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July 20, 2006

I think it’s best if I don’t go to any more meetings. As you know, at the last one, all I did was cry. But yesterday’s meeting was even more humiliating. I didn’t cry at that one, but I did sweat. Like a man. And then I went on to call attention to it so everyone sitting there would be assured that I realize how disgusting I am.

The purpose for the meeting was to discuss my launch party for Miss Understanding, which will be at Bergdorf Goodman on October 24 and I’d be delighted if you were there. In fact, I’ll be sending you all e-vites, unless I have your address, in which case, you’ll get a real invitation. Somewhere on this website is a form for you to fill out but you can just email me.

The party will be a good one. I promise, and hopefully, if Louise Galvin, the celebrity hair colorist to whom I devoted an entire chapter of my book isn’t too pregnant, she’ll be my guest of honor. You have to see her. I won’t say anything else except movie star material.

So Louise was at the meeting, and my new HarperCollins publicist (adorable), and Louise’s team of publicists (beyond charming and gorgeous and dressed to perfection) and me. . .with the sweat rings. I don’t want to talk about it but let’s just say, I’m glad no one saw the magic marker that I noticed on the back of my pants when I got home.

Why do I go anywhere?

You’d think I would have learned my lesson from Chloe, but no. I wore white pants and a white shirt and then just sat there soaking myself.

Anyhoo, here’s what’s happening so far for the new book. Mark your calendars and I’ll have more information soon:

July 26
Hudson News Charity Event
Ovarian Cancer Research Fund
Nova’s Arc Project
Kelly Ripa is going to be there and a bunch of fashion people
Click here to view the event website.
Water Mill, NY

October 6
La Femme Film Festival
Beverly Hills, CA

November 2, 2006
Boston University
Boston, MA

July 11

Kim and I took a tour of the Jewish Home in Rockleigh yesterday. Her high school requires forty hours of Community Service so Kim is planning to sing for the residents, accompanied by her friend Matt, on piano. I decided to go with Kim and take the tour with her for moral support. It can be emotionally difficult for teenagers the first time they visit an old age home.

We got off to a slow start leaving the house and of course we were low on gas once we got started and I had to stop, which made us even more late. I went through a few red lights to compensate for our tardiness, but all that did was upset Kim and make me wish I wasn’t the one who’s always responsible for getting us places, seeing as how I’m so bad at it.

When we got to the Home, we were so late, I dropped Kim off in front and drove around to find a parking space. By the time I got into the building Kim had already been greeted by our escort, the associate director of the volunteer program.

“This is not like any other nursing home you’ll ever see, Kim,” the woman was explaining. “It’s not depressing here at all. In fact we pride ourselves on the fact that it’s so uplifting and cheerful. You’ll notice the place is immaculately maintained. We have the finest chefs and everyone here is happy and friendly. You’ll see. Many people come here expecting to feel sad and they leave wanting to come back.”

Kim was smiling and listening, casually looking around. As soon as the woman stopped talking to Kim, I introduced myself. We shook hands and she told me I had a lovely daughter. “Very mature and warm.”

“She is mature,” I thought to myself, miraculously so.

I was about to say thank you when my eyes drifted down the hall and I spotted a woman in a wheel chair waving her arms. I waved back to her. And then I immediately started crying.

Our escort put her arm around me and said, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Lessing. I understand this is very difficult for some people to see elderly people, but I assure you, everyone here is happy.”

”Call me Stephanie,” I choked.

“These residents are enjoying their stay with us. They accept their limitations and appreciate everything. They will cheer you up if you let them. Let’s look around and if you feel like crying, cry. No one is judging you here.”

“Thank you!” I said, holding on to the nearest railing. I slipped my new sunglasses out of my purse and put them on. Kim took my hand.

“It’s okay, Mommy. I’ll take care of you, but I’m just curious; why exactly are you crying?”

“I miss Grandma Rose!” I sobbed.

”But you hardly even knew her.”

”I know it seems that way, but I knew her a lot better before you were born. She used to buy my sister and I new panties every time she came to visit. She was a wonderful woman.”

”I thought you said she was a complainer.”

”That too, but she was wonderful and a complainer at the same time. I should have spent more time with her. I’m a horrible person.”

“I’m sorry, mom,” Kim said putting her arm around me. “Try to pull yourself together.”

Just then another woman wheeled by us and nodded. At the same time, two men were approaching us on walkers and another woman was close behind in some sort of motorized wheelchair with a flag.

“They can just roll around whenever they feel like it?” I asked, settling myself down by asking unnecessary questions.

“Of course. This floor is for people who are quite mentally capable. They just need assistance transporting themselves, and what not. Let me introduce you to this fine gentleman,” our escort said, walking over to a very cute old man with two canes.

“These are my new friends, Stephanie and Kim. Kim will be volunteering here. She’ll be singing for you in a few weeks. Stephanie is her mother.” As soon as he touched my hand, I started welling up again.

”Why are you crying?” the man asked me.

“I miss my gramdmother,” I said.

I saw our escort give me a look, leading me to believe that I’d perhaps said the wrong thing. But I needed to pour my heart out to him. He looked like the type of person who could really help me.

He looked at me and said, “I understand sweetheart. I miss my grandmother too.”

We hugged briefly and then the man said to Kim, “I’m looking forward to hearing you sing.” Kim smiled and we continued walking.

“We are going in the elevator now to visit the second floor,” our escort explained. The residents on this floor are not quite as self-controlled.

“Will it be scary?” I asked, bracing myself for another emotional episode.

“No, not at all. We’re going to the ‘Free Spirit’ wing.”

“And by ‘Free Spirit’ do you mean ghosts?”

The woman looked at my daughter. Kim nodded at her and put her arm around me again. I got a sick feeling that the two of them were silently plotting to leave me on the second floor.

When the elevator opened, the first thing I heard was a woman screaming, “Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me now!”

“Do you suppose they allow ‘free sex’ up here in the ‘free spirit’ wing?” I whispered to Kim.

We walked a little further and there was the screaming woman right in front of us. She was wearing lipstick and fully clothed, thank God. Our escort walked up to one of the nurse’s aids and asked her why the old woman was screaming.

“She wants her sweater,” the nurse’s aid explained.

“Why doesn’t she have her sweater?” our escort asked.

“She does have it. She’s wearing it.”

Our escort walked over to the screaming woman and said, “I will get you your sweater in five minutes. In the meantime, please meet my new friends, Stephanie and Kim.”

The woman extended her hand and Kim and I took turns shaking it. Her hands were warm and dry. The sweater was doing its job.

“Hello, dahlings,” she said. “Are you cold?”

“I’m a little cold,” I said, assuming she was interested in the truth.

“Take my sweater,” she said.

I was about to take it when Kim slapped my hand. “Tell her you have a sweater in the car, and you’re just on your way to get it now,” Kim demanded.

“Okay, fine,” I said and turned my attention to the woman with the sweater, “I appreciate your offer but I have a very heavy sweater in the car. IF I wore both sweaters, I’d probably be too hot.”

Shortly thereafter we were whisked away to another floor where our escort introduced us to about thirty more residents, all of whom were thrilled to meet Kim and me. One was happier and sweeter and friendlier than the next.

“I’m starting to love it here!” I whispered to Kim.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she whispered back.

”I’d like you to meet my new friends, Kim and Stephanie,” our escort said to a woman who seemed to be guarding the arts and crafts room. She was sitting in her wheelchair, but for some reason her arms were outstretched. I moved in for a hug. It was hard to break away but after a few minutes she let me go.

“Have you been wearing your retainer?” she yelled to Kim.

“Um, yes?” Kim, who has never had braces nor a retainer, answered.

“Good Girl!! Always wear your retainer. Of course you don’t even need it anymore do you?”

”I don’t think so,” Kim answered.

“That’s what you think!” the woman said. I looked at my daughter. She showed no signs of being confused by this woman. “She’s a natural,” I thought to myself. She’s already comfortable with this entirely new way of communicating.

“Your teeth are perfect,” I whispered to her. “That woman is crazy.”

”I realize that she’s not all there, mom.”

“I just want to make sure she didn’t hurt your feelings.”

“I don’t think that would be possible.”

We somehow managed to get passed the woman who was obsessed with teeth and the three of us sat down in the arts and crafts room to finalize Kim’s hours and to sign some forms. Kim sat like a perfect lady, explaining to the program coordinator what songs she was planning to sing and what she’ll need, and how she’d like to continue the program in the fall by getting her school a cappella group involved. The woman was beaming. My daughter is quite impressive in an interview situation. I’ve seen her in action a couple of times and she blows me away. And then the woman turned to me and asked me if I’d like to volunteer as well. I am not quite the interviewee that Kim is and that is why I started crying again when she spoke to me.

”Are you serious?” I asked. “You’d consider having me here after the way I broke down back there?”

”Yes, of course. We need compassionate people.”

”Do you have Bingo?” I asked.

“Yes, of course we do. Would you like to volunteer for Bingo night?”

”Not really,” I said. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to just go home.

“I’ll do the Bingo,” Kim said.

“Stop volunteering for everything,” I whispered to her. “You’re making me look bad.”

”Wonderful!” the woman said. “I’ll put you both down for Bingo.”

”My mom can’t do Bingo,” Kim said, coming to my rescue.

”Why not? It’s easy!” the woman said.

“She gets very emotional during games.”

“I understand,” The woman said.

On the way back to the car, I put my arm around my daughter and marveled at how mature she is, and how I want to be just like her, when I grow up.

“Can I drive home?” she asked.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

July 10

You know that hummingbird thing that happens to your eyelid every now and then while you’re just standing there talking to somebody. Well mine does that all the time now. Ever since I had the laser. I can’t even tell you how weird it is to have an eye that’s constantly trembling.

At first I thought, “Huh! That’s funny, my eye is fluttering.” But now I’m thinking that the laser damaged a muscle or something. The first couple of times it happened, I’d point it out and say, “See what’s happening to my eye?” But now I can’t even concentrate on what people are saying anymore because all I can think about is that my eyelid is about to fly away.

I’ve conducted several experiments to try to nail down what causes the involuntary one-eyed flirting, but the only thing I’ve been able to come up with is that it happens no matter what. If something crashes to the floor, my eye starts batting. If someone says something to me like, “Hi,” or if the phone rings, or a dog walks by, or the UPS man pulls up, there it goes. It’s like there’s a little micro chip in there whose job it is to alert me to any movement or sound that’s taking place in my neighborhood.

I’m not sure how long I can go on without holding up some sort of sign that says, “I’m not winking at you. My eye just won’t stop moving.”

I could always get an eye patch but then there’s always the chance that my eye will continue twitching under the patch and then the patch will start bouncing up and down and people will think I’m doing magic.

I don’t want to be the person in the room with the magic patch. I just want to go back to being a normal person with two stationary eyes.

Of course there’s always the possibility that the right pair of sunglasses will hide everything. And I did see a very cute pair in Oliver Peoples the other day.

I mean what else can I do?

July 5

I'm going to get my other eye lasered today but on a happier note, check out: www.galleycat.com today. Scroll down cause I'm last. I'll post the whole review later today, when the eyedrops wear off.

June 29

It’s very early in the morning. I might even still be sleeping. It’s hard to say because it’s very dark in here and I’m too tired to turn on the light. Today is the day I go for my eye laser surgery. The surgery that will cure me of a disease I inherited from my father. A disease which will remain unnamed because only old people get it.

I’ll let you know how it goes. . .

You know, it wasn’t that bad. It was sort of fun. I heard the laser burning its little Superman ray right through my eyeball and yet I couldn’t feel a thing. At one point I thought I might have died and was having an out of body experience, but then I realized that my other eye was still working, so I was, in fact, seeing the nurse’s shoe. It wasn’t a little ghost shoe or anything.

After the procedure was over, which took about a minute, I had the same sort of headache one gets when gorging on ice cream, which didn’t bother me at all because I’m used to that sort of thing.

When I got home, I took my eye drops inside the house and stared at them. The type of surgery I had has no impact on eyesight whatsoever, but I kept feeling as though I was seeing with some sort of superhuman vision that no one had yet discovered was a rare side effect of the surgery.

I tried to use the laser surgery on and off throughout the day for sympathy but I had already blown it by telling Dan and Kim and Jesse that it didn’t hurt.

“Can someone get me a Diet Coke, please? Because, you know, my eye and everything.”

Nothing. Not even an answer.

Later that night I decided it was probably best to keep dust out of my eye so I made a little patch out of a piece of tissue and some string, but the string wasn’t tight enough so the tissue kept falling on the floor.

“Why does the dog have a tissue in her mouth?” Kim asked.

“That’s my eye patch. It fell.”

“Mom, you don’t need an eye patch.”

”I like to keep my eye dust-free whenever I get a hole in it,” I explained.

But no one was buying that either. As a last resort I put an ice pack on my forehead and sat on the couch with my eyes closed.

“Now what are you doing?” Jesse asked.

“I’m trying to reduce the swelling.”

“Of what?”

“My cornea.”

“I’ll give you fifty bucks if you can tell me what a cornea is,” Jesse offered.

“It’s part of my eye,” I said, with my hand out.

“Not good enough,” Jesse said putting a pillow under my feet.

And then he sat next to me and put his head on my shoulder and asked me if I felt okay. I told him I was fine.

“When you go for the other eye I want to come with you,” he said.

“Me too,” Kim added from out of nowhere.

I didn’t see that coming.

June 16

I forgot to mention that David Goodwillie was there last night. First of all, have you seen him? I know I’ve told you this before, but it’s very important that you listen to me. Go to the bookstore and get, “Seemed like A Good Idea At the Time.” The book is amazing, blah, blah, blah, I laughed, I cried, but more importantly, his picture is right there on the back cover. I swear to God. It comes free with the book. And the truth is Goodwillie is so funny and so perceptive about what it means to be twenty-something in New York, “when the world was (literally) on fire,” that I almost forgot I was old.

Kate Garrick, my agent, was there as well. She’s David’s agent too and she’s another one of those people who make me want to gather all sorts of descriptive words in her honor. She is fast becoming the super, uber, it, that, the agent that everyone needs to have, but can only get if they make her laugh out loud. It’s sort of an odd criteria, but it works for her.

So striking was Kate last night, so tall, so freshly scrubbed, so leggy, so blonde, so endowed with such a great big country girl smile and such itty bitty cuffed city shorts, I had to take a double take. How did I ever come to know such a person? From a few feet away, she’s got super model written all over her, but upon closer inspection, her brain takes over and you almost forget what she looks like. Then she becomes the smart girl in the big city, who sees everything, understands everything, and doesn’t even care that she’s just standing there knocking everyone out. She’s too busy thinking.

If your job is to keep track of what’s happening in New York. Take notes. They’re it.

June 16,2006

Last night Jami Attenberg read from her new novel, “Instant Love,” at Borders (Columbus Circle) to a full house of incredibly supportive fans. She was so funny, so adorable, so wide open, and so humble as she talked about the trials and tribulations of falling in and out of love in New York that I almost raised my hand and asked if I could be her new boyfriend.

Jami, according to her blog, is going away for a very long time. I forgot to ask her where she’s going, but I know one thing, and I will tell her this before she leaves, because I can predict these things . . .  she won’t be coming home alone. Anyone who reads “Instant Love” will instantly fall madly in love with her. It’s just one of those books and she’s just one of those people who get under your skin. I foresee a very happy ending.

In other words, this time around, she’ll be beating them off . . . with a stick.

June 12

All my life I dreamed of wearing glasses. I envisioned myself taking them off and putting them back on, wiping the lenses with my shirt, one at a time, absent mindedly, while I contemplated good and evil, heaven and hell and exactly what heel height is the absolute limit for a sling back. I saw myself sticking them on top of my head and then forgetting where I put them. I especially liked to imagine myself with my glasses at the edge of my nose. For some reason, the idea of me having my nose pinched by a pair of glasses gave me great pleasure. I was so desperate at one point; I took to wearing my sunglasses while reading, to fool people. And that is perhaps how I ruined my eyes.

Finally!

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I was when I could no longer see what it said on my shampoo bottle. I looked at it for a full five minutes to make sure I couldn’t see it. I’ll never forget that day. That glorious, miraculous day when I could no longer read.

I went for my exam on a Tuesday, which was so much fun, I didn’t want to leave. As much as I wanted glasses, for some reason I forgot what I came in for and nearly pulled a facial muscle trying to see those little hieroglyphics on the bottom row. I eventually caught myself, remembering my motive, and stopped trying to hard.

And then it was time to pick out my frames!

For some reason, none of the frames at Northern Valley Eyecare looked like the ones you always see on sexy librarians who let their hair down in slow motion. They all looked liked the ones that belonged to actual librarians.

“Where’re the ones that Tina Fey wears?” I asked.

“Try these,” the woman said.

And so I did. But I didn’t look like Tina Fey. I looked like granny from the Beverly Hillbillies.

A few hours later, most all of the glasses were strewn all over the counters. People were stepping on them and salespeople were quitting. I couldn’t help myself. I knew I was being selfish but I had to find the right frames or what was the point in having glasses in the first place?

“Why not take a few pairs home and live with them for a while?” the saleswoman finally suggested.

“But none of these have any lenses,” I protested.

“Yes, but maybe you just need to get used to the frames before we go ahead and make up your prescription.”

“But everyone will know they’re not real.”

”Well, then maybe it’s time to just pick a frame and be done with it.”

She obviously had no idea about anything.

And then, out of nowhere, I found them. They were sitting right on top of the counter the whole time. I don’t know how I missed them.

I put them on and took them off in front of the mirror over and over again to make sure they were the right ones.

“What exactly are you doing?” the woman asked me.

“I’m making sure these are the right glasses. My hair has to fall in front of my face when I take them off, otherwise they’re not doing their job.”

The woman started writing up my bill immediately. She practically stuck her hands in my pocket and took out my credit card and signed the receipt.

After she came back with my card, I asked her for the glasses.

“They’ll be ready in a few days,” she said.

“A few days! But I’ve been waiting all my life for this moment.”

”I don’t know what to tell you. We all need to go home now and get some rest. They won’t be ready until Friday.”

Friday came and not a moment too soon. I woke up early and waited for the store to open.

I ran in and asked for my glasses. The woman behind the counter handed me the glasses and told me to try reading to make sure I was comfortable with the prescription.

“Oh, they’re fine. I can tell by looking at them.”

“You need to try them, Mrs. Lessing.”

Mrs. Lessing. How cool is that? The glasses were already sending the right message. A woman with glasses.

I slipped them on and began walking around the store, casually glancing at myself in every mirror, with each glance, whipping them off and slowly putting them back on. I did this for quite some time. Until I felt nauseous.

I sidled up to the saleswoman and whispered, “Something’s not right. I think I’m going to fall down.”

”Try not to look through them unless you’re reading,” the woman explained, shaking her head.

“Seriously? What good are they if I can’t walk around in them?”

”They’re only good for reading. Try them sitting down.”

”You mean I can’t wear them if I get up? What if I’m wearing a gray cardigan with a white tank top underneath? I’ll need these!”

”I’m sorry but they’re strictly for reading.”

”But nobody even sees me when I’m reading. Just forget it. I don’t even want them now.”

Somehow the woman convinced me to take them home and try them for a few days after I convinced her to make me another appointment so I could get a prescription for glasses that can be worn all the time, i.e., with cardigans.

I took them home and started reading, and surprisingly they worked beautifully so long as I didn’t lift my eyes off the page. I also figured out how to wear them around the house without feeling completely hung over.

I just close my eyes.

June 2

And speaking of Jamie Attenberg, she has a new book coming out that is a MUST READ for anyone who is a person. It’s called, “Instant Love.” Jamie is brilliant and laugh-out-loud-I-wish-she-was-my-best-friend-funny. Read her blog. I love her.

And speaking of David Goodwillie, yes, it’s true, his party was a smashing success and he looked adorable as always. People were descending upon him in droves and he never missed a beat. The guy was born to entertain both on paper and in real life. “Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time” is the novel we were celebrating and it’s definitely something to be celebrated. Buy it and read it. That’s all I’m going to say.

And don’t forget to check out his picture.

Just because I deliberately stayed home to watch Oprah one time in my entire life, one time! My kids will never let me live it down. It was the day James Frey was being hung for being a writer who made up a story (who would have ever thought) and Jesse called me to come get him at school, of all places, just when Oprah was telling James that even though he disgraced her, he still shouldn’t kill himself.

All I said was, “Can you wait like two minutes, I’m watching Oprah?” and now Jesse uses that line for everything.

“Jesse, can you come down here and clean up this mess?”

“Can you wait like two minutes, I’m watching Oprah?”

“Jesse, hurry up and get in the car; we’re going to be late for school.”

”Can you wait like two minutes, I’m watching Oprah?”

He gets a laugh every time, as well as a couple of extra minutes. Oddly enough, it’s become one of those things that started out as a joke, but now he’s actually doing it. Like when I started calling my friends, “babe,” because I thought it was hysterical, and now I always call them, “babe.”

So we’re sitting there watching Oprah the other afternoon, and one thing leads to another, and the next thing I know, we’re watching Dr. Phil. And it’s a show about Pedophiles. And I tell Jesse, “Dr Phil just said this show isn’t appropriate for children.” And Jesse says, “Mom, you can’t live your life by what Dr. Phil says. He’s practically Jerry Springer.”

“Dr. Phil is a very smart man.”

”Mom, please don’t say stuff like that. Just watch the show.”

“But Jesse. . .”

“Shhh.”

So we watched the whole show, including the part where the sicko mom, who, in the interest of protecting her kids from predators, tricked her two teenage boys by setting herself up with a bogus myspace profile, pretending her name was “Sweet Candy” just to see what her boys would do when “Sweet Candy” asked for their phone numbers.

Who wants to guess what happened next?

Right. So the mom goes on national television to embarrass the shit out of both of her sons for liking girls. True, she could have been a forty five year old man posing as a seventeen year old girl, but what kind of a mother would go out of her way to make sure her kids never trust her again? And what kind of a doctor applauds a mother for messing up her kids in front of a live audience? For the record, if any of you are contemplating having children, never, ever trick them as a means of protecting them.

About five hours after Dr. Phil ended, Jesse and I found ourselves back in front of the television. This happens sometimes, especially when it’s raining. This time we were watching “The Butterfly Effect.” Fortunately, Dr. Phil wasn’t in this Scary movie, but as fate would have it, there was a pedophile in the movie just the same.

In “The Butterfly Effect,” for any of you who missed it in theaters a couple of years ago, Ashton Kucher travels back in time, by way of a nosebleed, to prevent the events he blacked out as a child from happening. Events that subsequently ruined all of his friends’ lives. Events like being molested by one of the kid’s dad.

After a full day of thinking about grown men who molest children, I came up with an idea.

I want to be in charge of punishing every single one of them.

I think this is the only way.

Here’s what I would do:

First, I would adhere them, one at a time, with electrical tape, to my car, (I guess I’d have to rent out a warehouse or something where I’d lock the rest of them up until it was their turn) and drive through the car wash. I saw someone on “Jackass” do this once. Apparently, it’s freezing in there.

After that I would just continue driving around town, in winter, except at this point I’d have the guy holding up a sign that says, “I just forced a child to have sex with me.” I’d drive through the sickest, scariest neighborhoods on the planet. Places like Tenafly and Scardsdale and Woodmere and just let the soccer moms kick him until his limbs fall off. And then I’d probably drive to the Grand Canyon or something, and pull over, and get out of the car, and find a boulder, which I would place on the accelerator. And then I’d watch him sail down to the bottom and then I’d go down and get him and drag him back up and put him in jail, but only for a few years, and I’d make sure I got to pick his roommate.

After a few years in jail, I’d get him out on bail and book him on back to back talk shows. And then I’d go back to the warehouse and get the next one.

I started writing another book. I tried not to, believe me, but what's done is done.

I'll try to continue blogging once a week or so, (probably every Wednesday or Thursday -- those are my best days) unless something happens in between and I can't help myself. Like what happened today, for instance -- when I went for Jesse's end of the year conference having just eaten a bran muffin. I can't even tell this story.

I'll also be redoing my website, so keep checking. I promise it will be worth it. And I'll try to hurry up with the new book.

That morning:

Me:
Jen, go buy Danica Lo’s new book, ‘HOW NOT TO LOOK FAT’ and then turn to page 128 and email me.

Jen:
O.K.

That night:

Jen:
I bought it and I found the blurb you wanted me to read. It almost sounded like you wrote it, I swear to God. Except it wasn’t that funny.

Me:
What?

Jen
I mean, obviously wide shoes only make you look wider, and what fat guy is going to make me look thinner unless I strap him to my body to cover my stomach.

Me:
Wait. Didn’t you see my name right below the quote? That’s why I told you to buy the book.

Jen:
I can’t believe I missed that. Where exactly was your name?

Me:
Right under what I wrote.

Jen:
I can’t believe it. I guess I was sort of rushing when I looked at it. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how funny that line was. I mean, really funny.

The next day:

Jen:
I just called to say I’m still really embarrassed.

May 16

Here’s the interesting thing I’ve learned about getting older. It makes you smarter. Even if you are unable to retain any sort of factual information whatsoever, you will still get smarter, much the way fruit gets sweeter if you leave it out long enough. Even if it wasn’t that sweet to begin with, it will improve.

As you get older, things just suddenly seem more obvious. I wish I could tell you why. I know it has nothing to do with experience. I’ve yet to meet a single person who has learned anything from any of his or her mistakes. I think it just happens naturally.

At this point, I can just look at person, and within fifteen seconds, I can tell if they’re full of shit or not. It used to take years for me to figure something like that out. The light just shines brighter now. Things were never this plain.

This wouldn’t be a bad thing if every time I figured something out, I didn’t make this face, which causes a little wrinkle to form.

My grandmother was so smart, her whole face was covered in smart wrinkles. She looked terrible that smart.

Of course I could always get Botox and make the smartness disappear, but we all know how that turned out last time. I bled, remember?

All women will come to realize this unfortunate truth about aging. Of course men will too, but who even cares what they look like. The point is wisdom makes you look bad. Actually there are some people who manage to age normally and still look dumb (i.e., youthful) but that only works because they don’t have any teeth in their mouth. Those of us with teeth, simply cannot get old (smart) and still look dumb (young). Even if you have surgery, your smartness (oldness) will show up on your hands and your hair will stop moving, which is another dead giveaway that you’re old. No one really knows why people’s hair stops moving around at a certain age, but it does. That’s how you can tell if an older woman is wearing a hairpiece. If it’s bouncing all over the place, it’s not hers.

Sometimes when I’m driving around or something, completely oblivious to the aging process, one of Jesse’s friends will say something ridiculous, and I’ll feel one of my old eyebrows go way up. I’ll try to push it back down, but it shoots right back up, because it knows the kid just lied. Every time this happens, I quickly look in the mirror to see how old and wise I must look to these little kids with their smooth cheeks and round, unsuspecting eyes. I try to hang my mouth open and stare, so the kids won’t feel uncomfortable in my company, but as soon as I have to swallow, my smartness reappears like tree rings.

There’s no sense in trying to hide it. No amount of stretching, paralyzing or moisturizing can train the face to stop knowing things. No matter what we do, our wisdom will outsmart us, betray us and force us to look old.

You should see the face I’m making right now.

May 11

We moved to Tenafly, New Jersey when I was in tenth grade. My next-door neighbor was in eleventh grade. I met him a few days after we moved in. I was slipping out of my house, early in the morning, to walk the dog. Oddly enough, he was slipping into his house at the same time, which must have been around seven A.M. He waved to me and my dog ran over to him. She sniffed him for a few minutes and then came and sat by my feet. He told me he’d been partying since nine o’clock the night before and how wasted he was. I told him his fly was open. He thanked me, pulled his shirt off over his head, and then collapsed on his front lawn.

We walked to school together the following Monday and every day after that. He was big on confessing things; he never stopped talking, and I was very into giving advice. One of the things he told me was that he was planning to spend his old age on drugs. He was really happy about it too. I, in turn, reminded him that he was already on drugs.

He went on to point out that there are many ways to be “on drugs.” And that the drug plan he had for his golden years was entirely different than the one he was currently enjoying.

“I’m going to live on acid and write,” he explained.

The world was his oyster. Anything was possible in his perpetually altered state of consciousness. And I didn’t see reality offering up any sort of cure for what was ailing us at the time, so I didn’t bother to talk him out of it.

Still I worry about him, even now.

I picture him in his nineties, walking around with his fly open, and very dry skin, smiling at people, telling them how much fun it is to be old. For some reason, I see him with a long, white beard, like in the last page of Johnny Appleseed, the one where he’s wearing a metal pot on his head.

I once asked him why he was so enamored with hallucinogens. I couldn’t imagine the appeal, especially since every kid I ever knew who did LSD had a snake story. He teasingly explained that it all started when he walked in on his mom and dad having oral sex.

“And if that isn’t enough, my mom was watching TV the whole time he was doing it to her.”

As a rule, he painted a grim picture of his parents, but I’m pretty sure any sort of a hallucination would be better than seeing your mom that bored.

“At least they were getting along,” I said.

I had a similar experience, not nearly as bad, but I told him about it anyway, to make him feel better.

I was running down the hall to my parent’s bedroom to tell them that I’d just imagined a cure for cancer. I’m not sure what the cure was exactly, but it had to do with time travel. And I’m pretty sure they were having sex at the time.

That’s it. That’s the whole story.

I realize that doesn’t qualify as a full-on sighting, nor is it even in the same league in terms of posttraumatic shock potential, and the truth remains that I’m not even really sure if they were having sex. There was no physical evidence of any kind. Just a hint of annoyance that I was banging on their door for so long.
But still. It was enough to confirm that it could happen.

Fortunately, I didn’t let their marital relations push me over the edge. I instead took to calling them on the phone when I had something important to tell them in the middle of the night. We always had two lines in our house, perhaps that’s what saved me.

I once showed my neighbor this tiny little scar I have on my pinky which always intrigued me because I have no idea how I got it. He then proceeded to take his pants off and show me his scar. It started at his ankle and trudged all the way up his leg, a three inch wide, three foot long caterpillar, tapering off somewhere in the mid-inner thigh area. A full Frankenstein. Apparently he’d put his foot through a glass-sliding door on purpose. I didn’t bother to tell him about the time I touched the tip of a lit candle with my wet finger.

My neighbor’s parents eventually divorced, as did mine (which proves sex will only get you so far) and both of our families moved. We lost touch sometime after my freshman year in college, but I still think about him all the time.

The way he was headed, anything could have happened to him. It’s entirely possible though that he grew up at some point and traded in his original retirement plan for a house in the country, a set of golf clubs, or the chance to see the world the way the rest of us saw it -- with our clothes on.

Either way, I hope I never run into him. I’d hate to see what happened to him if he never grew up and I’d really hate to see what happened if he did.

May 9

Breath-holding statistics for the Lessing Family

Dan Lessing: Disqualified for refusing to play
Stephanie Lessing: Ten seconds
Kim Lessing: Two seconds (because she forgot she was holding her breath and started talking)
Jesse Lessing: Three minutes but he was faking.

I tried not to watch, I really did. I even said, “You realize that we’re not watching this under any circumstances.” But then Jesse, who can’t be outwitted, called me in because his leg was bleeding (it wasn’t) just as David Blaine was pulling that girl’s teeth out of her mouth, right before or after he gave the hookers his roulette winnings.

I’m sorry but that was an amazing stunt. We spent the rest of the evening trying to pull each other’s teeth out, but to no avail. You actually have to be a magician for that sort of thing.

After watching the entire thing, from beginning to end, including the commercials, I have a few concerns. I’m thinking that David Blaine might be a hologram.

My other thought is, if, in fact, he is a real person, that he may have failed on purpose. If so, what a great lesson for our children. Never stay under water for a week on television.

May 5

In one half hour, Kim Lessing will sit down in a classroom and take the AP History state exam. The fact that my daughter even signed up for that class is astounding. Let’s remember that her mother once stood up in front of the whole class and gave an oral report on Women in India, when in fact, we were studying the American Indians. I know that sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. Can you even imagine how much I wasn’t paying attention in class that entire year?

The truth is I vaguely sensed that the assignment was somewhat of a departure from what we’d been studying, but I figured there must be a reason for it and who was I to question the curriculum? I just did whatever I was told. Or at least what I thought I’d heard.

I remember how the class applauded when I finished speaking. The boys went insane. And then the teacher explained to me where I went wrong.

I felt like Roseann, Roseanna Danna.

A few weeks ago, while Kim was still studying for this particular history exam, I asked her, “When do you guys study American History?”

“Next year,” she explained. “Right now we’re studying European History.”

“Oh right. That makes sense because we came in much later.”

“Exactly,” she said.

“You know, it’s funny that you’re taking this class. I was never much of a history buff myself.”

“So I’ve heard,” Kim said.

“Who told you?” I asked.

“Daddy told me when you first met, he was taking Howard Zinn’s class (for any of you who are on my history level, Howard Zinn wrote the “People’s History of the United States”) and you said something like, ‘Well, when our ancestors came over on the Mayflower. . . .’ and then daddy said, ‘Hold on Steph, you don’t actually think our ancestors came over on the Mayflower. . . do you?’”

“I was confused.”

”I know. Daddy explained that you thought you were a Pilgrim.”

“I didn’t think I was a Pilgrim. I just meant that the original Americans came over from England. I somehow lumped our family into that group.”

”So what you’re saying is you thought you were a Jewish Pilgrim?”

”I never even thought about my religion or where my family fit in. I just remember taking American History and learning that we came over from England to settle in the new land. I even know a little song from a play we did that year, ‘Fifty, nifty united states from thirteen original colonies.’ That’s why I always remember how many colonies there were. And besides, daddy was taking me too literally. I knew I didn’t come over on the Mayflower. I knew my parents and grandparents were born in America. It just never occurred to me that my great grandparents didn’t come over from England like everybody else’s. I knew we weren’t English but we never talked about stuff like where our great grandparents came from. I never even thought about it. I just assumed they came from someplace yonder and I didn’t take Western European History until after I met daddy.”

“So did you ever figure out where you came from?”

“Yeah, Russia. How weird is that? I so don’t feel Russian.”

“That’s because you’re a Russian Pilgrim,” she said patting my head.

May 5 or 6, I can’t see my calendar from here.

I have the official winner of the pink polka dotted surprise. Remember that contest? Well, it turned into an actual movement, but, because I’m not political, I had to put a stop to it. Those of you who got way more involved than is healthy know what I’m talking about.

Those of you who chose to ignore it, I applaud your resolve.

Those of you who forgot about the contest, I can’t really blame you. There wasn’t much to it.

And the winner is . . . Susan Emerson.

Come and claim your surprise Susan.

Hint: umbrella

May 2

I once made the mistake of telling my children that Dan was ready to have kids way before I was.

Jesse uses this mistake against me pretty much every day.

“Mom, I mean, mother who didn’t want children, can you come up here for a minute and help me load these cans of soda into my vending machine?”

My point, however misunderstood (and subsequently abused), was that Dan was ready to have kids at a remarkably young age. I think he was twelve or thirteen when he heard the first paternal tick. By the time he met me (I was seventeen. He was nineteen) his patience was all but shot. When my parents came to visit me up at BU, that clinched it.

“That thing you have with your parents is so cool. I want to have that with my kids,” he said, as soon as they left.

“We will,” I assured him, “Some day.”

“I love the way you grab your mom and hug her. I want to have that kind of relationship. I hope my kids will feel that comfortable with me.”

“Our kids will hug us the exact same way,” I assured him, patting him on the shoulder.

“I want a normal family with normal problems. I want my kids to have everything you had growing up.”

“They’ll have it. They’ll have it, I promise.”

“I actually want it now, though.”

”Right now?”

”Yeah, right now.”

“Now’s not good.”

“Yeah it is. Now is perfect.”

“Actually, no. It’s not good at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because we should wait until we finish college and I’m old enough to drink, full-time.”

We did wait. We waited until I was almost ready, but still petrified -- which was nine years later. Of course we broke up a few times in between, and then lived together, and then got married, but, in the end, I gave birth to Kim.

I still can’t believe my body knew what to do and that she was an actual baby. I thought for sure I’d give birth to a cyst or something. But there she was, this little, funny creature with hands and eyes and just the tiniest hint of static electric fuzz on her head.

She looked up at me as soon as they put her in my arms and I instantly knew she was my kind of girl. The only kind of girl I like really. She was trying to talk to me from the minute we met. Eye to eye talking. Big, big conversations were going on between us. We hit if off right away.

As the years went by and Kim became more and more entertaining, I knew I had to think of a way to thank Dan for coming up with the idea of having her in the first place. Something really over the top.

“She’s like the coolest person ever,” I said, watching her scale the side of our house at age two. “I never thought I’d meet a person with the balls to pull her own hair right out of her head just for fun. Let’s make another one!”

You should have seen his face. Having Jesse was the perfect way to thank Dan for talking me into having Kim.

When Jesse was born I used to hold him with my arms straight out as though I was presenting the world’s largest birthday cake. “Look at this! Would you look at it!” I’d yell at anyone who dared cross my path.

I’d never seen anything so utterly and completely male. All ten pounds of him. I was a female ape, beating my chest. To this day, I imagine Jesse saying, “It’s not that big of a deal, mom. Can you please put me down? You’re making us both look foolish.”

“You really should put him down, mom,” Kim would say. “You’re just about to drop him anyway.”

Always the realist, that Kimmy.

That’s why we put her in charge of our home and finances.

And because we made that decision, surprisingly early on, things run pretty smoothly around here.

Now that Jesse is twelve, he’s made some of his own rules. We only eat take-out and I’m not allowed to sing. Sure I’d like to sing, but we never argue with our kids. We assume they know better, seeing as how they’re the “next generation,” and therefore biologically superior both in height, wing span and their ability to do math.

Oddly enough, Kim thinks it was wrong of us to put the kids in charge.

“Mom, stop telling me to go out partying when I want to stay home and study. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I just want you to have fun. Is that such a crime?”

“Actually I’m underage, so yes, it is a crime and besides, I enjoy studying.”

”That’s only because you don’t drink enough.”

“You’re ridiculous. I’m raising myself here! This is all wrong. Tell me to go to bed or something. Anything!”

“Go to bed.”

“I’ll go when I’m done studying and can you please go and check on Jesse? He’s taking apart all the computers in the house and reconfiguring them. And he just smashed open a guitar for parts. Make him stop.”

She’s right about Jesse. He does take apart a lot of stuff. He also transfers obscure operating systems onto his Ipod. I don’t even know what I just said so where do I come off telling him what he should and shouldn’t do? The only thing I ever say to him is “Can you please not leave your backpack in the middle of the school parking lot? I’m afraid someone might run it over.”

That’s my only rule. This is true what I’m telling you by the way.

The thing that’s really cool about Jesse is that he’s really sarcastic and his humor is so cold and cutting, you can’t help but wonder about him, but then if you show him a picture of a puppy or something, he just falls right to his knees. It just kills me the way he looks at anything cute, and then looks at me -- to make sure I saw what he just saw. Something about that look connects me to this kid in a way that nothing else can. Forced dinners at a specific time don’t make kids look at their mom that way. Neither do punishments, “discussions,” religious rituals, nor anything else that parents try in vain to keep their kids in line.

