two dress sizes and continues to eat well and exercise for the right reasons.

Or, as she puts it: "You have to love your body as a living organism, not hate it as a flawed decorative statue."

She really does have a point."—Sherryl Connelly

Thank you, Sherryl! I love the review so much, I won't quibble about being called "prolific." (aka, sausage maker).

2. Even more exciting, I got covered by the Brooklyn Heights Blog! Yippee! See link below.

For those of you who are just tuning in, recently, I was called a "potty mouthed narcissist" by Pamela Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. For any number of reasons, the phrase made me think (fondly) of memoirist Jen Lancaster. I told her as much in an email. She wrote back: "Seriously? I'd probably put that blurb on the cover." Jen's book "Such a Pretty Fat" is a hoot, BTW. Highly recommended.

Last, I am finally on facebook, which my daughter tells me is so much cooler than myspace.

More attention for Thin Is the New Happy, this time from the NY TIMES! My memoir is featured in the ever-popular Sunday Styles section, in the "Books of Style" column. Here's a bit of it:

"For the novelist and writer Valerie Frankel, thinness originated as her mother’s obsession, not hers. As a plumpish child in Short Hills, N. J., Ms. Frankel was badgered by her mother to lose weight and bullied with cries of “Put down that Twinkie” and “Give me that Ring Ding,” while her skinny sister and brother snacked to their hearts’ content.

Children at school showed even less mercy, oinking and mooing at her in the hallway.

At age 11, she was put on a diet, and she remained on one diet or another for the next 30 years.

In her memoir, “Thin Is the New Happy,” she writes: “I could have food. Or I could have approval. I couldn’t have both.”

The rueful, zestful, surprisingly funny story of Ms. Frankel’s battle reads like a sequel to the adventures of the chubby heroine of Judy Blume’s young-adult novel “Blubber.” Ms. Frankel openly shares her adolescent rebellions, her confidence-building sexual escapades and her career at Mademoiselle, where she was “the biggest girl in the articles department” at Size 8. “The Devil Eats Nada?” she asks.

Her colleagues had a smorgasbord of eating disorders: one ate only a bunch of grapes and six jelly beans each day; another dosed herself on laxative teas; another “had full-blown anorexia” (and wrote about it in the magazine); still another was “a full-blown binger” (and wrote about it in the magazine). Ms. Frankel writes, “I thought, ‘If only I could have full-blown anorexia for, like, a month.’ ”

Despite the humor she brings to her struggle, Ms. Frankel doesn’t make light of the weight fixation that plagues so many lives.

While writing this memoir, she confronted her mother and asked if she was sorry she had criticized her so relentlessly as a child. Her mother responded that she herself had been treated much more cruelly by her own mother.

But she also said that if she had it to do over, she would have acted just the same. “Relentlessness is a part of my personality,” her mother said. “I wanted you to be thin — I fought for it — because I loved you.”

Ms. Frankel has accepted her mother’s limitations, understanding that she was helpless to change them. “We’re bonded like war buddies,” she writes. It’s a war, she adds, that the combatants wage upon themselves, to fight the menace of becoming “one of those happy, self-accepting fat people.”

Ms. Frankel has gained the insight to see that “putting ‘cupcake’ in the same category as ‘Osama bin Laden’ is just wrong.” But that doesn’t mean she’s going to eat one unadvisedly."—Liesl Schillinger

Thank you, Liesl! Wow! Comparing me to Judy Blume! How 'bout that? No higher compliment, as far as I'm concerned (and I don't say that only because Ms. Blume is like a God in our native state of New Jersey). This represents my first ever NYT review, after nineteen books. I love "rueful, zestful and surprisingly funny." Paging St. Martin's: I think we have a new blurb for the paperback edition!

Gentle reminder about that Tribeca B&N reading on MONDAY night. Here's the info again.

Monday, September 15th, 7:00 PM
Barnes & Noble Booksellers - Tribeca
97 Warren Street
New York, NY 10007
212-587-5389

UPDATE: This just in from the Star Tribune of Minneapolis St.-Paul.

"Instead of insight or satire, we get potty-mouthed narcissism, confusing narratives that fly back and forth in time, a weird lack of emotion (or maybe simply the inability to convey it), no mention of anything truly important related to obesity and eating disorders in modern America, and no sense of irony that someone might spend every waking moment obsessed with gaining a pound or two as much of the world goes hungry. We'll pass on this dry dish."—Pamela Miller

Well! Wasn't Minneapolis where the Republican National Convention was held?? Yeah, not my peops (not counting Laura Billings and Nick Coleman! You guys are the coolest!). For years, I'd tried to come up with a cute epithet for myself, and now I've finally got one. Henceforth, please address all emails to me "Dear Potty-Mouthed Narcissist." Thank you, Pamela Miller!

What a week! A review in People, and then an A- review in Entertainment Weekly. Here's the gist:

"Considering her mother screamed and even cried when her daughter overate, it's no wonder Frankel struggle for decades with various body-image issues. But to her credit, this memoir is not an indictment of her mother nor a gushfest on learning to love one's belly bulge. Rather, it's a gritty, funny tale about one woman's quest to jettison a lifetime's worth of hang-ups, not to mention a closet full of Old Navy duds. A-"—Jessica Shaw

Thank you a million times, Jessica! A blessing on your head and the heads of everyone you know! This review, I feel, totally gets the concept of the memoir. I love the "not a gushfest." Anyone who knows my stuff can tell you: I don't do gushfest. Unless it's about Wilco, Johnny Depp or Ryan Adams.

