September 29, 2005
Years ago, before I had even moved there, I went to a screening in Los Angeles. It was all very glamorous until about seven minutes into it when I realized that it was not a screening with a red carpet and the actual stars from the film, but was rather a showing of what seemed like endless raw footage for whatever suckers they could woo in from the mall. It was capped by the distribution of golf pencils (that they wanted returned) and a long questionnaire about what would someday be the film.
I think Mel Brooks had something to do with it, but certainly the highlight for me was a sketch starring Rosanna Arquette.
INT. WOMAN'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
An attractive woman answers the door and an attractive man enters. As introductions are made, it becomes clear that this is a first date.
WOMAN: Would you like a glass of wine?
MAN: Sure...
WOMAN: And can I see a credit card?
MAN: Wha..?
WOMAN: I just need to see a credit card before we go to dinner. It'll just be a moment.
MAN (confused, hands over a Visa)
WOMAN (swipes card through machine on a table in her living room. The machine prints out a sheet)
[ed. Note: The sheet and the machine were huge and clunky, by the way. This was before PCs]
WOMAN (reading): Ah. You dated Becky Holloway and after you broke up you waited less than two weeks to start dating her best friend. And you slept with Janice Moskowitz on the second date and then never called her again. I hate that.
MAN: I can explain!
WOMAN (showing him the door): I don't think this is going to work.
Then the man goes to pick up another woman at her apartment and she asks to see his credit card.
I've reflected on that scene many times since and thought how great it would be if you really could get a history of how a man treats women just by swiping a card instead of actually having to live through it yourself.
It is then with a mixture of bemusement and horror that I view Don't Date Him Girl, an online review of cheating men complete with statistics and pictures.
On the one hand, I guess a cheater gets what he deserves, but on the other, well, libel, slander and what if some woman who dated him is just angry or crazy come to mind.
Someone hilariously listed Jude Law, complete with stats that would be equally at home on the back of a headshot or a mug shot.
Age: 32
Race: White
Height: 5 ft 11 in
Weight: 190
Admitted cheater and British actor Jude Law confessed publicly to cheating on fiancee actress Sienna Miller. He was cheating with his children's nanny. Don't Date Him Girl!
---ANONYMOUS, Los Angeles, California
I guess this site truly is a public service. I'll make a note of it: Must not date millionaire European movie star who is prettier than me. Must not date millionaire European movie star who is prettier than me...
September 26, 2005
Once again my intuition (or maybe it was just denial, the voices sound so similar) steered me wrong and Rex, the most interesting character on Desperate Housewives, really is dead. I had cable hooked up last week just so I could see what turned out to be his waxy, unlifelike (obviously) face stuck on some actor in a casket. The bright spot was when The Widow Van De Kamp changed his tie in the middle of the service from that putrid orange one to the one she made her neighbor Tom hand over. That's so the kind of thing some of the women I grew up with would do. Very Ordinary People.
September 22, 2005
Whenever people hear about the Web site/book combo or what I am now referring to as That Dating Project That I'm Having Second Thoughts About, they ask the same questions: Did you meet anyone special and did the guys know you were writing about them? The answers to those questions being: Yes, by every definition including the short-bus one and sometimes, depending on my mood and how the planets were aligned that night. As my editor observed, "Telling someone you're dating that you're writing about them is a metaphor for what you're willing to expose of yourself in a relationship." Like any hideous secret whose reveal would ensure that no one would ever love you again, things like My Project would probably best be shared with only priests, rabbis and whichever low-level attorney is assigned by the DA's office, but hindsight's 20/20 and all that.
Perhaps it's a function of their creativity, but when I was working on that independent film last week the people I met asked questions that were a few degrees left of mainstream.
“So what percentage of the men you dated were African American?” said one of the grips. He happened to be black, but despite a hairstyle that defied gravity and a wide, flat nose, consistently reminded me of Brad Pitt because of his blue eyes.