Turns out, all those parenting books about the importance of structure are wrong. It’s all about puppies.

When I want to spend quality time with Jesse, I walk into his room. I don’t “make time.” I just barge in and sit on him or something until he agrees to hang out with me.

“God, you’re so annoying. Okay, fine, I’ll play one game with you, but that’s it.”

It sounds like I’m forcing him, but you have to see the face. The face that wants me there, even though he’s “busy.”

Every now and then Kim puts her foot down when things get out of hand, but that’s only because she has a lot of homework and Dan and I like to wrestle in the upstairs hall, just outside her room, and sometimes we get a little boisterous. I can’t blame her for getting annoyed. Dan has a very loud voice.

When I agreed to have kids, I didn’t think about how I would handle homework and routines and discipline. I knew I would suck at all three of those things but I also knew I was ready for the important stuff. The stuff that comes up late at night when they ask me things and I know at least some of the answers.

My only real concern about bringing people into this world was that I wanted them to love each other the way I love my sister. I knew there was no guarantee that they would even like each other, but it was something I wanted very badly. Enough to play tricks on them.

I had a lot going against me with the big sister, little brother combination but that didn’t stop me from manipulating them for my own personal gain. So whenever one of them was mad at me, I’d send whichever one it was into the other child’s room so they could gang up on me. That’s it. That’s my whole technique for raising children, right there.

For those of you who find this bizarre method of child rearing intolerable, I invite you to mess with Jesse, and then bear witness to the wrath of Kim, and then come talk to me.

Before my children were born, I took Child Development classes at the Bank Street School as part of a masters degree program that I found very intriguing at the time. My focus was children’s literature, a program lead by a ninety-year-old woman whom I adored. Her name was Claudia Lewis and the thing I loved about her was that it always seemed as though she was constructing her thoughts at the very moment she was revealing them. Her students got to watch her think. That was her gift. She had powerful thoughts about how children should be taught. Powerful, passionate thoughts, and yet she never raised her voice above a whisper. She fascinated me. A ninety-year-old woman who walked to work and used her days for thinking. Whoever heard of such a thing? Her entire life had been spent in academia and all of her work revolved around helping children.

“Shall we just watch them play?” she thought, aloud.

I think so, yes.

As soon as I had Kim, I lost interest in those classes. My real child proved infinitely more interesting than the theoretical variety and although I tried to bring Kim to a few open discussions, I felt my time was better spent sitting somewhere else, just looking at my daughter, alone.

I’m still “just watching” Kim and I’m still watching Jesse.

I have no idea what I’m doing. All I know is that I can’t take my eyes off them.

I guess the rest remains to be seen.

April 28

First of all, Happy Birthday to my sister whom I love and adore and idolize and whose children I worship.

Secondly, I’d like to thank those of you who wrote to me yesterday to try to make me feel better about the fact that I don’t know anything. I appreciate what you’re doing. But nothing any of you have said has made me any smarter. I still don’t know where Singapore is and I’m actually looking at a map right now.

One other thing before I finish the blog I’m going to post this afternoon. Do not go see Scary Movie 4. Not even if you have a twelve year old son or brother who begs you to do so.

It’s not worth it to please other people. That’s how not funny it is.

April 27

All I ever think about is funny stuff. That’s it. From the minute I wake up until I go to bed, I think about something someone said that cracked me up (usually it’s something that wasn’t meant to be funny) or people’s hair. It’s true. It’s so true I can’t lie. But unfortunately, I’m also a little stupid. And that’s the part that concerns me.

It scares me what I don’t know. It scares me that I walk around this world, going to the bank, and then King’s, not knowing anything really. I don’t know any geography at all. You think I’m kidding but I’m not. I can’t even name all the countries. Doesn’t that scare you a little? I’m a citizen of your country and I don’t really know what they mean by east and west. What if I turn a little, then where’s east? East compared to what? Who’s to say where east really is? It was just someone’s idea and we all went all along with it. What if he was facing the wrong way when he started the whole east thing?

My neighbor is a state senator. I recently hired a housekeeper who told me he’s a bad guy. How come she knew that and I didn’t? I live right next door to him. She just got here from Hondorus. And I just spelled Hondorus wrong. I know because it’s underlined in red. That’s the only way I know anything. If something isn’t underlined in red, I don’t know it.

I’ve complained about this before, blamed it on the fact that I grew up in New Jersey, a place where we’re not required to take regents, but the truth is it’s my own fault. I’m too lazy to bother obtaining knowledge. If something’s not funny, I don’t care about it.

But I’m worried. I can’t say I’m not worried. I’m worried because I brought two children into this world. And I think they’re catching on.

April 26, 2006

There are two people in this world who call me Stephanie Lessing. Laurie Herman was the first. Amanda First was second.

I met Amanda Saturday night. She was a guest at my daughter’s dinner party. And by dinner party I mean floor party. And by floor party I mean everyone socialized, ate and slept on the floor, including Amanda, who deserves better, because she reads my blog. It was an informal gathering to say the least. That’s why we were so surprised to find our bananas so lavishly decorated with condoms when we came down for breakfast the next morning. It was pretty funny, but Amanda had absolutely nothing to do with it, I can assure you. Adorable thing that she is. Did I mention she reads my blog?

Amanda introduced herself to me and asked, “Are you Stephanie Lessing?” -- to which I replied, “Yes, I’m Kim’s mom.”

“It’s so nice to meet you Stephanie Lessing,” she said. It was at that point I realized she would be calling me by my first and last name forever. These things happen.

When Clint de Ganon (my husband’s oldest friend) met Dan for the first time he asked him his name, to which Dan replied, “Dan Lessing.” For some reason, Clint thought he said, “Dan last name.” And for the longest time, Clint thought Dan’s name was Dan Last Name. I know that sounds odd, but they were five.

When a little boy named Doug Beimfohr met Von Rollenhagen for the first time, he asked him, “What’s your name?” -- to which Von replied, “Von Rollenhagen.” But Doug thought Von was referring to himself by his last name only. So when they had gym the next day, Doug kept yelling, “Von Rollenhagen, Von Rollenhagen, pass me the ball!”

My point is this sort of thing happens all the time. And it’s sort of flattering in a way. Otherwise I would have said something to Amanda first.

I got an email this morning from Ticketmaster telling me, “Don’t Miss Madonna.”

If I never saw Madonna again for the rest of my life, I would not miss her. I wrote back to Ticketmaster:

Dear Ticketmaster,

A few things:

One: I don’t like Madonna. I think she spends too much time working out. People who spend too much time in the gym are thinking about their bodies way more than they should, (and by that I mean ‘way more than I think about mine’) unless they’re training for some sort of sporting event which requires perfect muscle tone.

From this point forward, I would like to be in charge of how much time Madonna, and every other person, spends at the gym. One hour a day. That’s all. Anything more than that irritates me.

Two: Madonna is not a long enough name. That’s why I don’t even like saying the word, “Madonna.” It lends credibility to the idiotic notion that Madonna deserves to have a shorter name then the rest of us. From this point forward, I would like to be in charge of what people call themselves. Madonna is now, Madonna Cohen.

Three: I was hoping that her career was finally over. I actually prayed to God that it was over. I can’t stand seeing her change outfits and hairstyles and then hearing people say she’s reinvented herself again. Can I just say that changing your hairstyle and clothes is not the same as reinventing one’s self? Having a sex change operation qualifies as reinventing one’s self. Becoming a murderer out of the blue is almost there. Switching from a torn bridal gown to a Versace pant suit is called shopping.

Four: Even though I renamed Madonna Mrs. Cohen, she’s still not Jewish and I resent the fact that she’s not only taken on the lifestyle of my people (shopping/gym/shopping/gym/shopping/gym) but that she’s actually trying to pass herself off as a Jewess. No Jewish mother would ever let her daughter wear such a pointy bra. You’re not fooling anyone Mrs. Cohen.

Five: You can’t just change your accent and expect people to think you were born in England. I can’t stand that. Can you please ask Madonna to stop talking like that?

There are other things, but I’m wasting too much time on this. I’ve got an 11:00 Pilates appointment and I need to pick up a pair of those white Chloe wedges at Bergdorfs before they’re all gone. They’re the most adorable shoes I’ve ever seen in my life. One of a kind, like a virgin.

Sincerely yours,

A fan

Anyone who visits the Demarest Nature Center knows about the owl family. Those of us who walk our dogs in the woods have been watching the mother owl sit and stare at us for months. I revolve my whole day around seeing this womany, feathered creature turn her head a quarter of an inch.

And then, a few days ago, one of my fellow dog walkers, a runner named Lori, spotted another owl in a tree across the path. This owl, she somehow determined, was a man.

“How can you tell it’s a man?”

“Take a look,” she said, handing me her binoculars.

“Ah, now I see,” I said, wondering what I could possibly be looking for.

“And look over there. See the babies?”

And there they were, two fluffy little frail owls huddled next to each other in another tree.

Not knowing anything about owls, I wondered why the mother and the father were in separate trees from each other, as well as their babies. If I lived in the woods, I’m pretty sure Dan, Kim, Jesse and I would all live in the same tree. Different branches, sure, but not whole other trees.

Today, when I went back to visit the babies, I couldn’t find the mother or the father. I started wondering around in circles with my head up to the sky, searching every branch of every surrounding tree. I eventually tripped on a stick and fell flat on my face. I quickly got up, making sure no one else was around, and brushed myself off. I continued my search, but I’m not very good at finding things, and I’m pretty sure I was crying at that point.

Abandoned birds just kill me for some reason. So does falling on my chin.

When I was a little girl, there was a family who lived next door to us with five boys. All five of them were bad. My best friend was their sister, Ellen. They used to find ways to torture us pretty much every single day, most of which involved dead animals. We lived in an old fashioned suburban neighborhood with bell and basket bike riders and kickball games in the cul de sac. Our backyard was an enormous pristine park surrounded by acres and acres of woods. It was always sunny. Very John Watersesque. Particularly because of my ominous neighbors, lurking in the trimmed hedges.

Ellen and I and her brothers grew up in the woods behind our houses. Ellen was a tomboy who looked ridiculous when she got herself cleaned up. Almost like a transvestite. Her brothers were filthy, horrible boys with crew cuts and caked dirt under their nails and they were always making me cry. Oddly enough, I often imagined myself married to at least three of them.

The worst thing they ever did involved a baby bird. Ellen and I had found a bird’s nest in our favorite tree –- the tree with the perfectly rounded, Crayola green crown, the kind that only exists in kid’s drawings and my backyard.

We made the inauspicious mistake of telling her brothers.

A few hours later, we were sitting in Ellen’s family room, watching TV, when two of her brothers, (not my favorites) knocked on the back door to tell us to come outside. When we went out to her backyard, one of them was delicately cradling the bird’s nest in his dirty hands. Inside the nest was a bald baby bird with veins all over its head, one broken egg, and one tiny, yet to be hatched, egg. I felt the tears coming as soon as I saw the baby bird open its mouth. I knew it was hungry and that its luck had just about run out.

And then her brother flung the nest like a Frisbee over his fence.

I ran home to tell my mother what happened and she agreed to help me find the baby bird. We searched through the leaves and sticks beyond the two yards, but we couldn’t find the tiny bird. I had no idea how far he’d thrown it or even in what direction. He’d just tossed it over his head keeping his eyes fixed on me. I can only assume I was looking back at him; the bird could have been anywhere.

My mother told me to go inside. She promised me that she’d find it. She came in the house about fifteen minutes later and told me that she’d found the nest and that she’d put it back in the tree, and that the baby bird flew away as soon as she went to pick him up.

I never went back to check on the nest, preferring to take my mother’s word over the truth. And I see no need to check on the owl parents either. I’m sure they’re there. It’s best if I walk the dog on the other side of town for a while.

April 20

Oh my God. I was only kidding about being a good matchmaker. It was a joke. A blog. A ruse. Now I feel terrible. I can’t possibly find all of you people dates. I will try though. But you can’t just tell me your age and hair color. I need to know what’s wrong with you, so I can fix you up with someone who won’t care. I can’t work with information that involves how many inches off the ground your head is or where you live. I don’t read geography, palms, weight or jobs. I read deep-rooted psychological problems that fit perfectly with other people’s deep-rooted illnesses. I read neuropathways (which apparently is not a word according to my spell check). This is the secret to sound matchmaking. If you honestly want me to do this, tell me what you’re afraid of. The fact that you like Chinese food isn’t helping me. Just one thing though, if perchance, your neurosis is scary or gross in some way, please understand that I’m extremely squeamish and I might pretend I didn’t get the email.

April 19

I don’t think I was meant to be a writer. In fact, I’m sure of it. My true calling is matchmaking. You can’t even imagine how good I am at it. It’s a little scary.

As soon as I meet a single person, I start going through my little mental Rolodex. I don’t need to ask anything about the person, such as if they’re gay or straight or moody or prone to overspending, I just know. It’s like a sixth sense. I actually envisioned my mother’s second husband before she even met him. We still talk about this, twenty five years later.

I’m not bragging about this special talent I have. On the contrary, I feel a little embarrassed about it. It makes me feel nosey and overly Jewish, but what can I do?

When I saw Dan for the first time, I was seventeen. He had a bunch of earrings in the wrong ear (I think someone played a trick on him), an Afro the size of Pluto and he was wearing orange sweatpants and black clogs (the kind with backs), and yet I knew.

“This man will one day be my husband,” I bellowed, arms folded, my foot tapping to the choppy beat of my impaled heart.

Both of my parents were crying.

“For this we sent her to college.” My mother was punching my father when she said this, but I stood my ground.

“You’ll see,” I told her, wise beyond my years.

And now look at us.

When my sister said she was going to marry Jamie, my hair literally stood on end.

“What happened to your hair?” my sister asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“And why is your nose bleeding?”

“I can’t answer that either,” I said.

And now look at them.

Everyone should always listen to me.

April 18

I have a reoccurring pimple. I realize this isn’t news, nor is it something most people expect to find in a blog, but, nevertheless, it reoccurs.

I have no idea what to do about it. I’m too old for this. And because I’m too old for this, people assume it’s a growth. An old age growth.

Should I explain to these people that what they’re staring at is, in fact, a reoccurring pimple, or should I let them go on believing it’s an old age growth? More importantly, why do I care what people think of things that reoccur on my face? Is it because I’m vain or afraid of dying?

This is the question I will ponder on this glorious spring day and I invite you to do the same.

April 10

I’m leaving for Florida on Thursday for Passover and to celebrate my parent’s anniversary. It’s their second marriage and so far so good.

Both of my parents are happily remarried as a matter of fact. My original parents were married for 24 years. Both second sets will easily surpass that. I guess you’re either good at marriage or you’re not, no matter how many times you do it.

April 11

I’m putting the final copy edits to rest as we speak. I’m slipping them into an envelope and shipping them off to May. So hard to believe this mess will one day be a book but that’s the magic of publishing.

In the meantime, I’ve got a lot to do to get ready for Florida. I need to get a manicure, a pedicure, a new crop of T-shirts and I’d like to lose at least eleven pounds by Thursday.

The one thing I’ve taken care of is my hair color. Yes, I’m sorry to say, I went so far as to color my own hair. With my own hands. I’ve done this before but I’ve never admitted it.
“What color is my hair?” you ask.

I’d have to go with beige.

I don’t recommend this color.

And one other thing, before I go. Never, ever, ever try to dye your eyebrows to match your hair. I want to die right now.

April 5

So many manicures are the inspiration for hard news these days; I hate to jump on the bandwagon. But, here’s what happened to me in Closter, New Jersey.

I kid you not.

I have one hour to kill before it’s time to pick up Jesse. I look down at my nails. Only one is polished. I decide to get a manicure.

I drive along the main street of Closter deciding where to go. There are at least fifty places to choose from. I’ve been to thirty of them, which leaves me with plenty of choices. I scan carefully, holding up the traffic behind me, until I spot a brand new one. Perfect! No germs.

I park right in front, skeptical of the fact that it’s empty, but assume it’s because it’s new and the competition is obviously fierce in this town.

I walk in and look around. It’s really a very beautiful place. I like hot pink and orange. I really do. It’s a real upper.

Two women are seated at one of the nail tables. Toward the back, there is a row of pedicure chairs facing a television. I love TV and briefly consider getting a pedicure, but I only have an hour and besides, there’s a man, fully clothed sitting in one of the chairs, with his shoes on. This is not unusual. He is the owner. The woman, who appeared to be getting her nails done, quickly scurries away. This is not unusual either. She’s not a customer and she’s sorry for sitting in what will soon be my chair.

“Pick a color!” the other woman yells to me.

I jump.

“Okay, thank you,” I say and walk over to the wall of polish.

As always, there are two hundred bottles of polish on the wall. But I can’t find either of the two colors I like.

“Do you have SweetHeart or Meet Me At the Jitney,” I ask.

“Yes, we do,” says the manicurist.

She then begins turning over each bottle to read the names. I already know it’s not there but I don’t want to insult her and I already know I won’t be back.

Eight minutes pass.

“Pick other color,” she says.

“Okay,” I say and pick up Limousine. I don’t really like Limousine. It’s too pink, but time has already become an issue.

And so the manicure begins.

“You don’t have to file them,” I say. “I already filed them this morning.”

I never let them file. They always shape them into little squares and that embarrasses me.

“No file?”

“Yes, no file.”

“File?”

“No, no file.”

And so the filing begins. And slowly the little square tops emerge.

”Take rings off,” she says.

I put my rings on the little ring holder.

“I really need one of those,” I think to myself.

And then she begins cutting my cuticles, which I really didn’t want her to do either, but it’s too late. I notice that she’s not shy with the cuticle cutters, by any means, and I see a little bubble of blood forming in the corner of my thumb.

”Sorry for blood,” she says.

“That’s okay,” I say, knowing I just got AIDS.

She dabs it with a little square cotton pad that she sprayed with something very acidic.

I try not to scream.

And then she rolls up her sleeves. She’s about to apply hand cream to my hands that she will massage into my own hands and it is at this point that I notice her wrists are covered in scabs.

Do not ask her what the scabs are, I tell myself. Just close your eyes and get through it. I try to visualize myself getting through the hand massage and the polish change, paying her, getting in my car, driving home and submerging my hands into a vat of Clorox and then calling my doctor to schedule a full work up.

“What are those scabs on your wrists?” I ask, ignoring my inner voice and hoping she’ll say, “Nothing to worry about. Those scabs where I try to kill myself. They not contagious.”

But instead she says, “I don’t know. They itch me.”

I want to die.

She keeps putting more lotion on my hands and she’s turning my right hand over to massage the area where my thumb and index finger are joined. This palms-up position forces me to rest my other fingers directly on her scabs.

I’m trying to control myself but I have a fear of scabs. I can hardly even say the word, “scab.”

But then I say, “Have you seen a doctor?”

“I no have time, but everyone ask me about this. Is very noticeable?”

”No, not at all. I was just wondering because one of them looks like it’s infected.”

“No, that from scratching. I scratch all day to stop itching.”

”Oh look at the time!”

I give her an enormous tip. Enough to have a blood transfusion and run out. She runs out after me with an invitation for twenty percent off my next treatment.

I take it from her and assure her I’ll be back. When I get home, I shower with Tilex and look up “Skin rashes” on Web M.D.

I call up the salon and ask to speak to the manicurist. Luckily it’s not too busy so she picks up the phone immediately.

“You have poison ivy,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says.

April 4

I walk my dog in the Demarest Nature Center every day. I used to love playing in the woods as a kid so I’m more comfortable there than anywhere else. I’m not sure what it is exactly. Maybe I just love mud.

Or maybe it’s the smell of damp leaves or the creaky wooden bridges or the total luxury of being alone.

There’s always some little surprise -- a bright shoot or springy patch of moss, or a family of deer with stark white tails moving in the distance. Today when I bent down to pick up a stick, there was a little cluster of purple flowers at my feet. I threw the same stick in the stream, over and over again, and each time Mikki sat at attention waiting for me to throw it, anxious to prove herself, willing to jump in that freezing water to rescue a stick.

She goes swimming every day in that stream, looking for the familiar bottle-green necked ducks she loves to chase. She gallops after them until they start quacking, and then she stops short, turns around, and swims away, looking at me, as if to say, “Was that okay?”

But the thing I love most about our little country walks is killing ticks. Sometimes I smash them with a rock or sometimes I pull one off my dog, throw it on the ground and watch it for a minute or two, studying it’s blood-filled body until I dig my heel into it, punishment for biting my dog. Or sometimes I wait until I get home and put it in a cup and then run boiling water over it.

There’s just something about nature, I can’t quite explain.

April 1, 2006

We’re back from Beaver Creek. I swore I’d never go there, but what’s the use in swearing.

It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting; I thought everyone from my town would be there, in full Prada regalia, but it was late in the season and the crowds were gone. It was just the Lessings and the family with really long hair. And a lot of little kids.

I spent the first day of our trip in town at the pharmacy getting Kim’s asthma prescriptions filled, because she left all her stuff at home. While I was waiting, I went to Radio Shack and some sporting goods store and bought a million pairs of gloves for no reason at all. I still think of my kids as very little, helpless creatures who will lose a glove and instantly get frostbite.

When I returned with all the gloves, Dan reminded me that it’s spring.

The next day, I sat at the base of the mountain waiting for them to come down. I spotted Jesse first and waved him over.

“How long have you been sitting here?” he asked me.

“Not long -- two, maybe three hours at the most. I couldn’t find you guys.”

“What have you been doing here?”

“Nothing, why?”

“Why aren’t you skiing?”

“I don’t feel well.”

”What’s wrong?”

“Mountain sickness,” I said, with my head down.

“I’ll go get you some water,” he said, and then a few seconds later, Dan and Kim appeared.

Kim skis with headphones, so she waved at me from whatever world she was in.

“What happened?” Dan asked.

I looked over at my daughter, enjoying her music, looking around at the other skiers. Carefree -- one of them.

“Well, I skied for about an hour or two, but then I fell ill.”

“You fell ill? What does that mean?”

”Nausea, dizziness, headache and shortness of breath,” I said, having memorized the brochure on high-altitude symptoms.

“Why aren’t you in the hospital?” he asked.

“Because.”

“Because?”

“Yes, that’s right. Because.”

“It’s the chair lift thing again, isn’t it?” he asked.

“That too,” I admitted.

The truth is I’ve developed a crippling fear of heights and it prevents me from wanting to ski, as well as die. Dan and I have developed a unique way of dealing with my phobia. We both pretend it’s not there. For a few years, I didn’t ski at all. I just hung around, but then I discovered full-day private lessons. They seem to help. For some reason, if I’m not anywhere near my children, I’m not nearly as afraid of falling out of the chair lift.

“Sign up for a lesson,” Dan said.

“Okay,” I answered, as though this was a new idea.

An hour later, I was waiting for my instructor with my skis leaning against the fence.

When he arrived, we shook hands and I said, “Hi, I’m Stephanie Lessing, and I think you should know, I can’t go up in the chair lift.”

“We’ll just have to climb up the mountain then,” he said.

We both laughed, as the sweat came spurting out of me.

He put his arm around me and said, “Nothing is going to happen to you. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re perfectly safe.”

“But I have two children,” I explained.

“I understand,” he said, “Put on your skis.”

This is why I love ski instructors.

I put on my skis and started shuffling behind him.

“How many times have you skied before?” he asked.

I did a quick, silent mental calculation. I skied for the first time in high school. Just the one time. And then, in college, about four or five times, and then, when we first got married, two or three more times and then nothing while the kids were babies, and then, let’s see, we started them at about five or six, so that’s another ten years of skiing.

“Twice,” I said.

“Okay, then. I have an idea. Let’s take the bus over to the beginner’s learning area.”

“Perfect!” I nearly screamed.

When we arrived at the pre-school center, I was beaming. I turned to Nigel and asked, “Can we stay here the whole time?”

“Let me see how you ski,” he said.

“We have two choices here,” he continued. “We can either take that little mini chair lift or we can start over there,” he said, pointing to a group of children flaying their arms on a small hill. I looked over at the chair lift. And then I did the unthinkable.

“Let’s take that,” I said, pointing to the wide, flat conveyer belt that was slanting somewhat uphill.

“Magic Carpet it is,” Nigel said.

I followed close behind him and then I asked the question I’d been meaning to ask all along.

“Do you feel like laughing?”

“No, do you?” he asked

“Sort of.”

I traveled up the carpet, which took about six seconds, listening to the tiny conversations of the toddlers all around me.

When it was my turn, I skied down the hill, making long, wide turns, trying to remember to keep my skis as close together as possible.

“Your turns are quite good. How many times did you say you’ve skied before?”

“I can’t remember. Can we do that again?”

“If you’d like,” Nigel said, scratching his head.

We did the magic carpet at least six more times before he insisted that we try the mini chair lift.

“I don’t think I can do it,” I said.

“It’s taking you less than three seconds to get down this little hill. I think you’re ready for the beginner slope.”

And so we mounted the mini lift, and Nigel did that thing that all males do on a chair lift. They kick your ski with their ski.

“Please don’t touch me,” I said.

“What?”

“Your ski. It’s touching my ski. That makes me feel like I’m going to fall.”

“I’m sorry. I was just trying to kick some snow off.”

“Don’t be sorry. I just want you to know, I might pass out.”

“No, you won’t,” Nigel said.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Because no one has ever passed out or died or gotten hurt with me and I don’t intend to let you be the first. Just look at me,” he said

I try not to look at people when I’m scared, so this was something new.

“I’m thinking that it’s best if you look up.”

I concentrated on staring into one of Nigel’s eyes, wondering what he must think of me -- a grown woman, afraid.

“I’m scared of things, too,” he said, reading my mind. “Not heights, particularly, but there are things I avoid. You’re way ahead of me, because you’re up here, doing the thing you thought you couldn’t do. And it doesn’t matter if you do a double black diamond. It only matters that you’re back on skis and the truth is you ski remarkably well for someone who has only skied a couple of times. The important thing is that you’re having fun.”

“Am I having fun?” I asked, my voice cracking, wishing he hadn’t mentioned double black diamonds.

“I think you are. And I think you should be very proud of yourself. We need to get off the chair lift now. Stand up.”

And before I knew it, I was skiing down as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

All around me were tiny little children, on one ski, but I didn’t even care.

We took the mini lift up and down for two hours. I asked Nigel if he was bored.

“I’m happy if you’re happy,” he said. And then we started talking -- about Nigel, instead of me, for a change. He’s never been married. He’s traveled the world. He’s not much for big cities and he grew up just outside of London. He despises the French (no surprise there) but loves France. He wants to stay in America; I suspect because he likes American girls, and his parents are retired. The whole time he was talking, I was stopping myself from asking him what size boot he was wearing -- just in case I ever decided to write a book about him.

At the end of the lesson, Nigel and I hugged and exchanged email addresses and I promised to request him next time. We took the bus back to Beaver Creek and I ran off to find my family. I spotted Jesse first, flying down the mountain on his snowboard. I felt my stomach flip, but instead of sitting down, I stood taller and waved to him.

As he made his way toward me, I looked up at the main chair lift. I focused on one chair and watched it soar up the mountain until it was out of sight. And for the first time in years, I wanted to get on it, and ride it, like a magic carpet.

But, unfortunately, it was time to go home. And besides, there’s always next year.

March 26

I never blow my nose in public. I assume this is because nose blowing repulses my mother and I’ve come to accept that we believe the world sees us through our mothers’ eyes. In other words, I don’t want to repulse people. But today, I had no other choice. I was reading, “Falling Through the Earth,” on the plane home from my Chicago signing and it just came pouring out of me. I was crying because I think I love my father in the same way Danielle loves hers and I just feel so sorry for both of us.

And then I started reading Susan Henderson’s manuscript, “Don’t Turn Out Like Me: A Troublemaker Starts A Family,” and I started laughing, but then I started crying again.

I happened to have had a tissue with me, and well, the truth is I used it.

And then I left my coat on the plane, which made me want to start crying all over again. The coat was my mom’s. It was the only practical coat I ever had, and now it’s gone.

The good news is the Chicago signing was a huge success. So much so that I didn’t even care when I got bumped off my flight home and had to stay overnight. I should have gone right back to the store to sell more books but I didn’t want to seem greedy. Instead I went to my room, turned on the TV and ordered up. This is my favorite thing in life -- ordering in. I plan to move back to the city as soon as Kim goes to college, just so that I can call up for food. Although, if you ever stay at the Hilton in the Chicago airport, don’t get the Cobb salad. It was awful.

* * *

Dan and Kim picked me up at the airport and we met Jesse in the parking lot of the animal hospital where my cousin works. It was dog adoption day and I promised Jesse we’d check out the truckload of dogs that arrive each month. By the time we got there, Jesse had already fallen in love with a brown spotted bloodhound, beagle mix with opposable thumbs. I can’t stand dogs with thumbs. And it kept scratching itself. And its face wasn’t that pretty either. But I felt sorry for it. It had a lot of problems that I don’t want to go into. For one thing, it smelled. And its nose was running.

“What is it exactly about this dog that you like?” I asked Jesse. I had my eye on a white German Shepard that had one ear up and one ear down. I’ve always wanted a dog with two different ears.

“Look how cute she is?” he demanded.

”Jesse, she has fleas,” I said, taking the mismatched ear dog out of its cage.

”Those aren’t fleas, it’s dirt.”

”Are you sure it’s dirt?” I asked, while the dog I’d fallen in love with tore out of its cage before I even had a chance to grab its leash.

”You don’t like her, so forget it,” he said.

“I don’t not like her,” I said, running around in circles after the hyper lunatic I fell in love with.

“Yeah, you do. So just forget it.”

“How about if we get this one!” I asked, panting and coughing, trying to corral my dog back into its cage. There’s nothing like a frisky dog.

“Let’s just go home,” he said. And he was right. We shouldn’t have been there in the first place. We were leaving for vacation the next day.

”But I can’t,” I thought, eyeing the keys to the truck. I was seriously considering taking them all and setting up a kennel in my backyard. How does one take home one dog?

I looked into the cages of all the dogs we weren’t even considering. They were all sitting there wondering where they went wrong.

“Is it my tail? Because I can tuck it under if it bothers you?”

“I’m usually much more energetic, but I’m exhausted from the trip.”

”Do I seem too old?”

I could actually hear my heart breaking.

In the meantime, Dan left to go home and get Mikki to see if she would take to the dog Jesse wanted so badly. When we brought the puppy into our car, Mikki inched her body toward the car door and turned her head, as if to say, “Can somebody please get that thing away from me.”

”I don’t think Mikki likes her,” I said.

“Are you kidding? She loves her,” Jesse protested.

“Jesse, she’s totally ignoring her and she’s drooling out of disgust.”

”That’s just because she’s shy.”

This went on for quite a while until I noticed a friend of mine walking around the parking lot with a black lab puppy. I walked over to her to distract myself from having to make a decision.

“I see you got suckered into coming here too,” she said.

“Well, actually, my cousin works here. And we’ve been thinking about getting another dog.”

”My daughter really wants this one” she said, pointing to the little puppy. I took a closer look at the dog. It appeared to have a tumor growing out of its stomach.

“Are you going to buy it?” I asked.

“I might,” she said, “Are you going to get one?”

“I might. By the way, you might want to ask about that growth.”

”What growth?” she asked.

I pointed to it and she thanked me.

She left without a dog.

I walked back on the bus and continued eyeing the rest of the dogs. Every single one of them looked sick and tired and miserable. There they were, all lined up, asking for a home, and people were picking them based on the position of their ears, the cuteness of their eyes or the color of their fur. It occurred to me that I should be looking for tumors instead of cute ears, and that I should be picking the ugliest, sickest, most repulsive dog I could find, because he’d have the least chance of finding a home.

Up until the moment, I didn’t even want a dog that needed a tissue.

We went home without a dog. We were leaving for vacation the next day anyway. It really didn’t make sense.

But the truck is coming back next month and I’m pretty sure we’ll be on it. And I know we’ll pick the right dog.

March 24

I'm leaving in five minutes to do a signing in Chicago. Please visit me if you live near the airport. I'll be in terminal 3 at Hudson Booksellers (O'Hare). I'll be there from about 12:30-4. I'm anticipating three and a half hours of staring into space, so it would be nice if a person happened upon me.

March 22

I’m supposed to find a picture of myself from middle school to be used as my author photo for the Judy Blume anthology. A very cute idea. But the thing is I don’t have one. Most of our photo albums disappeared when my parents got divorced. The earliest photographs I have are from college. I might have to use one of those if I don’t come up with something soon. It’s not like I looked all that different in college than I did when I was twelve -- especially since I’ve had the same hairstyle since second grade. I did the Farrah flip for one year, but then I got too lazy to even do that, so it’s just been hanging here like this ever since.

I ripped my whole house apart trying to find some little shot of me as an adolescent. I got so desperate at one point, I considered using a picture of Kim. We look almost exactly alike. Who would ever know? Except that Jennifer O’Connell reads my blog.

Of course there is that one photo. The one with me in the Saturday Night Live white pantsuit. The one I’m actually holding in my hand -- the one that makes me want to die every time I look at it. It’s sort of small though. And I’d have to cut my sister out of it. She’s wearing the same pantsuit, which makes the whole situation twice as embarrassing. I don’t think Jennifer wanted a full body shot anyway. No, the more I think about it, this wouldn’t be right. I’ll just have to keep looking.

March 20

Tomorrow is my husband’s birthday but I’m hoping he won’t notice.

March 17

Do you ever sit around trying to imagine what it’s like to be a seventeen year old boy? Me neither. But you’d be surprised how bad it is. Especially if your parents are assholes and they force you to call them by their first names, because the words “mom” and “dad” make them feel old. In other words -- especially if your parents are children themselves.

I’m only thinking about this because I watched Thumbsucker last night.

It’s so good.

As a child, I used to pretend I liked to suck my thumb, but I never really understood the appeal. Maybe because my thumb tasted like Chlorox, which we used as soap in my house.

OR maybe it was because my mom wasn’t particularly interested in winning a date with a celebrity, or any of the other reasons some women use to get out of the house, and away from the children they never really wanted in the first place. All my mom ever cared about was my sister and I. What the hell would I need my thumb for?

When Justin (the 17 yr old in Thumbsucker) applied to NYU, despite his poor grades, and used the excuse that his grades weren’t up to par because his parents were both mentally ill, I nearly stood up and applauded. What a great idea.

I’m surprised more kids don’t realize that’s probably why their grades are so bad.

Every scene that included his parents was unbearable. They were horribly selfish, immature people. And even more disturbing than their mind-boggling inability to notice their own son, was that Justin’s hair was dirty the entire time. I kept thinking that when he started taking his medication, he’d suddenly be inspired to wash his hair. So many other good things were happening to him. But, no. It remained dirty until the end. What kind of a mother lets their kid leave the house with greasy hair?

Despite the fact that Justin was a dirty kid, I loved him. Not in the “I totally would have gone out with him” way. On the contrary, as a teenage girl, I never would have gone near him. But, as a mother, I fell in love with him and wanted him to come live with us. I’d be the perfect mother for a kid like that. All he wanted was for someone to tell him how to get better. That’s all he wanted. And I would have told him, “Justin, you need to wash your hair. That’s the only thing holding you back. Otherwise you’re perfect.” And it’s true. He was perfect.

That’s why I couldn’t sleep last night. I need to call him.

I can just picture it. He’ll go to Dwight with Kim and she’ll introduce him to all the cool Nyack kids. They’ll do their homework together and listen to music. And then Jesse will knock on Kim’s door and make a few jokes and Justin will laugh himself sick, all the while thinking how much better off he is than when he was stuck with that little brother he had in the movie, who was terrible at Tai Chi.

And Jesse will make Justin feel like he’s something special. Because that’s one of Jesse’s gifts. He doesn’t do it on purpose. But he has a way of looking up to older boys that cures them -- Jesse and Kim could easily cure Justin.

At least, as their mother, I like to think they could.

March 16

“Hi Mom.”
“Hi Honey.”
”Did you get my book in the mail?”
”Yes it just came. I’m so excited. I’m going to sit down and read it right now. I’m not even going to answer the phone. Wait, hold on. There’s my other line. I’ll call you back.”

One hour later

“How far did you get?”
“Well, I just have to tell you, I love the cover.”

Four hours later.

“So?”
”So, I’m loving it! It’s a great read. Really, sweetie. You did an amazing job with this one.”
“Honestly?”
“Absolutely.”
”What page are you on?”
“Hold on, I’ll go check. I’ve been on the phone. Let me go and get it.”

Three minutes and forty five seconds later.

“Page 4.”

March 15

Are any of you pregnant?

Because, if you are, I think you should know that Miss Understanding has some very graphic pregnancy scenes in it.

If you’re squeamish about hair pulling, swollen vaginas, or way too much sex, you might not want to read this one.

Having said that, I now know for sure that my pub date is October 25 and that my On Sale Date is November 1.

I’m not sure what to do until then, aside from collecting names to put in my hat.

Any ideas?

I’ve already read all of the books in Barnes & Noble. So please don’t suggest that.

March 14

Imagine being a teenager and your mom comes home one day and says, “Hey,check out my myspace?” And now imagine that there were other people in the room.

But it’s not my fault. It was HarperCollins’ idea. I just do whatever they tell me to do. It’s true. I never disobey anyone.

I’m just trying to imagine what else I could have said that would have made, “Hey, check out my myspace,” sound less offensive.

“Hey, check out my new implants!” or maybe, “Hey! Don’t tell anyone, but I think I just ran over some kid who goes to your school.”

Actually, I think, “Check out my myspace” is worse.

We’ll soon find out. So far there’s been very little backlash. But that’s only because I just did this yesterday and I’m not sure if Kim heard me say it. Mostly because I had a pillow in front of my face when I told her.

I’m not allowed to look at Jesse’s myspace and I swore I wouldn’t, but I think I saw it by accident for a second.

This whole thing is so embarrassing. It’s like I drunkenly barged into one of their parties and suggested a round of spin the bottle. I’m not supposed to know about their parties, or what they do at their parties or anything about them for that matter. The last thing I’m supposed to know about is their myspace. It’s their space, not mine.

Wait! Hold on. I just got an email that says, “Twins” wants to be my friend.
How cool is this?

March 13

I’m trying not to talk about all the things that are bothering me because I hate to come across as a complainer, but let’s start with melon.

Someone recently told me it’s a filthy fruit. And that no one should eat it.

I find this hard to believe.

All things that grow out of the ground get dirty. So why did she single out melon?

“You’re only supposed to eat the inside of it,” I explained to her, but she assured me she knew that already.

“Well, then what are you worried about? The inside never touches the ground,” I told her.

“It’s still filthy,” she said, satisfied.

And that is why I no longer talk to people.

I made the decision this weekend. I can’t take it anymore. People are filled with all sorts of information and information disturbs me. Particularly because I believe whatever anyone tells me -- even while I’m arguing.

I always think I’m wrong and that the other person is right.

I can’t even discipline my kids properly because of this problem.

If I say, for example, “Don’t eat chocolate chips for breakfast.”

My son will say, “Why not?”

And I’ll say something like, “You need to eat a healthy breakfast. Eat this egg or how about a piece of toast?”

