One of the weirdest resolutions I achieved this year was establishing a good exercise regimen. I say weird, because this particular resolution was connected to having a healthy pregnancy (which didn’t come to fruition), and even then, I was only taking it half seriously. But here we are, less than three weeks away from 2012, and I can happily say that I “exercised anyway.” I’m healthier and stronger (emotionally and physically), I have tons more energy, and I just love that I now have post baby curves along with regular exercise firm. Here’s how I did it: 1. Exercise when you have any sort of problem to crunch. My husband has gotten used to be saying over breakfast, “I was thinking about [insert thorny problem here] at the gym, and I think we should do this [insert brilliant solve here].” Whether it be a plot point or career point, when I have a problem nagging me, I’ve learned that the answers I seek can be found with 30 minutes on the elliptical. I encourage everyone to try hitting the gym with a question that needs answering. 2. Get up earlier — especially if you’re not a morning person. If you’re going to be miserable, be miserable at the gym. Not only will the gym be less crowded, but you’ll have the added benefit of ticking the hardest thing off your to do list at the beginning of the day. 3. Set your clothes out the night before and put them in the bathroom. It’s almost impossible to get up, take a piss, and then go back to bed with your exercise clothes staring you down. Also, if you share a bedroom with a still-sleeping partner, this makes it easier to get dressed and out...

It’s been a hectic seven days — I mean really hectic. First there was the freak windstorm that put my area of town into a state-of-emergency and erased my childcare for a couple of days. Then there were all sorts of negotiations and meetings, involving stuff I’m not allowed to talk about online yet (but wait for it in January). And on top of that, there was all of my regular life stuff that needs to be attended to daily and no matter what. If you’re reading this Tuesday post, it’s officially the weekend, because I had to back date it in order to get it in this week’s rotation as promised on Monday. But I did get it done. And on that note, let’s talk about how to get a bunch of stuff done when you have like no time. 1. Breathe and acknowledge that you are overwhelmed. I find that I’m at my worst when I still think I have some control over my to-do list despite it’s startling, steadily-increasing length. I take stabs at doing everything, my attention skittering from task to task while my anxiety spikes, and I then I get frustrated because I’m not really getting a lot done. Not until I acknowledge that I could not possibly get all of the stuff I’ve slated to get done in the next 24 hours done do I truly “come alive” organization-wise. Admitting that my todo is impossible is what allows me to…. 2. Ask for small extensions. I looked at my deadlines, decided which ones were flexible and asked the appropriate parties for 2-3 day extensions. This immediately took the pressure off, so that I could… 3. Go into triage mode: This is basically looking at your todo list and...

I have a rather fond memory of this one paper I wrote about Milton’s Paradise Lost back in college. This epic poem belongs on the rather short list of English canon works that I actually enjoyed on a non-academic level, and I remember feeling particularly validated when I discovered that it was a bestseller before the idea of bestsellers had really been minted in the Western world’s vocabulary. If I’m remembering right, this was also one of the first works to be pirated, with versions popping up all over Europe. I found it fascinating that an epic poem I found myself enjoying now was also popular with the masses in its heyday. We English majors were more used to hearing about writers who were under appreciated while living, but were rescued from obscurity by later generations. This launched me into what will probably become a lifelong meditation about ongoing book popularity. About a year after Milton, I “discovered” two more bestsellers during my junior year abroad in China. One was THE GODFATHER (pub. date 1969) by Mario Puzo. I had never actually seen the movie, THE GODFATHER. Back then, if I was going to watch an “old” movie, I wanted it to be a musical or a romantic comedy. I’ll confess to having found SCARFACE, which I first viewed in high school, rather ridiculous and unbearable, and that turned me off of mafia films all together. That is, until finding THE GODFATHER in our Foreigner’s Dorm library. There was a limited selection (the entire “library” was actually composed of two bookcases), and I was desperate, so I decided to give it a shot. To my great shock, THE GODFATHER sent me into complete and utter book thrall. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to sleep,...