“None?” I answered as I helped him transform the bright afternoon sun into a night scene by taping layers of gray transparency over the windows. A single bright light outside would stand in for the moon. He told me the tape should rip off as easily as worn cloth, but my hands were moist and it was staining my fingers black.
“Well what percentage of the men you dated were Asian?” he said.
The truth is that I couldn't tell him without checking my little black book, which is in reality a little white book with an Easter-grass cover.
“Look, it wasn't supposed to be a study in ethnology, I just went out with whoever asked.”
“It's okay,” he said. “My last twenty girlfriends have all been of the same race too.”
“Yeah, I guess it's natural to gravitate toward your own race,” I said.
“I didn't mean they were my race, I meant they were the same race as each other,” he said. “White.”
We walked through the dead grass in the backyard of the house we were filming the daytime-night scene at. In a few hours we would still be there filming and it really would be night with a full harvest moon that could light a thousand film sets.
When I got home I looked through my little white book, whose name now carried a damning racial implication: seventeen pasty white guys, four Jews and one guy from Brazil who has a Middle Eastern last name. Diverse.
The next day the grip had apparently run out of unusual questions and I was back in familiar territory:
"So did the guys you wrote about know you were writing about them?"
"Sometimes."
"Well did you have them sign a release form?"
That would have been a good idea in retrospect.
September 16, 2005
I did my first acting role on Sunday -- I'm still working on the film, actually, my ride will be here in an hour. It's the most fun work I've ever done. Yesterday I played a dead body in a recording studio/torture chamber and then we filmed all day in a park with no Porta-potty. I'm thinking of giving up writing entirely.
September 11, 2005
Yesterday I was smugly and judgmentally reading other author's blogs and thinking, “She calls this a diary?” etc., when it occurred to me that at least these other people actually update theirs.
Obviously it's the four-year anniversary of 9/11. Less significantly, it is also almost four years since I moved to Seattle and three since I started the Dating Amy. I've been writing and answering questions about some of these men for three years. At least one of them has since married (no word on whether it's lasted or not). As an old college girlfriend pointed out, "...and it hasn't even started yet," referring to the book. I framed a proof of the cover and put it in my living room.
It makes me feel almost legitimate.
September 2, 2005
At the beginning of the month I always see weird things that people Google to get to my site: sex with cats, the requisite anything having to do with Kurt Cobain... but I was uncharacteristically embarrassed to see that according to my statistics, if you do an image search on "Pitt Aniston Wedding" my site is one of the first things to appear.
I'm trying not to criticize Bush as much as I have for the past however many years (my mind is a chardonnay-soaked blank I'm happy to report), but as a friend of mine remarked about his status as a man of the people when he visited Louisiana today: all he needed was a set of golf clubs.
August 31, 2005
Hey, guys. I know New Orleans is front and center right now. God, it's just devastating to hear about. You can donate money through Red Cross. I couldn't even get onto their Web site today, but it's RedCross.org.
August 23, 2005
Anyone who knows anything about my technical expertise won't be surprised to learn that until recently I've not had a computer set to where I could see background color on Web sites. I'm seeing every site I go to with a new perspective; God, DatingAmy.com is amateur-looking. Amazing that I got a book deal. Speaking of that, I got the proofs of the cover (basically a few actual-size matte postcards) and it's absolutely beautiful. The jpeg certainly doesn't do it justice. It's almost like the book is real or something.
August 22, 2005
There was a man in my life while I was writing the Web site -- he's still in my life actually -- that I was absolutely obsessed with. He was overshadowing all the dates so my editor and I talked about it and I just deleted all references to him.
That man is George Bush, Jr.
We want the book to seem more timeless, so I took out all mention of the war in Iraq, but with Bush's plan to stay there at least four more years... Dating Amy would have to do pretty well to outlast it.
And my obsession continues.
August 17, 2005
From Associated Press today: Yadda yadda, they haven't found the Great American Novel this year yadda, "You could say that a great blogger is like an excellent guitar player, but the book is like playing piano. Bloggers have a head start because they know music, but they still have to make the adjustment."