And then he’ll say, “First of all, that egg is loaded with cholesterol and that bread is nothing but a wad of carbohydrates that will eventually turn to sugar anyway, which will turn to fat, which will clog my arteries and cause me to die. But if I eat the chocolate chips, I won’t be faking myself out that I’m eating healthy and I’ll die anyway.”

And then I’ll say, “That’s ridiculous, just eat the egg white then.” But the whole time I’m thinking, “He’s right. He’s better off with the chocolate chips.” Who’s to say that they won’t come out with a study in a few days saying the whites are worse than the yolks? And he’s right about the yolks and the bread. They probably turn to chocolate chips in the digesting process.

Even though, on some level, I still think he’s better off not eating candy for breakfast, I’m not really sure why. No matter what argument I come up with, he’ll have a better one -- even if it’s only because I’ll believe his and question mine.

If I went so far as to convince him that refined sugar is worse than natural sugar, he’d still win. Because when push comes to shove, he gets all existential on me and says things like, “So what you’re saying is that, if I get hit by a car, I’ll somehow be better off if I have a piece of bread in my stomach than a piece of chocolate?”

So, there you have it. No more talking to anyone because I always lose.

And no more honeydew.

March 10

Miss Understanding, my second novel, is in a box, on the way to my editor, May Chen, via UPS, at this very second. That means I can pry myself off this chair and roll myself out the door and face the world again.

Although I should probably shower first. It’s been a while.

Aside from the ecstasy of finishing this book, I recently had the pleasure of seeing what will soon be its book cover. And I’m happy to report that there are pink and white polka dots involved. Laugh all you want. Pink polka dots are a way of life for some people.

If you came to my house right now, here’s what you’d find:

One pink polka dotted mug
Several pink and white polka dotted towels
At least six or seven pink polka dotted washcloths
Two pink and white polka dotted robes (Kim and I have the same one)
A pink polka dotted umbrella
And last but not least, a pink polka dotted clipboard
Oh, and a blue and white polka dotted suitcase—because it didn’t come in pink

This is all true what I’m telling you. Why would I lie about this?

So how is it that life imitates book covers?

It’s because I had all this stuff already. The book cover is just a happy coincidence.

And there’s more. It has a tiny dress on it.
As a child, I had an obsession with tiny things. In fact, whenever there was a TV show on with miniature people, I couldn’t even watch it. That’s how badly I wanted those little people.

Needless to say, I’m in love with my book cover. And it’s making me want to buy something with polka dots on it. I believe I have enough, but if you’d like me to buy you something, pick anything from my list (Pick the umbrella!) and tell me where to send it. I realize this is silly but you haven’t seen my cover. It will make you want to buy something for someone too. Actually, what if all of you ask for the umbrella? Then I’ll have to go out and buy thousands of them. So, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll put your names in a pink and white polka dotted hat and pick one!

And I’ll go buy the hat right now!

February 21

The editing is coming along nicely. But I keep getting all these ideas for my next book, which I’m finding increasingly distracting. Mostly because none of my ideas are good so it’s sort of shaking my confidence.

My problem, as a writer, is that I’m not interested in plots. They get in the way of what I’m trying to do and so I avoid them -- consequently this ruins my books. All I ever want to do is listen carefully to the people talking inside my head and then repeat exactly what they’re saying for my readers’ enjoyment. I don’t care where my characters are standing at the time or what’s happening in their personal lives.

I didn’t realize this until a couple of people called it to my attention. For instance I remember Kelly making note of the fact that I had written ten pages of dialogue in “She’s Got Issues,” between Chloe and Zoe, while they were sitting on a window ledge with the window open. I could have at least made one sister push the other out of the window to move the plot along but those things never occur to me. They were having such a good conversation, I didn’t have the heart to interrupt them.

And then, while we were working on “Miss Understanding,” Kate made mention of the fact that Chapter Three was over one hundred pages of dialogue without any action at all until the last page when Zoe threw up. Apparently that’s not enough.

And because of this failing on my part, I’ve decided to write an entirely different type of book next time -- one that has no plot, on purpose. I’m toying with the idea of calling it, “Nothing Happens.”

February 11

That’s it. I’m off the diet. It was a tough decision but I did what I had to do. First of all I found out that the girl from Barney’s gave me the exact same advice Kirsty Alley’s muse gave her on Fat Actress. Somehow that me feel as though it wasn’t good advice.

And then to add insult to injury we went to the House of Toto fashion show downtown on Lafayette at Indochine the next day (a www.gothampr.com event) and I got a good look at some of those models. And suddenly I understood why I’ll never be skinny. I’m not of the same species. For instance I can’t walk like a pony. I have feet. And unfortunately they’re rooted to my ankles. Therefore I must drag them around the floor instead of lifting them high in the air before placing them down on the ground.

But the clothes were adorable and they desperately made me want to be able to walk like a pony. I especially liked the little herringbone suit with the pintucked jacket and the tiny grey plaid trench coat. I’m almost tempted to say that I may have witnessed perfection right there on that runway. See for yourself. www.houseoftoto.com. Although I’m not sure if the Fall 2006 Havana Collection is up on the site yet. If it’s not, somehow you’ll have to find a way to see it. I mean it. Think Dorothy meets Toto in St. Barth -– I believe that was the name of the show.

The good news is that there was this perfect black hammered silk mini-dress that I might be able to wear as a necklace.

February 15

I got my Valentine’s Day Gift last night from my daughter.

It’s a Chattie Kathie doll.
Exactly like the one I had when I was little--
Don’t worry, it’s not like I have a doll collection or anything.
It’s just that I always talk about this particular doll because my daughter, Kim, came out looking exactly like her and sometimes I think she’s Chattie reincarnated.

I once told Kim about the time I suddenly felt too old for Chattie so I put her downstairs in the basement. But then -- after a few days -- I couldn’t take it anymore so I went down to visit her. When I saw her again, for the first time, our eyes met, and I couldn’t help noticing that her face was all dirty. I was sure she’d been raped by something in the basement. I picked her up and begged her to forgive me for putting her in the dungeon and punishing her for no reason. I chastised myself for wanting to grow up at Chattie’s expense and brought her back upstairs. I gave her a haircut and a bath and kept her upstairs from then on -– under my bed -- with a pillow over her.

And now my daughter hands me this doll. I turned her over immediately to see if she had a string coming out of her neck -- and there it was. I pulled it to hear her voice, but there was nothing. I pulled up her shirt to see the little speaker holes in her chest. I remember staring at those holes as though they were the scars that made her real -- despite the fact that scars rarely form in perfect circles.

“We got her on E-Bay!” Kim said. “Sorry she doesn’t have a voice. It would have cost $350 to fix it.”

“You did the right thing,” I said. “All she ever did was repeat the same thing over and over again. We were very limited in terms of doll-talk technology back then.”

”What did she say?” Kim asked.

“‘I’m Chattie Kathie’ and ‘Would you like to go out and play?’ Neither of which are worth reliving for 350 dollars.”

I took the doll back to my room, trying to imagine what type of girl she once belonged to and where my own Chattie Kathie doll ended up after all these years. I can only assume she was sold into some sort of prostitution ring.

I can’t stop staring at her. It’s all coming back to me -- how much I once loved her and how guilty I felt hiding her -- while I look for a place in my closet where she might like to live.

February 10

I met this girl yesterday. I don’t want to say where. Okay, it was Barney’s but I only went in to use the ladies room.

And then one thing led to another.

I saw the girl from across the room because she was extremely tall and beautiful and you couldn’t help but notice her. She was looking in the mirror pulling her thick brown hair back into a ponytail. I couldn’t tell if she was shopping or working but then she ran over to me and took the three thousand pounds of clothing I’d been carrying out of my hands.

“Come with me,” she said. I followed her into a dressing room and she immediately began organizing my stuff.

“That’s okay, I can do that,” I said.

“I don’t like any of this,” she said, “Don’t even try any of this on.”

“Seriously? Do you even work here?” I asked.

“Of course. Now tell me, what are you shopping for?”

“To kill time?” I answered, wondering why she cared.

“No, I mean, for what reason. How do you want to look? Are you shopping for a specific night or something? Do you have a date?”

“No, God no. I just like this floor.”

”Well, I think you are trying to cover your body with all these big jackets. They’re not right for you.”

”Everyone says that! But that’s only because I put on a few.”

”Well, look at me,” she said pulling up her shirt.
I swear this is true. Word for word. No exaggeration.

“Oh my,” I said. She was very tan and skinny.

“I lost 75 pounds.”

”No!” I said.

“Yes, it’s true.” At that point I detected a slight accent.

“Where are you from?” I asked her.

“Brazil. But I’ve been here for a long time.” Her shirt was still up. “I have two girls, seven and eight and look at my body!”

It was good but I didn’t really feel like looking at her bra for that long.

“Listen to me. If you want to lose weight, I will give you my secret. But you have to listen to me.”

“Tell me! Tell me! Girl with the pretty bra.”

“Okay, first of all, do you smoke?”

“No.”

”Too bad, that helped me a lot. How about coffee? Do you drink a lot of coffee?”

“One cup.”

”That’s not enough. You have to drink coffee all day and don’t drink water. Water makes women fat.”

”Are you sure? Because . . .”

“Look at me!”

She had a point. There was no denying that she knew what she was doing.

“Now, what food do you really love?”

”It’s so hard to choose,” I explained.

“Pick one. And what sign are you?”

”I’m a Scorpio.”

”Ah, well, that’s a problem. Scorpios are very passionate.”

”About food?”

”About everything. You’re going to have to replace your passion. Tell me, do you love your husband? I left mine and lost 27 pounds in three months.”

“I have to leave my husband too?”

“If you don’t love him. That could be the reason you’re gaining weight. What sign is he?”

“Aries.”

”Nevermind. He just likes you to be a little fat. Aries are like that. But don’t worry. You can still lose it. Do you chew gum?”

”Not that often but I have some in the house.”

”Good, chew gum, drink a lot of coffee. Don’t eat after seven o’clock and eat one thing that you love every day. If you listen to the diet people, you’ll be fat for the rest of your life. Don’t eat chicken and salad. Fat people eat chicken and salad. Eat candy. I eat one snickers bar a day and I’m happy and healthy.”

“Now there’s a coincidence. I wrote a whole book about a girl who only eats candy! But I’m not a snickers girl.”

”What do you like?”

”Nestlé’s crunch.”

”Fine, buy a case and eat one everyday.”

”Are you sure I won’t die from this?”

“You’ll be fine. Here’s my card. Call me everyday or come in to talk to me. We can do this.”

Then she left the dressing room.

I was still standing there wondering what the hell just happened when she walked back in with a navy blue v-neck sweater.

“This is for you. Try it on.”

I put it on and it looked pretty good.

“Wear this with your jeans and boots until you get skinny. Buy a few of them and wear a big belt. Make sure your boots have a high heel. Later, when it’s all off, then we’ll start shopping.”

We hugged and I went home with my new sweaters. I’m a little worried about her but I’m excited for my new diet.

February 4, 2006

I will be editing Miss Understanding until March 10th. And then I will take a shower and resume this blogging thing. However, if something humiliating happens during that time, I’ll write a short one.

February 3, 2006

I’m not quite sure if this qualifies as an actual phobia but I’m afraid of housekeepers. I know this sounds cowardly but I’ve been afraid of them since I was a little girl. It’s not that I think they’re going to kill me or anything. I’m just afraid they’ll tell on me. I’m particularly afraid they’ll tell someone they saw me eating something I wasn’t supposed to eat -- like ice cream cake, at nine o’clock in the morning -- stuff like that This may or may not qualify as an eating disorder, but either way, I don’t plan on doing anything about it because I’d rather die than have therapy for fear of cleaning ladies. It just sounds ridiculous. I’ll just continue to do what I always do when I see my housekeeper coming toward me; I’ll run the other way.

Because of my phobia, I usually make myself lunch and bring it upstairs to my office or I go out to lunch. But yesterday we had corned beef in the house so I couldn’t wait to eat, even though I knew Suzy could be anywhere. It was a chance I had to take.

I went downstairs and made myself a corned beef omelet and then quickly ran upstairs with it. On the way to my office, I remembered that I had a twelve o’clock appointment in the city and that it was more important that I shower and get dressed than eat an omelet. So I brought the omelet into the bathroom with me. I took off my clothes, turned on the shower and started eating my eggs as fast as I could. I was about to bring the eggs with me into the shower -- that’s how good they were -- when I heard a noise.

I froze.

“Fuck! I forgot to lock my bedroom door,” was my first thought.

“Steffie, I’m just coming in to put these clothes away!” Suzy called.

My bathroom door was wide open.

And there I was.

Eating eggs.

Naked.

I dropped the plate so she wouldn’t see me eating and quickly slammed the door. Then I sat on the edge of the tub for at least twenty minutes reliving the whole scene.

I did make it to my appointment on time, even though I managed to clean up the mess I made, but I’m still not totally recovered from the humiliation of that moment.

When I went downstairs I asked her if she saw me and she said, “Just for a second.”

A second is a long time.

At first I thought perhaps I should give her a raise. But that didn’t make me feel any better. Then I thought telling someone who loves me might make me feel better, but no. My son just laughed his ass off and called my husband to tell him the funny story about mommy eating eggs naked.

So then I decided it might help to write it down. And I do feel a tiny bit better actually.
I mean I’m sure lots of people get caught eating an omelet naked in their bathroom with the shower running.

There are worse things. Being chained to a fence, for example or being dunked in a bathtub filled with ice cubes, like that poor Mr. Perry, the murderer in “In Cold Blood.”

It’s important to always put things in perspective. And sometimes having your worst fear come true is actually healing in a way.

Now when Suzy walks into the kitchen and sees me standing in front of it, holding a fork, I won’t even care if she calls someone to tell on me. What’s she gonna say? “Stephanie was wearing her pants and eating for a change?” What’s so bad about that?

We saw Capote and Match Point this weekend. Capote is better.

Match Point, unfortunately, didn’t really get going until Chris was loading the shot gun and then pointing it at that poor, sweet, old woman who accidentally whistled whenever she pronounced a word that began with the letter, “T.” For some reason, I found it impossible to feel anything at all for him until he became a murderer and started crying. I can’t stand to see anyone suffer, even when he or she is killing someone. The whole time I’m thinking, “God! He must really be kicking himself for this.”

What turned me off to him almost immediately was his decision to pursue Scarlett by way of incessant lip twitching. It reminded me of a guy twirling the ends of his handlebar moustache. Even worse was the way he suddenly started strolling in all those fine men shops, and then strolling out with a little glossy bag of something for himself with Plum Sykes’s father’s money (I still think it was her. I don’t care what the credits say). Nothing is worse than witnessing a man falling in love with clothes knowing they’re being paid for by someone else. But then he shot that woman and suddenly I liked him. He was so genuinely upset and finally not thinking about clothes. It was the first time he showed any sort of human emotion beyond lust, and suddenly, I didn’t want him to get caught.

I wanted the murderer to get lucky -- which, as you may have heard, was the whole point of the movie.

But, by the end, when he did get lucky, I couldn’t stand him again. I did, however, think Plum’s brother was adorable. I felt sorry for his new wife, though. They kept filming her from the side. If she was so wrong for the part, why didn’t they just pick someone else instead of humiliating her like that?

About Capote.
I hate to brag but my Truman Capote imitation is ten times better than what’s his name’s -- I did it the whole way home until Dan couldn’t take it anymore.

“You don’t sound like him,” he kept saying.

“Of courth I do,” I sniffed.

“You sound like you have asthma.”

”I do have ath-ma,” I explained.

This movie was almost as delicious as Capote himself. What an endearing prick he was. No wonder New York Society was so enamored with their own fine taste in appreciating him and his quirky insouciance, his refined, pillow soft savagery; he, the culinary master of such tantalizing social indictments.

Bear with me. I’m reading the book now so I might be channeling him for a while. I’ll try to stop, though.

But here’s what happened, and I swear this is true, you can ask Dan.

When we were deciding where to go see the movie, Dan suggested the Rialto in Ridgefield -- because that’s the only place it was playing. Ridgefield is a small town about ten minutes away from us that I had only been to once.
I couldn’t remember it that well so I just assumed it would be a bad place to see the movie.

“We can’t go there. I think it’s a bad neighborhood,” I said.

“What are you talking about? It’s a fine neighborhood. You’re confusing it with some other town.”

”What if the theater smells? I’m going to want to leave. There’s no point.”

”The theater will be just like the one in Tenafly.”

That was a good thing to say. Tenafly is my hometown theater. I’m familiar with its smells.

When we got to Ridgefield, I couldn’t help noticing what a quaint old neighborhood it was.

“I like it here!” I exclaimed

“I’m so happy for you,” Dan said, looking for a parking space -- unfortunately, there weren’t any within walking distance of the theater.

We continued driving, looking for a spot and passed the theater.

There was a long line.

I surveyed the clientele.

“Honey, everyone on line is wearing Mephistos,” I said.

“What can I tell you? You picked an artsy movie.”

While we were standing on line, we realized they don’t take credit cards, so Dan had to find a cash machine while I stood there analyzing the behavior of the senior citizens dressed up -- only from the ankles up -- and the one cool guy wearing a long green corduroy coat that I wanted very badly. And then, I’m absolutely telling the truth, Truman Capote walked in. Dan wasn’t there for me to prove it to him.

I had to hold back a scream.

I watched him walk in with his baldhead and brown suede hat and the over-sized black glasses and the stocky body and ask for one ticket.

I looked around to see if everyone else was seeing what I was seeing, but it’s so hard to tell with seniors. They’re always laughing. I couldn’t tell if they were getting a kick out of seeing Truman, or the fact that they were getting in for half price.

Finally, Dan came running over. “Oh God, you missed it!” I whispered, “Truman Capote is here. But he already went in.”

”You saw Truman Capote?” he asked, not unsurprisingly surprised.

“Yes! He just went in, I swear on everything holy.”

“Believe it or not, I know who you saw,” he said.

“Was it Truman?”

“No, of course not. He’s just some guy from Englewood. He does look exactly like him. He sells his artwork to the Starbucks on Palisades Avenue. I see him all the time. It’s funny that you saw him here.”

”I can’t believe it wasn’t him. And I can’t believe you knew who I was talking about.”

“You know Truman Capote is dead, right?”

“Of course I know that,” I whispered so no one on line would know how stupid he thinks I am, “I was hoping I’d just seen my first ghost.”

Once seated in the movie, with my popcorn and soda, I couldn’t help noticing how much nicer the theater was than the one in Tenafly. There was something almost regal about it -- the wooden seats polished to a whisper, the curly, scrolled column tops and the deafening red velvet curtain. You could hear a pin drop in that theater.

I looked for the popcorn/cup holder in the armrest, but there wasn’t one. Dan and I looked at each other in recognition of the missing popcorn/cup holder -- the expression on his face was self-congratulatory and I told you so-ish. As though he was somehow responsible for us finding ourselves in an elegant, old-world theater that had the integrity not to upgrade their seats -- despite the fact that I, in my incredible ignorance, was afraid it would smell. All the while, the expression on my face was indicating, “Where am I supposed to put everything?”

As soon as we got comfortable, I noticed a yarmulke on the head of the guy sitting in front of me. I tried not to look at it. I’m not sure why exactly.

“Is this a very Jewish neighborhood?” I whispered to Dan.

“How the hell should I know?” he whispered back.

I began eating my popcorn, but every time I took a bite, the guy with the yarmulke kept turning around -- as though my chewing was disturbing him. I’d never had that feeling before in a movie theater. Were the seats closer than normal? I wondered.

Just then I heard Dan chewing.

“We’re chewing too loud,” I told him.

He looked at me like I was crazy.

“No, seriously, we’re disturbing people.”

”What are you talking about?” he asked, shoving a handful of unpopped kernels into his mouth.

“The guy in front of us keeps turning around.”

”That’s because he has a hearing aid,” Dan whispered, ”He keeps turning around to see where all the little noises he’s not supposed to hear are coming from.”

I’m always amazed at the things my husbandly quietly notices but feels no need to discuss.
I gently placed my popcorn on the floor, even though I was dying for it, and watched the movie.

Here are the three best lines in the movie, although I might not be using all the right words. Unlike Truman, I don’t have 94% recall. I have about 8%.

“Frankly, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

“There isn’t a word or a concept or an illuminating thought that I don’t completely understand.” (I totally got this one wrong but you have to go see the movie to hear him say it. It cuts like a knife. I might go see it again just to hear him say this again).

“Your sister misses you.”

I won’t ruin this for you -- if you haven’t seen it -- but I would like to make one final point about this movie in relation to Match Point -- besides the fact that it, too, is about how much better life is when you get really, really lucky. It’s about the empathy thing.

As much as you may adore Truman Capote, not only as a writer but as the incredibly entertaining intellectual asshole that he was, I’m willing to assume that you won’t feel anything for him in the way of sympathy -- at least not for the first three quarters of the movie -- not even while he writhes around in the throes of his narcissism-induced alcoholic stupor. It wasn’t until his best friend forced him to admit what he was that I felt myself crumble.

I remember seeing Truman Capote on a talk show when I was a child. I was beside myself with curiosity.

“What is that?” I asked my mom.

“That’s Truman Capote.”

”Why is he acting like that?”

“He’s an incredible genius.”

“Is that why he keeps touching his face?” I asked.

“He has a lot of affectations,” she explained.

“Does that mean he’s faking?” I asked.

“It’s hard to say,” she said.

But now that I saw the movie, I know exactly what he was doing.

He was disarming us -- lying to us -- and using his hands to cover it up, so he could slay us, with his words, in cold blood, in front of millions of people, live.

Doesn’t that just kill you?

January 26

You know what doesn’t look good? Plastic surgery on a man. I’m not sure what it is exactly that makes it so distasteful but there’s something about it that just creeps the hell out of me. And I feel badly about it. Men have the same right to pull their faces back and off to the side as women.

Last night Kim had to go to the dentist because she was feeling pain in the area where her wisdom teeth will one day be. Our regular dentist isn’t there at night so we had to see someone else. As soon as the unfamiliar, and therefore suspect, dentist walked in the room Kim started making faces at me.

“What?” I whispered while his back was turned.

“Something’s wrong with him,” she mumbled.

“In what way?” I asked.

“I think he was badly burned.”

I waited for him to turn around and sure enough, he did have that look.

“What the hell is it?” she asked as soon as he left the room.

“I think he had his eyes done,” I explained.

In the car on the way home, Kim asked, “Why would a man have his eyes done?”

I tried to explain to her that men are people too and that they age much like women.

“So?”

“Well, some men don’t like the way they look old and so they try to make themselves look younger.”

”Yes, but even if you have your eyes done, you still walk old,” she explained.

“True. True. But at least his face is upright.”

“But he looks fake.”

And then I understood what it is that’s so bothersome about men “fixing” themselves up. It’s because we think of men as real and women as make believe.

Women wear makeup. Men don’t. Women wear bras. Men don’t. Women wear high heels, Men don’t. Women are supposed to be in costume. Men aren’t.

That’s why it’s perfectly adorable for a girl to wear boyish clothes and it’s totally bizarre when a guy wears lipstick -- even if he’s a newscaster.

When we got home, we turned on the TV and there was this news story about a boy, from Hasbrouck Heights, NJ, who got sent home from school because he came in wearing a skirt.

“That’s ridiculous!” I said.

“Ridiculous that he wore a skirt to school or ridiculous that he’s not allowed to?” Jesse asked.

“Ridiculous that he’s not allowed to,” I said. “Who do they think they are telling boys what they can and can’t wear?” I demanded of my children.

“Maybe they think skirts are for girls,” Jesse said.

“Why? Who determined that? I want to know!” I cried.

“Who knows. It could have been anyone. But what’s done is done,” Jesse explained, throwing up his hands.

“Yes, but it’s wrong. I can’t take it when people get punished for not following rules that are meaningless and arbitrary. It just infuriates me.”

”It’s amazing that you never ended up in jail,” Kim said.

“I just don’t want you two growing up thinking it’s wrong for a boy to wear a skirt, that’s all I’m saying.”

”We don’t, Mom. And we’re sorry that he got in trouble. We just think he’d look better in pants.”

”No one should be sent home for looking better in pants.”

”That’s true,” Kim said, trying to calm me down. “But don’t you think he probably looked a little silly, whether it’s right or wrong? Silly like the dentist?”

“I guess so, but still. Men have every right to try to be more like girls. Why should we be the only ones who are allowed to fake people out?” I asked, while lifting my forehead with two fingers and turning my head from side to side in the mirror.

“Of course they have that right -- on principle,” Jesse jumped in, “But the kid is in high school, he could get killed for showing up like that. They were probably just trying to protect him.”

”You think so?”

“Of course,” both kids said at once, patting me on the back. And then they left the room whispering.

Sometimes I worry about them growing up in a world where it’s not safe for a boy to wear a skirt to school, I thought, following them out.

A little while later Dan came in the room to tell me that after we all walked away, they reported that, after a committee meeting of some sort, the boy was allowed to wear his skirt to school after all -- as long as it was the right length.

January 25

Remember when I was saying how boys can’t remember anything? Well, here’s the funny thing. It’s true. A smart person confirmed it. I know! I’m shocked myself. I mean there I was talking right out of my ass and it turns out there’s a whole book about this. It’s written by Marianne J. Legato and it’s called, “Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget." I would like everyone who reads this blog to buy this book if for no other reason then to prove how perceptive I am without actually knowing anything. Here’s the link: WHY MEN NEVER REMEMBER AND WOMEN NEVER FORGET

And while you’re at it, check this out: www.davidgoodwillie.com

I would like every single person I know to buy this book as well: SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME.

I’m not going to tell you what it’s about. Just trust me. Unlike a certain someone who has a certain talk show, I’m never wrong.

Jesse stayed home from school today so we decided to organize the book closet. The book closet is a place where raggedy books go. It’s not that they’re not good enough to go on the bookshelf. It’s that they’re too ugly.

At first we decided to organize the books by author but then Jesse and I realized that neither of us are good with names so we’d never be able to find anything. Then we decided to organize them by title. But then the whole “the” thing messed us up so we decided to group them by genre.

We decided to go with the following:

1)School novels which have already been read and conveniently annotated by Kim that Jesse will eventually have to read.

2) Classics (including: “A Tale of Two Cities,” “Curious George,” and “Hilarious 911 Calls”

3)Poetry Books, all of which we’ve decided to hide in Kim’s room because, well, let’s be honest

4)Books on Bob Dylan

5) Plays

6)Books on Che Guevara

7) Good Books

8) Joke Books

9) Ridiculously Girly Books

10) History Books including three copies of The History of the United States because Dan had Howard Zinn as his History Professor.

11) Sports Books, most of which have lost their covers.

12) Incredibly Cool Books (Kurt Vonnegut dominates this category)

13)Non-Fiction (A category which we had to split into two parts because Jesse felt that anything in the “Homeopathic” category should go into a separate pile called, “Amusing Non-Fiction” because, as he put it, “It was a just a humorous phase you were going through and I’m glad it’s over.”

And then I spotted a copy of “She’s Got Issues,” lying on the floor with its cover bent in half. I stood up to leave.

“Where’re you going?” Jesse asked.

“I don’t feel like playing anymore,” I explained.

January 20, 2006

I don’t know. When I think of a chick lit book club, I imagine all girls. But it seems that’s not always the case.

Last night I had a signing at the Barnes & Noble in Springfield, NJ and as always there was a little surprise.

When I first arrived, there was, in fact, a nice group of women assembled and waiting for me. I sat down in one of the chairs in the pre-arranged circle and introduced myself. The store manager was detained for a few minutes so I took it upon myself to break the ice.

Soon after we learned each other’s names I got this weird feeling that at least one of the chick lit club members didn’t like Chloe. I’m not sure how I knew exactly. It’s sort of like a sixth sense -- the same radar Jews have about Anti-Semites.

You can just tell.

Whenever I get the feeling someone doesn’t like Chloe, I clam up and want to go home. I understand that she’s not a real person but I can’t relate to people who don’t like her. In lieu of leaving, I decided it might be better to talk about something other than my book -- perhaps another book, I thought, or some other character -- one I wasn’t responsible for creating. I named a few books and a few authors and started rambling incoherently.

Eventually the group got to talking about a particular author who experiences “visions.” Whenever she does signings/readings, she always picks a few people out of the audience and reads their minds. I haven’t read any of her books and I can’t remember her name, but apparently she’s very entertaining and draws huge crowds.

Every time someone tried to get back on the topic of “She’s Got Issues,” I’d derail the conversation so fast, we were eventually reduced to sitting around asking each other where we all grew up, just to keep things going.

Shortly after one of the women asked me how far away Demarest is from Springfield, another Barnes & Noble customer joined our group. He wasn’t a girl and he appeared to be a Hell’s Angel. He was angrily tattooed, wearing Mr. T jewelry and rolled up jeans. I introduced myself and wondered if the other women were as petrified as I was. And although I was grateful for the distraction, I realized he might very well be armed.

“Is this the ‘She’s Got Issues’ meetin’?” he asked.

“Yes, it is,” I said, hoping he hadn’t read the book and felt any ill feelings toward Chloe as well.

“Where are the refreshments?” he asked.

They’re coming soon I said and glanced nervously at the rest of the group, who had also become tense with fear. Then I saw the store manager, who had since arrived, get up and walk to the back of the store. I assumed she was either going to get the cookies or the police -- or hiding.

”Let’s talk about the interview scene,” one of the women said shakily.

“Okay, great,” I answered, thinking, “You mean the scene where she gets her period? You think I’m going to say ‘period’ in front of this guy!”

Just as I was about to veer the conversation over to some other interesting interview scene in some other book, the man interrupted us.

“I have an issue of my own,” he said, “It’s about the Florida school system. Those teachers don’t give a damn about the kids and some of them are so old they can’t even hear what the kids are sayin’. I grew up there and I’m not sayin’ I turned out one way or the other because of one teacher in particular, I’m just talkin’ about the way they run things down there. Someone’s gotta report these things or how is the government gonna know. I believe that if a kid has a problem you should talk to him. I’m a very open person. There’s no harm in expressin’ your feelings in front of a group of people. Being open about your feelings is very important in today’s world.”

One of the women decided to take the pretend he’s not there and hopefully he’ll go away approach. “And speaking of ‘She’s Got Issues,’” she interjected, “One of the things I found interesting about the book was the way Chloe benefited from not being aware of the way she was being treated.”

“I’ve had relations with a certain woman,” the man interrupted. “And she has a lot more issues than I ever did. I don’t want to go into them now, on a one by one basis, but let’s just say she has a drug slash drinking problem and I don’t blame her for that. I think it’s wrong to blame people for their bad habits and vices and what not. For a while it was pills then some other drugs. The truth is it doesn’t matter because all drugs will mess you up. Take any drug for instance and it will mess you up. Take pills for instance. That’s not something anyone can fix because that’s just the way it is with drugs and alcohol and pills. Man, if there’s one thing I want you ladies to leave here with today, it’s Just Say No! Alcohol is what really messed me up but if it wasn’t for a certain someone who I will tell you about at a later time, I wouldn’t be here today. No sir.”

The store manager, who had since returned with the cookies and two other B&N employees, sat down quietly.

“This is a perfect opportunity for me to begin my New Year’s Resolution,” I thought to myself. Which is, of course, to get more involved with desperately insane people.

“What did you say your name was?” I asked him.

“It’s Lou. You can just call me Lou. And let me just say, “I’d be happy to take a free book, Stephanie Lessing. And could someone pass the cookies?”

Despite my resolution to help the needy, I got a little shiver when he said my full name like that.

The store manager very politely leaned forward and informed Lou that, as a rule, Barnes & Noble doesn’t give away books and that everyone here has already read the book and that if he’d like to purchase a book that would be fine.

Another woman raised her hand and I gratefully called on her. “Personally, Chloe drove me nuts. I wanted to take her and shake her and tell her to stand up to Ruth.”

“I knew some people would find it difficult to deal with Chloe’s relentless naiveté, but I was determined to maintain her inability to willfully undermine Ruth’s authority. If Chloe had toughened up, it would have made sense that she succeeded in the end. Chloe is her own little theater of the absurd. She’s not supposed to react or behave sensibly. She’s supposed to represent a certain mentality. A mentality that’s naturally drawn to the trappings of the fashion and beauty industry.” I said all of this without crying.

“But she was so dumb, it was infuriating. I had trouble believing anyone like her could actually exist."

“Are you kidding? There are millions of Chloes out there. I might even know all of them,” I said.

“I just didn’t think she was believable. I did laugh out loud though, a couple of times.”

“Me too! My husband kept asking me what the hell I was doing?” said my new best friend.

“Sorry I’m not as funny in person,” I wanted to say. “It’s just that I have no personality when my feelings are hurt.”

“I don’t know if I mentioned this but I was in the Marines,” Lou said. “I’m what they call a veteran. When you hear someone say, ‘veteran,’ they’re talking about someone who was a marine at one time in their life. And one thing I know is that when women get pregnant, watch out. What do they mean by ‘chick lit’ by the way?” At this point he was sort of eating his cookie and still trying to stay focused on “opening up.”

“It’s just a term for a genre of books that are geared toward young working women juggling their careers, their boyfriends and their every day lives.”

”Oh,” Lou said, choking a little. He immediately jumped up as though she’d said, “This is a meeting for lepers.”

“Take care then, Stephanie Lessing. I’ll keep an eye out for you,” and he walked away.

Even Lou didn’t want to associate himself with Chick-Lit. If that doesn’t tell you something--

It wasn’t too bad though without Lou because somehow I managed to get right off topic again and again -- and before I knew it, it was time to go.

I thanked everyone, bought several thousand dollars worth of books and drove home. But now I can’t stop thinking about Lou. Where did he go when he left the store? Did he wander into a square dance hall or perhaps a Weight Watchers meeting?

Poor Lou. I wanted to run after him and tell him, “No matter where you go, Lou, you’re not alone.”

Dan and Stephanie continue to discuss James Frey – (long after everyone else has stopped)

Dan: I told you that whole book was bullshit but that’s what people want -– juicy bullshit-- so that’s what they got.

Me: Some of it was true.

Dan: He probably had a nothing little coke problem, diet coke.

Me: Sometimes you have to exaggerate to prove a point. And it’s not like it was an autobiography. It was a memoir. It’s supposed to be better than the real thing. It’s not like he killed anyone. He just said he did.

Dan: A memoir is supposed to be a true, Steph. And if he lied about it, that’s pretty bad. But not exactly surprising.

Me: But, at the same time, he helped people. And now they want their money back as though he suddenly didn’t help them?

Dan: The fact that he helped a lot of people is fine. The fact that he wrote a bullshit book and sold it as truth is not fine. The publisher’s integrity is at stake.

Me: The publisher doesn’t even care and James didn’t lie. He exaggerated. The point of the book is: Here’s a way to get better. People believed him and they got better. It’s like any other religion. Nobody goes around asking for a refund after they read the Bible, do they? Of course not, because the Bible works -- exactly the same way A Million Little Pieces works. But I guess the people who gave up drinking and then found out it wasn’t a true story have a right to be pissed that they gave up drinking. I mean, think of all the drunken fun they could have been having if they didn’t believe him.

Dan: This isn’t about the effect of the book. It’s about lying.

Me: Isn’t the effect more important than the details of the author’s police records?

Dan: To you maybe. But I thought you never even read the book.

Me: I read the beginning but then I had to put it down.

Dan: Why?

Me: I told you. I knew he was lying. But I still respected the effort. I admire anyone who can get a book published without using quotation marks.

Dan. Why are you defending this guy?

Me: I don’t know.

I didn’t even like the book. And I’m beginning to think that even though I admire his ability to write a best seller that inspired millions of people, he definitely should have at least said something like, “Based On A True Story.” He messed up. There’s no question about it.

But I still think it was for a good cause.

Dan and Stephanie discuss her robe.

Dan: Come here my little Tubbalina.

Me: What? What did you just call me?

Dan: Tubbalina. Tiny little thing.

Me: Thanks a lot.

Dan: Steph, look in the mirror.

There’s no question I look rotund. I’m wearing a pink and white polka-dotted terry robe. It’s very puffy and no matter what angle I stand in front of the mirror, I look fat, but still. Tubbalina?

Dan: Come here.

Me: Are you kidding?

Dan: Don’t be mad at me.

Me: I’m not mad. I’m just never speaking to you again.

Dan: Why not?

Me: Because you call me names.

Dan: Tubba Lina isn’t a name. It’s a mispronunciation. And I take it back.

Me: Too late. I used to be so happy in that robe. I’d throw it on, not a care in the world, and run downstairs to see what was for breakfast. Now I’ll never wear it again.

Dan: You can still wear it.

Me: No, I can’t. It’s not the same.

Dan: What difference does it make? We’ve all seen you in it. It’s not like if you don’t ever wear it again, we could ever forget.

Me: True, but at least before, I didn’t know how I looked in it. Now I know.

Dan: You never spotted yourself in the mirror as you were running downstairs?

Me: Nope. That’s how happy I was while I was running. No time to even stop and look.

Dan: I’m sorry.

Me: Don’t be. It just proves my point about James Frey.

Dan: And what point is that?

Me: Lie

January 13

A Million Little People have a million little opinions but that’s only because they’ve never written a book that sold like a billion copies and maybe saved as many souls.

Having said that, I never read the book. I tried but I got so grossed out and confused when they forced him to have the root- canal without anesthesia I had to put it down.
And also because I’m not interested in addiction. It’s just not something I’m passionate about.

Here’s the funny thing I said to my sister when she forced me to read it. “There’s no way they would have given him the root-canal without anesthesia. They would have waited until he was well enough to have pain medication, I bet the whole book is a lie.”

I’m not saying I’m psychic, (my agent already assured me I’m the worst psychic she’s ever met)I’m just saying those were my exact words. That’s all.

Whether it’s true or not affects the integrity of the book (not the author) about as much as Clinton’s blow-job affected his ability to run the country properly. Which is none at all.

It’s the art we’re after, not the artist, right? Who knows if half the memoirs out there aren’t half truths. People don’t know what’s true and what’s not true about their own lives because they have to rely on their memories. Memories lie. If you don’t believe me, go look at your yearbook picture and tell me you wouldn’t swear on a stack of bibles that you never left the house with your hair like that. Who was it that said, “All fiction is true and all non-fiction is what we believe is true?” Was it me? It might have been. I know I sure as hell can’t remember.

Maybe he shouldn’t have called it a memoir. Maybe he should have called it “A book somewhat based on some of the things that happened to me plus some other things that I added to make the book better.”

The thing to focus on here is that he wrote a book that people read. And it helped them.

And more importantly, he trashed the literati and he eats with his hands. I mean, come on people, guys like him don’t grow on trees.

January 12

Did you see Mrs. Alito sitting behind her husband crying? And then there was that other woman sitting right next to her, whispering, “Cut it out. We’re on TV. You’re embarrassing me.” And then suddenly Mrs. Alito wasn’t sitting there anymore. I guess the woman also told her to go the ladies room to blow her nose.

I was thinking that if I had been there, I would have made a mad dash to meet Mrs. Alito in the ladies room.

“Hi!” I’d say. “What a day, huh? Gosh, I’m glad I’m not in your shoes! Of course, what are the chances of that happening? So anyway, I was wondering if perhaps we could talk privately for just a moment. I know you’re probably not supposed to talk to random people, such as myself- but I was thinking how great it would be if you could just tell me whether or not your husband believes in abortion. I swear on my life, I won’t tell anyone. I’m just curious, since it’s like this whole big secret and since it’s the only thing anyone really wants to know.”