My thought are drifting to my e-friend Meg Cabot lately. She lives in the Florida Keys, and is bracing for one or another hurricane every day. I have little doubt that it would take more than a hurricane to stop Meg for even an hour. Hope you're staying dry, Meg!

ANNOUNCEMENT: I have an appearance coming up. And, no, it's not me doing Q&A in the produce aisle at Fairway. I'm reading at the Tribeca Barnes & Noble on September 15, that's next Monday at 7 PM.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Tribeca
97 Warren Street
New York, NY 10007
212-587-5389
I will read. I will wear a nice dress. I think I'll bring some individually wrapped packages of chips and mini cans of diet Coke. Maybe Pez dispensers. If you have any interest in attending, I beg you, PLEASE DO! Events can be hideous if no one shows up. A damn good waste of makeup and hours of anxiety. Not that the anxiety is lessened by having a lot of people. Not that I would know...

So, yeah, Tribeca BN. 7 PM.

The People magazine review is out. Three stars, peops.

The blurbable line: "Funny and brutally frank ('the smaller my pants, the bigger the number of men who got into them'), she depicts a life defined by by the scale—until she embarks on the Not-Diet: eating what she wants (in moderation), exercising and silencing her inner critic. A satisfying account of the long road to self-acceptance."—Rennie Dyball

A blessing on your head, Rennie Dyball! And a million thanks.

Since the People mention, a horde of new readers have swung by. Greetings first-time visitors! My usual crowd of blog readers (all five of them) know to expect a lot of cursing and offensive language here. Just sending up a gentle warning. You can read with one hand over your eyes if needed.

Here's the complete Kirkus review:

"Novelist and self-help journalist Frankel (I Take This Man, 2007, etc.) chronicles her 30-year addiction to dieting and subsequent "journey out of the waistland."After trying 150 different diets, the author made a pact with herself to go on a "Not Diet," a decidedly forgiving approach to eating based on the theory that she would achieve her goals via moderation and exercise, as long as it involved getting rid of the negative emotions and self-flagellation that characterized her relationship to food. With the aid of a stopwatch, she spent a day counting 263 specific instances of negative thoughts. These thoughts far exceeded those about family, sex or money (which she also tallied), which convinced her of the need for a complete overhaul. Before the Not Diet could work, however, she had to confront the sources of her negative emotions. She started with her "fatphobic" mother, followed by her bully tormentors in junior high school. She explored how a weight-obsessed culture at Mademoiselle, where she worked for years, validated and enhanced her own preoccupations. As part of her self-acceptance process, she posed nude for Self magazine and got a wardrobe makeover from friend Stacy London (of What Not to Wear fame), who helped the author make the connection between looking good and feeling good. Frankel's attempts to shift her focus toward love, personal success and even the pleasure of food prove galvanizing, and the journey is relevant and even inspiring. Infused with humor and refreshing candor, the book will resonate with anyone who's counted carbs or tried to subsist on rice cakes and grapefruit. A self-aware, witty exploration of a woman's body issues."

Thank you, anonymous reviewer! I like the moniker "self-help journalist." BTW Kirkus, in the future, please make that AWARD-WINNING self-help journalist, thank you very much. The Publisher's Weekly review, upholding a long-standing tradition, called me "prolific." Hate. It's like calling an author "sausage maker" or "she who cranks."

A quick response to the choice of Sarah Palin: The idea that this (or any) anti-choice, pro-gun, anti-enviro female thing would even TEMPT Hillary supporters to go to the dark side is risible! Laughable! Up-chuckable! We don't love Hillary because she is a woman. We love her because she is OUR VOICE! I can tell you right now that Hillary supporters do not speak Palin. Every time PAlin opens her mouth, she might as well be saying, "Vote for Barack." How do Republicans spell BACKFIRE? P-A-L-I-N.

A word to Republican book buyers: No offense! Don't let my love of Hillary sway you from reading "Thin Is the New Happy." Truly, any woman, even Sarah Palin, will enjoy and appreciate this memoir. It's decidedly non-partisan. Once, I talked about having bad sex with a Republican. But I wrote about having bad sex with Democrats, too! The book is about body image, not politics! The body politik, if I may.

So!

Happy Labor Day, peops!

Much to report.

Maggie, daughter number 1, turned 13 years old yesterday. Happy birthday, Maggie! We were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean for her day, returning to a port in Bayonne, NJ, having spent the last four days on a cruise to Bermuda. Thanks again, Maxine and Lee Rosenberg, my in-laws from my first marriage, for taking us! The trip was excellent. Much snorkeling, swimming, mouthfuls of salt water and pina coladas. The most exciting moment for me was on our afternoon of reef fishing. I caught this African pompano (twelve pounds)! Biggest catch of the day.

Re: memoir, it comes out on Sept. 2nd. Already, lots of advanced coverage, including an excerpt in Self, and a give-away contest in Complete Woman, and a nice plug in Parenting. I got a fantastic Kirkus review (first in five years). Upcoming notices have been confirmed in People (tomorrow's issue) and Entertainment Weekly (Sept 5th issue). I haven't seen the People or EW reviews yet, but St. Martin's spies tell me that they are both friendly to the book.

I'll post more tomorrow. We're only just back, and I'm v. tired.