The other day, I was driving along with my daughter in the backseat, listening to the only station we can agree on, 92.3, when “Miss You Much” by Janet Jackson came on. I started singing along with it and, to my great surprise (and my daughter’s bewilderment), ended up dueting on the entire dang song. Granted it’s a fairly easy song to memorize. The only thing was I had never put any effort into doing so. For example, a couple of summers after that song’s release, I painstakingly wrote down all the lyrics to “Check the Rhime” by Tribe Called Quest, and I have that song memorized down pat to this day. I also have put some effort into the first few verses of LL Cool J’s “I’m Bad,” and within this millenium, “We Belong Together” by Mariah Carey, “So Sick” by Ne-Yo, and of course, “Be Without You” by Mary J. Blige.” But “Miss You Much” — I wasn’t aware I liked it that much, and I had no idea I had it completely memorized. Has this ever happened to you? If so, let me know what songs you had no idea you had memorized until you found yourself singing them in their entirety. And if not, let me know what songs you’ve put special effort into memorizing. Meanwhile, here’s the subject of my surprise memorization, “Miss You Much” by Miss Jackson (if you...

2011 wasn’t just a good year for books, it was an AMAZING year, just an embarrassment of riches as far as reading is concerned. And unless something else ridiculously wonderful comes along, I’m fairly sure that I’ve nailed down my top three books of the year. One of them is SILVER SPARROW by Tayari Jone, which I’ve already reviewed HERE. Before I get into my other two picks, let me urge you to vote for SILVER SPARROW, which is a semi-finalist for Best Fiction Book of 2011 over at GoodReads. In fact all of my top three picks are (non-competing — TTL) Goodreads Semifinalists, so while you’re there, put in votes for READY PLAYER ONE in Sci-Fi, and THE MAGICIAN KING in Fantasy. Okay, that all promoted, let’s actually talk about my other two favorite books of the year. READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline What I Loved: READY PLAYER ONE made me proud to be a nerd, and it also made me feel that I wasn’t quite nerdy enough — that’s how ridiculously awesome this book swings. If you are a nerd and you’ve spoken to me in the last three months, I have probably recommended this book to you. In fact, I feel like I am proselytizing for this book, because it is so much better than its premise — which is a bit hard to state: it’s basically a love story, a cyber quest story, and a high-stakes adventure story all rolled into one. I really don’t want to give even one nugget of READY PLAYER ONE’s goodness away, but I will say this: READY PLAYER ONE is the novel that sent me into the intense bout of book grief that inspired this post. I loved it. I love it so much...

Ugh, I hate my memory. I can’t recall who I was talking to the other day about this, but somehow we got to discussing other writers who were so insanely good, they made us feel like an awkward fraud and paralyzed our own writing for a bit of time. For me, this writer was …  [find out who it was at Script Shark, where I’m guest-blogging...

Hey-o Happy Folks, Today I’m blogging over at Girlfriends Book Club about the genres I’m too scared to even attempt writing: Writers being writers (read really frickin’ neurotic), there’s a huge list of things that scare us. For my part, I’ve had both waking and sleeping nightmares about missing deadlines, getting career-ending reviews, current fans pitchforking my future works, apocalyptic sales, losing the ability to write because of a brain or severe physical injury, having an editor inform me that I’ll “never write in this town again” — really, I could go on and on. [UPDATE: Last night after writing this post, I dreamed that a long ago enemy invited me to dinner with her friends and exceedingly handsome fiance to tell me about the huge non-fiction three-book deal she’d just garnered. Then she asked me what I was working on. #truenightmares] But I won’t, because today’s blog isn’t about what scares me as a writer. No, it’s about what I’m scared to write....

We’re about to start submitting my second novel, THE AWESOME GIRL’S GUIDE TO DATING EXTRAORDINARY MEN, which is about three women who attended my alma mater (Smith). This means 2 things. 1) I can finally read COMMENCEMENT by J. Courtney Sullivan (which is about white Smithies), without fear of influence and 2) I’ve been thinking a lot about the colleges I didn’t attend. I’ve no regrets about attending Smith, which was my first choice going into the college selection process, but Middlebury, a small liberal arts college in Vermont, was a rather close second on my list, and I often wonder how my life would have turned out if I’d gone there. I still believe that I’d be a writer, but maybe I’d be a different kind of writer. Or maybe I’d still be living abroad, given Middlebury’s reputation for language and international study. There’s a chance that I might have stayed on the East Coast, or gone into academia. I might have ended up way more crunchy and granola than I am now.Who knows … but it is nice to wonder. Do you also have a college that got away? How do you think your life would have differed if you’d attended that college? Have you ever met anyone from that college — what’s funny is that I’ve yet to meet a Middlebury alum, which makes me think that I definitely wouldn’t have been this me if I’d gone to that...