“How could I possibly reveal that kind of information?” she’d probably say.

“Well, it’s easy. Just say yes or no.”

“But I don’t even know how he’d judge on such a matter.”

“OH, come on. Knock it off. We’re just a couple of girls in the bathroom. You don’t have to act that way in front of me. I’m not exactly a political person and to be honest, your husband seems like a very nice man. He’s certainly no dummy. Nor is he flashy. I like that and I like you.

And like I said, I’m not all that involved, politically speaking. In fact, I have no idea whatsoever what’s going on in Washington. For one thing, I live all the way over in New Jersey and secondly, I am able to retain only the tiniest bits of information and I often retain those tidbits incorrectly. Therefore, I am not a threat, by any means. Trust me. You can ask anyone who knows me. The most controversial thing I ever wrote was about a girl who went from being a brunette to a redhead (red was her natural color) –

Anyway, I’m sure it must have come up in conversation once or twice. Can’t you just give me a hint? Or better yet, how about if I guess and you tell me if I’m right?”

“My goodness, dear. I don’t know where you come off-”

”Okay, fine, Martha, don’t answer that one if you’re uncomfortable with it. But can you tell me whether or not he was really a member of that “Concerned Conservatives Against Girls Club,” or whatever it was called, at Princeton? Surely that’s not something you should feel obligated to keep a secret. I mean you’re a girl, right?”

“You have some nerve, Miss! I could have you thrown out of here.”

“Out of the bathroom?”

By that point she’d mostly likely be walking away from me, which is completely understandable. So I’d have no other choice but to grab her by the sleeve.

“Okay, fine, fine, just tell me this. Why is Orrin Hatch trying not to smile all the time. Do you think he knows about the abortion thing or do you think his face is stuck like that?”

January 9, 2006

We didn’t have any boys in our family when I was growing up so I had no idea why they behaved so differently than girls. We had my dad, of course, but we sort of turned him into one of the girls.

Now we have lots of teenage boys in the family. So now I get it.

Boys have no memory.

And that is why I’ve decided to become a lawyer. For men only.

If I’m given the opportunity to answer all of the prosecutor’s questions, on behalf of my client, I might be able to turn our whole justice system around.

Where were you on the night of January 14?
Don’t bother asking him that. He honestly and truly forgot.

Were you carrying a weapon?
Again, he can’t answer that. He might have been, but there’s no way of knowing.

Were you, in fact, intending to rob the convenience store?
Please sir, he doesn’t have the capacity to remember thoughts and feelings, let alone intentions. He can only remember what he’s intending to do right now. Ask him if he’s intending to rob a convenience store now.

Were you of sound mind when you entered the convenience store?
Not a fair question.

Did you intentionally hold up the man behind the counter with a gun and then steal all of the money in the register and then walk out?
Technically the money was not stolen because, according to this report, he accidentally left it on the counter on the way out. If he was, in fact, carrying a gun, and again, we have no way of knowing, I can assure you that it was only because he forgot it was against the law.

Actually, it’s not against the law to carry a weapon in this state.
It’s not?

No.
Seriously? That’s terrible.

I know, but that’s the law. It is, however, against the law to steal.
But he forgot to steal. And, if you think about it, he didn’t really do anything else wrong either -- except that he may have forgotten right from wrong, and I ask you, does that surprise you enough to put him behind bars? He’s not even wearing socks.

January 8

Two things: Not necessarily related but here they are:

1) “Prep” by Curtis Sittenfeld: I’m probably the last person to read this but what the hell. For anyone else who hasn’t read it yet, you need to, because it’s insanely good.

I usually flip back to the author’s photo about a million times when I fall in love with something he or she just said but it was sort of an odd thing to do with this book. The photo of the author looks like she’s still in high school and more disturbingly as though she’s chewing a big wad of gum. After a while, I stopped looking at her picture so as not to disillusion myself.

At first Lee sort of reminded me of the little girl from Welcome to the Dollhouse and I found myself frowning and pulling away from her -- which is sad on so many levels, the most significant being that even as a grown woman, I feel uncomfortable around girls who live their lives inside out. As a writer, I’m supposed to embrace that quality but I still have to close my eyes when I see blood that red, skin that moist and worse yet, lace collars. I mean the girl practically let us smell under her arms. I wish I could be that generous but I’m too afraid.

I’ll never forget what it was like inhabiting her body -- to be an adolescent again -- It was different with Holden because he was a boy. This was almost better.

It’s funny how you think you’ll eventually forget the fourteen-year-old version of yourself, but you never do. She’s always in there, and every time you try to act a little too grown up, she gives you a little punch in the arm to remind you to knock it off, “I remember you in ninth grade and you’re not fooling anyone.”

A while ago, on this very blog, I had mentioned that I was going to post an essay I had written when I was in my twenties -- about Pingry. I think I wrote about this recently actually. But then I read Prep and so now there’s really no need to post it because Curtis Sittenfeld pretty much already told you everything there is to say.

But I’ll tell you a little about it anyway, because, as usual, I can’t not.

My essay was about this party that I attended in ninth grade that I’m still not over.

I went to the party because the captain of the soccer team had invited me and I was in love with him. Later on that year we became girlfriend and boyfriend but at the time of the party, we hardly knew each other.

Even though I was a freshman and new in the school and totally not ready to go to a senior party, I went. I went with my best friend who, on the other hand, was ready. She knew how to drink. She knew how to leave the room holding hands with someone and return hours later without holding her hand over her mouth. She knew how to be waspy because she was waspy.

I, on the other hand, was not. Actually, you know what -- I can’t tell this story -- I’m not ready. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Not enough time has passed since it happened. It’s only been thirty years and I’m no Curtis Sittenfeld.

So just forget it. Forget I ever even said anything.

The second thing I was going to tell you was that I saw Munich this weekend but I don’t feel like talking about that either. I will say this however. I still have no idea what the difference is between an Arab and a Palestinian and I would die before I would ask anyone.

And, one other thing.

Is it me or is the Hulk like a million times better looking as an Israeli?

January 5, 2006

Of course everyone has his or her own working style. Some people like to take a lot of short breaks. Others enjoy talking on the phone and listening to music while they work. I even know a few people who enjoy talking on the phone, while listening to music and instant messaging their friends, while also watching TV, and occasionally strumming their guitar, in between video games, while they write a book report.

And as I mentioned in a previous blog, I even know a few guys who like to take naps on the floor as part of their routine. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve known people who work from morning until night without talking to another living breathing soul and still others who talk incessantly to themselves for a good part of the day.

Personally, I prefer no human contact at all. Not even with myself. No humming. No whistling. No music. No sound at all. Sometimes I don’t even turn the light on. Once I lose my concentration, I’m worthless and unfriendly.

That’s why I adore email. I love that you can write back whenever you have time and that you can think twice before you say something. And that most of the people who email me are so funny, I get to laugh out loud at my leisure in the privacy of my own home without looking like an ass.

The phone, on the other hand, is not a good thing for me. I have a terrible phone demeanor, or so I’ve been told, and apparently I leave terrible voicemail messages. I guess I confuse voicemail with email and that’s why it sounds like I’m thinking out loud and then rethinking what I’ve just said. Apparently this isn’t the way it’s done.

For example, you shouldn’t call someone and leave the following message: “Hi, damn! You’re not there. So anyway, what I said before on my last message . . . I totally didn’t mean it the way it came out. You knew I was kidding, right? I hate that you’re not there because now I’ll never know if you got this message or if you knew what I meant or if you misread it, I mean, misheard what I was trying to say and there’s no way I can take it back unfortunately. So, anyway, just to clarify the reason I cancelled our lunch date . . . it was not because of the reason I said it was. You know that, right? Well, actually, that was the real reason but not for the other reason that I originally said. That’s the part where I was just kidding. Oh God, I’ll call you back.”

What’s worse than me trying to make a normal phone call is me on the receiving end. Every time it rings, I jump up out of my chair and scream into the phone, “What!!”

Of course the only thing more painfully distracting then the phone is the Goddamn door bell. Who the hell would ring a bell when someone is working?

And the worse thing is that it’s always the UPS man or some other drunk.

Just once I want to yell out the window, “Yes! I know you’re here. I heard you pull up in your gigantic truck, hit the mailbox and then stumble up the stairs. That’s all you had to do. There’s no need to press noisy buttons. Just throw the package down and go! I don’t want to talk to you and I don’t want to smell your breath.”

But instead I answer the door and say, “OH HI!!! A package for me? How fun. How've you been? Good? Good. Well, see you tomorrow.”

Yesterday a repair man showed up at my house. He was more inebriated than the UPS guy ever was. First he rang the bell like a hundred times and then he just stood there grinning when I opened the door.

“Hi!” I said.

“Hello,” he said.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m here from Kolbe.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

No response.

“Who’s Kolbe?” I asked.

“The winder company.”

“Excuse me?”

”I’m ha-ear (burp) for the winder.”

”I’m sorry, I don’t understand alcoholic. Can you repeat that one more time?”

”They said you have a broken winder.”

”Oh yes, of course. You’re trying to say window.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled.

I waved the air in front of me and said, “Follow me. I’ll show you the window but then I have to go back to work. I’m just going to point to it and then I’m going to run away. Don’t be insulted. This is just my personality.”

“Okay.”

I showed him the window and said, “That’s it. Be careful. It’s made of glass. I have to go back to work. Do you need anything else?”

“Nah. I’m just supposed to look at it to see which type it is. The office will call you to schedule an appointment for it to be fixed.”

“Good. Very good. If you have any questions, my office is right over there, but I have to go,” I said running away.

A few seconds later he knocked on my office door. Can you even believe that?

“Come in,” I said.

“I’m done,” he said.

“Okee dokey then,” I said.

Then he grinned again so I grinned back.

“I’m the ga- hi they’ll be sending baaa- hack to do the work so I’ll s-s-s-ee you then.”

“Oh, that’s very nice. I’ll look forward to seeing you again,” I said. Because you’re very handsome.

(I didn’t really say that.)

“Yeah,” he said, still standing there.

“Well, goodbye now.”

“See ya.”

He just stood there about to keel over, so I showed him the door and out he fell.

A few hours later, just when I was really hitting my stride, the phone rang. I picked it up and then hung it back up. And then I took a nap on the floor.

January 3, 2006

The only thing I want to talk about from now on is movies. Unless we cancel our Netflix subscription.

But how about that Mommy Dearest?

I’m not a fan of wire hangars either but she really disliked them. I was never able to bring myself to watch that movie until now. I don’t know why. I guess I was afraid I’d get nightmares from it. On the contrary, I thought it was nice of Joan to give her daughter those pearls. She didn’t have to do that.

In keeping with the poor parenting theme, last night we watched THE CELEBRATION. It’s a Danish film directed by Thomas Vinterberg. I can’t say enough about how amazing it is. And I’ll tell you one thing, that testy Joan Crawford had nothing over Helge.

The most trying scene was when that mother stood up there and told her kids -- one by one -- what a disappointment they were as a way of defending her husband for being such a shitty father. I almost fell off my chair trying to keep my blood vessels from exploding. And she shrouded her insults in compliments, my least favorite thing in the entire world. I did my best not to come undone but I’m afraid I made quite a spectacle of myself. It’s a good thing we were home.

Imagine a mother who would prefer to have her dinner party guests believe her son was insane than have them know the truth about their family. And then, after the son did tell the truth, they continued to eat. They laughed and danced and tried to go on as though pretense can cure anything. I can’t talk about this anymore. I’m about to go up in flames again.

That thing that so many parents do to their kids -- what’s it called? It must have a name.

I guess you’ll have to watch the movie to find out what it is, because I don’t want to ruin it for you.

December 30, 2005

I wasn’t going to post this because it’s so personal, but I can’t not.

If I die tomorrow I’ll be fine with it. Because I’ve already experienced the greatest pleasure anyone will ever know. Hearing my daughter sing last night was the single most memorable moment of my entire life. I’ve heard her sing before and she always blows me away but last night was different. Last night she brought me to my knees.

She sang her guts out.

Dan and I were squeezing each other’s hands the entire time, thinking, How did we make this child? This little girl who can stand up there in front of the whole school and give it all she’s got. This little girl who looks and smiles and sings like a woman because that’s what she is now, a woman.

I watched her walk on stage and scan the audience, full-on, right in their eyes, not an ounce of trepidation. She picked up the microphone, nodded at the guitar player and then she was singing in that voice. That voice that makes me want to stand up and scream, “Oh God! That’s my daughter!”

In the short time that it takes to sing a song, I had relived every moment of my life with her from the day I gave birth to the first time she touched my face with her little fingers to the time she left for sleep away camp without once looking back. I must have been holding my breath throughout the entire song because I felt dizzy when it was over. I was thinking about when she belonged to me.

And then she just hung up the microphone and walked off the stage.

But first she did that thing she always does that just kills me. She turns to the audience and says thank you, and smiles, and then she looks right at me as though she knew exactly where I was all along.

December 29

Last night Kim was so bored she agreed to watch a movie with me. We were too lazy to rent one and there was nothing on TV aside from “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”

We both looked at each other. Neither of us willing to admit we wouldn’t mind seeing it. I had bought her the book a few years ago but she refused to read it on the grounds that the author used the word “Pants” in the title. Now that she’s older I guess she was curious about what she missed seeing as how someone went so far as to make a movie out of it. I, on the other hand, was curious as to what was meant by “traveling pants.”

Kim is the best person in the world to sit next to during a movie if you’re trying not to control your emotions. She makes fun of everything. Death, disease, divorce. She laughed right through The Notebook from beginning to end. “That was supposed to be funny, right?” she asked when she walked out of the theater.

The first thing Kim objected to in the pants movie was when the girls decided they would share the jeans but not wash them. I was disturbed by that as well but we continued watching and laughing at all four of them. Kim especially enjoyed the fact that the Greek girl couldn’t balance on the donkey. And I liked the part when the edgy girl, the one who was forced to work in “Wallman’s” all summer, put the price sticker on her forehead, you know, to be rebellious.

But then something happened to me.

Kim is lucky enough to have married parents so she couldn’t relate to Carmen, the Puerto Rican girl whose father ran off with a family of Wasps. I, however, related to her perfectly. Not that either of my parents ran off with a protestant but they both remarried, which is enough.

I cried so hard at Carmen’s father’s wedding that Kim looked at me and asked, “Are you kidding?”

”No I’m not kidding! How could I be? Do you have any idea what that feels like? Can you imagine seeing me walk down the aisle with another man, or daddy, for that matter?”

“Well, I’d especially hate to see daddy walk down the aisle with another man. He’s so not gay enough.”

“It’s not funny, Kim! It’s the most painful thing in the world no matter how funny you think it is!”

“God, sorry,” she said. “I just can’t believe you’re letting yourself get all worked up over the worst movie about pants ever.”

”Poor Carmen,” I kept saying, trying to use the correct pronunciation of the r/m combination so it sounded more like Cardmen.

Kim put her arm around me. “Stop crying mom. And stop saying Carmen like that. You sound ridiculous.”

“I know but don’t you think it’s so great the way Cardmen values her Puerto Ricanness despite the fact that she looks fat in the bridesmaid dress?”

“Not really. I don’t care about any of this”

“Why don’t you ever cry at movies? I mean, you’re so unemotional, it’s like you’re not even my daughter.”

“Of course I’m your daughter. The reason I never cry at movies is because they’re all bad. Except for Noi. That was a good movie and I did cry when I watched it.”

“Seriously? What’s it about?”

“It’s an Icelandic film about a kid who lives with his grandmother, who does puzzles all day, which in itself is enough to cry about. They live in this boring, miserable, freezing little town and the kid is totally numb from the nothingness of his existence. He gets kicked out of school because he won’t obey any of the rules so he goes and tells his father who’s a bum and his father sort of beats him up for being like him. Then the kid tries to rob a bank, steal a car and run away with his girlfriend but none of it works out. The bank teller knows him and tells him he should know better than to play with guns and his girlfriend doesn’t want to run away with him. Then he goes and hides in his basement to smoke a cigarette and look at a picture of a beach through a plastic Viewmaster. While he’s down there, there’s an avalanche. The police find him a few days later almost frozen to death. They give him some soup and let him watch the news, at which point he finds out that only ten people died in the avalanche. It just so happens they’re the only ten people he knows and loves, including his grandmother and his girlfriend. It ends with him looking at the picture of a beach.”

“You cried from that?”

December 27

I have writer’s block. I’ve never had this before. I usually write too much but lately I can’t write at all. I thought it might be interesting to write about how it feels to have writer’s block. But I can’t think of anything to say about it -- other than I guess this is what it’s like to be shy.

***

Still no words but I do have a lot of receipts in my wallet. This is from not being able to write.

***

I just finished reading The Glass Castle. It’s an unbelievable story. I told everyone I’ve spoken to in the last couple of weeks to read it. If nothing else, it will make you appreciate your parents. That’s all I can think of to say about that as well. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.

***

I tried to finish A Million Little Pieces but I just couldn’t do it. I might be the only one so far. That’s sort of interesting, isn’t it?

***

I still haven’t finished On Beauty either. I think it’s because of Zadie. Reading her books is like breathing. It’s spooky. It should be more difficult than that but she has that thing where you can’t see her working. Talent. You’d think she’d be Jewish with that name, but as it turns out, no.

December 18

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a bar mitzvah. It was a beautiful party. Enormous bunches of red roses in silver everywhere, delicious food, fun music and I was lucky enough to be seated next to my two best friends. Dan got stuck sitting next to a guy who is known for asking hundreds of thousands of questions in lieu of having an actual conversation. He was stuck there because I changed my seat. My friends and I laughed and danced with the perverted dancers-for-hire until I pulled every muscle in my entire body. Anyone would have thought I was having the time of my life.

“How much longer until we can go?” I whispered in Dan’s ear.

“Two and half more hours,” he whispered back, “keep dancing.”

And so I went back out there and continued smiling and waving my arms in the air. Every time the mother of the bar mitzvah boy walked by, I made sure she saw me. I wanted full credit for every hour I lasted.

And then I hit the wall. There was a draft on my back, the sheer part of my wrap skirt, which was designed to show a little leg, had shifted around to the front, and my breasts were beginning to seep out of the bottom of my bra.

“I can’t take it anymore,” I whispered to Dan.

“What now?” he asked.

“My clothes are breaking down. If we don’t leave soon by our own will, there’s an excellent chance I’ll get thrown out for exposing myself.”

“Just go the bathroom and pull yourself together.

Five minutes later I was tugging on his jacket.

“I just got sick in the bathroom,” I said.

“Liar.”

“No seriously, it was very bad.”

“All right, let’s go. I can’t take it anymore. And next time, can you just check off the box that says, ‘will not be able to attend’?”

I told one friend I was leaving early and swore her to secrecy and then Dan and I slipped right out the door. He walked ahead of me to get the car. I spotted the bar mitzvah mom out of the corner of my eye and quickly turned my head.

Just then I heard her ask, “Where do you think you’re going Stephanie?”

“To the bathroom,” I sheepishly answered.

“Oh good I’ll come with you,” she said.

I could have gone to the bathroom with her and left Dan waiting by the car. He would have eventually figured out that I got caught, but no, I decided to come clean.

That’s how badly I wanted to leave.

“The truth is I was trying to sneak out.”

“No kidding. I spotted you planning your escape a mile away and I can’t believe you! I’ve been planning this party for a year. You’ve lived through it with me! And we haven’t even had dessert yet. It’s not nearly over.”

“I know but you have that ice cream sundae bar out there for the kids and so I already had dessert. And look at my skirt. I can’t get it to lay right.”

“That’s not a good enough reason to leave. What else d’ya have?” she asked, arms folded.

“How about I’m tired and miserable and I hate parties, bar mitzvahs being my least favorite?”

“Fine. If it’s torture you can go.”

“Oh, thank you!” I said, “I love you.”

”I love you too,” she said.

“I promise you can leave Jesse’s early. In fact, you don’t even have to come at all,” I said cheerfully.

“Thanks, but I would never do that to you.”

“I don’t mind. I’ll probably leave that one early too.”

“Nobody loves bar mitzvahs, Stephanie. It’s just something you do for your friends -- to show them you love them.”

“I’m sorry. I just can’t,” I said, squeezing her arm tenderly.

“Don’t be sorry. Just go. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, proving that another perfectly acceptable means of showing someone you love her is by letting her leave your bar mitzvah early.

That’s actually what they mean by “a mitzvah.”

December 8

I’m sorry. I hate to be cruel what with Christmas coming and all but I just picked up the November 28 issue of New York Magazine, which has been sitting on my desk for well, since November 28, and I opened to page 111. And I couldn’t help but ask myself, “How can you hate someone you never met?”

Is it because the self-proclaimed writer, Lisa Falcone is holding her two adorably dressed twins as though they are two little art projects that she’s already sick of and if the photographer makes her wait one more second for her picture to be taken, she’s threatening to drop them?

Or is it because her forehead looks like it’s on the verge of exploding and I feel as though she should know better? Or is it because she used the words, “My husband runs a hedge fund” and “When we met, we had no cash” in the same sentence?

Or is it because she claims to be writing a novel that she’s planning to publish anonymously and then donate all the money to kids and that I don’t believe her?

Or is it that she describes herself as a vegetarian who wears fur, but only if it’s 50 years old because, are you ready? Because “50 years ago, we were not familiar with the way they killed animals.” I swear this is straight out of the article. Read it for yourself if you don’t believe me.

Or is it because she answered the question, “Do you always dress your daughters so beautifully?” like this:

Yes. Today they’re wearing Bonpoint dresses, shoes from Flora and Henri, and blouses from Barney’s. When they’re sleeping, I plan their outfits for the next day. I constantly see kids dressed casual, and I just feel that if I teach my kids to be casual, then fashion will die. And I’m not going to let that happen on my watch!”

Is it because I feel compelled to tell Lisa that preventing her children from dressing casually is not important work? Or is it because -- and I’m not ruling this out, believe me -- I just really, really, really want her coat.

December 7

She’s Got Issues started out as a collection of essays called “A Girl’s Guide To Girls.” Some of the essays were about best friends from my childhood. Here’s one.

Missy

Missy deserved those awards she won for best handwriting. She certainly was a marvelous child. Missy used that word a lot, marvelous. It’s a word I hadn’t stumbled upon quite yet, seeing as how we were in third grade, but once I got used to it, I could no longer imagine how I ever managed without it. As soon as I was under the spell of Missy, I became utterly ashamed of myself for spending so much time with my other friends, those barbarians. Missy was the only truly refined child in the class and I was quick to follow in her well-heeled footsteps.

I wore a dress to school everyday of the first two weeks of our new friendship. I was as neat as a pin for the full fourteen days. I’ll never forget my mother’s face when I told her I was no longer satisfied with my hosiery.

“I’ll be needing new knee socks, Barbara. Mine are pilled,” I told her.

She had to fan herself. It was a startling recovery. Before I became friends with Missy, my mother was always yelling at me for climbing trees and digging in the mud. It was bad enough that my fingernails were always caked with dirt but I had a habit of eating the mud as well. Perhaps all of her hard work was finally paying off. Her little girl was finally behaving like a lady. Her pride knew no bounds as she watched me pull lint off my cuffs with my nose in the air.

I was absolutely mad about Missy. I loved her handwriting so much, I had to stop myself from staring at her hands. They were marvelous hands now that I think about it. And yet despite my adoration of Missy, I harbored a sneaking suspicion that she might be a fraud. Could it be that her mother was doing the bulk of her handwriting homework and that Missy was bringing it in to school and passing it off as her own? I couldn’t help but wonder. It was that good.

I began to observe her more closely, to record her habits, to get inside the mind of the girl with perfect penmanship. I began to take notes again. Just like the old days back in Kindergarten. I studied her day and night.

By week three she was really starting to get on my nerves.

She was also starting to get very curious about what I was writing in my notebook all the time. If she had managed to get a look at it she would have seen that I had devoted six pages to a description of her hand. She would have also seen that I was completely incapable of writing in a straight line, despite the lined paper. Like most children with a lot on their minds, my handwriting started off on the right road but then it had the tendency to get distracted and wander off somewhere high on a hill until it suddenly realized it was lost and had to meander its way back down. It looked a lot like the polygraph test results of a pathological liar. Missy would also have discovered that I couldn’t stand this weird habit that she had of leaving her mouth open with her tongue hanging out resting on her bottom lip, while she sat there staring into space. Somehow I managed to overlook it though, and continued pursing her on a steady basis. Superior penmanship can be very intoxicating and I was delighted the first time she invited me to go to her house after school.

I had no idea we would spend the evening doing homework.

I was also shocked to find out that Missy’s house was actually cleaner than mine. I didn’t think it was possible but there it was. White, chilly, clean. The carpeting, flat and austere. The dark wood polished and quiet. And there was her mother. Pale, translucent and painfully thin. Little blue veins accented her milky antiseptic skin.

Missy and her mom called the housekeeper Miss Lilly. We called our housekeeper Pat and Pat called my mom Bobbie. Miss Lilly asked me for my shoes when I came in. When I handed them to her, she took one shoe in each hand with her thumb and forefinger as though they were two dead rats.

Missy’s mother told Miss Lilly that we would have steak on the grill at 6:00 PM and that we would be dining outside.

I imagined Miss Lilly saying, “I’ll have mine rare, Babs!” But instead she said, “Yes, Ma’am. Promptly at Six."

I was excited for the steak.

Missy said that she already knew that she wouldn’t be hungry. Miss Lilly gave her a stern look and Missy and I went back to our homework. What a waste of a perfectly good afternoon. The only reason I stayed at her house was to see if Missy would go into one of her catatonic stares. The waiting was unbearable and I knew the The Flinestones were on but I didn’t bother to bring it up.
Missy had a little stand for her book. It kept the pages back while she took notes. I made a note of it in my notebook. I needed one of those.

After homework, we played a nice game of cards while I tried not to fall asleep. The house was so still, we were whispering, and then we heard Miss Lilly ring the bell. Missy looked at me and said, “It’s time for dinner.” I nodded politely trying not to scream out, “Glory fucking halleluhyah!”

I couldn’t help noticing that our picnic had been laid out rather elegantly.

Everything was white.

The table cloth, the plates, the white peonies that had been carefully lifted from the garden with no trace of ever having lived in dirt, the beautiful white vase that held the peonies and the napkins which were each adorned with one single, delicately embroidered sage green leaf. It was dinner art.

No wonder Missy was perfect.

Missy, her mother and I took our seats in silence and then, out of nowhere, Missy’s tall father entered the room without so much as a footstep of warning. He just appeared like a quiet ceiling spider.

“Where did he come from?” I wondered, looking around.

At my house, when my father walked through the door, I screamed, “Daddy!!” and jumped up and down as though he had just been released from jail. I think I jumped up and down like that every time he walked by.

This man was like a stranger in his own home. A forgotten human float drifting from room to room. They both ignored him.

I tried to make him feel welcome so I said, “Hello Mr. Gold!”

It was a very ballsy move on my part but I didn’t want him to think I was on their side.
At first I thought he might ignore me but he very politely answered, “Hello, young lady.”

I looked up enthusiastically to see if Missy and her mom were surprised to see what a nice person he was.

I was hoping they would give him another chance but neither one of them was the least bit interested in this guy. He was like an extra. He sat down at the charming, well-appointed picnic table and then he just seemed to dissipate like steam. At one point, he asked if there was butter on the table and Missy's mother answered, “No.” Clearly, he was not permitted to talk about butter.

Nevertheless, I heartily dove into my steak and began to cut and chew with gusto. I was determined not to let the tension of their strained relationships interfere with my appreciation of good food presented in a tasteful setting.

We were all just clinking along with our melodious knives and glasses chiming in on cue to fill up the empty silence when all at once I realized that Missy’s mother had put down her fork and had repositioned her body to face Missy head on. Mrs. Gold just sat there glaring at my poor friend with her blue veins bulging out of her forehead. Missy was not responding. The silence was deafening.

This went on for what seemed like an eternity but it was probably a full minute, which is a long time, when it’s too quiet to continue chewing what’s already in your mouth. I was so tempted to just blurt out, “What’d she do?” with a mouth full of meat, just to kill the suspense, but Missy’s mother spoke first, “Missy dear, if you can not swallow properly, you will have to leave the table. We’ve discussed this several times.”

What the hell was she talking about? Is there more than one way down?

Missy put her fork down on her plate and never took another bite. She put her hands in her lap and looked at them for the remainder of the meal. It was obvious she was used to this and that it was senseless for her to defend herself. So she just sat there and accepted it. I couldn’t believe she was going to let a perfectly good Porterhouse just sit there and rot all because her mom was some kind of a pharynx control freak.

I let my eyes shift over to Missy and I tried to give a few encouraging head tilts toward her plate but she just turned to me and glared, exactly like her mother . . . and then she did it. She went into the open-mouthed trance. Just then, I felt my own esophagus constrict and I began to cough. I coughed and coughed myself into a violent fit while everyone around me just froze. Somehow I managed to gulp down a little water and I attempted to make a little joke out of it.

“Excuse me, I must have swallowed a huge piece of meat without chewing it first,” I jested, punching myself in the chest a few times.

I thought this would be a real ice-breaker but it just made me look like an insensitive, happy pig. I should have stabbed myself. That would have been more in keeping with the flavor of the evening. Missy’s mother finally stood up indicating that the meal had come to an end. What a shame.

I never went back to Missy’s house. Once I knew why Missy had perfect handwriting and why she needed to let her face take a break every now and then, I couldn’t bare to witness her life close up. Missy’s only hope was to marry young. Hopefully by sixth grade.

I tried to be a good friend to her in school although she was very hot and cold. I wrote her notes and I always sat next to her. I knew not to take it personally when she glared at me for purposely trying to get milk to come out of my nose or when I demonstrated for our entire lunch table how many Oreos I could fit in my mouth at one time. I understood her. But I just couldn’t be her after school friend. I couldn’t take the frozen silence or the thought of seeing her mother humiliate her and I wasn’t that fond of Miss Lilly either, but mostly I feared choking to death in front of an almost live audience.

December 5

There was this girl in my gym class who I sort of used as a model in “She’s Got Issues,” as the only goth girl Chloe had ever known. But since I’m not Chloe (for the millionth time) what I wrote there isn’t true for me. The only goth girl I’ve ever spoken to besides the ones who went to music camp with my daughter was actually sort of a friend of mine. I use the term friend loosely and with blushing cheeks because the word friend implies that we hung out, which I can assure you, we did not. The truth is I was afraid of the goth girl and whenever I found her standing next to me in gym, I somehow always managed to move away from her, until one day she grabbed me by the arm.

“I don’t bite,” she said.

“I know,” I said, shuddering.

We were in Tenafly High School. I had just changed schools from Pingry. I wrote something about Pingry that I will post one of these days but suffice to say, it was an old boys prep school that had gone co-ed the year I went there. I can’t even tell you how much fun I had that year, but then we moved.

The kids in Tenafly didn’t look like the kids at Pingry and I was finding my niche the only way I knew how, by trying to locate people who looked and dressed as similarly to me as possible. Nina didn’t look like anyone or anything I’d ever known. For all I knew, she could have been a monster. I had no idea what a punk was. I had no idea who Patti Smith or Smyth was. I had no idea why her fish nets were ripped or why she didn’t shave under arms. I thought perhaps she was poor or maybe even crazy.

But that day she pulled me by the arm, she made some comment about a boy who had just come to the school. He was even newer than I was and so I knew who she was talking about. She asked me what I knew about him and I said, “nothing, sir.”

Then she said she thought he was really cute.

“You like boys?” I remember thinking.

The next day, the new boy asked me a question and we started talking and soon discovered that we were next door neighbors.

The next day in gym I told Nina that the new boy was my neighbor.

She confided in me that she couldn’t stop thinking about him and that she followed him around the halls.

I confided in her that I’d heard he had a bad reputation.

She looked at me as though I’d said I’d heard he recently won the lottery.

We talked about him every day in gym for weeks. Whether or not he’d said “hello,” to one of us that day was enough to keep us going for the entire forty-five minute period. Hard to believe but the goth girl and I were both in love with the same guy.

And then one day after school he just showed up at my house. He said he was locked out of his house so I let him in. From that point on, he came over every day until graduation. My parents were in the midst of a divorce so we pretty much had the house to ourselves for the full three years.

When I showed up in school wearing his jacket, Nina asked me if she could try it on. She wasn’t the slightest bit mad at me. She was that cool.

# # #

Recently Dan and I were guests at a private holiday office party for a firm where he no longer works. Apparently they don’t realize he hasn’t worked there for two years. They can’t let go and neither can he. I remember when he first started with them and he wanted to introduce me to the wives.

“Please don’t make me go,” I pleaded. “You know how strongly I dislike people when I first meet them and how it shows on my face and how you always say, ‘Stop making that face.’”

”You have to go. One of the wives planned a little gathering for you to meet everyone.”

”At their house?”

“Yes, at their house.”

“But I hate other people’s houses! Where am I going to sit?”

“I’m assuming there will be chairs.”

And so we went.

Within about ten minutes the guys were all hunched over in that little huddle thing they make over by the bar area. After about ten minutes, they were all hugging and slapping each other and cracking up. Basically making asses of themselves.

I was standing with the wives. Despite the fact that they looked like perfectly nice people, I still wanted to go home. I always want to go home.

These women I didn’t know and I stood there staring at the men.

Then one of them said, “My husband went to work at 10:30 this morning.”

And then another one told this amazing story about her and her husband when they were still in college. He once attempted to put a very small nail in her dorm room wall so that she could hang up a picture. When he struck the nail with the hammer for the first time, there was a slight, “ding,” and the next thing they knew, a pipe had burst and the alarm went off and they all had to evacuate the building.

I told the story about when Dan was fixing a shelf in the garage and he called out to me to bring him the olive oil.

And then one of them admitted that she once came to visit her husband at work and he was napping on the floor of his office using his suit jacket as a pillow. She thought maybe he had gotten sick or something so she tiptoed out and asked the secretary what happened. The secretary looked at her watch and explained that it was nap time.

One of the partner’s wives then admitted that she sometimes wonders if her husband hadn’t met his BIG CLIENT in college, if he’d have any clients at all. And then she expressed real concern over the BIG CLIENT’S health.

We all looked at the BIG CLIENT who was drinking himself into a stupor. As he climbed up on to the bar, we all bit our bottom lip.

We kept looking over at the men. One’s handsomer and funnier and smarter than the next. Perfect men. And they all love each other. They’re like a sitcom.

And then I looked at us. We were a group of women standing together with pretty much nothing in common. One blonde, angular tri-athlete, one incredibly devoted secretary, one olive-skinned beauty who teaches Special Ed, one super-charged, highly creative homemaker who makes Martha Stewart look like Roseanne, one neurotic writer and the BIG CLIENT’S wife, who was standing there dripping in diamonds cursing her ass off.

“What the fuck are those idiots laughing about now?” she asked, adjusting her tiara.

“Probably business,” I thought. Because standing before us were probably the only six guys alive who found themselves succeeding in the most cut-throat industry imaginable without a single ruthless bone in their bodies. I can think of no explanation for this other than that they think real estate deals are like the funniest thing ever. It doesn’t make any sense at all. The most competitive of the bunch is the napper.

Under any other circumstances, the wives would never have met. We work in different fields; our kids are different ages. We don’t live near one another. We don’t even look, dress or sound alike. And yet we were friends from the moment we laid eyes on one another. Whenever we have plans to see any of them, I feel like I’m making plans to go home. I actually miss them and think about them when too much time goes by. I never understood what it was that made me feel so close to them. Maybe it’s because they’re all so adorable in their own way or because they’re so funny and honest or maybe it’s because we’re all in love with the same guy.

December 1

Last night was David Goodwillie’s reading and oddly enough, back-to-school night. A bizarre juxtaposition but I was sure I could pull it off, being that the school is in Englewood and that the conferences were between six and nine and that David’s reading was at eight . . . on Avenue B. The plan was to get to school by 5:30, be the first to sign up for each teacher, hear how our daughter pushes herself too hard in every subject, including gym, and then high tail it out of there to get down to Tenth Avenue by 8:00.

I was wondering what sort of thing I could possibly wear to both of these events, particularly what would be appropriate for discussing Kim’s overzealous study habits in between bumping into her friend’s parents who invariably dress up for back-to-school night as though they are attending a casual, star-studded wedding. There are large canary diamonds involved and many a Manolo. There are men in suits that have been carefully crafted in the finest Italian fabrics to make them appear to be as well-built as they are business savvy. The clothes on the women are always camel and there are great masses of scarves that drape and swath the body, insulating them from one another. The women have all been coiffed and manicured and perfumed to perfection. The men look tired and amused that an hour ago they were making deals that will greatly affect the fate of our nation and now, here they are, standing in a school gym, almost as though they are regular people. It’s quite a scene. I always imagine what the teachers must be thinking. “I should really, really get my hair done this year,” or “How come none of the parents talk to each other?” Our teachers appear to be normal people. I’ve got to believe that back to school night at Dwight haunts them for days afterward and I can’t imagine that they don’t take it out on our kids. I can just imagine the muttering every time some kid in middle school sits at his desk and a new Razor cell phone drops out of his pocket. “Rich bastard,” teacher thinks to himself and then walks over to confiscate it. All the while he’s been dying to check one out so he keeps it for a few days until the kid’s parent calls to complain.

All that underlying resentment that I can’t help notice is why I typically dress as innocuously as humanly possible for any sort of interaction with anyone associated with my children’s education. While my fellow parents take great pains to impress one another and on some sick level, the teachers as well, I know this works against their kids. My goal is to be invisible. If they can’t see me, they can’t judge me and therefore they can’t make assumptions as to how I raise my children.

I chose to wear all black and not only because it hides some of the damage I did on Thanksgiving. The problem though was that the only black top that worked for both Dwight and the Boxcar Lounge in the East Village doesn’t button. It’s my breasts. They grew again. I tried on a bunch of other things, but like I said, the breasts are out in full bloom this time of year, so nothing worked. I eyed the masking tape for a brief moment, but then I got an idea. I decided to put one of those Spanx bras over my regular bra to see if I could perhaps bind them into submission without actually adhering them to my chest.. I put Bra 2 on and then tried again to button my shirt. Better. Much better. Only a slight pulling this time -- but even a slight pulling is wrong for back-to-school night. I eyed my selection of hoodies, but there’s nothing worse than a mother in a zip up sweatshirt in my opinion. Talk about a desperate housewife. I only wear those at home where I’m expected and encouraged, well, begged actually, to be desperate and someone who characteristically puts food on the table. And then it struck me. Three bras! So I took off the Spanx bra and put on one of those lacy, thongy, body suit type things that I always buy and never wear and put that over the first bra and then I added the Spanx bra. If any of you reading this have enormous breasts, let me tell you, this is the way to go. I put my top on and it buttoned like a dream. I stood and looked at myself in the mirror. Somehow I managed to make myself completely flat. I opened the top to see where they’d gone. And sure enough, I found them. They popped out of the top and were hovering just under my clavicle bones. I’d never seen breasts up there. I buttoned the blouse again to see if anyone would be able to tell where they were hiding but surprisingly, they were unseeable!