This is a really good point, turning a Web site into a book is a bitch because your debut novel is basically an adaptation from another medium. I'm sure there's not a dry eye out there for me.
August 16, 2005
I wrote about my date and I just can't bring myself to put it on the Internet. I seem to be getting discreet. What a shocking development.
August 15, 2005
I'm going to throw you guys a heart-shaped cookie with pink icing later... a rare date report.
August 10, 2005
How much am I loving being able to update the site again? One of my girlfriends told me yesterday that I'm too nice to men. I know, I couldn't believe it either. I'll put it in context after I self-indulge by answering my personal email on the site to save time and typing.
Ron -- I don't know about Santa Barbara. I'm guessing no, but let me think on it and check my calendar.
Cole -- Hi hi hi! Oh, I feel ya babe. I will write when I am more articulate (2007 perhaps?)
Everyone who gave me their info for the media list -- Thanks so much. I've got a call in to my editor about when the advance review copies of the book (ARCs to those of us in the know) will be out, but I'm thinking December?
Chad -- Gee, I'm all about the Desperate Housewives vibe, but can't I be Teri Hatcher?
So anyway, I was talking to a girlfriend yesterday.
She: So are you dating anyone now?
Me: A couple of people are asking me out. I have these little tadpoles swimming after me. I think 25 is just too young, but maybe they're older than they look? I feel bad saying no. They're so young and inexperienced I don't want to hurt their feelings.
She: You're not going to. Don't worry about it, they're men. You're too nice to men.
Me: Really?
She: Of course. They're fine. And I think tadpoles crawl not swim.
Me: There's this other guy. He's like... you know the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine tells the NBC executive that she might be interested in him "if you worked for, I don't know... Greenpeace of something," so he joins Greenpeace?
She: Russell...
Me: Dalrymple, yeah! Anyway, there's this other guy who called me last week. Every six-months-to-a-year he calls and he's totally revamped his life. I've stopped seeing him two or three times and he keeps coming back with a new job or a new wardrobe. Last time it was that he had become a Buddhist because he knows that's the closest thing to a religious leaning I have. Dude, it's not your hairstyle or your neighborhood. I should call him back though...
She: Don't be too nice, it's like leading him on.
Me: I'm hoping that in another year he'll have acquired such a high level of abs tightness, equity and spiritual fulfillment that he'll realize he can get someone ten times hotter than me.
August 8, 2005
I couldn't believe it yesterday when I heard that Peter Jennings had died. He was one of my top five favorite people in the world (that I haven't met) and bears the distinction of being not only an international news icon whose career spanned five decades, but the very first "Guy I'd Date in a Minute if I Could" for DatingAmy. I remember because a long-time, absolutely darling ex of mine wrote to me the next day and said "Peter Jennings, really? Is it the accent?" No Sweetie, it's not the accent. Normally I do an In Memoriam even if I don't care that much about the person, but I actually feel too bad in this case.
This summer just keeps getting better and better. Is it Labor Day yet?
August 6, 2005
I wish I could live down the whole Internet panhandler thing. It's so 2002. NBC aired an old cyberbegging interview of mine on the Fourth of July and I got a death threat. And it was from someone local. It's not so surprising or upsetting that someone wants to see me dead, but jeez, my hair looked so bad then. I wasn't straightening it yet and I prefer that the media let that part of my past die, much like Mike [last name withheld] wishes I would.
August 4, 2005
I finished the book! Again. I keep saying I'm done but it's because I keep thinking I am, then there are more revisions...
People constantly ask me if I still see any of The Dates. The short answer is yes, yes I do. Nary a week goes by that I don't hear from at least one of The Dates or his lawyer. The most recent event is that one of the guys is putting me in a movie he's making. Apparently there is pay and everything. I'm already practicing my lines: "Why does my co-star have a bigger trailer!" and "Why isn't there mayo on this, you craft-service idiot!"