Yesterday, I watched two very different kinds of shows, one that came with a ton of hype, TERRA NOVA, and one that I didn’t know was even going to be on the air, until I was compiling my Fall TV 2011 Challege watch list — that would be HART OF DIXIE. How did it all turn out? Well, I left a long comment on Sam Weitzner’s TERRA NOVA post, which can pretty much be summed up as great casting, great concept, boring (and sometimes baffling) execution. But let’s talk about HART OF DIXIE: Overview: An ambitious young surgeon (Rachel Bilson) with serious daddy issues moves to Alabama to practice medicine in a down-homey practice. Lots of hijinks and soap opera twists ensue. What I Liked: Another surprisingly good show. I love that the doctor speaks in the way a doctor her age would (lots of “likes”), and I love that she’s a bit Housish. And I really, really love how Alabama is portrayed. Also, there’s a huge twist with the black mayor that made me lean forward so hard, I knew I’d be adding this show to my DVR just to see how it all plays out. And in general, the cast just works really well together. Tons of chemistry in every direction. What I Didn’t Like: Lots and lots of narration. It made me feel like the writers (or more likely the TV execs that gave the writers notes) thought we were stupid. Diversity Report People of Color? 1 Just the one-professional-football-player-turned-mayor in the main cast, but he’s given more to do than many of the PoC characters on other new shows this fall. Also, many of the patients and townspeople are black. Report Card Show B Diversity B Worth Watching? I think...

Yesterday I watched two women-centered shows, neither of which I had very high hopes for, because of their situations: THE PLAYBOY CLUB, which is set in the 60s, at the Playboy Club in Chicago, and 2 BROKE GIRLS, which is set in a diner in contemporary New York. Well, I was totally right about THE PLAYBOY CLUB, for reasons I’ll let Debra Goykhman explain in her review, but I was pleasantly surprised by 2 BROKE GIRLS. Overview: Two waitresses from two different worlds (one working class, who needs two jobs to get by and the other, the newly poor daughter of a Kenneth Lay-like fraudster). The show was created by Michael Patrick King (SEX AND THE CITY) and Whitney Cummings — the star of WHITNEY (which I’ll be reviewing in this spot later in the week). What I Liked: Well, I thought the show would be all rich (bad) vs. poor (good), but it has a startling and quite refreshing element of woman empowerment. Though the two main characters are class-opposed and snarky with each other, they’re both three-dimensional, (gasp!) actually seem to like each other, and (double gasp!) actually listen to each other. Sadly, I’m straining hard to remember the last time I saw female friendship depicted this way on a sitcom. Also, don’t drop dead of shock, but as it turns out, this is a show about two women who develop concrete career and financial goals and then attend to them over the course of the series. It was so nice to see a situation, where wealth accumulation wasn’t all a matter of luck, but ingenuity and hard work that we can actually see in action. What I Didn’t Like: There were quite a few stale jokes, but I remember THE BIG...