I checked my watch. 5:30. The plan was already falling apart. I quickly kissed Kim goodbye and ran out the door. When I opened the garage door, I felt a little chilly, having forgotten my coat, but decided there was no time to spare.

I sat down in the car and attempted to lift my arms toward the steering wheel. They wouldn’t go. Apparently the Three Bra apparatus that I’d rigged up did not allow for arm movement of any kind. If I had studied even one chapter of my physics book, I probably would have been able to anticipate the trouble I was now in, but I never even looked at that book so how was I supposed to get anywhere. I called Dan.

“Where are you?” he asked. “Did you forget we have back-to-school night and didn’t you want to go to that thing in the city?”

“Yes, but I can’t drive.”

”Why not?”

“I’m wearing three bras.”

“So?”

”So my arms won’t go up.”

”So, take one of them off.”

”I can’t. I’m in the garage. I might even be stuck in the car.”

”What do you want from me?”

”I need help. I’m stuck.”

“Go inside and take off something and then hurry up. I'll meet you there.”

But there was no time. I pushed the seat as far forward as I could until I was just pressed up against the steering wheel and somehow managed to put the car in reverse. The seat belt thing kept beeping but there was nothing I could do about it.

I pulled up to the school and of course the entire parking lot was already full. I drove up to the security guard who was directing everyone to the lower school.

“Hi Bud,” I said.

”Why are you sitting so close to the steering wheel?” he asked.

“I’m far-sighted. Are there any spots closer than the lower school?” I asked, trying to smile but I noticed that some of my facial muscles were also being affected by the constriction of my upper body.

He pointed to a spot right near the gym that he’d been saving for someone special. I handed him a five dollar bill. It would have been a ten if I had pulled up late for the Spring concert but parent conferences usually go for three to five.

I walked toward the gym, moving along gingerly, as though I was in a full body cast, and then casually stood by the door, hoping someone would open it. The perfume hit me immediately and I needed to cough but there was no way to do that in my current condition.

”Plan your strategies!” the headmaster was announcing. “The lines will be long. You must accept the fact that you may not be able to visit every teacher. Please limit your conferences with each teacher to ten minutes at the most. This will be a long evening so please be considerate and try to have a sense of humor. I looked around and thought, None of these people qualify as considerate. I looked up into the faces of some of the fathers. They were already calculating how to beat this new and somewhat degrading system. I turned around and walked out and called Dan.

”Don’t bother meeting me here. They have a new system. It’s every man for himself. We’ll get killed.” He agreed that we couldn’t compete and we decided we now had time to go out for a drink before heading into the city. We met at home so we’d only have one car and I grabbed my coat. Then we went to Sibors where I sat in front of the mirror. I opened my coat and stared at my chest in the mirror while Dan told me some boring story about another real estate firm that wants to merge with his.

“Stop staring at yourself,” he finally said.

“I can’t. I’m amazed at what I’ve done here.” Then I turned to face him. “I actually have no chest at all.”

”Yeah, why’d you do that to yourself? And how did you do it?”

”My shirt wouldn’t close so I’m wearing a bunch of bras. Weren’t you listening when I told you I couldn’t drive?”

”You only have one shirt?”

”Nothing closes anymore. This was my only hope.”

We finished our drinks and we were off. We got a spot right across the street in front of the Boxcar and as soon as we walked in I spotted Benjamin Kunkel.

I smiled and waved at him. And he smiled and gave me a tiny wave back. And then I spotted David and my goodness he’s tall and handsome. I remembered him as more of an edgy character but perhaps that’s because the last time I saw him we were at my book party and everything, as they say, is relative. But there, in the boxcar lounge, next to all the artsyish writers, he looked sort of debonaire. Wiser, better-groomed, more mature, largely Arian and downright better looking than everyone else. I also couldn’t help noticing that his shirt fit him perfectly. I felt a twinge of jealousy and attempted to move my arms a bit. Still nothing. I hugged him hello -- as best I could -- and whispered, “Is that Benjamin Kunkel sitting over there?” to which he replied, “No, definitely not.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said.

“Okay, he said, “But it’s not.” Satisfied that it was definitely him, I turned and smiled again at Benny at which point he smiled back and embarrassedly messed up his own hair. Just the way I’d picture him messing with himself. God I love him. Even if it wasn’t, in fact, him.

The reading began about a half hour after we arrived. David went second. He read poetically, a striking blonde figure at the helm of a much darker audience. He was funny and self-assured and showed no signs of irritation when the dopey kid who couldn’t get the amp right, kept interrupting him. I spotted Kate and tried to imagine how she must feel. She’s his agent and she’s clearly got a star on her hands. I felt proud to know them both. She was wearing a cute shirt too. Sort of a spaghetti strapped little number with smocking across the chest. And long, long skinny jeans. She looked so free with her blonde bangs swooped across her forehead. “She looks like a much prettier Kirsten Dunst,” I thought as I felt myself getting shorter and shorter by her side, until I was reduced to that of a very old Kindergarten child. Why does being older and shorter than everyone always make me feel like a fat baby?

Dan and I left mid-intermission. I had only come to see David but was glad I got the chance to hear Jami Attenberg read as well. She’s funny and apparently quite horny so that was interesting.

We saw Courtney Lukitsch and Rachel Kramer Bussel on the way out. From what I understand, Rachel writes for, well, everything, and she’ll be doing an interview with David’s editor at Algonquin in Mediabistro pretty soon. I was dying to meet Rachel ever since she interviewed me in gothamist.com. She looks exactly like her picture so I recognized her immediately. She’s the sort of girl who is so incredibly bright that it’s amazing she manages to be so humble. The sort of girl who could use an agent like Courtney to corral her talent because she’s far too modest to self promote. So it’s a good thing they met last night. I hope something comes of it. I immediately fell in love with Rachel. I love girls who forget what they’re saying mid-sentence. It makes my Alzheimers less noticeable.

I also have to say I marveled at the way Courtney fit right in with that downtown crowd despite the fact that she’s so mind-boggling business-minded. And because of that, I felt compelled to tell her all about what was happening under my shirt. She congratulated me and we parted ways. Dan made a comment about how incredibly sharp she is. Almost like she’s on brain steroids that enable her to understand everything and, more importantly, what needs to be done about it -- immediately! How I found her, I’ll never know. Luck I guess. God only knows what she’ll be able to cook up to say about me when there’s really not that much to say.

We walked to the car and Dan told me how much he enjoyed stopping by to hear “those people read,” and that he’d come with me anytime and how he wished we still lived in
the city and that he can already picture himself as an old man and how he feels sorry for me because he’s pretty sure he’s going to lose his mind early and ride around the city on a bicycle with a basket. All the while I was undressing in the car until I was down to bra 2. He looked over and asked me what on earth I was doing.

”I can’t take it anymore,” I explained. I think my shoulders are bleeding. And sure enough I had broken the skin on my right shoulder. This is true. I’m not exaggerating. I actually cut myself with the weight of my own self.

“I need help,” I told him, “And a hot chocolate.” So we stopped off and he got us two hot drinks and we drove home. We have dinner with a bunch of real estate people tonight. A far cry from where we were last night but it’s all the same to me because I’m pretty sure I have nothing to wear.

November 29

I still can’t stop thinking about Leonardo. Maybe I should have gone out with him.

November 28

I’m reading “Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time.” It’s a memoir. The author, David Goodwillie, and I share the same agent and that’s how I was able to get my hands on the first chapter of his book. I think it’s coming out in the spring but I’ll double check that. I asked for a sneak preview because Courtney Lukitsch got a glimpse of it and told me David Goodwillie is the next Jay McInerny.

The thing is he’s a better writer than Jay McInerny and I’m almost positive he’s a better athlete. You wouldn’t think a guy who bothers to notice that those among us who are most suited to the real world are not “pestered by imagination,” would be able to throw a fast ball at eighty miles an hour but apparently David Goodwillie is a member of that rarest of gene clubs. He can think and throw. And he looks like a rock star, except clean.

I’ve only read the first chapter of David’s book, but the title suggests that some of the things he did in his life turned out to be not such a great idea. But I always think that everything we do, we were meant to do -- unless they’re drug related -- and that things that seemed like a good idea at the time, probably were.

All of this got me thinking -- about Leonardo DaVinci, yet another member of the lucky sperm club who didn’t just sit back and marvel at his good fortune. Instead he worked at a variety of jobs. The David Goodwillie of his time.

Kim is doing a paper on Leonardo, who we now affectionately refer to at home as Leo, or Lee, or when it gets late, “L.” I couldn’t help flipping through some of the books Kim picked up this week. I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I thought about Lee. We were in Paris this past summer and made the trek to the Louvre. We all stared at Mona for a few minutes, heads tilted, and sighed. But then we moved on to the gift shop, so I can’t honestly say I dwelled on his genius for any length of time. I remember thinking Mona could use a few highlights and that I spotted a hint of a moustache, but other than that, I gave Lee-Lee very little thought. But now we have all these books, so I can’t stop thinking about him.

Can you imagine being able to draw a perfect horse, with or without its head, paint a lady who will become the most famous person in the world forever and then figure out how a plane works while recreating the human eye, and still have enough time to plan a city while fiddling on your lyre? Kim and I looked at each other at one point and she said, “Are you sorry you married daddy?”

Just then Dan walked in.

”Did you just ask Mom if she regrets marrying me?”

“She’s just feeling sorry for me because I married you instead of Leonardo DaVinci,” I answered for her.

And his response to that, in his best Italian accent, which sort of sounded Russian was, “Whya you talka that way about youra father?” And then he went on to explain to his daughter that despite Leo’s talent for multi-tasking, mommy would never have gone out with him because he had a beard.

That man knows me like the back of his hand. The truth is there could never have been anything between L and I, even if he wasn’t the gayest man of all times.

I can just imagine bumping into him sometime around 1470 and him asking me out on a date.

“Well, Ahoy there Stephanie,” Leo would say. For some reason I imagine him a sailor in this scene.

And then I’d say, “Oh hi.”

And then he’d say, “I’m going to be putting the finishing touches on the apostles in the Last Supper later on today, but I was thinking that perhaps tomorrow, after I sketch my perfectly symmetrical body and learn how everything in the world works, so I can draw pictures of that too, we could get a bite to eat in Florence. After all, I’m not only charming and engaging in conversation, but I have shed light on the dark corners of knowledge and in doing so I not only embody, but can actually represent, Truth, not to mention that many people believe I’m responsible for inventing not only the science of aerodynamics, but talent itself.”

And I say, “I’d like to but, no.”

And he’d say, “But why not, mi-lady?”

And I’d say, “It’s the beard. I can’t get past it. I find it dirty looking.”

And he’d say, “Perhaps you didn’t hear me, I see and therefore understand everything. I can do everything and I’m considered quite handsome and people keep paying me huge sums of money to finish things I’ve started. And since I can never seem to finish anything, except for like four things, can you imagine how rich I must be by now? And on top of everything, my father is a lawyer.”

And I’d say, “I know, but. . .”

And he’d say, “But who could you possibly choose over me? I am a man with a royal soul who can play the lyre as skillfully as a bird in song.”

And I’d say, “Have you met Dan Lessing?”

And he’d say,”The real estate broker?”

“Yeah, that guy,” I’d say.

And he’d say, “Are you fucking serious? I can mirror write. I am a virtual innovator of genius. People think I’m God.”

And I’d say, “I know. I know. But you’re not funny and Dan is, and like I said, the beard really bothers me. Sorry. Oh and Dan’s a lefty too!”

Of course that whole conversation would have taken place in public because all eyes were on Leo at the time and the whole world would have thought I was making a huge mistake and that choosing a man for the rest of your life -- simply because he makes you laugh everyday -- is not only superficial but frighteningly immature, but seeing as how things worked out, even now, it seems like a good idea at the time.

November 21

I was with my husband and another couple. We had just eaten in a restaurant somewhere near Rivington Street and we were walking around, doing a little shopping, looking for a place to have dessert, when we stumbled upon a sex shop.

I made a few remarks about the merchandise and suddenly all three of them were making fun of me for overreacting to everything in the window. Apparently I was going on and on about how disgusting I thought everything was, which lead the three of them to believe -- why I’ll never know -- that I was protesting because I was either scared to death of the idea of a sex shop or dying to go in, which was ridiculous. Somehow I had to prove to them that it wasn’t that big of a deal . . . by going in . . . by myself.

Once inside, I spun around to show them how comfortable I felt. I was carrying a very large shopping bag at the time and as I twirled around, I accidentally knocked over a whole table of penises. This is a true story. And I had to pick them all up.

By the time I finished rearranging the penises in size order, just so, on the table, while my friends and husband stood outside watching me through the glass door, laughing at me, I realized that I did sort of overact and that it’s important that I make some sort of effort to grow up before I die. I mean, honestly. We all have penises.

“Thanks for helping me pick up the penises,” I said to everyone when I got outside, as Dan reached into my shopping bag and pulled out a fifteen inch African American erection and held it up.

“Did you steal this?” he asked.

“No! Of course not!” I yelled and grabbed it from him. “It must have fallen in my bag.”

I marched back into the store with the big black penis and slammed it down on the check out counter.

“This must have fallen in my shopping bag when I was organizing the penis table. I’m terribly sorry,” I said to the young man in the pink tutu.

“Well, since you were so close to taking him home already, why not just go ahead and buy it?” said the pink, pushy, penis salesman.

“That’s very kind of you but I don’t have a need for this sort of thing,” I explained.

”Who doesn’t need fifteen inches?” he laughed, poking his coworker/girl/ boy/whatever/friend in the arm with the tip of his index finger.

“I don’t,” I answered. “I’m only 5’3.”

“You look taller,” said his boyfriend.

“Yeah, well I’m not,” I said.

“How about something from the little people’s table then?” he suggested

“No thanks,” I said. “I have an actual person that I enjoy having sex with. He’s right out there,” I said pointing to Dan. They both waved to him and Dan waved back. And then they both looked at each other as though they were worried about me.

“Why are you looking at each other like that?” I asked.

“You’re very repressed, that’s all. You seem to be hiding your sexuality behind your husband.”

“That’s because I’m married,” I explained.

“We have plenty of customers who are married but they’re not afraid to look around.”

“Well, I didn’t come in here to look around. I only came in here to prove to those three horrible people standing out there that I’m not, you know, uptight.”

“Is there something in particular about sex that embarrasses you?” pushy asked.

“No, I just think the stuff you sell in here is a little odd. I’m more of a people person. I’m not saying I’m right but I’ve always thought it makes more sense for people to have sex with other people as opposed to parts of people and that doll over there is really freaking me out. Why would someone want to have sex with a make believe person when the world is filled with live human beings? I don’t understand that at all. She’s not real. She can’t feel anything, so what’s the point?”

“The point is, she’s toothless and beautiful?” they both said at the same time and then cracked up laughing.

“What’s beautiful about a doll without teeth?” I asked rolling my eyes.

“I think you have some issues you have to work out. Let me give you my card.”

“Are you a psychiatrist?” I asked.

“No, I’m a sex therapist.”

“You only work here part time?” I asked.

“No, I own this place. I see my clients in the back room.”

I walked out of the store pretty quickly at that point imagining a big orgy in the back room with all sorts of random body parts, vinyl people and ripped tulle. The thought of which scared me in the same way I used to be afraid of artificial pig’s heads. I once saw this incredibly scary movie where the guy wore a pig’s head the whole time he was killing people. This fear of artificial body parts is what ruined my chances of ever becoming a frequent shopper at any sort of sex shop. Body parts in and of themselves just scare the hell out of me. They belong on people.

I was quiet the whole way home. I was trying to figure out what could possibly be considered desirable about a totally dehumanizing sexual experience. I realize there must be some human need -- that I don’t have -- that keeps the sex objects industry alive, but for the life of me, I can’t imagine anyone being in any way attracted to something that needs to be propped up. It’s like everything in that whole store was dead.

Dan and our friends kept teasing me the whole way home, and I kept laughing, but I still didn’t think it was funny. I kept imagining some guy coming home to his empty apartment with his new fake girlfriend hanging limply over his arm. I kept wondering if he made it breakfast the next morning or if he tried to slip out in the middle of the night because he didn’t want anything serious.

And then I imagined her sitting by the phone wondering if he was going to call.

And then I got it.

Sex without feelings! You’d think something like that would never catch on and then it turns out to be like the most popular thing ever.

You just never know with people.

November 16

I know I said no blogs this week but . . .

When I was asked to come up with ideas for a column that I’d be writing for NEW YORK MOVES, a new career and fashion magazine for women in their twenties and thirties, I decided I should either go deep or don’t bother. But then I remembered that when I was in my twenties, I didn’t have time for deep. I needed information. Not introspection.

When you’re in your twenties, you’re basically an old teenager with errands. You’ve already done the emo thing. Now you have a job. I remember feeling extraordinarily independent at that time and I hate to say it but the word powerful comes to mind as well. Maybe it was because I loved living alone. I had my own pots and pans for the first time in my life and vowed never to get them dirty. I just wanted my own stuff and I finally had it. I also remember thinking everyone else in New York seemed to be the same age as me and that everything existed for us. Every career choice, every sweater, every lonely person, every piece of jewelry, every handbag, every restaurant and certainly every shoe was just begging us to try them on for size. The choices were everywhere and endless. Everyone wanted us and our money. The fact that I wrote for Mademoiselle and Vogue and Glamour and Vanity Fair and Conde Nast Traveler meant I had even more choices because I had access to way too much information that involved going places and buying things.

The word on everyone’s lips was “lifestyle.” All we had to do was choose.

Should I go with the pink lipstick/sweater combination and the husband? That comes with a house in the suburbs though, and I do love my apartment. Although I could have a much bigger dog in that scenario and there’s always the organic vegetable garden, which may, or may not, come in handy. I have had my eye on those Smith and Hawken gardening tools and Anthropologie is right next door. Not to mention those Ralph Lauren mother and daughter ponchos. I like the idea of a baby, but a teenager might not be good for me. There’s no way to adopt for a year or two is there?

Or maybe I’ll take the black handbag with the white piping. That comes with a Prada label, a promotion, red lipstick and a boyfriend on Wall Street who buys me presents at Barney’s. There’s an option for a house in South Hampton as well as a much bigger apartment with that bag. Although there’s the exit clause to consider, in which case, you lose everything.

Everything came pre-art directed for us in the pages of Vogue or HG (or Mother Jones for those of us who are most likely not reading this). All we had to do was pick a life and a matching sofa and the rest would fall into place. Unless of course we made the wrong decision and risked not being able to just turn the page.

How could a generation weaned on perfumed images be expected to make rational decisions about what sort of a life they’d like to have? Page six looks so much nicer than page thirty-eight but then again, Page Six comes with a price. Maybe I won’t decide just yet.

Recently I asked my friend, Cindy, the girl I admittedly idolized at Mademoiselle, (the one who looks a lot like Ali and did, in fact, cut herself with an Exacto knife on more than one occasion -- the only artist in the art department) to think about what sort of a column she would have liked to have had at her disposal when she was in her twenties. The thing she said that struck me was that although she had access to everything, she felt there was never enough time to do all the things she really wanted to do because she was stuck doing what she thought she was supposed to be doing. In her case that meant taking tons of art courses when she really wanted to either learn how to cook or invest in the stock market. Who would have ever thought that girl wanted to be an investment banker? Her idea for the column was to highlight real life people and their “choices.”

So I started thinking. How many women in their twenties are really doing what they enjoy? And how many are sticking to a plan that “looks good -- magazine good” but feels like nothing. And wouldn’t it be great to get the chance to see how those same choices turned out for other women?

I was thinking how great it would be to interview women in their thirties and forties who made their choices ten or even twenty years ago who’d be willing to reveal what their lives are like now as a result of the career and lifestyle choices they made in their twenties. We know how things worked out for Carrie Bradshaw, but what about real single women in the city, with real jobs that demand their attention on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Real women with real shoes who make real sacrifices for their careers -- aside from the occasional blister.

And what about the homemaker in the country estate who plucks a sprig of peppermint from her herb garden before serving her 2.5 children a glass of cold lemonade poolside after their tennis lesson? What if she told us the truth about her life and her kids? What if she was actually willing to tell us what her life is really like? Maybe she likes it. Maybe not.

When I was in my twenties, I would have liked a friend in her thirties or forties, who could have given me an idea of how things might turn out if I chose, say, door number one. A glimpse into the future, through the eyes of any number of women who I would have liked to emulate, would have been nice. At first I thought it might be Martha, but then no.

So that’s what I’m thinking for NEW YORK MOVES. Unless I change my mind again.

November 15

Today is my birthday. I plan to celebrate by overeating.

November 14

No blogs this week. I’m writing something really funny and I can’t stop.

I’m almost done though.

November 11

Every now and then I get a response to my blog that I want to share but I usually just let it go and kick myself. But not this time. I received so many responses to the Helen Todd thing, I had to make a little folder for them. My sister even made a point of calling me to remind me how much I loved going to confession. So here's what Susan Emerson thought of the whole conversion thing. Turns out, she's a Catholic. Who knew?

It's almost embarrassing to admit after our several exchanges of e-mails, but I had never had time to read your book. I read your blog all the time because I can do it in 5 minute snatches, but a book takes an actual
investment of time. I finally bought it back when we went to Phoenix in September, but still couldn't free up leisure reading time until now.

The book was absolutely delightful. I generally do not read "chick lit" and when I first read about your book, I didn't expect to like it. But then, as I read your blog and found it so funny and so touching, I began to suspect She's Got Issues wasn't your usual chick lit. Sure enough, it was absolutely hilarious with a lot of meat tucked in there among the laughs. I loved it!!!

I'm intrigued to read Miss Understanding when it comes out, because I do have to say that Chloe's voice sounded a lot like your voice in your blog. Not identical, but a lot like it. Zoe, on the other hand, sounds much less like you. So it will be interesting to read a whole book in her voice. Now, I think Zoe's opinions are probably closer to yours. (Of course, since
Chloe hardly has any opinions that aren't shoe related, it's hard to say much about them.) We'll see.

Once the book is out and I've read it, will you share which line kept it from being finished for so long? I know that will really bother me as I
read the book!

I also wanted to say something about your posting today. I guess I want to say, on behalf of Catholics everywhere, I'm so sorry about Helen Todd. That story rang so true it just made me cringe. Jewish mothers get all the press for guilt, but Catholics know how to heap it on.

Off the record here, I'm going to share with you my personal theology of salvation, definitely not shared by the official teachings of the Catholic church. I believe God told the Jews they were his chosen people, that he made a covenant with them forever, and that nothing that happened thereafter changed that. I mean, I just don't think God dumps a chosen people. What I do think he does (did) is to choose more. So I believe the whole Jesus
sacrifice thing was just a way to open the door to additional people. So from a theological perspective, the last thing a Christian ought to be doing is trying to "save" a Jew. You were there before we were. And from a cultural perspective, well it's just rude. Beyond rude - inexcusable. So please, please, forgive us all for the Helen Todds of the world.

Susan Emerson
Columbus, Ohio

November 9

I fell off my bike today. I don’t want to talk about it.

But I will say this. The last time I fell off my bike, I was halfway down the hill of Eileen Way in Edison, NJ. I was riding my brand new, pink Stingray. I’d had my eye on that bike for months and then suddenly it was mine. I can still smell the plastic, rainbow-colored streamers that dangled from the handle bar grips. I can still taste them too.

I was eight years old, flying down the hill on my new bike, hovering a few inches above my sparkly purple banana seat, with the wind in my hair, and a huge smile on my face, when suddenly I lost control and flipped over the monkey bars. I hit the ground hard and continued sliding down the hill collecting pieces of gravel in the back of my thighs until I hit the curb. I was bleeding everywhere. My cheeks, my legs, my hands, my head, everywhere. Everyone rushed over to ask me if I was okay, but all I could say was “God punished me. God punished me,” over and over again.

“For what?” my mom kept asking, but I was the type of crier who couldn’t be bothered answering questions. I was a trance crier. The type that appears to have gone insane.

Finally, I was able to collect myself and explain that a few minutes before I fell, my cousin Randi had asked me for a turn on the bike and I said, “I can’t let you ride it because it’s new.” I knew it was wrong of me. But I didn’t think it was that wrong.

“God didn’t punish you,” my mother said, “You simply lost control of the bike.”

But there is no way to reason with a child whose babysitter had long ago convinced her that God is the reason for everything.

I remember standing in the corner of the dining room, with my back up against the wall and Helen Todd pointing her finger at me saying, “Jesus died on the cross to save you and me and don’t you ever forget it. He sees everything you do and if you’re bad, he’ll punish you.” I must have been about five or six at the time. She timed it perfectly.

“God damn it!” I thought. “Did you tell him I was Jewish?” I asked her.

“No need. He knows everything,” she said.

For a while I kept my run in with Helen Todd a secret. I didn’t want God to hear me tattle on Helen to my mom, because I was afraid he’d punish me -- seeing as how he singled me out the way he did to kill himself on my behalf -- presumptuous as that was. Despite the fact that I knew very little about my religion, aside from Hanukkah, I desperately wanted to be Jewish again.

Up until the time Helen cornered me, I thought “Jesus Christ” was a curse word. Now I was cursing all the time. Every time I did something wrong, I’d ask Jesus if he saw me. “Did you see that Jesus? If so, I can explain.”

Helen converted me, that much I knew, but she neglected to teach me any of the subtle nuances of the religion. For starters, I had no idea if I should call Jesus by his first name or Mr. Christ. I had to figure out everything on my own and found myself praying for forgiveness every couple of seconds. I knew I was overdoing it but who was I supposed to ask for instructions? I was scared to death of Helen and the rest of the adults who were close to me were Jewish. What the hell would they know about being a good Catholic?

If my mother only knew how often Helen Todd took my sister and I to church when she was supposed to be babysitting for us at her house. I couldn’t possibly tell her. God wanted me to go to church according to Helen.

I remember standing in front of Helen’s mantelpiece picking up her little saints one at a time. I’d pray to each and every one of them, mostly for presents, but still. I loved miniature people and hers were so life-like. I’d run my fingers over the carved cream enamel and try to take off their little red velvet accessories. God, I loved those dolls.

My mother could never figure out why Helen Todd was the only babysitter I ever obeyed. She thought it was because Helen just had a way with children. She had no idea that in my religious ignorance, I had mistaken Helen Todd for God’s wife, or at the very least, his secretary.

I remember this one time in particular when Helen came over to babysit. She walked into the kitchen while my mom was spilling out a pot of coffee. When my parents left, Helen told me it was a sin the way my mom wasted all that coffee. I stayed up that whole night praying to God to forgive my mother. “There was a hair in it! I swear to you, your Majesty! Punish me. Not her!!” I pleaded. I love my mother with a vengeance and I’d be damned if I was going to let Helen Todd’s husband get a piece of her.

Every night I said my prayers accompanied by elaborate hand motions that were intended to create an invisible, carefully-tied little package for each prayer which I would then push up to God in the hope that he would answer them all by saying, “Because you were neat, my answer is yes!”

Looking back, I can see why religions have so many rules and rituals. It’s because if you let kids make up their own, they’re liable to drive themselves crazy trying not to go to hell.

It’s funny how you can get a kid to believe anything if you catch them at just the right age and scare the hell out of them.

That’s why when I fell off my bike today, the first thing I thought of was, “What did I do wrong now?”

As soon as I figure it out . . . I’ll never do it again.

November 8

So I’m sitting in the doctor’s office, flipping through a magazine about tumors while waiting for my mammogram appointment when the woman sitting next to me snaps her cell phone shut and leans in toward me. She had strikingly beautiful, long brown hair and a very pretty face but she was wearing summer clothes and way too much makeup so I assumed she was either the type of woman who usually only goes out at night or just very bad with transitions.

“That was my boyfriend,” she said as though I asked.

“Oh!” I said, thinking she was old enough to have a manfriend.

“He just bought me my birthday present but he won’t tell me what it is.”

“Interesting, interesting,” I said and brought the magazine up a little closer to my face.

“We’ve been goin’ out for seven months.”

“How old are you?” I thought, but instead said, “I’m sure he got you something very special.”

“That’s what I’m hoping,” she said, “We’ve been livin’ together so, you know.”

“Have either of you been engaged before?” I asked, thinking maybe she was a teenager who stayed out in the sun too long and just happened to look like a forty year old.

“Yeah, I was married before. I have a son. But his father left me when I was pregnant. My boyfriend doesn’t have any kids, just a lot of ex wives.”

“That’s encouraging,” I thought, but instead said, “At least you won’t have to worry about that whole custody thing if you guys get married.”

“I’m not sure if he wants to get married. He’s never even told me he loves me. Some guys can’t say ‘I love you’, did you notice that? But we bought a cat together. So, that’s somethin’”

“Perhaps he doesn’t want to say ‘I love you’ in front of the cat,” I thought but instead said, “Well, he’s probably just really insecure. Maybe he doesn’t want to say it first.”

“I say it all the time. I think it’s important to tell someone how you feel. I tell my son every day that I love him because my parents never said it to me and I never knew if they loved me. I mean, I thought they did, but they should have told me once in a while. Did your parents ever tell you they love you?”

“Every thirty seconds,” I thought, but instead I said, “My parents are very verbal.”

“I try to give him a lot of space. I’m talkin’ about my boyfriend. My dad raised me to be that way. He told me to always know my place. He used to always say that children should be . . . that it’s not right for children . . . that when adults are having a grown up conversation, children should be quiet and not say anything because they shouldn’t be heard.”

“But you’re not a child,” I said, happy that she almost remembered the expression she was referring to and curious as to what it had to do with anything.

“No, I know, it’s just that I was taught to be respectful -- and that you shouldn’t put yourself where you don’t belong. For instance, when my boyfriend is talkin’ to his friends I never listen in or say anything because I don’t want him to think I’m nosey or that I don’t trust him or that I want to be part of something where I don’t belong. My dad taught me a lot of things like that. He thought girls should let a man be a man.”

“Well, that’s very polite of you,” I said looking around to see if I inadvertently fell through a time portal.

“That’s just the way I was brought up. I hardly ever talk around my father. But I notice that my son’s girlfriend isn’t like that. She wants my son to pick her up for lunch at work every day and take her out somewhere to eat. Take today for instance. He was at my house when she called and instead of her sayin’, ‘Oh, since you’re with your mom then we can have lunch another time,’ she insisted that he come get her. That was very nosey of her, don’t you think?”

“Are you retarded?” I thought but instead I said, “She sounds awful.”

“That’s what I think too. But I don’t think my son notices it. She’s very pretty and sometimes that confuses men. They think if a girl is pretty, she’s nicer than she really is.”

“I’ve noticed that, you’re right,” I said, turning my body slightly.

“But sometimes I think he does know because I think he broke up with her once before. I try not to ask too many questions but I did notice that for a while he wasn’t seein’ her as much.”

“Maybe they’ll break up again,” I suggested hopefully.

She giggled and asked me if I was married. I told her I was and that I had a boy and a girl.

“Do you have kids?” she asked.

“Yes,” I reminded her.

“Are either of your children a boy?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “The boy is.”

“Does he play an instrument?” she asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” I said, “He plays the guitar.”

“My son plays the guitar too,” she said, “I think it’s important that they play an instrument. None of his friends play anything, but he does it anyway.”

“It’s good that he does his own thing,” I told her.

“I think it helps my son that he plays guitar. I think it helps him learn other things because music teaches him how to figure things out. And also, he doesn’t do drugs because the guitar helps him think about other things besides what’s botherin’ him.”

“That’s probably true,” I said, suddenly in awe of her.

“I also think it makes him feel good about himself.”

“I think so too,” I said.

“I used to worry about him a lot when he was little, especially when he was too big to come into the ladies room with me and he had to go into the men’s room by himself. I used to stand outside the door yellin’, ‘Are you okay in there?’ Just in case there was a pervert in there or something. I wanted the pervert to know that my son wasn’t wanderin’ around alone. I wanted that pedophiliac to know that my little boy had a mom waitin’ for him just outside the door so he wouldn’t get any ideas.”

“Me too!” I said.

“When he was very little, I wasn’t sure how to tell him about the birds and the bees so when he was in the bath, I’d ask him if he washed his hair and his face and then I’d say, ‘and don’t forget to wash your pip,’ cause that’s what we call it, and I didn’t want him to feel that his pip was any different than the rest of his body. I didn’t want him to grow up self-conscious about himself the way I did.”

“Me too! Well, some of what you said, anyway.”

“And when he was old enough to ask me about sex, I told him everything I knew as though it was like we were watchin’ the Discovery Channel. Like it was the most natural thing in the world that we were talkin’ like that and he asked me a lot of questions and I answered them the best I could.”

“Me too!” I said.

“I told him people mate like animals and that that’s what we was meant to do and that there wasn’t anything wrong with it.”

“Again, me too, sort of.”

“I don’t want to lose my son to a girlfriend who’s so possessive she won’t let him see me.”

“Me neither,” I said.

“A lot of things worry me,” she said.

“Me too,” I said.

“I’m worried that I won’t ever get married again.”

“I’m worried that you won’t either,” I thought, but instead said, “Sure you will.”

“It’s silly to worry all the time. People think if they worry than somethin’ better will happen because they already made themselves feel bad, so that means they deserve somethin’ better, but it’s better not to worry so you have more time to make somethin’ good happen. Like findin’ a better job instead of worryin’ about the bad one you already have. It’s not like a better job will come just because you’re always worryin’ about it. You have to make good things happen.”

“You’re right!” I said, wonderin’ if she was gettin’ smarter by the minute or if I was gettin’ dumber.

“It’s better to be happy,” she said, “Anyone can be happy. You just have to decide to.”

“You’re right about that too!” I said, letting my magazine fall to the floor.

Just then the nurse called her name and she stood up.

“I wish we could keep talkin’,” she said.

“Me too. Here, take this,” I said and wrote down my cell number. “Call me.”

November 1

As I’ve mentioned, “Miss Understanding,” will be published in spring ’07 and as I also mentioned, it’s written in Zoe’s voice. And no, I’m not Zoe. I’m not Chloe and I’m not Zoe. These people are made up. They aren’t real. I am a real person.

Having said that, I thought you should know that there is one tiny thing in “Miss Understanding” that is true to my life as well as Zoe’s and Chloe’s. It’s about the Phisohex. My mother did in fact soak us in it every night until they took it off the market. My sister and I don’t have any germs and we never will. You could turn us inside out, roll us around in raw eggs and mud and then lick us all over and you still wouldn’t get sick. We’re like antibiotics.

I never touch anything in a public bathroom and when I am forced to visit someone in the hospital, I breathe in my shirt the entire time. I don’t touch other people’s food unless I am related to them or married to them or I mistake it for my own and I wash my phones whenever possible.

I wasn’t always like this. For a while, I rebelled. I sat on toilets and drank from other people’s cups. I dug holes in the ground with my fingernails and yes, I tasted the good earth. It was so freeing to be dirty but I always confessed. And when I did, my mother always looked worried. Worried that I would die of germ poisoning.

As an attention-craving child, I enjoyed worrying my mom whenever possible but I also wanted to educate her. I felt she needed to know that there were other ways to die. I chose to enlighten her by faking fainting, all the time. I would roll my eyes back and fall on the floor and wait for her to notice. I remember fainting frequently on long car rides. Aside from her over zealous fear of germs, my mother is, by nature, a practical woman who can tell when someone is faking. Besides, no one faints in the car.

I used to imagine myself in the worst possible scenario: Hunched over in a phone booth calling to tell her that I’d been kidnapped, tortured and that I was about to be buried alive, and she’d say, “Don’t panic. I’m coming to get you. In the meantime, don’t touch anything. Your kidnapper could have a staph infection.” My other always whispered the word “staph.” She whispered it because the word staph meant, “Filthy infection that no one in our family will ever have as long as I’m alive.”

And then a few years ago, a very good friend of mine gave birth to twins. I visited her everyday in the hospital and sang to her new babies from under my sweater. She named her baby girl, Stephanie, so I felt as though I should be there as often as possible. But then something terrible happened. While still in the hospital, my friend got a staph infection in her left breast. It blew up like a balloon. And I stopped visiting.

She called me ten times the next morning.

“Where are you? You have to come. My breast is the size of a watermelon. Bring a camera.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t be there.

The next day she called again, “What happened to you yesterday?”

”I got sick,” I lied.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s hard to say exactly -- just an overwhelming sick type of thing.”

“You’re afraid to come, aren’t you?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous.”

”It’s because I have a staph infection. I know it is.”

”What? No! Of course not. That’s crazy.”

”You don’t have to come. I understand,” she said.

“Seriously? OH Thank God, because there’s no way I’m getting near you. Anyway, get well soon. See you when you get home. Kiss the twins for me. Actually don’t.”

And I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. Even though I was at home.

To this day, whenever I’m with the twins, I try not to think about the fact that they were breast fed from a breast infected with staph. I try to look at them as though they are the pure, sweet, innocent, adorable creatures that they are. And that they’re not going to be contagious for the rest of their lives. And that living breathing things are not sterile and that they’re not supposed to be.

I know these things to be true and I’ve long since gotten over my fear of germs.

Ever since they put Phisohex back on the market.

October 31

I baked my daughter’s favorite cake on Friday -- a real cake -- with flour. I baked this cake because it was my daughter’s birthday and I used to make this cake for her all the time.

I haven’t baked in a long time because writing books gets in the way of things like baking -- which isn’t fair really -- but you only realize that when you’re not writing.

“Remember when you had long hair and you used to bake that cake with the whipped cream frosting?” Kimmy asked me.

“I can still bake that cake,” (and grow my hair long) I thought.

You can imagine why I needed to bake this particular cake almost as much as that poor woman in “Hours,” wanted her cake to be perfect. “If I bake this cake,” I thought, “And it comes out exactly the way my daughter remembers it, then I will be giving her a piece of her childhood, for her birthday.”

The best part of my relationship with my daughter is based on memories of when she was very small, when we were home alone, two girls, just doing our thing and although we had big birthday parties, we always had a separate celebration, in the kitchen, with flowers, and pink balloons and a vanilla cake with whipped cream icing and strawberries.

I brought the cookbook with me in the car because I was rushing. I kept it on my lap the whole car ride so I wouldn’t get distracted and start doing other errands. When I got to Whole Foods, I sat in the parking lot and wrote down the ingredients I’d need on a little piece of paper. I got out of the car and went directly into Anthropologie. Anyone would have done it. It’s right next door to King’s. I was rushing because I knew I didn’t have much time before she got home from school, and I hadn’t wrapped her gifts yet, so I only bought two skirts, a pair of really cute earrings, four glasses and a candle. I loaded the car and then went back to get the stuff for the cake. I bought eggs, flour, heavy cream, sugar, baking powder and a ton of candy. I couldn’t help it about the candy. It’s that time of year.

I went home and cleared the counter. I put all my ingredients in front of me and turned on the oven. The first thing I did was measure the flour, precisely, according to the directions in the book, which means I used a knife and scored it and then slid the knife across the top until the flour resembled plaster. This particular cookbook I use was a gift from a friend of mine. I once confided in her that I didn’t know how to make anything whatsoever, and that I was afraid for my children, so she gave me this cookbook that is essentially for people who seem to have been raised by wolves. The instructions include things like: “When you measure the flour, be careful not to get it all over your face and then accidentally dribble water.”