July 20, 2005
I haven't been completely blowing you off, my hard drive crashed and it's been a total nightmare retrieving everything. I loved it when people said, "But your hard drive was backed up, right?" Yeah, my hard drive was carefully backed up, that's why my skin turned chartreuse when Dell told me my data -- the book, the Web site, all my unpublished short stories (they're not that good) -- was gone. Anyway, some gurus out by Microsoft recovered everything for $65 and here I am.
June 25, 2005
I'm typing this at my school-bus yellow kitchen table in Seattle. I haven't been here for a million years. Warner gave me my official release date for the book: June of 2006. I'm pleased about the book, my mom is doing well and I'm so glad to be home. Gray skies have never looked so good.
In the past few weeks, for no apparent reason, I've been hearing from some of the first readers of my site. Of course I remember you -- I had like four readers at that time. I can only assume it's some sort of cosmic full-circle thing having to do with the completion of the book. Por vous, the cover...
June 23, 2005
I'm sorry for the lack of updates. Thank you so much for the well-wishes, those who wrote. My mom is okay. I keep trying to use her phone line to get on the internet and of course people keep bumping me off by calling. In the past two weeks I've learned 1) which way a bed pan is supposed to face 2) how to dress a really big wound and 3) that Walleye with hazelnut crust is maybe the best fish dish ever. This has been the most stressful few weeks of my life. I had a dream last night that it was the Apocalypse and that guys were using it to score. "I guess if you really want to sleep alone knowing there are roving bands of thugs who'll do anything to harness windmills (wind power was the currency in my dream), I don't have to come over. I was just thinking of your safety..." Finally, I got the cover for my book. Oh my God. It's pretty unbelievable. I'll put it up when I get the final approval from my publisher.
June 17, 2005
I thought that when I finished my book that I'd take my advance money, pay off a few bills and go on a short vacation. I had a vision of frolicking on a beach and sipping a rum drink or frolicking in Vancouver and sipping absinthe… going someplace that involves frolicking and sipping anyway. Instead I finished my book and got a message from my sister that my mom suddenly became gravely ill and that I had to come back to the Midwest immediately. I never got even part of my advance so I'm beyond flat broke and couldn't afford a last-minute plane ticket. I took this guitar and pawned it downtown for the money to fly home to see my mother in the hospital (the pawn shop guy made me play the guitar for him because he didn't believe it was actually mine), so I put the money in my bank account and they wouldn't let me access it because I was overdrawn, although they assured me that wouldn't happen because I have overdraft protection.
While my cell phone rang off the hook with news of my mother's worsening condition, I went back to the pawn shop to sell enough things to buy a plane ticket. As I was boarding the plane I got hauled aside as a security risk (one-way ticket) and was told to go to some little room downstairs, where I had another pawn-shop-performance-level humiliation as I got frisked and wanded. I was falling apart, not because I mind some woman I don't even know checking between my legs with a metal implement to see if I'm hoarding anything in my hoo-ha, but because the plane was leaving and I didn't have time to frolic with the security people. For once coming off as an hysterical scatterbrain worked in my favor: I couldn't answer even the simplest questions and it was obvious at that point I couldn't have taken control of a coffeemaker, much less a 757, so they didn't keep me and I made it onto the plane...
June 2, 2005
My book is done, my book is done! I get my life back! Until revisions!
It can't really be over
May 24, 2005
So, yeah, they killed off Rex, my favorite character from Desperate Housewives. Since I've been writing my book I really notice how other people write. Interesting choice to kill off the most compelling character on the series, yet to keep Lynette's husband Tom and Gardener John around -- I almost fell asleep just typing that sentence. Those guys are like the bland leading the bland. Summer's almost here, would you like a blanded margarita? I'm thinking of getting some bland highlights in my hair.
