twit-wit?

I interviewed an author the other day who is furiously penning books. His genre is the sports mystery and he uses his own children in his novels. The main thing i took away from the experience of interviewing him was his belief in the power of marketing. He blogs, he Twitters, he FB's. Frankly i don't really see how he has any time to write, but he does. Curious, I decided to open a Twitter account. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to maximize the thing. My old friend from college, Anton, suggests that i should write things that are lurid and then create an account where friends and family (???) would pay 50 cents a day or something to get a mini thrill or maybe even their rocks off. I can't even imagine how one could turn their Twitter account into a lucrative operation but he claims I could make $10,000 a year on such a thing. Am i missing out on an enormous opportunity? Hard to say.

unpleasant encounter

The other night the husband (let's call him Mr. Sax) and I were taking an early evening stroll up the street when we were nearly run over by a neighbor's child who is newly licensed. The kid, who was driving a brand new Audi, was going about 50 miles an hour up our narrow, blind-cornered, winding country road. Mr. Sax and I leaped out of the way to avoid being slaughtered and yelled "Slow down!" Instead the kid pressed the metal to the pedal and shot up the road. At the long drive that leads to the street's newest, biggest and most ostentatious house, he hung a left and continued to barrel up the driveway.

"I think we should go ring their doorbell," Mr. Sax said. Our two dogs in tow, we walked up the steep, quarter mile. Up close the house didn't look so hot. The paint was peeling and the front steps were so bare you could see the wood. The front door could have used a wash. Through the glass panes that surrounded the entry, I could see members of the family at the table. They were having their dinner and for a moment I felt badly about standing on there, ringing their bell.

The bell it turned out didn't work. I could see them and they just kept on eating.

"Knock," Mr. Sax said. So I did.

A moment later the lady of the house, a woman draped in diamonds and popularly known on the street as the Red Menace, so-named for the way she drives a huge red four wheel drive utility vehicle she needs to ferry around her four kids, came to the door. In addition to the 3 carat studs in her ears and the diamonds on both hands, she was wearing a cashmere cardigan and pearls.

"Yes?" she asked.

Mr. Sax said something in calm and level voice about her son driving like hell for leather and how we had to jump in the ditch. Her response was to look slightly pained and dismayed.

Then her husband came to join her.

"What is this about?" he said, belligerently. Mr. Sax repeated his information.

"Fifty miles an hour?" Mr. Menace (he drives way too fast too) said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I don't see how that could be possible. No way."

"Are you calling us liars?" I said. I was thinking who in their right mind would trudge up this endless driveway if they didn't have something important and real to relay.

At the word "liar" Mr. Menace lost it. He pointed his finger in my face and loudly said, "I won't have any of your lip. How dare you stand on my porch and accuse me?" Then he turned to Mr. Sax and said. "Control your wife."

Mr. Sax was so shocked at this remark I thought he might laugh. Mr. Menace, I knew he was thinking, certainly had no idea who he was dealing with. Nobody "controls" Eve.

"Just talk to your kid," he said instead to Mrs. Menace.

"If my son was driving like that, I'd want to know," I told her. She shut the door and we walked home.

A little while later while we were drinking coffee, the phone rang. "That's probably her," I said.

"I'll get it," Mr. Sax said.

While he was talking, I thought about how I never much liked the Red Menace and how I mostly thought she was a jerk the way she never made eye contact with anyone on the street and how they never attend the annual block party and that she had too many children and a high pitched voice and an uppity attitude and seemed unnecessarily pious about her membership in the Junior League. Now I simply felt sorry for her. Married to a blow hard who pokes his finger in a person's face and denies that his son could use direction and who says things like "Control your wife"? I realized that instead of my scorn, she deserves only my pity. Poor thing. That big house. Her jewelry. Those cars. I wouldn't trade my life for hers, not ever, not at all.

bedford post

So, yesterday I had breakfast with the esteemed photographer Lisl Steiner at Richard Gere's cafe, Bedford Post. She had the eggs and I had the custom-made granola, served with yogurt. Pretty good. The Post as familiars call it was dead empty at 9 a.m., which surprised me, since the parking lot was full. Presumably with yoga fanatics, numerous as they are. But in the restaurant there was only me and Lisl and a party of four tourists, looking for local thrills.