I measured all the other ingredients and then realized I forgot to buy butter. So I went back to the store. When I got home there was a huge mess on the counter and floor. Apparently my dog had jumped up and knocked over the bowl of flour. I can only assume she never read my cookbook because it appeared as though she had tasted the flour and then, upon realizing it was a little dry, she took a little drink from her water bowl. I’m guessing of course, because I wasn’t home, but I couldn’t help noticing the little beads of dough around her mouth and chin area. Poor thing. I hate that she can’t read.

So I wont drag this out. I will tell you that when it was time to cream the butter and the sugar, I remembered that I gave my mixer away last summer so I had to go back out again but this time I took the dog with me.

A few minutes after I got home, my daughter ran into the house saying, “Something smells good.” I guessed she picked up the scent of the candle.

Then she walked into the kitchen.

“What happened?” she asked. It was obvious from her expression that she was both disappointed that the pretty smell wasn’t coming from the oven and at the same time, a little worried.

“Nothing, why?”

“Did a bird fly in here?”

”Not that I know of.”

”Why is everything on the floor?”

”Because I’m baking.”

”You mean you’re just starting the cake now?”

“No, silly, I’m almost done.”

”What do you have left to do?”

“Let’s see here. I need to mix the ingredients and then cook it. That’s it. It should be ready in an hour.”

”An hour?”

”If all goes well.”

”Okay” she said. And I realized that I’d already killed the first memory. The one where she comes running downstairs and the cake is ablaze with pink candles and I’m singing my ass off.

Many things transpired in the course of the three hours and forty five minutes that it took for me to mix the ingredients properly (first dry, then a tiny bit of wet, a drop more dry, a wee bit of wet, fuck it -- dump the rest of the dry into the wet and put the mixer on whip) and then bake the cake. The phone rang at least eighty times, I poked myself in the thigh with a fork, there were two flower deliveries, Dan walked in with balloons and then Kim’s boyfriend showed up -- and then the bell went off and I took the cake out of the oven. The kitchen smelled like heaven, pink balloons were strewn everywhere, and I’d set up a little party for my daughter, exactly the way I used to do when she was tiny and had one best friend and we’d sing happy birthday in the kitchen.

Her boyfriend put the candles on the cake and Jesse helped by writing Kim in the largest letters I’ve ever seen on top of the cake with the pink frosting that I neglected to tell you I bought -- which was packaged in what appeared to be a spray pump.

We lit the candles, turned off the lights and told Kim to leave the room. Then we all sang happy birthday and she came in looking surprised, palms to cheeks.

When it was time to eat the cake, the festivities came to a screeching halt. The cake had that dry, mealy, horrible texture that one can only achieve with a Susie Homemaker Oven. How I managed to recreate that same texture with my fully mature oven, I have no idea. No one knew what to say, except Jesse.
“Mom this is really good but I want to save my appetite for, um . . . tomorrow.”

Everyone else took a few bites including me and then I immediately started coughing. Everyone rushed to save me by filling their cups up with water and forcing me to swallow some of it but here was no amount of liquid that could dislodge the rock of cake from my esophagus.

While I was coughing I noticed everyone sliding their cake plates into the sink and I wanted to say, “That’s right, save yourselves,” but there was no way to get any words out.

Eventually the cake moved on and I was able to breathe and apologize. We all laughed and I couldn’t help noticing my daughter was still holding her plate . . . and eating the cake. She was just about to take another bite but stopped to ask me why I was looking at her.“
“Why are you eating the cake?” I asked. “Can’t you see it’s dangerous?”

“No, it’s not. I love it.”

“You do?”

”This is my favorite cake. The only cake I ever liked.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little dry?”

”Not particularly. It’s exactly the way I remember it.”

October 25

I have bizarre dreams. I’m not on any sort of medication; I just have these incredibly graphic dreams that freak the hell out of me every now and then. This last one was particularly unnerving. I dreamed that I gave birth to a baby girl and then I left the room. When I came back she had a chest full of hair. I ran my fingers through it to see if it would perhaps come off but it didn’t. The baby looked down at my hand as I stroked her chest hair. In my dream, I thought, “She’s going to have to have some sort of operation to remove this hair. She can’t go through life like this. The baby was smiling and very happy. Apparently her chest hair didn’t bother her in the least, but as her mother I knew that she would need to get rid of it as soon as possible before any one else saw it.

“Children will make fun of her. And so will adults,” I thought. “She’s abnormal.” And yet there was nothing else, besides the hairy chest that was in any way abnormal about her. She was sweet and quiet and content and very much like any other baby -- except for the hirsuteness. I imagined that the operation would be very painful and that the baby would wonder why she had to have her chest hair removed. In my dream, she was playing with it and loving it as though it was a stuffed animal. I wondered if she would continue to love it if the whole world teased her for having it -- if the whole world blamed her and hated her for having been born with something so unnatural that it made them cringe.

I considered taking her away someplace, someplace where we could live alone, where no one would ever see her. “Why should she suffer simply because the rest of the world isn’t ready for a baby with chest hair? Why should she have to go through the unnecessary pain of an operation simply because she doesn’t conform to the universal standard of what a baby’s chest is supposed to look like?” In my dream, she was my only child and I thought how much better it would be if Dan and I and the baby lived alone -- anywhere in the world where there were no other people who would be offended by the sight of her.

When I woke up, I sat up in bed, sweating, still wondering what I should do to protect my baby.

I remembered a play that I’d seen a few years ago. A one-man show, starring Kevin Bacon, about a little girl whose body was covered in fine blonde hair and how a boy took pictures of her half undressed. The pictures were beautiful and the little girl appeared to be very proud of her body in the pictures, but her father was so ashamed of them, he tore them to pieces. He was enraged that a strange boy had exposed the truth about his daughter’s body. The little girl loved the way she looked in the pictures until her father’s reaction made it clear to her that she was wrong for liking the pictures and that she ought to be ashamed. I saw that play maybe five years ago. Too long ago to be dreaming about it now.

In my dream, my baby’s chest was hairier than that of any man I’ve ever known. She was beautiful though. Beautiful and sweet and happy. Had I not woken up in time, who knows what I would have done to save her. But I am awake. And just as any mother knows that the strongest children are those who are taught to accept themselves as they are, despite their differences from other children, I know that I would never hurt my child to help her fit it. I would instead show her how to use Nair.

October 24

I’ve been out of the supermarket loop for so long, I forgot to bring a cart with me when I walked into King’s today. I just waltzed through the door and started walking around. When my arms were full, I put everything down and went back outside to get a cart.

After walking up and down the aisles for a few minutes I remembered why I never go food shopping. It’s because I can’t stand talking to people when I’m trying to concentrate. Food shopping is the type of activity that requires my full attention. If I shop haphazardly, I leave out certain food groups, such as all of them. I’ve been known to come home with shopping bags filled exclusively with ice cream simply because I was distracted.

Everyone in my town shops at the exact same time. No matter how you try to get around it, there are only so many hours in the day that make sense for food shopping and everyone seems to know what those hours are. And because of this, food shopping has become a social event. For me, it’s the worst kind of social event imaginable -- the only thing I hate more than talking to people is talking to people standing up.

It never ceases to amaze me how many women go to King’s on purpose. I only go by accident, because occasionally I forget not to go. I know women, I kid you not, who plan their entire day around food shopping. Granted, one or two of these women cook but most of them go to talk. They make sure their hair is blown and their lips lightly glossed and their clothes, casual and sporty. I almost forgot all about the King’s runway when I accidentally went food shopping with wet hair in the pajama bottoms and boots I wore to walk the dog this morning. I had planned to run in and run out, but I ran into seven people who came for the day . . . to chat. Chat really isn’t the word. It’s more like they came to free associate. If you’re planning to go food shopping in my town and you need eggs, for example, you need to allow at least ninety minutes.

Take today, for example:

First I ran into a friend of mine who is an Art teacher three days a week. Turns out she’s off tomorrow and she just happened to have bought a Yoga Booty tape and thought I might like to come over tomorrow and do the tape with her. Tempting as that was, I told her that I wasn’t planning on exercising tomorrow or for the rest of the year. But she insisted that if we don’t at least try the tape we should instead join a new gym that opened up in town. Because I am weak, I agreed. It took five minutes for her to apologize for buying the Yoga Booty tape and another ten for her to convince me to join a new gym, so that means I stood in the frozen food section for fifteen minutes filling up my cart while she was talking.

In the midst of our conversation, a woman who owns a very elegant shoe store in town spotted my friend and said, “nice shoes.” They laughed about that for a few seconds because my friend obviously bought her shoes in the woman’s store so they thought that was funny. The conversation progressed fairly quickly and before I knew it, the woman who owns the shoe store explained to me why she’s not a good candidate for estrogen. It’s because she smokes. She’s tried everything. Believe me. The woman wants to quit. She just can’t. And who’s to say the problem isn’t really her thyroid? So caught up was I in this woman’s hormonal imbalance, I let my cart drift away. My heart when out to her. You have no idea how she’s been suffering since her hysterectomy and her husband, that bum, what does he care? I told her to leave him.

She’s coming to the gym with us tomorrow.

I continued on, fully intending to pick up a chicken, when I ran into two mothers from my son’s class. They were shopping together. I used to go food shopping with my best friend too, so I can’t really criticize them for that, much as I’d like to. We talked about all the parties the kids have this year and then I volunteered to bring a fruit salad to Thursday’s pot luck dinner. How the hell I thought I could come up with the likes of that I had no idea, but since they moved on fairly quickly, as people shopping in pairs often do, I had a minute to think.

I quickly retrieved my cart and headed toward the fruit and vegetable aisle to pick up a Luau bowl. Just as I turned the corner, I spotted my old next door neighbor. She looked good. She’s dating a new guy. She has a ring but she’s still not sure if he’s the one. They’re actually living together. And her sister moved to Texas. I was surprised to hear that. “No kidding,” I said, “Texas? Son of a gun.”

And of course she’s not happy with her job. She never was. I suggested a career change but she’s not in the mood. What with just getting over the divorce, I cant’ really blame her. There’s so much emotional baggage she needs to unload before focusing on her career. She asked about my family and I told her Dan and the kids were fine and she said to send them her love and I told her I would. And I will. She used to give my son cookies all the time whenever he used to go over there . . . for cookies. I miss her. We all do.

While chatting with her I must have loaded up on more than my share of Luau bowls. I looked down and noticed two in the cart and I was still holding one. I was about to put at least two of them back when I ran into yet another neighbor of mine, who I never see because, well, to put it bluntly, her kids are odd.

She just had her eyes done.

At first I wasn’t going to say anything even though I spotted some stitches, but she brought it up immediately. She wished she’d done it years ago. I felt myself opening up my own eyes a little wider and trying to raise my eyebrows, in case they were drooping again. The surgery was not difficult at all. In fact, she enjoyed it. I think there might be something going on between her and her plastic surgeon but I didn’t want to get into it because my fruit bowl was dripping on my shoes. I carefully put it down in the carriage with the other two and told her I was in a bit of a hurry. She told me she was too and then went on to describe the entire eyelift procedure -- beginning with the day she scheduled the appointment. She was just getting to the part when she vomited in the recovery room when I spotted a real estate broker who works with my husband waving and heading my way.

The poor thing. Both of her kids have chicken pox. I suggested an oatmeal bath but her kids are too hyper to take baths. She’s always afraid they’ll drown. They’re twins. I don’t know if I mentioned that but it’s true. They are. One boy and one girl. The girl is much more outgoing than the boy and that’s why she’s not sure if they should be in the same class. I told her to keep them together until the boy is ready to separate but her shrink thinks she needs to pull him away from his sister before he becomes emotionally dependent upon her. Who am I to argue with her shrink, but I did anyway, because the shrink is wrong. While we were talking we wheeled our carts over to the medicine aisle. In the end, she went with the Aveeno Oatmeal Bath Flakes, which I advised her to use gingerly and I got shampoo.

By the time I left King’s, one hour and forty five minutes had passed, my hair was dry and I was exhausted. I loaded my Luau bowls, shampoo and ice cream into the car and thought about going back in for a chicken.

I sat in my car staring at the clock trying to estimate how long it would take to go back in for a chicken. I didn’t have forty to fifty minutes to spare so I went home with what I had. The thing about talking to people is that it’s not that bad, it’s just time consuming. Every time you say something to them, they say something back and then you have to say something again. Even if you’re just saying hello, there’s a couple of minutes involved. Conversations with actual people are nothing like the character conversations I have in my head. Particularly because random voices don’t expect anything in the way of an answer. But the people in King’s have families and problems and they need answers. In fact, they’re continually searching for answers and they do this by talking. It’s what gets them through the day. I guess they think if they talk to enough people, someone’s bound to come up with something.

I just hope the Oatmeal baths help. I love those twins and I think it’s terrible that anyone would suggest separating them. They’re four years old. And they’re twins. The poor little boy is probably thinking, “Can’t you see we were born a couple?”

I’m thinking I might even go back to King’s some day. It’s just that next time I’m going to make sure my hair is done and that I’m wearing at least a little lip gloss.

October 23

Dan and I got our pumpkins today. I spotted the ones I wanted almost immediately. They were sitting right next to each other, both a brilliant, fiery, orangey red. There was no question in my mind that these were the two best pumpkins. Dan walked over to an old rusty pumpkin and said, “I got one, now you pick.”

”We can’t bring that home,” I explained.

“Why not? Is it rotten or something?” he asked turning it over.

“No, it’s just ugly.”

”Pumpkins are supposed to be ugly. The whole holiday is based on ugliness.”

”Well, then take that one,” I said and pointed at the beautiful pumpkins, “I’m getting those.”

”Fine,” he said, tossing his pumpkin back on the table with the other hideous dirty looking pumpkins. He handed me the credit card and said, “Go pay for them, I’ll put them in the car.”

”Okay,” I said running over to pay.

After I picked out some small bales of hay, some dried flowers and a few assorted mini pumpkins, I paid for everything and headed over to the car assuming Dan would be waiting for me. But he was still standing over by the pumpkins so I turned back around.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked.

“That guy is getting a plank so we can load the pumpkins into the car.”

”They’re that heavy?”

“Yes, they’re that heavy. They weigh well over a hundred pounds each, Steph, and they’re too big for either of us to get our arms around so we’re going to roll them off the table and wheel them over one at a time and then roll them up a plank into the back of the car. And this is ridiculous by the way.”

”We don’t have to get them,” I said, “Although I did pay for them already.”

A few minutes later, a guy came over with a very elaborate plan for transferring the pumpkins -- which he described in great detail -- before they got started. They carefully loaded the pumpkins into the back of Dan’s car and I brought the dog up front with me for the ride home.

We pulled into the driveway and opened the back of the car. The pumpkins looked a lot bigger once we got them home. A little scary actually. I could easily see why transferring them was a two person job.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now you tell me where you want them,” he said.

I pointed to various places in the general vicinity of the two light posts that flank the driveway until he couldn’t take it anymore. He reached into the back of his car and attempted to pick up the first pumpkin. I guess he was planning to hurl it out of there but the thing wouldn’t budge. It wouldn’t roll either because it was stuck on its flat side.

“I’ll lay some hay down in the meantime,” I said and proceeded to define the areas on either side of the driveway where I thought the pumpkins should go. Dan was leaning up against the car watching me.

“That’s a lovely nativity scene you’ve got going there.”

”Laugh now but wait until you see what I’ve got planned. I had six mums and a half dozen smaller pumpkins in the back of my car for days -- some of them were for carving, the rest of which I was planning to weave in and around two large pumpkins for a cornucopia effect but until today, I couldn’t find any pumpkins that were large enough to use as a backdrop.

When I finished placing the hay, I went into the garage to get some of the other pumpkins and the mums. I brought them to the end of the driveway one by one. It took a while and the temperature was already beginning to drop.

“Are you going to plant those mums?” he asked.

”Nope, I’m going to cover the pots with hay,” I said, feeling my numb fingertips with my thumbs, as though that was my plan all along.

”Very nice. Very nice. I think I’ll give the pumpkins another try to see if I can get them in place before the mums blow away,” he said.
He leaned into the back of the car and lifted one of the pumpkins up about two inches and then put it back down. He did this three or four times, each time with new curses. Just then a friend of Dan’s drove by. They used to work out at the same gym. The guy slowed down in front of the house and Dan turned around and waved.

“Need a hand?” the guy yelled from the street.

“No thanks!” Dan yelled back, “I got it.” And as God as my witness, he picked up the gigantic pumpkin and brought it out of the car and put it right where it was supposed to go. Then he reached in and got the other one and did the exact same thing. The guy was still stopped in his car watching Dan. Afterwards Dan waved at him and the guy waved back and drove away.

“That was unbelievable,” I said.

“What?”

“The way you were all of a sudden able to lift those pumpkins.”

”What are you talking about?” he asked.

“No, it’s just that . . . nevermind.”

Later that day when we pulled out of the driveway, he stopped the car for a second to admire what we had done.

“It looks good, Steph.”

”Thanks! And thanks, you know, for lifting the . . . um . . . pumpkins.”

”You don’t have to thank me for that.”

“Well next time I’ll choose smaller ones.”

”Why?” he asked.

“No reason.”

October 21

Yesterday Dan and I went to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co/826NYC benefit. You can read all about it on www.beatrice.com and see me pretending to be reporter for a day. It was a very cool event. The Hungry Marching Band is a lot sexier than they realize. John Hodgman, on the other hand, is very, very smart. Smart in a way that makes me wonder. How do guys like that do on dates? He knows everything, probably everything his date is thinking. Call me crazy but I’ve always gone for guys who couldn’t in a million years guess what I was thinking. Guys that are cute and entertaining not so much for their probing linguistic acrobatics but more for their occasional short quips that make you think, “Huh! That actually wasn’t that dumb.”

That’s why I felt so odd yesterday, sitting there in the audience, listening to John explain why the superhero power “invisibility” is so far superior to that of “being able to fly.” I couldn’t stop staring at the guy. Like we were on a date. Which was weird because I was sitting right next to my husband, the very cute, and very funny one-liner type that I’ve always gone for. So there I am on my date with Hodgman, trying to picture him naked and yet invisible at the same time. The whole time he’s laying out the benefits of invisibility and how only an idiot would choose flying, I’m thinking, “I don’t know how to tell you this John but you’re the first guy I’ve ever dated who doesn’t think being able to fly would be just about the coolest thing ever.”

I imagined him and every guy I’ve ever known getting into a discussion.

Hodgeman: “Can’t you see that choosing flying over invisibility is like having only one wish, one wish that could possibly save the fate of all humanity and using it for something totally inane, like a really huge swimming pool?”

Guy I’d know: “Yeah.”

Hodgeman: “Imagine, if you will, the infinite, magical possibilities that invisibility would offer -- doors to the unknown just flung open, a realm of existence never before explored by the human mind, let alone the philosophical discussions that would ensue about the true nature of intimacy or how about the complete dismantling of natural science, as we know it, or the rapture of being truly present in another person’s life? To know someone, completely, as only she knows herself, when she thinks she’s alone. I implore you to compare all of that to say . . . floating. Now I ask you, for the last time, which is the greater superpower?

Guy I’d know: “I’m sorry, man, I’d still go with flying.”

Thank God.

October 20

So I was on that panel yesterday at Marymount Manhattan College -- the one with the Nannies, Rona Jaffe and the mother/daughter team Erica and Molly Jong.

I’d decided to head into the city early so I’d have time to return a pair of pants at Bergdorfs, which I optimistically bought a size too small. They’ve been sitting in the back of my closet for so long the receipt turned yellow so I thought it best to give someone else a stab at them.

I showered and got dressed and headed into the city. As I was driving over the bridge I couldn’t help noticing that I was four hours early. And still, I was rushing. Then I couldn’t help noticing that I was on the West Side Highway. I really need to start paying attention to where I’m going when I’m driving. It’s getting ridiculous. For any of you who don’t know where Marymount is, suffice to say I was heading to the wrong side of town. But I managed to cross town and park in the lot right next door to the college with three hours to spare. And still, I was rushing.

I took a taxi to Bergdorfs and returned the pants. It took exactly 15 minutes from the time I gave the driver the store address until the woman at Bergdorfs handed me the return receipt. So that left me with two hours and forty-five minutes to spare and since I couldn’t really walk in my shoes, I had very few options in terms of activities.

So I decided to visit the salon upstairs and get my hair blown. The place was fairly empty. I got an appointment immediately and my hair was washed and blown in twenty-five minutes. What to do with two hours and twenty minutes. What to do. What to do.

“Can somebody do my makeup?” I asked the receptionist.

“Sure, how about Valentina?” she suggested.

“Great,” I said, never suspecting Valentina was a man. I don’t usually do well with male makeup artists. They tend to have a heavy hand, which tends to result in me showing up at one too many parties looking like a transvestite.

I sat down safe in the knowledge that if I ended up looking like a man attempting to impersonate myself, I’d still have at least one hour and forty minutes left to spend washing my face, which, in my experience, is exactly the amount of time it takes to remove professionally applied makeup.

“Can you make it look natural?” I asked Val.

“Of course,” he said, reaching for what looked like a little plastic sewing kit and a pair of tweezers.

“What’s that for?” I asked as he began to pluck out tiny hairs from his kit and dip them in a little pot of glue.

“These are lashes?” Val said.

“False eyelashes?” I asked.

“Of course,” Val said. “I always do an eyelash application.”

“Are they natural looking false eyelashes?” I asked.

“You will love them, trust me,” Val said.

All told, the application of fifteen coats of eye shadow and what I can only assume was Spackle took thirty minutes. I thanked Val and ran to the dressing room with a towel. I got most of the face makeup off but didn’t dare touch my eyes. There was something wrong with them. Something I couldn’t possibly fix with a towel. I put my head back and peered into the mirror. Just as I suspected, they were glued shut in both corners of my outer eye. I tried to open them as wide as possible to pry the top and bottom lashes away from one another but you need chemicals to dissolve cement and I didn’t have any.

The fact that my eyes were somewhat closed didn’t bother me half as much as the fact that if you looked closely enough, you could actually see little specks of white glue rimming my eyes. I looked down at my watch. I had one hour and thirty-five minutes to get from 57th and Fifth to 71st between Second and Third Avenue. Under normal circumstances, that would be more than enough time but I was having trouble seeing.

I began waving for a cab before I was even out of the door. I waved and waved and waved. I switched corners and continued waving. And then I started to panic. And that’s when I flagged down the guy on the bicycle with the little wagon attached to it.

”Can you give me a ride on that thing?” I asked.

“But of course,” he said with a French accent.

I got in the little carriage/cart type thing and off he went pedaling over potholes while I held on for dear life.

“Is this thing safe?” I asked Maurice.

“I’ve only been hit twice and never badly hurt,” he said while a guy in a limo next to us screamed at us to get on the sidewalk. I saw his point. Maurice was in the middle of the road.

“Maybe we should get out of the way,” I said holding my hair back and trying to keep my wallet from flying out of my bag.

“Don’t worry, you’re not in any danger,” Maurice said. He was pedaling a little slowly at this point and I realized we were going uphill. I never realized Madison Avenue was so hilly. “The Little Engine That Could” came to mind once again and I felt I should apologize to Maurice for those few extra pounds I’ve been battling of late. The poor guy almost came to a complete stop at one point.

Finally he said, “We have arrived at your destination.” I thanked him and then he said, “That will be twenty-five dollars.” So shocked was I by that statement that I was nearly able to open my eye. I handed him the money and jumped off.

When I got inside the college, I immediately went to the ladies room to check on my lashes. I squinted at myself for a few seconds, and attempted to brush through the knots that had accumulated during my bicycle ride. Then I headed upstairs.

I was only an hour early. People were still setting up and I immediately recognized Lewis Frumke’s voice. I introduced myself, asked if I could help set up and he assured me that I could just relax and that the other panelists would be coming soon. Then we talked for a while about “She’s Got Issues,” his Writing Center at the college and he told me that the panel discussion would be very informal and that he’d like to engage the audience as much as possible. And then, right before my eyes, in walked Erica Jong. I haven’t thought about this woman since I was thirteen and realized there was a dirty book in our house but there she was and I immediately recognized her. “She’s still young,” I thought to myself. I wasn’t expecting that. Young and contemporary and relaxed and not the least bit impressed with herself.

“How old are you?” I stopped myself from asking, as I shook her hand.

She smiled. Who knows what I really said. And then she asked me about my book and I asked her, “What’s it like to be a legend?”

She told me it’s the same as everything else.

Who knew.

A few minutes later, a young blonde woman walked in and said, “Hi mom.”

“That would be Molly Jong,” I said to myself. They kissed and Erica said, “Did you get my message that I decided to wear a skirt instead of pants.”

“They’re like regular people,” I thought. Regular people who either wear a skirt or pants. I introduced myself to Molly and told her how much I wished my mom were on the panel with me. They both looked at each other as only mothers and daughters can do. They spoke volumes with a twitch of an eye. I wondered how complicated it must be for a young writer to have a mother who defined an era and for her mother to have been so selflessly empowering to have enabled her own daughter to be published and recognized in her own right. Not an easy task but these weren’t just any women.

And the next thing I knew, there was Rona Jaffe with a plate of shrimp. There she was, this icon, who was no bigger than a minute, eating shrimp, as though she wasn’t the author of the “Best of Everything” and the first woman ever to write about what it really means to be a working “girl.” And they say Bridget Jones invented chick lit. I tried not to curtsey.

I wanted to stare at her, but I spotted Ron Hogan out of the corner of my eye and I wished I could run out to him and tell him how excited I was to be in the same room with these women -- but the next thing I knew, the Nannies were coming into the room and I was beside myself. For those of you who have never seen them in person, they are both incredibly beautiful and young and fresh and sweet and charming and adorable. They have that look. Like they’re brand new. As I shook their hands, I tilted my head back so they wouldn’t see the glue holding my eyelashes together. I remember being their age looking at old ladies wearing makeup and thinking, “Don’t they know it shows?” I wanted to explain to both of them that I’ve never worn false eyelashes before and to please not judge me too harshly but there was no time. Lewis was now introducing us to the audience members, all of who were already seated in the adjoining room.

One by one we walked in and waved to the audience and took our seats. I was last and found myself seated sort of at the corner of the table as opposed to behind the table with everyone else and I had to share a microphone with Erica Jong. I considered that this might be a problem because I would never have the courage to take the microphone away from her even if I had to announce that I was having a heart attack.

After Lewis put forth the term, “Chick Lit,” a discussion ensued. It was an open forum. Lewis asked questions; panelists spoke at will; and there was a sprinkling of Q&A. Oddly enough, there was one woman who kept asking the same question over and over again, “Why don’t more people know about these books?”

No one knew how to answer that. We had the co-authors of the Nanny Diaries as well as two of the biggest selling female authors ever. It occurred to me that she might really be wondering, “Why don’t more people know about ‘She’s Got Issues,’” but was just trying to be polite.

And then someone asked whom we thought was to blame for the term; “Chick Lit” and Erica expressed her opinion that it was the fault of men. There was a burst of laughter and then I spoke. I’m not sure what I said. The only thing I know is that I used various sentences and strung them together in some sort of random order that amounted to me saying nothing and then repeating it backwards while shaking my head. I didn’t have to move the microphone because Erica moved it for me.

Then I spoke again and this time I think I said something about an egg. I spoke two more times. I know because I was counting. And then it was over. Everyone clapped. And then I spotted my editor, my new editor, May Chen. I was so happy to see someone I knew, someone I liked, someone who knows I can speak coherently under normal circumstances, that I had to stop myself from lifting her up in the air and twirling her around. I could have easily done it. I was totally overjoyed to see her and she can’t weigh more than ninety pounds but I controlled myself and merely hugged her. We talked a little more; I signed some books and then I walked outside with Ron. He gave me a little insight as to what was going on in the audience, apparently there was a lot of chatter and we talked about the Brooklyn Superhero event tonight and the whole McSweeny thing.

We talked about how many books I was holding and how many books he had on his desk at that very moment -- many hundreds. And then we parted ways.

As I was getting into my car, I just kept shaking my head and thinking, “A few years ago I was hanging out at a country club trying not to hit myself in the head with a tennis racquet and now I’m walking to my car with Ron Hogan.” I guess it is possible to reinvent yourself, but I sure as hell didn’t see it coming. I looked in the mirror, yanked off my false eyelashes and drove home.

October 18

I was sitting in my closet, emptying the last bits of candy wrappers and receipts from the bag I’d brought with me on the tour when a tiny spider fled right out of the bag. I was horrified and attempted to kill it with an old high-heeled boot that I typically substitute for a hammer, but, unfortunately, the spider scurried away before I had the chance to bludgeon it to death. I watched the infinitesimal creature flee on the tip of its toes most likely sweating its little silk glands off and it occurred to me what a horrible monster I’ve become. Why do I despise little insects and why do I keep killing them? Could I possibly be so shallow that I want to kill them for no other reason than I find them ugly and on some level a little sneaky. There’s no justification for it whatsoever.

When I was younger, I would go to great lengths to transport any sort of bug at all both safely and comfortably to the great outdoors despite the fact that even then I associated their ugliness with a lack of trustworthiness. “Why are they always hiding?” I wondered and yet I would stab my mother’s finest Tupperware as many as fifty times if necessary to provide adequate ventilation for whatever insect I managed to find lying around the house -- even if it had hair. I’d even go so far as to carefully arrange some lettuce and a few sprigs of parsley at the bottom hoping that the bug would find these vegetables to be suitable seating as well as healthy snack options for the journey ahead and I’d always remember to sprinkle the lettuce with a few drops of fresh spring water. Once I had my bug trapped, I would carefully scope out the backyard trying to determine the best possible location to set him free -- the idea was to make my bug stand out so he could easily be located by his friends and relatives but to also make sure he didn’t feel exposed and vulnerable. I would imagine another bug walking up to him and saying, “There you are! I don’t believe it! Where the hell have you been?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” my bug would say, “ It was almost like a spa.”

But as the years go by, I seem to just walk around looking for things to step on. Particularly spiders. I can’t help wondering what it is about these quiet, unassuming creatures that bring out the murderer in me. I don’t think a spider has ever even bitten me. It may have, but even so, is murder really the proper recourse? The only explanation I can come up with is that I hate spiders because they walk so incredibly unlike people. Wrong as that is, it’s not like they’re leaving little dirty footprints all over the walls. For the most part, they’re just sitting there in absolute silence causing people to scream. Occasionally they scurry, yes, but they don’t mean to be disgusting every time they move an inch. They just are. And that’s just not a good enough reason to kill something. At what point did I stop caring for every living thing as much as I care for myself? And more importantly, whom can I blame this on?

October 17

Wednesday night at 6:00 pm I’m going to be at Marymount Manhattan College on 221 East 71st Street, NYC as part of the Jack Burstyn Memorial Lecture: Chick Lit. I’ll be part of a panel moderated by Lewis Burke Frumkes. I met him at the launch party for “She’s Got Issues.” I’ll be on a panel with Rona Jaffe, author of “The Best of Everything” and “The pioneer of chick lit,” according to the New York Times and with Erica Jong, author of “Fear of Flying” and her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast who is also a chick lit writer and Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin, co authors of The Nannie Diaries. The panel will meet in the Regina Peruggi Room. RSVP required: 212-774-0780.

So there I’ll be on a panel with all these distinguished writers and the first question on everyone’s minds will undoubtedly be, “So what brings you here?” And my answer will be, “I’m not sure exactly.” I don’t even know who Lewis Frumkes is. It’s true, he was at my party but I thought he was one of my relatives. “Are you my uncle?” I asked him when he came over to me to get his book autographed, “Because you look familiar.”

”I don’t think we’re related,” he said. “You’re Jewish though, right?” I asked him and he assured me that he was. He seemed like the kind of guy I’d like to have as an uncle. He was smart and warm and funny. I have an uncle like that but I don’t see him much anymore. So I’m in the market for an uncle. If Mr. Frumkes says it’s okay, I might take him on.

I’ve always been one to look around for relatives, particularly in restaurants. When my parents first got divorced, I spent a lot of time eyeing other people’s fathers. Not that I wanted any of them for myself. I was perfectly happy with my own; I just wanted to see what they were like -- how they interacted with their kids and if I could detect the early signs of a planned escape. I often imagined the youngest child at the dinner table slowly disappearing and me slowly coming into focus in the missing child’s chair.

“Hey Dad, can you pass the salt? And have you by any chance leased an apartment somewhere, say within a ten mile radius of our house, just in case for some reason things don’t work out that great between you and mom?”

I imagine this strange man looking over at me and saying, “Why, what a peculiar thing to ask?”

”Just checking,” I’d say and slowly fade away. You never know when a father is planning to break out. The truth is they don’t really know either. They sort of know but the whole thing must be as confusing for them as it is for the rest of the family when they suddenly find themselves not there. That’s why I like to think how great it would be if I could just sort of table hop and give families all over America a little heads up.

Every single couple in my entire family is divorced. Some of them a few times. My husband and I are the only original couple in my entire family. Therefore I think it should be up to us, the next time one of them gets a divorce, to choose their next spouse. In fact, I’d like to choose all of my relatives for now on. I think I’ve earned that right. And so, if Mr. Frumkes turns out to be half the man I suspect he is, I’m going to tell him my plan. I’ll let you know how it goes.

October 14

So I’m driving from Maryland to Pennsylvania yesterday -- to get to the last two events before heading home -- and I was having doubts about the signing, as usual, and trying not to think about it. So there I am, trying to keep my mind occupied, when this truck pulls up next to me and I get to thinking, “What a sturdy little truck. They sure don’t make them like that anymore.” And then I start daydreaming, as I often do while driving, about trucks in general and then trains, and as one might expect, I suddenly get fixated on trying to figure out what it was exactly that caused “The Little Engine that Could,” to have such a heck of a time going uphill. In an effort to reenact The Little Engine’s struggle, I must have slowed down a bit because I noticed that the sturdy little truck I was admiring was already way ahead of me on my right. But just as I was about to resume my original speed, a giant shovel got dislodged from the back of the little truck and it started bouncing to and fro on the highway heading toward the front of my car. When I say shovel, I’m referring to the size and model one might use to say, bury someone. I started to do some quick physics calculations to determine how soon it would be before I would die, when all of a sudden the shovel inadvertently flipped in the other direction and missed my car by about three inches, four tops.

“How about that?” I said to nobody and began to imagine what would have happened if in fact the shovel had hit me-- but not killed me. I was trying to imagine who I would call and what I would say.

“Hello. This is Stephanie Lessing. I’m the author of ‘She’s Got Issues.’ What’s that you say? You’ve heard of it? No kidding? Well, anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’ve been hit by a shovel. Can someone come and get me? And can you call Josie Brown? Yes, that’s right, Josie Brown, the author of “True Hollywood Lies.” Can you tell her that I don’t think I’m going to make it to Philly after all. Tell her I so wanted to be there, but, unfortunately, you can’t very well drive to a signing in a car that’s been completely destroyed by a garden tool.”

But once the fantasy was over, I realized how badly I didn’t want to miss the Philadelphia portion of the tour after all. And I sort of felt guilty that I cancelled the LA thing -- even though they booked it on the holiest day of the year. Who am I to cancel something because it’s not holy? I should have gone anyway because the truth is you can’t imagine how great it is to tour around the country and meet people and talk about your book all day. And then if you sign a copy or two for the hell of it, while you’re bragging about yourself, the bookstore manager will put a sticker on your book that says, “Autographed Copy” and move it to a very cool table. Is it not worth it for a day of sinning to get your book moved up to the front of the store? Even God would say, “Oh, just do it. I would.”

I wouldn’t have known any of this stuff if I’d never met Josie Brown and her husband, Martin. Josie organized the entire tour. The woman is a genius. She even travels with her own bookmarks. Who thinks of these things? I sure as hell didn’t have anything to give out to people. At one point I was so desperate when somebody asked me for my card for the millionth time, I ripped off a piece of my shirt cuff and wrote my name on it. “Here, take this, “ I said.

Besides teaching me about book publicity, Josie gave me an excellent recipe for scrambled egg-like tofu, some very affordable hotel tips, subtle reminders to wake up while people were talking to me and she even gave me the name of a guy who prints and mails stuff in twenty-four hours. Turns out I gave the guy the wrong address but more importantly, the woman knows everything about everything. I’ve never met anyone like her.

I also traveled with Kayla Perrin and Jennifer O’Connell. Jennifer wrote, “Off the Record,” which I can’t wait to read. Jennifer is one funny girl. She’s also a sick, sick map reader. At one point, she asked me to read the map for a second because she was doing something else and I panicked. I couldn’t possibly tell her I don’t know how to read a map so I told her I was partially blind and she totally went for it. If you’re reading this, Jen, it’s true, I am blind.

And then there’s Kayla, who wrote 21 books, including, “Give Me an ‘O’.” Yes, that sort of “O.” Kayla and I did that bonding thing women do when they find themselves sitting next to one another, smiling, in bizarre situations, for hours at a time. Like when that guy came over to us and started taking pictures and I was convinced we’d wind up with our heads pasted on other people’s bodies on some porn site until I finally decided to stop being paranoid and pose the hell out of myself. And then he handed us his business card and the whole thing was printed on a weird angle.

Chloe, Kayla’s two year old daughter, also toured with us. Chloe and I bonded as well. I took a liking to her and proved it by drawing hundreds of tiny squares for her in both blue and green. Inside each square, Chloe drew a tiny face. Then, in an effort to show me that the feeling was mutual, she took her mother’s bracelet from her and put it on my wrist. That would have been enough for me, but Chloe went one step further and began punching me incessantly to get me to say “ow!” in the same voice over and over again until I felt like crying. Kids sure have a funny way of making friends.

Kayla’s mom toured with us as well. This woman is so sweet and loving and devoted to her daughter and granddaughter, she reminded me of my own mother except for the fact that she too knew some tofu recipes.

The highlight of the tour was when the author of Secret Society Girl, Diana Peterfreund, came up to me and told me she had already read my book and loved it. I would have traveled half way around the world to have someone in the audience say that to me -- so from my point of view, the tour was already a huge success by day one.

For the most part, we rolled with the punches and chalked everything up to a learning experience, including the experience when no one could find our books fifteen minutes before our first signing was to have taken place. And then there was that awkward moment when my cell phone rang during one of our events. It was my son calling to say, “hi.” It was at that same signing that Kayla’s chair mysteriously began slipping lower and lower and I was begging myself not to burst out laughing. I had just met her and I was so afraid she was going to end up on the floor. Luckily we didn’t have a huge audience at that particular signing so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Our audience member hardly even noticed.

Then there was the guy who came up to Kayla and said he recognized the type of garbage she had written in other bookstores. I thought that was an odd way to strike up a conversation but after an hour or so we had him understanding that what Kayla wrote was not, in fact, “street lit” but literary masterpieces about the black elite. That shut him up and he ended up telling me that I wasn’t bad looking for a Jewish woman so I forgave him for starting things off on the wrong foot.

We met a lot of interesting people, ninety percent of whom are writers or aspiring writers or people who said, “I want to write.”