I even watched Steven Culp on Good Morning America (which I never watch because I think it's beyond depressing to have the TV on during the day. A girlfriend of mine once said that if she ever went to a bar by herself it would be the day before they find her hanging from the shower rod. That's how I feel about daytime television.) looking for clues but he just made jokes and was unbelievably gorgeous. I was thinking, "Have you ever seen an actor not talk about his next project on national television?" so I thought it might be a ray of hope that Rex isn't really dead, but another thing I've learned from writing a book is that there can be contractual restrictions on the timing of the press you do, so who the hell knows. Anyway, DH is running out of husbands to put the wives in housewives. They're like Desperate Singlechicks. Speaking of desperate singlechicks (thought clearly not desperate enough to watch daytime TV), my book is going to be finished a week from tomorrow! When I come out of my coma I'm going to learn how to cook and golf.
May 13, 2005
Ever since 9/11 I've had a terrible fear of fires where I never did before. I live on the top story of my building and tell myself that if there's a fire I'll just jump out a window. My friends assure me that I'll break my neck and die that way. Out of the frying building and into the sidewalk. Comforting.
The other night at 2:30 in the morning I woke up totally disoriented. The fire alarm was going off. I ran out of my apartment and down the stairs in a tank top and shorts. There was no smell of smoke and no signs of flames. The other neighbors trickled out fully dressed with shoes, jackets and purses while I stood outside on the grody sidewalk in my bare feet with no bra. The fire department took a half hour to show up (we would have been burnt like toast had the fire been blazing and Seattle's not that big so they could have walked to my building in that time).
Once it became apparent that it was not indeed a 9/11-type situation but was instead a burned pizza on the second floor, I looked like an idiot for standing around on the street in my underwear. It's so hard to know what to do in a split second, though. The clash between social boundaries and the primal urge to fight or flight is extraordinary. Should you care what people think or should you run for your life?
In September 2001 there were announcements over the intercom that the people in the second tower should just stay at their desks while the building next to them was in flames from a jet crash. I told people that I wouldn't have listened, but would have taken an elevator to the safety of the ground no matter what any authority figures thought.
In my own, smaller situation I just crossed my arms over my chest since I was the only woman from my building not wearing a bra in front of eight fireman.
May 12, 2005
Here's an article about the imprint my book is going to be on. While I agree about the Manolos comment (unless they are used and from Value Village), it's kinda hard to spin Dating Amy as something that's not about not having a boyfriend, but as a wiseman once said: whatever!
Warner to Hit the Spot for Chicks with Brains
By Rachel Fishman
Warner Books is entering the chick lit market with a new imprint -- 5 Spot -- which the publisher says will have something special to help it stand out in the crowded field.
"We're smart," says Amy Einhorn, VP, executive editor and editorial director of trade paperbacks. "And I think smart does sell well." Unlike a lot of chick lit, says Einhorn, 5 Spot's books will be more than: "'I don't have a boyfriend and I need to go buy a new pair of Manolos.'"
The eight-title inaugural list will include fiction and nonfiction. The first to market will be Princess Izzy and the E Street Shuffle, a debut novel from Beverly Bartlett, coming out in September 2005.
In addition, the imprint will tackle subjects darker than those typically found in chick-lit, Einhorn says. The narrative nonfiction titles will include Miss New York Has Everything, about a daughter’s love for her father, who has died of cancer, and Revenge of the Paste-Eaters: Memoirs of a Misfit, in which a middle-aged woman copes with a breast prosthesis. But the line also includes lighter fare, such as the nonfiction title The Virgin's Guide to Everything. Fiction titles include Conversations with a Fat Girl and How to Sleep with a Movie Star.
May 2, 2005
"Do you like your new purse, sweetie?"
A couple with a little girl sat down at the table in front of me. The child had a white stuffed dog with tan spots and handles protruding from its back.
[Ed. Note: Until further notice, all my entries should be assumed to start with, "I was at the coffee shop…"]
I craned my neck to see how the dog purse worked and saw a big zipper along its spine. It was a disturbing image to me. I pictured it with a red lining and having to move aside a mock-silk spleen to find lipstick or change for the bus.