Is the problem at the Post (and no patrons is a problem) the time of year? All the regulars must have decamped to the Hamptons (possibly there should be a Hamptons Post?) by July and won't be back for months. Or is the problem the pricing? Ms. Steiner, who spoke Spanish with our server and who appears to be a regular, said that she told the management that she needed a microscope to see the food on her plate and that she thought the cost to be outrageous. Nonetheless, she had eggs followed by panna cotta, which I must say, looked quite delicious.

back in the saddle

Ok, it's been ten months since i last posted on this site, enough time to have had a baby, which i did not. i did give birth to something else, though, a new book. This one is called "101 Things You Didn't Know About Sex," and is due out in October 2009. Look for it on Amazon. And a few choice bookstores.

sarah palin is a fake feminist

It's been over ten days since Sarah Palin began running for the position of Vice President. At first I thought it was a cruel joke but now I see the joke's on me. America is rapidly becoming a country I never heard of. And if I hear one more woman telling me that Palin is a feminist, I might have to punch her out. 

Palin is a feminist the same way that I am a vegetarian, which given the fact that I eat some kind of meat probably every day, is a lie. The only thing Palin has in common with real feminists is that she believes in women's right to the vote. Otherwise, she is a throwback, a woman who wants to take away a woman's right to choose, a woman who believes in creationism (Eve sprung from Adam's rib?) and wants it taught in schools. She is also a hateful woman who thinks that being gay makes you unfit to serve in the military (or probably in public schools) and that if gays just prayed a little harder, they'd be straight Christian evangelists like her, too. 

Smarter writers than me have been going over this same material for days. I fear it's like preaching to the choir. No one person has so polarized females in the United States than Sarah Palin. I've always been amazed at how many women I know choose to believe in lies. I know women who embrace husbands who lie to them about their fidelity and their finances. I know women who choose to pull the wool over their eyes about their children and what those children are up to. I've always been amazed at the power of hypocrisy and now we have a living, breathing, completely fabricated liar who is poised perhaps to become vice president. Instead of focusing on the issues, so many Americans would rather discuss Palin's glasses. And by the way, they're fakes, too. The New York Observer reported that Palin had lasik surgery some time ago. Her glasses, which like her trailer trash backwoods hair do, are a carefully crafted part of her image, are for show only. They're plain glass. No prescription. 

granny is a toker

My mother in law who has advancing pancreatic cancer took her first puffs of marijuana the other day. Luckily she lives in California where they have medical marijuana laws and say what you will, the stuff works. She now has an appetite, is more enthusiastic about life, has regained a sense of humor and most importantly, has something to look forward to, even if it's just her next toke. 

The funniest thing she showed me when we arrived from New York to spend a week with her was the marijuana lollypops she got from a friend. My mother in law still doesn't have her legal paperwork in order to obtain the primo pot so she's 'making do' with whatever anybody gives her which seemed to me, quite a lot. She had a small handful of joints and a very crumbly pot brownie and a half dozen of these lollypops that it turns out old people like to suck on since very few of them have the dexterity at this point to roll a joint. The lollypops look exactly like regular lollypops which made me think how much fun it would be just to walk down the streets of my home town, sucking one. 

Go Granny, Go Granny, Go Granny Go. My mother in law is not exactly the little old lady from Pasadena, but right now, she's pretty close.

go west old woman

In a couple of days Mr Sax and i will be headed off to california. this is not planned to be a 'fun' visit; rather we are going to see his mother who is seriously ill. the trip could be, in fact, quite the bummer. still i am feeling a little excited about returning to california, a state (and state of mind) that i love.

i would like to say that we will visit big sur, stroll down the boardwalk in santa cruz, eat sour dough bread and order from the raw bar in sausalito and check out what's new and happenin' in the castro. northern california is not my fave part of the state although it beats the hell out of the real north north where bikers reign and people marry their cousins. get up there around oregon but before you hit the state line and you'd be surprised to meet the natives. they're never the kind of californians who are depicted on tv. on the other hand, the type A monsters who populate the silicon (that's silicon as in computer chip, not 'silicone' as in boob job, implants, or former boob job implants before everyone went for saline. Los Altos is high pressure congested and pretty ugly. Still, i want to go even if what i wind up dealing with vis a vis my mother in law is mostly sadness and despair but hey life is short and i'm getting old so while i'm on the west coast i'm going to make the best of it.