My favorite was the teenage girl who walked up to Kayla and tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Are you Kayla Perrin?” Kayla turned around and the girl looked up at her as though she was staring into the eyes of a rock star. And Kayla just smiled. And then the little girl said, “I’ve read every single one of your books.” And then she hugged her. You should have seen it.

Actually I wasn’t there either, but it’s such a good story, I had to tell it.

The thing is, you had to see the look on Kayla’s face when she told it. It made me realize why we all so willingly traveled from Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco and New Jersey. God knows it wasn’t about selling books. It was about connecting with another person, even one. There’s just something about hearing, “I loved your book.” And as much as I couldn’t wait to walk through my door last night, I know I’d go right back to hear those words again.

October 7

I know I said I wasn’t going to write anything until I got back but then I got to thinking. I was thinking about how it came to be that a basically solitary person like myself came to live in a house with on average five to eight cars in the driveway at any given time. This in itself is proof that we’re only fooling ourselves if we think we have any sort of control -- whatsoever -- over anything that happens in our lives.

I know, for a fact, that someone, other than myself, is pushing the buttons. Much as I want to believe we have the power to create our own destiny, all I have to do is look out the window and the whole theory of solipsism dissolves in a sinister gray puff of exhaust. Which sucks because I so wanted it to be about me. But I should have thought of that before I agreed to talk to people. At one point I had vowed not to. That was my plan. If I don’t engage in conversation with any other living being, my world will belong to me and only me and that includes all the buttons. But I was only six months old at the time. Things change. People weaken. For Eve, it was the apple. For me, it was language. So seduced was I by this seemingly harmless form of mouth play that I willingly fell into its clutches, chomping away at it as though if I stopped using it, even for a second, I would be lost. I had to possess it, consume it, and make it my own and that, of course, was the beginning of the end. Once they know what you’re thinking, and what it is you truly want, you’ve basically given them the right to rework it. Especially when you let them know what you’re thinking all the time -- to the point where they ask you to please stop using your new found language skills and be quiet, at least for a minute or two.

Like for instance when I discovered the word “mine.” I knew this was a good word right off the bat. In fact, it was the only word I needed for a good month or two. With this word I could easily make my point that under no circumstances would I be sharing anything, ever. What, in effect, I was really trying to communicate at that tender age was that I’d like to be in charge of my own buttons—the buttons that control my life. But here’s the thing. With language, you show your hand and we all know what happens when you show your hand, you lose.

It’s like using your turn signal at an intersection when you want to make a left turn. As soon as the oncoming traffic knows you want to make a left, they know what they need to do to prevent it. That’s why I don’t use mine. It’s the one area in my life where I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut.

I should have sensed that the language thing was going to be a problem but it had already become an addiction and I couldn’t stay off it. The more I said “Mine!” the more things got taken away. Like I said, as soon as they know how badly you want something, they conclude it’s best that you live without it. First it’s the bottle, then it’s those damn diapers, which were so convenient, then it’s the crib, and then, just when you think they’ve taken everything from you, they won’t even let you bring your mother into pre-school. The idea being that if you need her that badly, neither of you are ready for school, which is entirely unfair in my opinion. Who’s to say that she wouldn’t have enjoyed herself as much as the next person?

“They” won’t even let people smoke cigarettes or become alcoholics. It’s all about them and what they won’t allow you to need. For example, if they catch on to the fact that you’d prefer to live alone, they’ll put tons of cars in your driveway.

And who are they? And when do they meet to discuss what’s going to happen to us?

I mean look at these kids they gave me. I don’t even know these people. They’re nothing like me. For one thing, my daughter has skinny arms. How come they gave me a person with skinny arms? I’m not even sure how she moves them around. They don’t make sense to me. And my son. He likes motorcycles. Before he came along, I thought everyone with a motorcycle had a gun. These people who live in this house with me are totally foreign to everything I’ve ever known. They make jokes I don’t understand. They have things in their rooms that I can’t work and I don’t even remember buying any of it. How is that possible? Who gives them money? My son has about a billion video games. Where did they come from? I maybe bought him three or four at the most. My daughter has over four hundred people on her buddy list. Four hundred people I don’t know. And she takes AP History. Everything I know about history came from the Flintstones and I think they made some serious mistakes on that show. How can I possibly stop myself from asking this walking text book, who lives in my house, if there were, in fact, dinosaurs and people at the same time?

I have to. Like I said, I’m addicted to language. But as soon as I ask her, she’ll know I have no concept of time or what came first, people or animals, and there goes another button.

Kids are the worst offenders of stealing buttons. Every time I slip up, they take one. They have almost all of mine and neither of them are even eighteen.

Fortunately for Kim, her boyfriend is eighteen and therefore he drives, which brings me to why there is always at least one car, which does not belong to me, in my driveway.

The day my son figured out I can’t cook, he got full control of the “ordering in” button and that was one of my favorite buttons. Since then, in addition to my daughter’s boyfriend’s car, there is always a take out van in my driveway. So that’s two cars.

My parents, who live in Florida in the winter, live in New Jersey in the summer. Here. This house has a guest house attached to it. My children are of the few who enjoy the benefits of an extended family half the year. I can’t begin to tell you how much my children love having their grandparents right next door or how my parents have helped me raise my children, but trust me, I need them and I love them with every inch of my heart. However, they each have a car. So that makes five. I’m not going to count my car, or Dan’s, or the third car we can’t get rid of, even though it’s uncomfortable, because it’s a convertible. That’s the only button they’ll have to kill me for.

And the truth is I never wanted a housekeeper. I can’t stand having somebody in my house watching me live, evaluating me, looking through my stuff and wondering why I save things like old socks. I hate it. But again I need to live in a neat, organized world and this is something I can’t provide with the type of brain I have. I admitted this to Suzy when she came for the interview and that is what caused her to take the job and my privacy button. I should have sat there quietly but instead I showed her the laundry situation and the piles of books and papers and old magazines and the photo closet. “You could really use someone like me,” she said. “I’ll start on Monday.” “Okay,” I said, handing it over. She grabbed it and ran. And now her car is in my driveway even on her day off because she likes to visit.

But that’s not the half of it. Because I haven’t mentioned trucks yet. There’s the landscaper’s truck and the mailman’s truck and the dry cleaner’s truck and the UPS guy’s truck and the plumber’s truck and the painter’s truck. These people take turns but one of them is always there. Every time I look out the window, I count vehicles and missing buttons.

I haven’t even touched on the fact that there’s something about this house I live in that draws in all sorts of other people . . . who drive. For some reason, people see this house as an object that appears to have no owner. People tend to come and go as they please here. People of all ages. Basketball coaches, old neighbors, divorced fathers, children who prefer my children’s parents. Hungry people of all shapes and sizes show up here. I never even go to the supermarket. Where do they find food? As soon as people walk into my house, they go right to the refrigerator. Again, I should keep my mouth shut, but no. I encourage them to look for things I know aren’t there.

These people tend to come and go in phases. For a while we had my daughter’s best friend’s father visiting on a regular basis. This is a grown man who never had to work. He’s divorced now and his ex-wife warned me not to let him in. He’s a sociopath, according to her. But isn’t everyone? Particularly everyone’s ex? So I let him in. The first time he visited he had his six year old twins with him. They were both pulling his hair and one of them was kicking him as he entered our home.

“Where’s Kimmy?” he said as soon as he crossed the threshold of our front door.

“She’s upstairs sleeping,” I told him.

“So late?” he asked.

“She goes to bed late,” I explained, careful to accompany that statement with a facial expression which indicated, “although it’s no fault of mine.” I had lost the “time to go to bed” button many years prior and wanted him to know.

“Kimmy!!!!!” he yelled upstairs and then, “Kimmy!!!” again and then one more time to my shock and horror. I don’t even flush the toilet when she’s sleeping.

“Get up!!!” he hollered.

“She’s going to kill you,” I warned him.

“Nah, she won’t and it’s too late for her to be sleeping.”

After the third, “Kimmy!!!” my daughter came out of her room and stood at the top of the stairs with her hair in her face.

“What,” she said. Without any hint of a question.

“Come downstairs,” the sociopath ordered.

“I’m sleeping,” she said, “Therefore I can not babysit for the twins.”

He left shortly after their brief but clarifying conversation but continued to come over and yell for Kim for several weeks until he was one hundred percent convinced that my daughter was not the best choice for a babysitter.

There’s more. There’s the twenty four year old basketball coach who sometimes drops off his -- not even a little bit house trained -- puppy and tells us he’ll be right back . . . after his date. My dog and I love his dog so we don’t mind, but still, why? At least he takes his car with him when he leaves the dog.

And the kids. So many kids, with so many pairs of shoes, who beg their parents to let them sleep over for many days in a row. I never get tired of seeing the wonder and awe that settles on a child’s face as soon as he discovers that he’s found himself in a place where there are no rules. It’s truly a sight to see. And yet, each of these children need to be dropped off and then picked up by way of a car.

And the whole time I’m thinking, “Isn’t it obvious to any of you that I was meant to live alone?” I don’t even get up when people walk in. I just sit there doing whatever it was I was doing. I barely even say hello. Sometimes I nod but often I don’t. And when it gets very crowded, I usually pick up a book and read, to block out the noise. Sometimes I just ask whoever is last in the driveway if I can borrow their car and I just drive. And while I’m driving, I try to imagine how great my life would be if I had never spoken. If I had never actually said, “I want to be alone.”

Except that I’d be alone.

October 6

“She’s Got Issues” will now be published in Russian. Which is good because Russia is cool now, right? All those Russian models and that new vodka that just came out. And me being of Russian descent and what not. It’s all coming together. I’m just curious as to how they’re going to translate fuffie into Russian or any of the things Chloe says for that matter. How do they do that? The whole thing with this book is the way Chloe speaks. The way she says everything backwards. How can they do that in Russian? And what’s the Russian word for Pro-mo-ti-ation? I wish I knew at least one Russian word so I could figure out how this is going to sound. I’m very excited about this. I’ve always wanted to write a book in Russian. Although I never realized it until now. I guess you have to get a book translated into Russian to understand how very badly you wanted it all along.

And the other good news, the very good news is that “Miss Understanding” will be published sometime in the spring of ’07 by, you guessed it, AVON. May Chen will be my new editor and I’m lucky to have her. Both Kacey and Kate have both called her brilliant on at least three separate occasions. Brilliant is good. You can’t go wrong with brilliant.

And for the reviewer on amazon who loves Zoe, but unfortunately doesn’t care much for Chloe, you’ll be happy to know that “Miss Understanding” is written in Zoe’s voice. However, if you’re the type who reads out loud, I suggest you purchase a pair of earplugs because Chloe talks a lot in this book too.

So that’s it for now except for I’m going to be on tour next week, so no blogs. Here’s the schedule one more time for those of you who don’t click on the buzz&events shoebox every few minutes, like I do, to find out where I am:

Monday, October 10
1-3 PM
Washington D.C.
Barnes&Noble
555 12th Street NW

7PM
Washington D.C.
Hard Rock Café
999 E Street NW

Tuesday, October 11
1-3 PM
Baltimore, MD.
Barnes&Noble
601 East Pratt Street
The Power Plant

6PM
Baltimore Hard Rock
601 East Pratt Street
The Power Plant

Wednesday, October 12
12:15-2:15 PM
Philadelphia B Dalton
Gallery 11 Market #68
10th Market East Station

6PM
Philadelphia Hard Rock Café
1113-31 Market Street

Friday, October 14
12-2 PM
New York, New York!
Waldenbooks/Borders Express
30 Rockefeller Plaza
(50th at Sixth Avenue)

5 PM
Sugarcane
243 Park Avenue South
(at 20th Street)

October 4

Last night we were watching this documentary about a woman who weighed over six hundred pounds. She looked terrible.

The worst part was that they kept showing clips of her when she was young and carefree. Somehow this poor woman gained four hundred and seventy pounds in fifteen years. My heart broke for her and I vowed never to complain again. But the truth is, aside from the health issues, either your pants fit or they don’t. So why not complain?

I come from a weight and looks obsessed family. For any of you who understand what this means, you know that complaining is a way of life for some people and there’s really no way of getting around it. It’s what we do. Some families sit around discussing politics and what’s wrong with the world. We talk about what’s wrong with our faces and our bodies.

Earlier that evening, before I stumbled upon the 697-pound woman, my whole family had gathered at my mother’s house for the Jewish New Year. We are not a religious family by any means and only use these gatherings as an excuse to overeat and tell stories about when my sister and our cousins and I were little. Nobody finds these stories interesting, most of which we have to tell in code because we have secrets that will go with us to the grave, and yet we continue to almost tell them over and over again.

All families have weird stuff. I realize that. But I couldn’t help seeing our family through my daughter’s new boyfriend’s eyes. Here’s this kid, who resembles a young Tom Cruise (but only if Tom had been a million times better looking with a much cuter smile and a very small nose.) Here’s this adorable, normal kid sitting next to my daughter, meeting her entire family for the first time, and this is what he hears:

“Bobbie, what happened to Steffie’s teeth? They look shorter on one side.”
“Bert, you look absolutely gorgeous. How much weight did you lose?”
“Fifteen pounds.
“No kidding, fifteen?”
“Zack, are you taller than Kim now? Go stand next to Kim.”
“Oh my God, Zack is taller than Kim.”
“Suzie just asked me if I gained weight.”
“Who asked if you if you gained weight?”
“Suzie, the new housekeeper!”
“She asked you if you gained weight?”
“Yup.”
“What is she, crazy? You’re totally anorexic.”
“Thank you.”
“But you need to have your ears repierced. They’re not even.”
“Doesn’t Randi have the nicest feet of all of us?”
“How many calories are there in an almond?”
”Show everyone your feet Randi.”
“I can’t. I have powder all over them.”
”I like Robin’s feet but I like Aunt Bert’s the most.”
“I love your feet Aunt Steffie.”
“Are you serious, I have the worst feet in the whole family.”
“Is that dip low salt?”
“Of course it’s low salt. Grandma doesn’t eat salt.”
“I brought that dip. It’s not low salt.”
“Pass it over here anyway. I haven’t eaten all day.”

Finally, the boyfriend speaks. I’m so afraid he’s going to say, “Can one of you move your car so I can get the hell out of here?”

But instead he said, “I have fat toes. It comes from having been a fat kid. I lived on fudge until I was five.”

All twelve of us fell silent and in that moment, he became one of us, just like that.

“Let me see.”
“Oh stop, your toes aren’t chubby.”
“Sure they are. Look at the third one.”
“I don’t like my third toe either.”
“Nobody likes their third toe.”
“That’s not a bad looking third toe if you ask me.”
“Would anyone like some more pound cake?”
“Do you think I should have breast reduction? Tell the truth.”

Later than night, when I was lying in bed, complaining, I couldn’t get over the fact that the best looking eighteen year old on the planet, with the perfect build, had been a fat kid and how fate had brought him to our fat fearing family. And then the 697-pound woman came on TV and I wanted to yell out to her, “There’s a place for you too.” It was then and there that I decided to try to get in contact with her.

I will find her and I will write her a letter. I will tell her that, if, in fact, she ever becomes mobile, we’d like to have her at our house for dinner.

October 3

Gee, has anyone seen the poster for our Fictionista tour? I’m referring to the one that announces we’ll be at Sugarcane in Manhattan on the night of October 14th. I hope not. It has three pairs of legs on it. At first I thought it was supposed to be funny on purpose. The event is being billed as a girl’s night out with complimentary Banfi wine, lots of girl talk and big time partying, but one of the girls in the poster appears to have severe swelling of the ankles and, for some reason, they’re all wearing support hose. In support hose colors. Except for the one leg which is wearing a knee high. I’m not sure how I could possibly use this poster unless I add a tag line like, “See how bad these girls look? That’s how much fun you’ll have on October 14th!”

The girls’ legs remind me of how my tights used to look when I was in second grade. The only explanation I can give for why my tights fit the way they did was that I must have retained water first thing in the morning when I was putting them on and then somehow lost it by the time I was riding the school bus. For some reason, by the time I reached the bus stop, the waistband of my tights had already slid down to the area that would one day become my hips, forcing the crotch area of my tights to travel from their original location to the mid-thigh area. This never ceased to amaze me and I often spent long periods of time trying to apply what little I knew of physics to this strange and beguiling phenomenon. The question I pondered on those long, lazy bus rides to school was, “If my feet are still in my shoes, where did the rest of my tights go?”

And then it hit me. My tights, in an effort to free themselves from my body, and having nowhere else to go, trapped as they were by my Mary Janes, were forced to find refuge at my ankles, giving them the distinct look of what has more recently become known as cankles. I didn’t actually have cankles but that’s what slippery tights will do to you.

There are a number of ways to correct this problem. You can either swallow your pride and wear your underpants over your tights or you can take your shoes off and pull the foot of your tights out as far as possible and then tuck them under the ball of your foot and quickly put your shoes back on or you can wait until you get to a bathroom and pull them all the way back up again and hope for the best. All of these methods are effective and if I ever meet any of the three women who posed for our poster, I will explain to them how each method works and why they might want to try at least one of them. In the meantime, I want you all to know that if you do show up on the 14th, I’ll be wearing pants.

September 29

Boston University was so much fun. I wish we could have stayed longer. I saw my niece (so happy and adorable) and her roommate’s arm. I met some of her friends -- all of whom have amazing hair. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

I also met Marissa with the awesome smile, who is already much too smart for me and the Boston Herald people who didn’t even care when I called their paper the Herald Tribune at least fifteen times. Afterwards, we hung out with Rob Grimes, the cute alum guy who agreed to read my girly book despite the fact that it’s chick lit -- cause Chloe made him laugh out loud during the signing and now he can’t help himself. Men.

And I had this really amazing room for my signing at the BU Barnes and Noble thanks to Cheryl White -- who is a very cool lady and very narrow. I had a hard time not staring at that. I idolize narrow. I wish you could have seen how she set up the room for me. I might love her forever because of that one simple thing.

I was in awe of the people who have spoken in that store before me. Of course the only one I can remember is Jane Fonda but I did find out that Albert Einstein went to BU and so did Martin Luther King Jr.

And you should have seen the shoes in that audience . . . don’t even ask. BU girls, I bow down to you and your footwear. And the fact that you asked such brilliant questions was pretty impressive too. And I appreciate how none of you laughed when I knocked that little foam piece that goes over the microphone half way across the room.

If only they all knew how much I didn’t want them to go home when it was over. I’m pathetic in that way. Most people want to get the hell out immediately after their signings are over but I’m always hoping someone will suggest a full audience sleepover. I love my readers. You’re all so INCREDIBLE. Honestly, how is it possible that the best people in the world read my book? Tell me. Because I need to know.

September 23
For any of you who live near Boston University, I’m going to be there Wednesday night, September 28 at 7PM at Barnes&Noble in Kenmore Square. This is particularly exciting for me because Dan and I met at BU -- Myles Standish Hall in Kenmore Square first semester freshmen year. I was in room 525 and he was in room 722. We went out the entire time –- off and on. And then we broke up because I went to the American College in Paris for the last semester of my senior year and when I got back, I could tell something was wrong. We fought so bitterly, we broke up for two years. I cried for the first 365 days and then I started to feel a tiny bit better. By the end of the second year, I was convinced I was over him. Except for that one time when I drove to his house in Hastings at four o’clock in the morning to say, “hi.” He wasn’t home and his mother told me that he had moved to New York City -- but she never told him I stopped by.

But, as fate would have it, we ran into each other a few months later on the corner of Third Avenue and Nineteenth Street in Manhattan. I was coming home from the airport with three friends: Jen, the guy I was seeing at the time and his best friend -- who I was hoping to fix up with Jen. We were walking from my car to Jen’s apartment when she spotted Dan through the window of “The Honey Tree.”

“Oh my God,” she said, “You’re gonna die.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Guess who’s in that bar over there?”

“Madonna?” I asked.

“Nope . . . Dan.”

I instantly felt ill. I later found out that Dan got sick later that night too, which confirms the fact that we were made for one another. He might have had too much to drink though. Still, I like to believe it was me that caused him to throw up.

Jen waved to Dan through the window and he stepped outside the bar carrying a beer. He looked really pretty. His hair was really long and he was wearing my favorite jeans (of his) and a tight black t-shirt that I remembered his old girlfriend had given him. I used to wear that t-shirt all the time. Then he spotted me and he smiled. And I waved at him and he motioned for me to walk over to him. And I did. Without falling.

Jen and her date and what’s his name continued walking and Jen called back to me, “Meet us upstairs, okay?” I nodded and then I saw her explaining to my date that the guy I was staring at across the street was my old boyfriend. I crossed the street and stood next to him without looking at him. We stood there for a pretty long time like that. Not talking or anything, looking straight ahead.

“Wanna beer?” he finally said. “Oh right, I forgot. I think they have chocolate milk too.”

“No denks,” I slurred.

“Let’s go inside,” he offered.

“I pant.”

“What?”

”I pcant”

“Do you have something in your mouth?”

“No, I just pant peak propawee.”

“Why not?”

”I think I’m pervous, I mean nervous. Damn!”

“Take a sip,” he said and handed me his beer. I tried to swallow it but I just couldn’t do it. It tasted too much like beer.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come inside?”

“Yeth.”

“Do you want to go somewhere else then?”

“No, I have to go back to Jen’s” I said, grateful for that one perfect sentence.

“Let’s just drive around for a few minutes,” he said.

We walked across the street to my car and he took the keys. No one has ever sat in the car with me at the wheel since the time I drove into the corner store on Millburn Avenue in Short Hills, six days after I got my driver’s license.

We drove around the city until the sun came up, talking about our jobs, our families, places we’d been in the past two years and what we felt like eating. We decided to skip eating and go to his apartment. We never once touched on the events that lead to our break up or what we were going to do about the fact that we were both obviously still very much in love.

One might assume that we went to his apartment to have sex. But instead we sat on his sofa staring at his roommate’s drum set and I proceeded to cry for two hours and forty six minutes. I know that for a fact because when I stopped crying, he said, “You just cried for two hours and forty six minutes and I think you need to tell me why.”

“I’m crying because I never want to see you again after tonight. If you really love me, never ever call me. I can’t get over you again. It took me two years and now I’m right back where I was.”

“Okay,” he said, “If that’s the way it has to be, then that’s the way it has to be.” And then he walked me to my car.

That night he called me.

“Nice,” I said. “I guess that means you don’t love me.”

“Actually it means that we wasted the last two years and I think we owe it to ourselves to spend the rest of our lives making up for it.”

This Tuesday, when we wake up in Boston on September 27, we’ll probably head over to Myles to celebrate our anniversary -- eighteen years ago. Either that or we’ll just drive around.

September 21, 2005

I thought my second book, Miss Understanding, was a done deal but it’s not. A book is not a done deal until you stop writing it and I can’t seem to do that. I keep writing and rewriting the same line. I’ve written it thousands of ways but I always come back to my original version. The line I’m referring to comes at the very end of the book and it will determine everything. As endings often do.

The problem with this one line is that, written incorrectly, it turns Zoe into something she’s not. And my intention is never to force my characters to grow in any particular direction simply because it serves my interests, or worse yet, the interests of the plot. Who even needs a plot? I know I don’t.

And what’s so great about growth? When I think of growth, I tend to think it all the way through -- to an old age home. The only thing more depressing than growth is self-discovery. Who doesn’t already know far more about themselves than they ever really cared to? I’m sorry, but growth just isn’t my thing.

After reading “She’s Got Issues,” someone said to me, “I loved this book! And I especially liked the way Chloe smartens up in the end.” And I was like, “Really . . . when?”

For the record, Chloe doesn’t smarten up in the end. She just wins. Somehow “winning” always confuses people. They automatically assume the winner had some hidden talent or agenda or that she was “dumb as a fox.” When in reality, the only thing Chloe had going for her was that I loved her.

The truth is nobody really needs growth. It doesn’t actually do anything for you. You can remain a complete ass for your entire life and things might still work out perfectly. I know tons of stagnating people who’ve managed to find great spouses, great friends, great jobs, really fun hobbies and unbelievably cool apartments -- with views -- without growing at all. And because they have all that stuff, people assume they’re smart. So on top of having everything, they get to go around fooling people! I must admit though, most of them are related to at least one very smart person.

By the same token, I know far too many insanely intelligent people who spend all their time thinking about themselves and what they need and what they want and what they have to do to keep getting better and their lives pretty much suck in every conceivable area. In fact, every incredibly genius move they make, seems to set them back just a little bit further from achieving any sort of happiness whatsoever.

And yet they continue to hold on to their suffering like it’s some precious indication that they’re somehow more human and more dignified than the rest of the world, when in fact, all that agonizing just makes them look tired all the time, almost like they have allergies or something.

Therein lies the Zoe dilemma. I want her to be happy. And that’s why I almost pushed her to grow in the direction that I thought might cure her. But she keeps fighting me on this and I always let my girls win.

So I guess that settles it. For now.

September 20, 2005

My dog peed on the carpet in the basement. My husband and I were standing right there and witnessed the whole thing. It was like being in a 7/11 while it’s getting held up. You never actually think you’ll be there when it happens but there we were. She didn’t even go behind the couch.

“What should we do?” Dan asked.

“How should I know?” I whispered back.

“Why are you whispering?” he asked.

“I don’t want to embarrass her.”

“Well, clearly she’s not embarrassed about it or she wouldn’t have done it right in front of us.”

“I don’t think she did it on purpose. Look at her. She’s totally humiliated.”

“Her eyes do look funny,” Dan agreed.

“Maybe you should take her outside.”

“Are you sure you don’t think I should put her nose in it or something?”

“Absolutely not!”

“No, I mean, it’s just that I’ve seen people do that in order to prevent it from happening again.”

“Sick, cruel people; that’s who you’ve seen do it.”

I went to the cabinet over the dishwasher and got out the OXY CLEAN. I’ve sung the praises of this miracle cleaner in the past but it’s a whiz on pet stains. I sprayed the area and waited and then sprayed it again a few minutes later. It says not to blot but I can’t resist blotting.

After I cleaned the stain, I went upstairs and waited for Dan and Mikki to come home from their walk. Mikki looked terrible but Dan looked worse.

“What’s the matter?” I asked the dog.

“It’s hard to say,” Dan answered on her behalf.

“Do you think it’s because of her a-c-c-i-d-e-n-t.”

“Yes, but I’m pretty sure it’s not necessary to spell.”

“If she can understand ‘sit,’ then what makes you think she doesn’t understand the word accident? Damn!” My hand shot up to my mouth. I quickly looked over at Mikki but she was looking the other way. Thank God.

I repeated spraying and blotting every half hour or so until four o’clock. At about six o’clock, I went down to check on the carpet.

“Just as I thought, it has to be professionally cleaned. I’m going to have to call Stanley Steamer.”

“You can’t be serious. You’ve been spraying that thing all day.”

“I know, but every time I walk by there, I want to spray it again. Unless I have it professionally cleaned, I’ll always imagine that it’s still there.”

Just then Mikki came by and looked at me. I apologized to her for talking openly about the incident.

I wonder how she would feel if she knew I was writing about it. Not very good. I always try to imagine how I’d feel if our living situations were reversed. She’s living in a totally different culture than the one she was born into. Imagine how she felt the first day I brought her home and the neighbor’s kids yelled, “Let’s put her in a little dress.”

She was probably muttering to herself, “So this is what it’s come down to.”

She’s been completely uprooted from her natural habitat and forced to live with four creatures with thumbs. No matter how pretty she is and no matter how much we love her, the fact remains that she’ll never really fit in. She’ll always be the oddball walking around covered in body hair. Surely she can see that the rest of the family shaves. She must be wondering why we even associate with her.
“Look at me. I’m a mess,” she probably says to herself every morning when she looks in the mirror.

That’s why I can’t get mad at her for peeing on the carpet. On some level, I still feel it’s her right because we kidnapped her. Besides, I’m sure she has her reasons. She doesn’t do anything without a reason. She’s programmed to do everything she’s supposed to do. She checks to make sure Jesse is in his bed every morning. If he sleeps at a friend’s house she sits by his door to let me know he’s missing. She barks at strangers with red hair. She sneaks into our neighbor’s yard and brings us their toys. She takes a swim every morning and she’s never late for dinner. She’s never in a bad mood and she’s right there by my side when I wake up in the morning and when I go to bed at night. In fact, she’s always right there by my side. As far as I’m concerned, she can do whatever the hell she wants . . . except chew my shoes.

September 19, 2005

Friday night Dan and I had dinner at the Robinson’s. For those of you who don’t know the Robinsons, let me assure you that we don’t either. How we came to be invited to dine at their home is one of the great social mysteries of all times. The Robinsons are friends of my parents. Mr. Robinson is a sweet, intelligent, warm, down to earth man with an enormous nose, the likes of which I have never seen, aside from the prosthesis version used on characters like the Joker in Batman or on Steve Martin when he played a variation of Cyrino de Bergerac in Roxanne. I tried not to stare at it all night but for some reason, Mrs. Robinson sat him next to me. I guess she was thinking boy, girl, boy, girl etiquette would work out nicely for her dinner party which consisted of my husband and I, my parents and the Robinsons. I waved to my husband across the table as if to say, “Hope you have fun getting to know my mother.”

Mrs. Robinson made my curtains. She is from Peru and until Friday evening, that, and the fact that she’s a very sweet woman was all I knew of her. I now know that along with sewing, she can cook, crochet, resurface kitchen cabinets, set a lovely table and that she occasionally chokes on her food. I know this because at dinner she spoke about her choking episodes at great length. Here’s what happens to her: Let’s say she goes to a restaurant and orders chicken or meat. Even if she takes the tiniest bite, for some reason, these two categories of food, chicken and meat, often get lodged in her esophagus until she blacks out. To better illustrate where the food gets caught, she pointed to her Adam’s apple during the entire reenactment of the choking process. The best part of her storytelling was when she broke out into a very realistic sweat while she was describing how she felt while nearly dying. At one point I thought she might actually be choking again because she was sweating so profusely, but as it turns out, she was just overheated from preparing the extravagant meal that she had laid out before us, as though we were guests at a very small wedding.

In between the second and third telling of the choking episodes, my mother decided to add an interesting tidbit about something similar that had happened to her. My mother once swallowed a hard candy whole. It’s not even like the hard candy got stuck or anything. It just went down whole. Mrs. Robinson looked at her as though perhaps she didn’t understand the severity of what had happened to her when she swallowed the tiniest piece of meat -- so she went over it again, this time giving even more details of her near death experience. I especially liked her description of when she blacked out and saw, not stars, but marbles. Of all the fascinating aspects of the choking story, the most intriguing, in my opinion, was the fact that Mrs. Robinson was able to bring herself back to consciousness simply by keeping her wits about her enough to reach for her glass of wine and pour it down her own throat. Somehow this drinking thing is what saved her every time.

“You mean you were unconscious and still able to take a drink of wine?” I asked trying not to fall asleep.

“Yes, I am very good in these situations,” Mrs. Robinson said.

I would say so.

Let me back up though, for just a moment, to our arrival at the Robinson’s home, which is a lovely apartment, beautifully decorated and carefully lit in Fort Lee, New Jersey. We arrived promptly at seven, at which point the Robinsons opened the door and I handed Mrs. Robinson an apple tart that would later prove to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Next we were given a tour of their apartment, which is really quite glamorous. Except I’ll never understand why people feel compelled to open every closet door so you can see their shelves. Every time I see someone reach for a closet door, during a house tour, I’m so tempted to say, “Please don’t show me your old towels and shoes. We hardly know each other.”

Next we were ushered outside to their patio, which is quite large and comfortable, except for the nine million-wattage light bulb perched on a watchtower, ten miles in the distance, that shines directly onto their patio furniture.
“That light is terrible,” one of my parents said out loud.

“I know,” said Mrs. Robinson, “I told Jerry to get me a gun so I can shoot it out but he won’t hear of it.”

Seeing as how we were all blinded by the vigilant little light bulb, holding on for dear life, in the distance, we were forced to grope around in total darkness for bits and pieces of her lovely selection of triple cream cheeses and moist crackers. At one point I picked up one of the little crocheted doily napkins and commented on its intricate beauty before smearing it with my lipstick. As soon as I noticed what I’d done to it, I tried to fold it backwards but you’ve never seen a napkin so starched. Shortly afterwards I knocked over one of her fine crystal glasses, bathing her table and the five other guests in red wine. I quickly ran to the kitchen to get paper towels and ran back outside to clean up the mess, but upon my return, I discovered that Mrs. Robinson had magically cleaned up the entire mess and was already serving our first course, tiny pieces of scallops hidden under an enormous mound of a bubbling hot mixture of Parmesan cheese and butter. I have the recipe for anyone who wants it. This appetizer was served in a real shell. I looked over and saw my husband trying to bite into it after he had finished eating what was in it. I nudged him nonchalantly and said, “Don’t eat the dishes, honey.”

Dan and I both love cheese the way some people love children, but my poor mother has a heart condition and therefore she doesn’t eat dairy. I watched her carefully to see what one does in such a situation. And so I learned, one eats it anyway and hopes one won’t die. While scraping every last morsel of cheese off my shell, I listened to Mrs. Robinson’s explanation of the three places it is necessary to have a home in Peru: 1) In the city, Lima 2) By the sea and 3) In the mountains. I imagined myself traveling every few months from home to home and decided I’d very much like to do that. So long as I didn’t have to pack or unpack. I’ll just buy three sets of everything I thought to myself as Mrs. Robinson cleared the dishes.

I looked around to see if perhaps there was a housekeeper or an old Peruvian grandma lurking about, who might give her a hand, but Mrs. Robinson doesn’t believe in domestic help, which pissed me off. The last thing I want to do at a dinner party is help. I tried to pass myself off as someone who enjoys chipping in and cheerfully got up to clear my plate but Mrs. Robinson insisted that I stay seated. “Seriously?” I asked, looking over at my mother for confirmation that it was okay for me to do nothing. My mother nodded as if to say, “Just this once.” I gave Dan a thumbs-up under the table. I love not helping and he knows it.

Once seated at the dinner table after polishing off the shell o’ buttered cheese, I felt a rumbling in my stomach that can only mean one thing -- I needed to go home. I tried to calculate the time it would take for all of us to finish the meal that hadn’t been served yet, make small talk, kiss everyone twice and walk to our respective cars and came up with a figure that was unsurvivable. I excused myself and surveyed the bathroom. Way too close to the dining room and the faucet appeared to be configured upside down. What if I turned the water on and it shot straight up to the ceiling? I would have to wait and suffer.

I went back to the table and as I was just about to sit down, Mrs. Robinson appeared with a tiny round, two handled, crockery masterpiece decorated with some sort of peppers carved into flowers and inside the plate was what appeared to be yellow whipped cream. Again, I looked over at my mother to see if she was checking her vital signs but no, she was making polite conversation about something I had said sixteen years ago.

Mrs. Robinson served all six of us and then sat down in her seat. She was drenched with sweat.

I looked over at the fine gentlemen seated to my left, who has been trying to teach me table manners since the day he came into my life, but, for some reason this information keeps going in one ear and craftily finding its way out the other, every day of the twenty five years since he and my mother became husband and wife.

“You’re not using your fish knife,” he said to me.

“This is fish?” I whispered to him.

But he didn’t answer me. His manners are impeccable. You’ve never seen anything like it. The man doesn’t drop a thing.

And sure enough, buried under the whipped cream, which turned out to be yet another mountain of buttery cheese was a treasure trove of seafood. I found shrimp, a few more of those scallops she used for the appetizer and a whole piece of Chilean sea bass. While awkwardly hacking away at one of the shrimp with my useless fish knife, I looked across the table at my husband’s plate. He was already done. I started to panic that someone would notice how fast he ate and started making small talk about Mrs. Robinson’s table decorations, but I couldn’t calm myself down and felt my stomach trying to alert me once again that it was having a difficult time not making a spectacle of itself. Again, I contemplated using the Robinson’s bathroom but decided I’d rather hurl myself off the balcony or go in my pants.

Sometime after the salad and the fruit cup (both delicious) and before the little bon bon we each got, Mrs. Robinson served my apple tart. I don’t know what possessed me to eat dessert when I knew I was skating on thin ice, but I did. The apple tart sent me right over the edge. As soon as I finished it, there was no turning back. Again, I visited the bathroom, but this time I used it. Actually abused might be a better word. I sheepishly came out looking around to see if perhaps the walls were as thin as I feared and that my family no longer wanted anything to do with me, but, as I reached the living room, I saw that my mother already had her handbag in her hand and she was kissing Mrs. Robinson goodbye. It occurred to me that I’d been indisposed for a much longer period of time than is typical of a visit to someone else’s bathroom. I leaned in toward my mother for an explanation.

“You’re not having a heart attack by any chance, are you?” I whispered to her.

“No darling,” she whispered back. “I just want to go home.”

“What should Dan and I do?” I whispered back, but it was too late. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson were already walking my parents out to the lobby and they left Dan and I waiting in the apartment. I looked over at my husband who had settled himself into the sofa.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked him quietly.

“I’m sitting down,” he said.

“We can’t stay here!!!” I tried to remain calm.

“Why not, we can’t just run out on them like your parents did.”

“Are you kidding? They’re not expecting us to stay.”

“We’ll stay five minutes,” he compromised and I agreed.

“Fine,” I said and so we both sat on the sofa and waited for the Robinsons to come back from the lobby so we could say goodbye properly. But after ten minutes of Dan and I sitting in silence, we realized we needed to come up with another plan.

“I’ll tell them Jesse called and said he wants to be picked up right away,” Dan said.

“Don’t bother honey. They’re hoping we’ll leave. They’re not looking for excuses. How about if we just say, ‘thanks for a lovely evening and goodbye?’”

“No, I’m more comfortable with the Jesse thing,” Dan said, not wanting to hurt our hosts’ feelings -- despite the fact that the evening was clearly more than over.

We both came strolling out to the lobby, Dan strategically tossing his cell phone from hand to hand.

“Jesse called,” I blurted out. “He wants us to pick him up at his friend Jonathan’s house. John’s Dad already picked them up at the party, which was very good, by the way. He had a wonderful time. And then they went back to John’s house. So that’s where they are now,” I offered, knowing I was repeating myself like an idiot, but happy with my detailed lie which I think is always infinitely more convincing than the hollow variety.

“That’s right,” Dan said, “He wants us to pick him up at the party right now.”

I looked over at him with daggers in my eyes.
“That’s right,” I said, “He wants us to pick him up at the party right now for some reason,” feeling it was my wifely duty to make an ass out of myself to save my husband from coming off as a person who doesn’t have the sense to pay attention when his wife is lying.

Luckily no one cared. They weren’t even listening. So engrossed were the Robinson’s in saying goodbye to my parents, I’m pretty sure they’d forgotten that they’d even invited us.

Once we were safely in our car, I asked him, “Were you even listening when I said Jesse called from John’s house?”

“No,” he admitted.

We drove in silence for a while and then he admitted something else.

“When we left, I slammed the door closed. I’m pretty sure I locked them out of their apartment.”

“So what?” I said.

I’m sure Mrs. Robinson can pick a lock with the best of them.

September 16, 2005

Done! Done! Done!