"Maybe Daddy could be a purse," the woman said. "He always has money in his pockets."
Men as purses... for some reason I don't find that image disturbing at all.
April 29, 2005
There's an old woman I see at the coffee shop in the morning. She has long gray hair and a walking stick and reads Nietzsche. I gather from her "Why is our oil under their sand?" button that we share the same political slant and I like her.
Today she introduced herself and asked my name.
"There's so much pain in the world isn't there, Amy?" she said. "When I first came in I asked that man who was sitting here if I could share his table and he immediately started with the male-female bullshit."
I was surprised as I know the man and he's always very nice. It broke my heart that he would be cruel to an elderly woman. She continued.
"He said that a beautiful woman was always welcome to join him and that it would be his pleasure to share his table with me. Can you believe he spoke to me like that? I told him just what I thought of him. He finally left, thank God."
Men.
April 27, 2005
I was writing at the coffee shop again. Writing is of course loosely defined and encompasses lots of people-watching, combing both local papers (does Seattle really need two?), catching up with all the baristas as they arrive for and leave their shifts and a good amount of daydreaming.
I was simultaneously reading about how Anna Nicole Smith has been given her own column and thinking that I'm tired of my heart being left in shards by American men (surely heartbreak is an issue of nationality) when as if to grant my yet-unformed wish, I heard an Irish brogue at the counter behind me.
I only caught snippets of what they were saying over the whir of foaming milk, but it included the words "band" and "guitars."
It was U2.
Their status as one of the most significant rock bands in history and de facto position as world peace ambassadors grants them a free pass for ordering vente mocha lattes rather than coffee, black.
April 25, 2005
Boy Abercrombie was at the coffee shop again today. There was no dispute over the door being open since all the doors and indeed the entire outside wall were thrown open. It is the edge of summer and I slathered Coppertone on my chest and hands before I left the house. The smell reminded me of the beach.
He spoke to me for the first time. I was in front of a gilded mirror drizzling honey and cream into a decaf Americano. (I can't sleep anymore thinking about the book, so I've tapered off from caffeine, hoping it will help. It hasn't. The other night I dreamed that my agent told me my book would likely sell better if I became a mermaid and could get a tropical fish to write the advice sections. I woke up exhausted and alone.)
"I see you all the time," he said.
His eyes were the color of ice water with one, two, maybe three drops of blue food coloring in it.
"I see you, too," I said.
April 21, 2005
How Not to Pick Up Women:
Method #147: I was on my way home from the gym and stopped at the grocery store to pick up some Yaki-Soba pan-fry noodles and chardonnay. I saw a man in the wine aisle puzzling over which chardonnay to buy. He selected and then put back a bottle of Beringer's Founder's Estate. I think it's a good wine and told him so. He launched into the most boring diatribe/lesson about how wine like that can't be served chilled and needs to warm up, which is quite possibly true, but hey, Johnny No-Game, just because the women in Sideways were enraptured by that kind of patter doesn't mean it works in real life.
Method #148: I was at the new library downtown. It's modeled partially after the Louvre and has wood floors with alphabet letters in them and videos running along the escalator that remind me a bit of the tunnel scene in Willy Wonka and an entire floor that's all red, plus they serve coffee. I was doing my writing there and, as one naturally would, made eye contact several times with the other people sharing my table. I did not speak and neither did they. As one man was leaving he slipped me a note.
"Lunch? James 206-555-5647" was all it said.
Another man had already taken his place across from me. "Did he just hit on you?" he asked, astonished.
"I guess so," I said. "It happens to me all the time." To my mind I was quite obviously joking.
"It happens to me sometimes to, but it's never anyone like that." I realized he was likely gay.
It's not that it's such a horrible idea as a way to get a date, but honestly, we hadn't said a word to each other. I'm a bit surprised at myself as his laptop and phone indicated that he may even have money. Still, can't put a price on good conversation.
