I went on a  "blipping" frenzy the other morning, thinking I was merely creating my own private playlist of songs on Blip. I think I added 16 songs in under 3 minutes, gang, without realizing I was sending them out on twitter, which was then posting them all over facebook! Crikey! I even made personal comments on most of those songs (which were in effect love songs to guys & gals in my illustrious past). Ah well. Big sigh. Sorry to any of you who got slammed with all my intensely personal twitter & facebook blips. I have since disconnected the auto tweet thingie. (Thanks, Ron in NYC, for the head's up on how to do that!)

Here's something really horrible. My ex, Mike, dropped off some stuff of mine this morning that he had accidentally had in storage. In among the stuff was a small stack of the WORST photos of myself that I have ever seen!! I was at the height of all the menopause stuff, wherein I had gained 30 pounds (but if you're in the throws of menopause awfulness right now, gang, take heart that the crazy weight-gain crap does indeed go away -- I lost those 30 pounds 2 years ago). Plus I was also going through that phase where I was growing out my brunette dye-job. I wanted to go completely natural with my silver hair instead of dying it anymore. Well, it took 2 years to grow it out and so my hair looked absolutely horrific for 2 solid years. Totally Pepe Le Peu! You could see my skunk-like streak of silver hair coming from blocks away! (I think I wore a ponytail for 2 years straight.)

(Me as Pepe Le Peu):


(Uh-oh! Maybe this actually is Pepe Le Peu! If this is me, then where are the Vera Wang shoes??? Ha ha.) (Yes, I spend a fortune on Vera Wang shoes, if you must know! And yesterday I bought a pair of Vera Wang summer flip-flop thingies b/c they were on clearance for $11 and they matched my beloved & highly coveted Vera Wang handbag. It wasn't until the frenzy of my impulse buy had worn off that I realized: Wait a minute! What good does it do me to have summer shoes that match a winter handbag???? Shit.) Anyway.

So in this stack of photos that Mike gave me from 2004, I am 30 pounds overweight and have a silver streak going down the center of my brunette head. I look absolutely horrible. (Gee. Can't imagine why he didn't want to keep those photos!!) However.... these are the only photos I have of me & Mike together!! And I am so sentimental about old photos. How can I throw them out???? AAAArrrrrggggh. For now, I have disgruntled-ly shoved them into a drawer.

(I definitely will not scan them though, gang, so don't get all excited.)

Meanwhile...

We saw Shutter Island last night! I thought it was much better than the book. Although I did enjoy the book. I read it on the plane coming home from NYC last month. Although, I only bought it at the airport b/c the premiere for the movie had taken place at the Zeigfeld on my first night staying at the Warwick (the Zeigfeld movie theater and the Warwick hotel are on the same street) so everyone was buzzing about the movie. So it was totally on my mind at the airport and I wanted something easy to read on the plane.

I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was 100% totally perfect for this part. What a creepy, paranoid movie. It was a lot of fun. (And it was playing at the theater where they have that full bar now, so I got to have two shots of Stoli Vanil vodka on the rocks. I highly recommend having two shots of Stoli Vanil vodka on the rocks while watching Shutter Island, gang! It was a perfect combination!)

Tonight it is back to the Jazz Orchestra. I think they are doing a tribute to Cole Porter? Or Aaron Copeland?? I honestly can't remember. I just know I was really excited about who they were giving a tribute to. Oh wait!! It's Porgy & Bess and Gershwin stuff tonight. Yay!

And meanwhile, over the next 2 days, I have to very speedily go over chapters 9 to 17 in Freak Parade with Jay before I edit the final chapters and say, at last: J'ai finis!! ("I have finished!") I am only 3 months behind schedule, gang. You'd better fucking like it after all this insanity, that's all I can say! I first wrote the darn thing in spring 2005. A large publishing house that shall remain nameless was on the verge of signing on the dotted line in January 2006 and handing over a very nice 5 figure, 2-book advance, when the chief mucky-mucks upstairs said that it didn't matter if I was willing to delete the (in their minds) "gratuitous" rape scene, they wouldn't publish my piece of trash if their lives depended on it. (I went and took a really hot shower then and cried b/c we were so fucking broke and I really needed the money, but I also felt relieved that I didn't have to butcher my story just to please any stupid chief mucky-mucks.) And then there were 2 solid years of my agent forwarding to me some truly glowing rejections from all the top publishing houses here in the States (the novel was way too graphically erotic for mainstream tastes and/or nerves -- too much anal sex), including one rejection that said I had managed to make some very unlikeable characters very likable and that it was no easy trick. ("Okay, well, thanks for that.") And then another publisher said it was by far the best thing I'd ever written -- a classic -- and they really, really wanted it, but my agent had a problem with their offer at the last minute, so on we went, even though I already had all the blurbs turned in and a street-date set for 2007.

And now here it is 5 years since I first wrote "The End"... Christ. But, as always, I refuse to quit, gang. I love this book and I hope you're going to love it, too. Any day now, we shall find out!!

Okay, have a great Thursday wherever you are. I gotta get crackin' around here. Thanks for visiting. And here's a very small sneak peak at the cover art. Fight the good fight, amigos. Te quiero, mucho!!