There’s just something about signings. Excruciating as they are, something always happens that makes the pain worth the pleasure. Yesterday, right before I had to start getting dressed to go to Barnes&Noble in Hackensack, I got an email from a reader who told me she read my Backstory a while ago and has been following my blog ever since. Everything she wrote in that email is the kind of stuff that makes it worth getting up in the morning. If we lived closer to one another, I know we’d be friends. I love her already and not only because she said I make her laugh out loud. I love her because she’s a good person.

Because of that email I was able to pull myself together in a way that a few hours earlier seemed impossible. My readers give me incredible courage. I wish I knew all of you because I want to buy all of you presents.

But as soon as I parked in the lot and stepped foot outside, I felt that churning in the pit of my stomach that usually causes me to get right back in my car. But there was no way out. I had to go on in fifteen minutes and I just knew nobody would show up to hear me speak. First of all, the traffic was backed up for miles on Route 4. And the fact that it was pouring and close to 90 degrees wasn’t helping. Not to mention that the people who called me yesterday to say they weren’t coming but “Good Luck!” added up to virtually every one I know.

When I got to the door, I was greeted by a nice man with a big smile, “Stephanie! Come on in!” Everyone’s Waiting For You!” he said. But then he gave me another little smile and said, “I’m just joking, you’re early.” I checked my watch. How did that happen? I’m usually late when I don’t want to be somewhere.

“Oh!” I laughed, wanting to kick him. We took the escalator together and he directed me to the spot in the store where they had set up my signing. I looked at all the chairs. It was fifteen minutes to seven and there was already someone sitting in one of the chairs! Except she was reading a book that didn’t look familiar. Because it wasn’t mine.

“Hi” I said to her. “I’ll be starting in just a few minutes.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. And then I realized she was simply sitting there because all the chairs with tables were taken.

Then Jill came to my rescue. She runs these events and she’s an amazing woman and not only because she has perfectly toned arms. She’s also friendly and warm with an amazing smile and last night she was wearing a very cute sleeveless argyle sweater, which I need.

Jill and I sat together for a few minutes making small talk. I sat there smiling and nodding my head as though I wasn’t obsessing over the fact that my audience still consisted of only one woman -- a woman who was just using me no less. But then, miraculously, two people came over to me to sign their books. They had a picture with them. It was a picture of my father and his wife. “We know your father. He brags about you all time. Can you please sign our book?” I looked at the picture of my father and his wife -- speechless for a moment.

Yes, of course. I was delighted to sign their book. “Can you stay a while?” I asked, but unfortunately they had somewhere they had to be.

Then Jill’s boss came over to me to introduce herself. Another lovely woman. Pretty, sweet, outgoing and very charming. She told me that Janet Evanovich gets about 800 people when she does a signing.

Somehow I thought she said “eight” rationalizing that eight isn’t that much more than the one person sitting in my audience reading, “How To Make Friends and Influence People.”

“No, eight hundred,” she corrected me.

”Oh.” I thought. “That’s a lot.”

At one minute after seven Jill decided to announce the event on the loudspeaker. She had already done that twice. And then she disappeared for a few minutes and came back with two women. “How much did you have to give them?” I asked. But she said they came for free! Then I looked over to my right because I sensed someone lurking behind one of the bookshelves. I told my family not to come in case no one showed up (I wanted to save us all the humiliation) but clearly, that was husband. I’ve known him for years. He has a full head of curly hair and it was sticking out all over the place. “I see you,” I called to him. “Sorry,” he said. “I had to come.” And then I spotted my son, who waved to me and said, “I came to hear the best author in the whole world speak.”

“Can you say that a little louder?” I asked him. And then my daughter came up from behind me and put her arms around me. “Daddy made us come. I told him you didn’t want us to come but he forced us.” She hugged me tighter than she’s ever hugged me before. “More people will come mommy, I promise.”

“Yep, there’s one now,” I said, pointing to my mother who was heading our way. “You look nice mom,” I said. “Thanks honey,” she said and sat down. And then my friend Andrea came and said, “Nice boots.”

“Thanks, I like your hair.”

“Yeah, I was just at Anthony’s this morning. You don’t think it’s too dark?”

“Not at all. I like it.”

“Isn’t that your cousin Randi, over there?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said. “Hi Randi.”

”Hi cousin.” She was holding five books. “I’m getting these signed for all the girls in my office.”

Just then my neighbor came running over. She’s been in and out of institutions for many years and I’m always shocked when she remembers my name.

We’ve lived next door to each other for 15 years but she still gets me confused with the woman who lived in my house before me.

“Oh my God!” she screamed. “You’re Stephanie Lessing! You used to live next door to me! There’s a sign over there with a writer by the name of Stephanie Lessing too. I was just going to call you and tell you that there’s a writer with the same name as you.”

“That’s me!” I told her. I thought it best not to throw in the part about me being her current neighbor just yet.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“See my picture? That’s me. I’m that Stephanie Lessing.”

“You’re a writer?”

“Oddly enough, yes.”

”So what are you doing here?” she asked.

“I’m doing a signing.”

”How come?”

I was tempted to say, “I’m not sure,” but Jill was sitting right there.

“Because I wrote a book.”

”What’s it about?” she asked.

“Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it,” I said desperate for another audience member that I didn’t give birth to.

“Hi, I’m Stephanie’s mother,” my mom said reaching out to shake my neighbor’s hand.

“Oh!” my neighbor said, “Isn’t it funny that there’s two people with the same name Stephanie Lessing?”

I couldn’t help wondering how she managed to get herself to the store in the first place and how she was getting home. I assumed I’d be giving her a ride.

And then I started talking. I was reading my speech, looking around at the faces of the people in the audience. All people who love me. I didn’t have to hope they’d laugh at the funny parts. And I didn’t have to worry about how they’d judge me. These people had all seen me in my underwear at one point or another in my life. Theirs is an unconditional love like no other. I smiled at my handsome husband and my beautiful daughter and my adorable son. I looked over at my pretty, funny cousin who was grinning in that way she has -- as if to say, “I’m with ya cousin;” and then I spoke directly to my mother and read my acknowledgement of her and she was beaming. I’ve never seen her so proud. And there was my neighbor, trying not to fall off her chair. And then I looked beyond my audience and saw a small crowd had gathered all around us. “What took you so long?” I felt like asking them. But it didn’t matter anymore. I had everything I needed all along -- right in front of me.

September 14, 2005

I’m on Atkins. I realize this particular diet killed its maker but I’m hoping that won’t happen to me. At the moment my cholesterol is still hovering in the high two hundreds but that’s because I never bother to fast for those tests. I always have a little something before I leave the house and then lie about it.

So far today I’ve had three eggs, a Greek salad with grilled chicken, some almonds and I scraped the cheese off my son’s grilled cheese sandwich leftovers with my teeth when he wasn’t looking. I know I shouldn’t have had the salad but somehow I rationalized that if I cheat with lettuce, God won’t punish me.

The reason I went on Atkins is because I have that signing tonight in Hackensack at B&N. I was hoping to lose anywhere from eight to ten pounds by 7PM. I started on Monday. Although I did cheat a little on Tuesday. But we’ll see. I’m trying to be optimistic about it because you never know. Miracles do happen.

My daughter told me that some of her teachers told her they might come to the signing. I’m so hoping they don’t. The last thing I want is for anyone I know to show up only to find out that no one else did. My ideal signing would be a room filled with people who don’t know me. That way the only bad thing that could happen is that someone says, “Gee, I thought she’d be thinner.” Instead of “Gee, I wonder why nobody else who knows her came to this.”

Before I went on Atkins, I was on the South Beach Diet but I never read the book so I was just improvising really and felt as though I shouldn’t have jumped right in without knowing all the facts. So I went off it. Before Atkins, I was on Weight Watchers but that diet doesn’t work for anyone. I mean have you ever met a thin person on Weight Watchers? The whole point of that diet is to be less fat but nowhere near thin. Otherwise everyone would quit without ever bothering to become a lifetime member. At one point I was doing a total cleanse. When I woke up that morning I told Dan, “I’ll only be drinking green tea for the next few days.” He shrugged.

When I went downstairs for breakfast, I couldn’t help noticing that Dan must have gone to Fairway the day before. Sometimes he pops over there and neglects to mention that he filled the entire refrigerator with food. He’s a very good roommate/husband in that way. I also noticed that he bought my favorite challah rolls. So I had one. When he came downstairs I told him, “I’ll only be drinking green tea accompanied by challah rolls for the next few days.” Again, he shrugged.

Since I’m running out of time, I think the best way to go about this is to combine all the diets. Because right now I’m craving a little fruit. Technically, if I were to be on, say Weight Watchers, I could actually eat two fruits right now because I haven’t had any today. And what are the chances of me losing eight to ten pounds by tonight on only one diet? That’s why I’m going to have some sorbet. It’s light and refreshing and there’s a lemon on the container so that would sort of count as a fruit. And on Atkins you can have all the whipped cream you want. So that settles it, I’ll have a little ice cream and a tiny bit of whipped cream but that’s it for today. Not another thing. Because tomorrow I’m going on the soup diet.

September 9, 2005

I don’t think I’m going to exercise anymore. In fact I’m sure of it. It’s not really doing anything for me. I tried to fake myself out for a while but the truth is it’s making my hips look wider. And I nearly passed out today. Honestly.

A girl joined our class who seemed to have limbs that do whatever she tells them to do without feeling any sort of motion sickness. I tried to keep up with her but she wasn’t a normal person. She was circling her legs in mid-air standing up, while I was sort of doing The Monkeys walk. For those of you who never watched that show (nor enjoyed the lunch box) it goes like this: Little arc to the right then a little arc to the left. That’s all there is to it. But her legs were doing full 360s. After about five humiliating minutes of us walking back and forth across the gym like this, it finally occurred to me that I should try to find a way out of there. At first I announced how hot it was in the gym, just to see if anyone agreed that we should perhaps call it quits. But they all just nodded in agreement, as though we all know no one ever died from being hot.

I decided to go another route entirely and try to make it look as though I was very badly hurt. My husband takes this particular class with me, so I was sure he’d put an end to it as soon as he noticed my condition. I started limping and forced my eyes to roll back, all the while looking over at Dan to see if he was getting worried. But he didn’t seem to notice.

Still looking for an out, I seamlessly shuffled across the gym, out the door, and into the reception area to get us both water bottles. I shuffled back and handed one to my husband hoping he’d have to at least stop to take a drink and perhaps strike up a conversation with me, but he just thanked me and said he was fine. How can a person go without water?

While we were jumping rope, I managed to jump sideways all the way over to the fresh towel cabinet, switch my rope to one hand, grab us each a fresh one, switch back to both hands and find my way back to Dan, but, as it turned out, he didn’t need a towel, and the music just kept coming and the trainer just kept counting.

Eventually I managed to convince myself that I wasn’t just trying to escape, but that I was really beginning to feel lightheaded. That’s when I politely excused myself and went outside to go sit on the ground. After a few minutes, Dan came out to check on me. As soon as I saw him coming, I laid out flat on my back, thinking he would fall to his knees and rescue me, but all he said was, “Why are you laying down in the middle of the parking lot? Go sit in the car.”

“I might be very sick,” I explained, assuming he’d then suggest we speed home.

“It’s almost over,” he said.

True, but I decided to take his advice and wait in the car anyway. The whole time I was sitting there I could hear them stomping around in the gym. They leave the door open and the gym is sort of like a garage. The more I heard the trainer screaming, “Left, right, jab, punch,” the happier I got that I was finally free, but I still felt a tiny bit guilty.

That’s why I’ve decided to get started on my new year’s resolution early this year. This year I’m not going to sign up for anything.

That’s my whole list.

That way I won’t have to feel like a quitter.

It’s been my experience that as I’m signing up for something, I’m thinking of how I’m going to get out of it.

Like for example this signing I have on September 15th at the new Barnes & Noble in Hackensack. I went there yesterday to introduce myself to the store manager. She lives one town over from me and somehow we ended up talking about our kids instead of my signing. The more she described her son, the more I resigned myself to keep my daughter home that day. She said things like: emo, slob and guitar. All things my daughter finds irresistible.

The whole time I was talking to her, I was looking around the store, shaking, trying to imagine myself addressing a group of two, maybe three other people at the most, in a full body cast, explaining my predicament.

“As you can see, I won’t be able to do this signing after all. I mean look at me.”

And then I started thinking about my last signing, the one where everyone I know showed up two hours late.

There’s no place to run for water or fresh towels in Barnes & Noble, so in the middle of our conversation, I suddenly looked at my watch and tried to appear surprised by what I saw. She smiled sympathetically and sent me on my way.

Now I have to find a way to convince myself to go back -- because I’m pretty sure I signed up for Boot Camp and I’m almost positive it starts on the fifteenth.

September 4, 2005

I found this surprising.

A few days ago, one of the news programs covering the devastating effects of Katrina was devoted entirely to helping people find one another. The way this particular network chose to go about covering this horrific situation was to simply say how difficult it must be to be separated from one’s family.

Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and began yelling at the television, “If you want these people to be able to find one another, why not give them a little air time. Let them stand there, one at a time, and announce on national television, exactly where they are so that if one of their family members, friends, acquaintances, fellow church members or anyone else, who might be near a television, just happens to be watching, they’ll see them and know where they are!! Is that so difficult?” This I screamed in so many different ways, my husband finally got up and walked out of the room. He hates when I yell at the television. Everyone in my family hates it. But it seemed like such a natural solution. And I just couldn’t get over the fact that there were people standing right behind the newscaster, desperate for their loved ones to know where to reach them, and there was this announcer, just standing there, talking about how terrible it was that nobody knew how to find one another.

And then, for the first time in my life, the TV actually did what I told it to do. The newscaster said, “And here with me is Hurricane Katrina Survivor, Ingrid Mitchell, who would like to reach out to her daughter Darlene, to let her know that she is alive and safe and where Darlene and the children can find her.”

“Oh, my God!!!” I screamed. “They’re doing it! They’re letting people talk. They’re letting them announce where they are. Honey come back. All that yelling finally paid off.”

And then Ingrid took the microphone and stood in front of the camera. I beamed at her, with my hands clasped, down on my knees, feeling as though there is some justice in this life, if for no other reason, someone gave this woman a chance. A chance to be reunited with her family and friends, instead of stranded and helpless and forgotten and there she was, right before my eyes, a woman with nothing left to hope for, getting what might have been the luckiest break of her lifetime.

Ingrid Mitchell took the microphone and said, “I’m in Texas.” There was a moment of hesitation as the nation waited for Ingrid to perhaps go into a little more detail but she didn’t. And as I sat there, staring at her, it became apparent that there was something amiss with Ingrid. She was either much older than she looked or mentally challenged in some way. She was also very frightened and it occurred to me that she didn’t even realize she was on television.

“Help her,” I started screaming again. “You’re supposed to be good at getting information out of people! That’s your job! Ask her to be more specific!!” I screamed at the handsome man with the slightly crooked and yet somehow still perfect nose and the eyebrows so carefully inverted, they screamed compassion, who had already taken back the microphone from Ingrid.
“Back to you, John,” he said as Ingrid stood there staring at him. And then it hit me that I had no right to yell at that man. I wasn’t doing anything more for Ingrid than he was. So what gives me the right to yell -- other than that it makes me feel better. That’s when I decided the best way to help Ingrid was to hit all the local supermarkets in my town which had already set up food relief programs.

When I got on line at Kings, there was a man standing in front of me -- on his cell phone. He was talking as loudly and clearly as possible so everyone around him got the chance to hear all the clever stuff he was saying. This guy was big, with a moustache, and very hairy arms. I tried not to glance up at him but he was laughing so piercingly at one point, my eyes slipped over in his direction and sure enough, we made immediate eye contact.

Then the girl behind the counter asked him if he would like to donate to the Katrina relief fund, and this is what he said, “No thanks. They voted for Bush. Let them wait for him to help them.”

My thoughts turned to Ingrid. I was trying to imagine her getting herself to a voting booth and then making the decision as to which button to push. Somehow I got the feeling she shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s sins, whether the loud man in front of me thought she should or not.

“How very humanitarian of you, sir.” I said.

He threw up his arms as he was walking out, as if to say, “Call me an asshole, see what I care.”
So I ran after him -- to call him an asshole -- but when we were face to face, I saw how angry he was and decided to try another tactic.

“Look, we’re all upset about this. And I know you are too. And you’re taking your anger out on the President because he’s so much fun to blame for everything, believe me, I understand, but in this case, these people need our help --despite who they voted for. Bush didn’t order this hurricane and granted, the National Guard isn’t exactly Johnny on the Spot -- but as a Democrat -- aren’t you supposed to be for the people? Particularly those who are victims of circumstance? And what about the babies, sir? Are you mad at them for voting for Bush too?”

“They made their bed, that’s all I’m saying. I can’t take pity on a red state,” he said and got in his car and slammed the door.

Enraged, I knocked on his window. And surprisingly, he opened it.

“Politics aside, this is a natural disaster that no one could have predicted, not even a sage like Bush. It’s not something you can fix by throwing blame around. All we can do is try to help these poor, suffering people in any way we can.”

“Listen to me. Read my lips. They voted for Bush -– to help them.”

“And I know that’s killing you. It’s killing a lot of people. And we’re all angry but can’t you find it in your heart to forgive people like Ingrid who aren’t capable of saving themselves.”

“You’re asking me to feel sorry for people who were stupid enough not to evacuate when they were told flat out that a massive hurricane was coming?”

“Well, yeah. Unenlightened might be a better word here but if you prefer the word stupid, that’s fine too.”

“Why the hell should I? And who’s Ingrid?”

“Because some people are not as fortunate as others in case you haven’t noticed. They weren’t all born with rich parents and cell phones (and hairy arms) and, in the case of Ingrid, brains that function. Nobody wants to be stupid and nobody wants to be a victim of a hurricane and as far as I know, nobody wants to be so poor that they can’t find a way to get out of town -- even when they know it’s about to be blown away. And nobody wants to vote for the wrong guy. But it happens. And besides, not everyone in Louisiana voted for Bush.”

“Can’t you just leave me alone? I’m entitled to my beliefs and you’re entitled to yours. That’s also what America is all about, in case you didn’t notice,” he said.

“True, true, but in your case, I think the country should make an exception because you’re particularly mean and unless you go in there and donate something, I’m afraid God is going to punish you.”

I know you’re going to think I’m making this up, but that did it. The guy got out of his car and walked back into Kings.

“I’m only doing this to get you off my back,” he yelled, walking away from me

But I know the truth, he actually believed me.

September 2, 2005

Everyone has their own rituals for ushering in Fall. They buy new clothes, bring down their sweaters from the high shelves, get new floor mats, go to Staples and get new supplies. I love Staples. I love anyplace that smells like pencils. As a writer, I have a fondness for that smell and look forward to it much the way some people look forward to a beer after work or sex after jail.

It’s the back-to-school smell. The crispy leaves crackling under new sneakers smell. The second chance to make things right smell. That smell defines me and the myriad of ways I’ve created over the years to cling to false hope. Where there is a pencil, there is an eraser and infinite opportunities to refool one’s self. Such as my once strong held belief that my original parents -- who are both happily remarried for more than twenty years –- would fix their marriage as soon as we moved and I started my new school. There was a time when I found the pencil a remarkable tool for fabricating thousands of scenarios in which this happens. Of course, most of them involved elaborate rescue scenes that took place deep in a canyon somewhere in the Midwest on the edge of a frail cliff strewn with strategically placed ice patches with at least one of them falling off the back of a donkey -- but still.

I gave that one up a while ago -- seeing as how they no longer speak -- in favor of the one where I win the lottery and donate all the money to charity. Once all the hungry are fed, the sick cured and the elderly properly cared for and after the huge parade in my honor, I win again and this time I keep the money because every one insists I should.

Then there’s the one where I’m back in college with no responsibilities whatsoever and I weigh one hundred and four pounds. I write that one two ways, with long brown hair down to my waist and then the blonde shag version.

Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of writing some sort of murder mystery. Those seem popular enough. I’m going to write mine a little differently though. I’m going to tell everyone who the killer is in advance. I think that might be an interesting twist. Somehow, I still believe people prefer to know what the hell is going to happen.

August 31, 2005

There’s nothing like a weekend at a spa to help you feel relaxed and rejuvenated. What with all the exercise, green tea, massages and facials, it’s no wonder so many guests claim their spa vacations leave them with a profound sense of inner peace and an outward radiance that keeps them aglow for months afterwards. That’s why I was so surprised when I discovered the boil on my cheek that had formed within six hours of me being at Canyon Ranch. At first I thought it was one of the many mosquito bites I had up and down my arms and on my back from my walk from the car into the building, but no.

I thought it would be wise to sit by the pool and get some sun on my boil hoping the warm rays would penetrate the beast that had taken up a residence in the left side of my face and make it vanish as quickly as it came. But that’s not what happened. The boil stayed put, and I instead got a fever blister in the right corner of my lip. I haven’t had a fever blister in twenty years. As soon as I felt it tingling, I cancelled my massage.. I didn’t want the staff spreading rumors about me and my blister.

After two meals at The Ranch, I looked down at my protruding abdomen and asked my mom, “What the hell do you suppose happened here?”

“Too much fiber,” she said. And handed me my water bottle. “Drink this. It’s iced green tea.”

And so I did. I drank it until I had to go to the bathroom for a full thirty minutes. The bloating subsided soon after, but apparently the cleansing wasn’t over. The peeing persisted all though the night, every hour on the hour. By the time morning came, I was passed out on the toilet with a note that I don’t remember writing.

“Dear Mom, If you find me here in the morning. Please get help.”

I tend to get worked up over things in the middle of the night. Little mishaps seem like enormous earth shattering events. For example, all that peeing at three AM had me thinking I’d shattered a kidney.

By day three, my skin was settling down and I felt ready to take some hard core exercise classes. I started with the martial arts cardio workout because I’ll sign up for anything that involves punching people. But the class was mostly a series of exhausting relay races. When it came time to punch the bag, all I could muster up was a pathetic little left hook which unfortunately missed the bag entirely right before I fell on the floor from the impact of the right hook the girl next to me was attempting to give her bag, before it got away.

I hobbled back to my room wishing I had opted for the gentle morning stretch class instead, and on the way noticed one of those blue vein patches that occasional form under the skin of one’s fingers making it impossible for the victim to think straight as she becomes consumed with trying to figure out what caused it. In this case I can only assume it had something to do with avoiding wild, inefficient jabs and undercuts to my own chin.

When I got back to the room, my mom was still sleeping. She has a sixth sense about avoiding danger, which is why the woman rarely ventures outdoors. To look at her you’d think she was at the most forty-five. She’s actually seventy. She eats whatever she wants, although very little, and avoids any sort of exercise aside from a pleasant stroll.

When she woke up, I asked, “Tell me again why we came here?”

“We came here to relax and just enjoy ourselves.”

“But I’m falling apart.”

“You don’t look well, that’s for sure. You might even have fever.”

She put her hand on my head and sure enough I was burning up.

“Maybe you should get in bed,” she said. And that’s where I remained until it was time to go home. We ordered up room service, watched movies and our conversation, as always, turned to philosophy. And by that I mean her philosophy versus mine. We talked about the benefits of contentment over achievement. Personally I see no benefits or contentment without achievement but she sees no benefits to anything unless it begins with contentment. It occurred to me that my mom is a Taoist. Who knew?

She explained to me that she thought life was very simple. All you had to do was live it and enjoy it. It is what it is. There is no point other than creating more life.

“What about leaving your mark?” I asked her.

She shrugged and said, “We can’t help but leave our mark.”

There’s no arguing with a person that happy. Trust me.

I had never shared a room with my mom before, but as I suspected, she’s an excellent roommate. She’s sweet and quiet and has the most incredible collection of toiletries I’ve ever seen. The best part about her is that she shares all of it. After a while I didn’t feel guilty about not going to classes or hiking or kayaking or searching for some inner state of alternate consciousness or whatever that thing is meditation is for. In fact, I was too sick to care about the fact that I wasn’t taking advantage of anything at all that the spa had to offer. Instead I discovered a new way to relax and revitalize myself. I sat around watching a seventy year old woman keep herself busy in a room with nothing to do except happily look for things she just put down a few minutes ago.

I watched her walk around the room smiling, sweetly, effortlessly, finding ways to make me feel more comfortable. That’s all she ever needed or wanted to do since the day I was born. I guess that explains why being with her feels so much better than being anywhere else.

My mother doesn’t need meditation instructors or any sort of healing experts to teach her what she already knows. She long ago reached the pinnacle of inner peace. Why a spa then? The answer of course is always the same for any Taoist. Why not?

So there we sat. My mother and me. Her content. Me sick and tired and sore and broken out, but learning how to get better, watching in awe, a woman with absolutely nothing to search for, except, of course, her glasses.

August 24, 2005

I’m trying to remember where I was the last time a guy walked up to me and handed me his phone number. But for the life of me, I can’t even picture it. That’s why I was so taken aback when it happened in a car dealership parking lot yesterday.

Had I known I was going to get picked up that day, I would have brushed my hair and put on a little make up. Turns out you can get picked up without doing either of those things, which is great news for a busy person like myself.

I had just bought my car a couple of days ago and I was pulling it into my driveway for the very first time when I drove over a massive planter that’s been at the foot of my driveway for oh, about eight years. I’m not sure why I did it. Technically, it was an accident but this was just too weird to be an accident. I can only assume somewhere deep in my subconscious I don’t think I deserve the car and therefore I was trying to punish myself for buying it.

Anyway, I made arrangements with the car salesman to meet me at the service area of the dealership the next day -- to see if he could help me get an appointment with the service department. They tend to get backed up so you need to go in there with some serious back up if you want an appointment the same year.

When I got there, John, the salesman, came outside to survey the damage. As we were talking, I spotted another car that I thought I might like to own one day -- if I happen to win the lottery. I pointed to the car and asked John what it was.

Just then a large rotund man in his mid thirties stepped out of the car. You couldn’t see him in there because the windows were tinted.

“Were you trying to tell me something?” he asked.

“No, I was just pointing at your car. I didn’t know there was anybody in there. Sorry.”

“Why?” he asked. “Do you want to buy it?”

“No,” I said. “Definitely not.”

“Why not? It’s for sale.”

“Thanks but I just got a new car,” I said, already feeling pressured into buying this strange man’s vehicle.

I walked over to my own car with my salesperson and he told me what it would cost to fix my car. We made arrangements for me to bring it in on Thursday to be repaired. I thanked him and got in my car to drive away. As I was about to pull out, the large man with the car for sale stuck his head into my window on the passenger side.

“Look,” he said. “I’m a little sweaty right now but I think you’re cute so call me up." And he handed me a piece of paper with a phone number and the word, “Frank.”

“What?”

“Call me up sometime, okay?”

“Why?” I asked.

“I just told you. I think you’re cute.”

“So you want me to call you because of that?”

“So we can go out sometime.”

“On a date?” I asked.

“Yeah on a date,” he said and slapped my car and walked away.

As I drove away I tried to imagine myself on a date with that man. I imagined us driving around in his car, the wind blowing in my hair and him turning to me and saying all sorts of things that shouldn’t end with “up.”

As soon as I came to a red light, I quickly dialed Dan to tell him the good news.

“Hi honey, guess what happened today? A guy tried to pick me up.”

“That’s great, Steph.”

“No seriously, it was so cool. And he was a real person too.”

“I’m so happy for you.”

“You’re not. I can tell. Why aren’t you happy for me? He called me cute. Cute as in young.”

“I tell you that all the time.”

“Yeah, but you don’t count. You’re my husband.”

“Was he a big guy?” Dan asked.

“Huge!”

“How old?”

“Mid thirties.”

“Really?”

“I know!!”

“Good looking?”

“Not particularly. He was very sweaty though, so who knows what he looks like when he’s dry.”

“Are you going to call him?”

“What? God no. How could you ask me that?”

“Well, you’re so happy about it. I thought you might want to call him to say thank you.”

“I’m only happy because it happened. I don’t think it’s necessary to thank him.”

We hung up and I continued driving, happy to be married to the only man I’ve ever loved -- but not dead, as the little piece of paper flew out of my car.

August 22, 2005

A full page four color ad for “She’s Got Issues” is running in the Sunday Book Review of the New York Times, August 28. The only problem is that it’s pink and it screams the very thing I got beaten up for last week, CHICK LIT. I’m almost afraid for it to run. That’s how pink it is. It looks like a pin up of Pam Anderson sitting right there next to Up Front featuring Jay McInerney’s review of “Indecision” by Benjamin Kunkel.

This Chick Lit thing has really gotten out of hand. I never thought I’d have to take abuse for writing a book that was too nice and too girly. It’s almost like the literati have become the equivalent of a bunch of high school punks that refuse to tolerate any sign of sentiment on account of it makes them sick.

I just can’t live up to their standards of artful and appropriate language no matter how many times I rewrite my second manuscript. It keeps coming out funny. I tried skimming the New Yorker for a few literary infusions they might find more palatable such as the ever elusive and seductive “vulpine” and the classic coming of age twosome, “fledgling idealism,” but I just couldn’t find a place for them in my book about hair dos. Nor do I foresee either of those terms appearing anywhere on the jacket copy.

My book, although meant to be an affectionate satire of the phenomenon known as chick lit, is for all practical purposes chick lit. As long as my readers laugh out loud though, I’m more than fine with it.

I’ll never forget my freshmen year at B.U., my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, (ooh sorry Haitlin) called me into his room to see what was going on outside his window. We lived in Myles Standish, a dorm that is directly across the street from the M.I.T dorms. As it turned out, B.U. and M.I.T. were having a water balloon fight.

The M.I.T. kids, who were obviously already masters of technology, had rigged up the most sophisticated system of balloon slinging one could possibly imagine. All I remember is that it involved some sort of pulley system and mechanical tracking device that detected when a student they suspected of attending B.U. walked by. On the opposing side of this duel were the BU kids. As one might expect, they took an entirely different approach to pelting people with water. They were simply hurling huge hefty garbage bags bursting at the seams right out the window. Sure the M.I.T. kids had a more elegant method but whom do you think made more of a splash?

August 19, 2005

I was out with my publicist and my new editor at the Peninsula Hotel on the rooftop bar the other night and it occurred to me why I never go out drinking. It’s because I’m not good at it. I never was.

After greeting my two adorable drinking buddies, I glanced around for a split second and then got busy, as always, burying my head in the peanut bowl. But then I glanced up again and couldn’t help noticing that all around us were tables of men. Men with very shiny shoes, tans and hair dos. “Oh I get it. Those must be rich guys looking for hot girls,” I said to myself, while chewing on a glazed cashew. “So that’s what bars are for these days. Gosh, it’s been a while!”

I’m always fascinated by what I learn when I come up for air.

After a very short time, we settled in, got comfortable with one another and started to really talk. We talked about what it’s like to be twenty, thirty, and forty and how I never fully recovered from my first pregnancy. Both in terms of the traumatic nature of my delivery as well as my inability to shed those last pesky fifteen pounds. We also talked about jobs and relationships and what’s going on in the world (okay, that’s a lie) and writers and the whole business of writing and when there was nothing left in the bowl, I spotted a guy walking our way.

“Halo!” he said to my drinking buddy on my right, “My name is Igor. I am from Serbia. I am investment banker. I work on big account right now.”

I was expecting to get kicked under the table but all she did was smile and ask him questions about his business and they talked on and on about this and that and I found this completely mesmerizing. “Isn’t she going to start making fun of him right to his face?” I wondered. I mean the guy is practically dancing. But she didn’t. She acted like they were old friends and I could see his confidence soaring right before my eyes.

I turned to my drinking buddy on my left and said, “She’s good.”

She smiled. I got the feeling she was good at it too. I, on the other hand, was holding my breath until my face turned blue, so I wouldn’t say anything inappropriate. I just can’t act normal when men walk up to women and try to pick them up with poor speaking skills --especially when I’m drunk.

But then again, I have no business being in a bar in the first place. I never mastered the art of drinking. If I detect the slightest hint of alcohol in my drink, it gets slid right to the person sitting next to me. It’s either loaded with strawberry syrup or I can’t swallow it. Once I find a drink childish enough for me to enjoy, I get incredibly drunk almost immediately and I find everything much funnier than it actually is.

I’m very good, however, at hiding it. I would never point my finger at someone and say, “Hey, look at that guy.” I just sit there concentrating on how to keep the saliva in my mouth and stay centered in the middle of my seat in case something strikes me so funny, I’m at risk of rolling right off. I usually stare straight ahead to maintain my balance so if someone happens to talk to me, I’m forced to answer out of the side of my mouth.

In this particular bar, the lighting under the counter changed from pink to blue every few minutes. At first I thought I was imagining it, but when I looked over at the Serbian guy, his face was bright red, so I knew it wasn’t my imagination, but rather a decorating stunt/ reason for people to talk to one another. I tried to look at my reflection in the countertop to see if my face was bright red too, but all I could see was inside my nose.

Something about the changing colored lights and the hum of voices was having a very tranquilizing affect on me and at one point; I think I fell asleep with my eyes open.

Both girls were worried about me driving home but I knew I’d be fine. I drive unusually slowly.

I got home safely, almost two hour later, and walked perfectly straight into my house and there was my husband standing there.

“You look very familiar,” I said.

”Where were you? You have crumbs all over you.”

“I was at a bar,” I said.

“Oh, no wonder.”

He expects me to come home from any bar-like establishment with food in my hair.

After a few minutes of talking about what sort of an evening I had, Dan decided to go upstairs. Apparently I wasn’t making any sense.

So I followed him upstairs. To talk some more. And we got into bed and he told me he loved me. And then I burst out laughing.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I had a drink. I told you that already. And so, you know, your hair looks funny.”

That did it. He turned over and went to sleep and I silently thanked God for him and rolled off the bed.

August 17, 2005

So, today was fun. I got pulled over by a cop for having an overdue inspection sticker, who asked for my license, which I left in my wallet, which I left at home. And my registration, which I haven’t been able to find in months and my insurance card which is in my kitchen, on the desk, with a note that says, “Steph, put this in your car with your license and registration.”

I tried to convince the officer that I, in fact, had all of these things but I just didn’t have them with me.

When I got home, there was a letter from my gynecologist on the kitchen counter. It wasn’t anything serious, just a gentle reminder that I should see my physician about my recent cholesterol report, which had indicated that my triglycerides are over 400 and therefore there’s an excellent chance I might explode.

So I made myself a grilled cheese and a chocolate milk and sat down in front of my computer to check my emails. There were thirty-six of them. Twenty of which were offering me medicines I will never ever take in my lifetime including Viagra and every conceivable cholesterol medicine on the market. Two were from a certain relative who only sends emails when she’s in a bad mood and the rest were bad jokes about old people.

And then there was the one from Rachel Bressler at HarperCollins. She was forwarding a blog that she said she found amusing. Always up for a chuckle, I clicked on the attachment, only to find a picture of someone’s hand giving its readers the finger and a headline that said,

“Authors who write chick lit books should be kicked until they’re dead.”

I couldn’t help beg the question, “Is that really necessary?”

I felt terrible for the girl who wrote that blog because I knew she meant well. She certainly seems nice enough.

I was tempted to write her back, in defense of my book. I wanted to tell her that had she actually read it, and not just skimmed my interview with www.thegothamist.com, she would have understood that I, too, understand that my character is dumb as mud and that I was trying to make a point, except without using my middle finger. But then that would sort of imply that I read what she wrote and I don’t want her to think I can read. I would much rather her think I wrote a dumb book because I don’t know any better.

Then I got to really thinking. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I should be kicked to death for creating a dumb character. Dumb girls have all the fun and that’s just wrong.

Actually being born dumb is wrong as well and I give “Anonymous” a lot of credit for trying to put a stop to it -- without telling anyone who she is. First of all, dumb girls -- even the ones who only play dumb on TV -- get way too much attention. They’re way too famous and they make way too much money. It’s just wrong. And it doesn’t make any sense, if you think about it.

Believe me, I totally understand why “Anonymous” believes murder by way of kicking is the only way to deal with people who write about dumb girls. I understand that she’s frustrated. After all, we should know better. But here’s a little secret, we do.

August 15, 2005

I was sitting in front of the mirror tweezing my right eyebrow and I swear to God, the whole area right below my eyebrow dropped right down. I don’t know what I did wrong but I watched the whole thing plummet. The next thing I knew, my eyebrow was literally sitting on my eyelashes. I tried to pull it back up again but it was shot.

I told my mom and she said, “Honey, you’ve been droopy like that for months. You need botox.”

Imagine telling your daughter such a thing. “Honey, you need botulism.”

I tried to put the whole thing out of mind. I showered, dried my hair, got dressed and put on a little make up but I couldn’t help noticing that my eye was still half closed. I called my friend to tell her what happened.

“You need botox,” she said. So I called another friend.

“You need botox,” she said. “Go to the SkinKlinic. It’s right behind Barney’s. “But don’t do Restalyne if you’re going out tonight.”

Why would I do Restalyne? I’m not even getting botox . . . I’m not in denial about my age or trying to pass myself off as a twenty five year old. I’m proud of my wrinkles, and my one eye, I thought to myself, as I dialed the number of the SkinKlinic, you know, to tell them off.

“You can have an appointment today at four o’clock,” the woman said.

“I’ll take it,” I answered.

When I got to the SkinKlinic I discovered that it’s actually next to the Pierre and not behind Barney’s. It’s in “the garden” which means two square pools of water. As soon as I entered the SkinKlinic, I spotted a bowl of lavender M&Ms and decided I wouldn’t tell anyone off until I had a few.

I stepped up to the desk and the woman greeted me as though I was the only customer they’d ever had and was hoping to build a huge following based on my recommendation alone. She practically offered to carry me over to the waiting room and handed me a little lavender booklet with a list of their procedures. Turns out if you spent enough time and money at the SkinKlinic, you could have your face resurfaced, your wrinkles removed, your jawline resculpted, all of your body hair and freckles erased and I think, if you come often enough, they give you a boyfriend.

“Listen,” I said to the woman behind the counter, “I just came here to see what this place is all about because I was planning to write about it, but you know, the more I think about it, I’ll take one of everything.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’d like to have all of these things done,” I said running my finger down the list.

“Perhaps you should talk to one of our senior technicians. Kacey will be right with you.”

“Okay, fine,” I said impatiently.

After waiting about five minutes, a small Asian girl who appeared to be about fifteen came to get me. “Are you taking me to the senior technician?” I asked her.

“That would be me. I’m Kacey.”

“Where are the junior technicians? Napping?”

As soon as she sat me down in the treatment room, she handed me a colossal magnifying mirror and sat down next to my chair on a little stool.

“Tell me your concerns,” she said, leaning in toward me.

“Well, for one thing, I’m concerned about the fact that I can’t see out of my right eye. And now that I’m actually seeing myself, perhaps for the first time, up close, I’m concerned about the fact that I look terrible. Can you just give me all the treatments listed on the pamphlet? I’m pretty sure I need all of them.”

“Well, let’s see, the hair removal and laser treatments require quite a commitment. You’ll have to come once a month for six months and that line above your lip is too fine to treat on its own so I’d have to use Restalyn on your entire lip area, which could produce some swelling. As far as the sculpting of the jaw line, the procedure we do here isn’t going to help you. I’m afraid you’ll need surgery for that.”

“So basically, what can you give me, besides this mirror?”

“Botox . . .”

“That’s it?”<