April 17, 2005
I was at a party this weekend. Quelle surprise, because my social life and my writing so rarely involve parties. One of my girlfriends and I were talking about my book and she was giving me her opinions on publishing and I was giving my opinions on being an author and neither of us knows anything at all because she has absolutely nothing to do with publishing and I've never been an author before.
Some guy who reminded me of one of the characters from Sex and the City ("Did he remind you of Mr. Big?" a mutual guy friend of ours asked. "No, he reminded me of one of the minor players who came and went every week," I said. For the dedicated: I was thinking of Carrie's ex-boyfriend who Miranda dated and who said to Carrie, "You write a lot about sex. You sure didn't know a lot about sex when we were dating." Then Miranda realized he was an asshole and Carrie wondered if it was wrong to tell Miranda 'I toldya so.') made a beeline for my girlfriend. Their manners were similar, unfortunately.
"I don't mean to interrupt," he said, clearly and obviously interrupting. "What were you talking about?"
"We were just talking about publishing," she said.
"Do you work in publishing?" he said to her only.
"No," she made a sweeping gesture with her hand in an attempt to include me "but Amy got a book deal."
"A friend of mine got a book deal once," he answered and proceeded to talk about it.
I was completely turned off. Not because the conversation didn't focus on me or my book, but because how self-absorbed of him to talk about himself (vis a vis his lame friend story) rather than ask the obvious question "What is the book about?"
Since he wasn't even doing the courtesy eye-contact thing that one does when they're talking to more than one person, I cast my eyes downward since I had dropped not one but two quarters when I was paying for my martini and I thought I could use them in a slot machine later until my friends clued me in that slot machines take credit cards now.
The guy friend with the Mr. Big question came over and asked me about my book too.
"Wouldn't it be wild if it became a bestseller?" he said.
"Yeah, I guess even being ranked 10,000 on Amazon.com is considered successful."
"You'll be competing against Moby Dick," he said. "Amy versus Melville."
I found one of my quarters, but let the other one go and the rude guy didn't ask my girlfriend for her number.
When I got home I looked up Moby Dick on Amazon. Its sales rank is #9818.
April 15, 2005
I've been writing my book at a coffee shop, just like Jack Kerouac. While Kerouac's nemesis was The Establishment, my foe is some guy who appears to be studying for finals.
I see him every single afternoon, and today I decided to get an earlier start than my usual 2:30 pm, so I hauled my cookies and my 15-lb. laptop down to the coffee place at 7:30 am. 15 minutes later he rolled in.
He is there all the livelong day.
The problem is that he props the door open and it is so not open-door weather. It's like 45 to 52 degrees out. He doesn't even ask anyone, just expects us to adapt to his metabolism. He is younger and faster, but I am older and bitchier. (He looks like an Abercrombie & Fitch model, so it's a toss-up who's prettier. Actually he's probably better looking for a guy than I am for a woman, but even that doesn't sway me due to his status as Overlord Obnoxio of Coffeedoor Kingdom.)
I don't need a wind chill with my java, so I have to get up and pull the door shut or more likely will someone else to using telepathy. My battle strategy so far is to order more coffee than he does so that if things get really ugly the counter people will side with me.
Dude, wear a T-shirt and shorts if you're so warm, you'd look good in them and I'm not putting on more than a parka in April.
My only consolation is that I know that with all this studying he will ace his finals and not be going to summer school. Of course by then my book will be done and I won't care.
April 14, 2005
The other night I had a dream that I was literally knee deep in shit with someone I dated. I was meeting him for dinner at a restaurant and trying to scrap it off my pant legs with something and he kept assuring me it wasn't that noticeable. I looked it up and Freud says it has to do with money, which I doubt, but all the other dream analysts say it's about letting go of old feelings toward a relationship. Hmmm. And wearing them on your pants? Maybe "wearing crap on your pants" will become the new "wearing your heart on your sleeve."
April 8, 2005
From a CNN article on "How to Blog Safely (About Work and Anything Else)":
A is for Anonymous
First, the "no duh" warning: don't post any pictures, reveal your name or even confess you work for, say, an unnamed weekly newspaper in Seattle. "It's clear that you work in one of two places," cautions the guide. Posting using a pseudonym is smart but, if you think using "Leanne" when your name is Annalee is a good idea, think again.
That's exactly the kind of covert superstealth method of disguising real identities I'm using in my book. Oh well, I've got lawyers now at my publisher, an unnamed multimedia corporation that is also home to a certain duck and pig and rabbit. And CNN.
April 5, 2005
Still slaving away on my book. I hope to have some date excerpts on the site right quick. My editor Karen asked me to come up with a couple of ideas for the cover and I did. Warner had a meeting and they're actually using something I thought up, so I'm thrilled. Here's part of the first conversation about it with my editor:
Me: I want to go for outrageous and over-the-top. I want Rolling Stone and Howard Stern and Cosmopolitan to be intrigued by the cover. Let's go for lots of nudity. We can have it in a brown wrapper.
Karen: I like your ideas and I'm all for making it look provocative. We can't have it be so risqué it would need a brown bag over it as we'd have trouble getting stores like Wal-Mart to take it.
Me: I've never been in a Wal-Mart before. Are they nice?
Anyway, we did decide on a cover concept that I thought up. I'll put it up as soon as possible.
April 3, 2005
Here's a very funny link about some star-crossed lovers that someone sent to me: Brad Christensen and the Porcine Princess.
March 23, 2005
Are you dying of neglect, darlings? I'm developing a hump from being bent over my computer churning out pages for this book. Of course I still make time for the occasional cocktail soiree... a girl's gotta eat after all, and hors d'oeuvres are three of my five most important food groups.
One thing I've noticed is that at any gathering of singles on the prowl "What's your sign?" has long since been replaced with "What's your Myers-Briggs type?" Less catchy, admittedly, but more legit as it's based on Jungian research.
I gaze levelly, bite down on the cherry from my drink with my back molars and make men guess mine. No one's ever been wrong. I'm an INFP: Introverted (I know, I know), Intuitive, Feeling and Perceiving, the most beautifully exotic or f-ing weird one, depending on how you see me. The fictional heroine of Amelie is the same type as me, which cheers my heart, but then supposedly Princess Diana was too, which makes me go "meh."
You can find out your own here, sweet.
March 1, 2005
Even with writing a book, I realize my showing here has been dismal. It's just that I have to do the bare minimum when it comes to non book-writing activities.
Everyone asks me who I'm dating now. Rather they ask me how many men I'm dating now.
"It's not like I have a lineup of men trying to take me out to dinner," I snap.
"But you always did before," they respond.
I may have gotten a little hurt or at least a little burned out with this whole dating thing. For now I'd like to see myself as a sweet little kitten curled up in a ball. I will wake up and be playful to the point of annoying soon, but for now I'm asleep at home, adrift in Dreamland.
I'm occupying my time with friends, videos and books. I've done more reading since I started writing the book than I did all of last year.
I was thrilled when the darling, yet somewhat crappy, little bookstore near my house underwent a makeover fit for reality television. They got decent first-run books for one thing... and cats, to whom I sometimes stop by just to say hello. I can't actually own a cat due to the hideous curse of allergies, but I have friendships with many cats in the neighborhood. I address them as Buster, Sweetie, Guy and anything else I'd call a boyfriend, since I don't know their real names. (See, I am not sad and pathetic at all.) After greeting them I immediately go home and wash my hands... just like a boyfriend again, I guess.
I had recently been haunting the new bookstore for a half-price, hardcover copy of David Sedaris' Dress Your Family in Corduroy and snapped it up as soon as I saw it in the window. Hearing my voice as I made the purchase, my favorite cat at the store, a slim black one, jumped onto the counter and into the plastic bag holding the book.
"You can't come with me, Sweetie," I said scooping him out.
"I have to go home."<<< home >>>