Funnily enough, the number one response to my post about how I lost (and kept off) 40 pounds in a practical way and over a reasonable time period (a year), as opposed to my husband, CH, who lost 80 pounds in a dramatic way over the course of six months was … folks wanting know how CH lost the weight. Okay, okay, fine, here’s the Ideal Protein diet that he used. I’ll give you a moment to go to the site and decide not to do it, b/c though it requires no exercise and gets amazing results, it’s hardcore, and requires a ton of personal responsibility and follow-through to pull off. I’ll meet you back here when you’re done. If you’re like me and rarely click through, here’s why it’s a bear of diet: 1. You can only eat a small portion of meat, vegetables, and Ideal Protein meal replacement products. You know how vampires feel an uncontrollable craving for blood, and the “good ones” have to fight to control it all the time? That’s how you’ll feel about carbs on the Ideal Protein diet, like even when you’re full, you’re craving something. So, if you have issues with impulse control… 2. This diet isn’t Hollywood expensive, but it ain’t Weight Watchers cheap either. There’s a start-up fee, and you’ll have to pay for Ideal Protein products and a ton of vitamins along the way. So if you’re on a budget… 3. This is a medically prescribed diet and you must check in with a certified doctor or clinic every week at first, then every 2 weeks after you get to a certain weight loss point. So if you travel a lot and/or are super-busy… 4. They really don’t want you to stop until...

As you may or may not know, depending on how long you’ve been reading this blog, I’ve made it my policy to repost any overly long comments I leave on other blogs — it’s basicallhy a time saver and a way for me to justify leaving overly long comments on other folks’s blogs. Anywho, this next one is in response to this “The Next Family” post about the frustration of losing weight for both parents after having kids. I happen to be in a somewhat unusual position on this matter. I’ve lost all of my baby weight, but my husband has lost even more weight — specifically 80 pounds in 6 months. He’s thinner than he was when I met him, and when all of my friends and family met him, and when many of his own friends met him. So. for the past few months I’ve listened to him explain and re-explain how he lost the weight over a relatively short time through fairly healthy, non-surgical methods (I can tell you right now, that unless you’re particularly grim and determined, blessed with great follow-through, and have the time, desire and/or another person willing to make meals to exacting standards, you don’t want to take on his diet). However, because of this ecliptic weight loss, I haven’t been asked to explain how I achieved my own weight loss. Not even once. In fact, I’ve explained CH’s diet way more than I’ve explained anything else, including the premise of my debut novel over the course of the summer. This is basically because my methods weren’t particularly dramatic or even hard, but as Americans, we are most often attracted to dramatic, hard diets, as opposed to the practical ones. In any case, it felt great to write it...

Lately I’ve been having like porno-level day dreams about … an office job. Yes, I said an office job. I imagine myself going into a building I do not pay rent on, sitting down at a desk and checking my email before fetching a cup of coffee. I can just see myself talking to co-workers about the latest episode of TRUE BLOOD at the water cooler. I also imagine myself checking the clock at five and saying, “Well, alrighty, it’s time to go.” Let’s get this straight — I don’t really want an office job. Overseeing Fierce and Nerdy and writing novel is a dream come true literally — what I’m doing right now is what I used to day dream about doing back when I had an 8 to 5 and a cubicle to which I reported. However, I do miss interacting with people who aren’t either related to me or made up on a regular basis. And the thought of doing work that has clear guidelines and pay structures just feels sexy to me. The only thing is that I have no idea what I’d do if I wasn’t doing this. I used to think it would be nice to be a lawyer or a computer scientist. But now I realize that those jobs would have bored me to death. In fact, all the other jobs that might hold some IRL appeal — teacher, therapist, counselor, producer, television executive — aren’t ones that can be done at a cubicle. So in actuality my weird fantasy is just that — a weird fantasy. But I’m kicking this topic over to you. Are there any jobs that you day dream about on a regular basis? Sound off in the comments. featured image credit: Victory...

Yesterday right before leaving the office (Starbucks — and no, just in case you’re wondering, that joke will never get old for me), I noticed a group of young people who looked both knowledgeable and scared. I immediately pegged them as entering freshman from a nearby college, and then remembered by own days as a scared-but-ridiculously-confident first year at Smith College’s BRIDGE program for entering students of color. I wondered what I would have said to myself back then knowing what I do now. I’m still a bit bummed about taking part in the long skirt craze of the late 90s and rarely wearing mini-skirts in college, b/c I certainly don’t have the legs to do so now. I also would have liked to have given myself a thorough money education, so that I wouldn’t have to learn the hard way in my 20s. I often wonder why I didn’t experiment even more with my hair while no one was really looking and before the age of digital cameras. I wish I had taken science classes at Smith as I’m very interested in science now. In fact, having found my unexpected East Asian Languages & Literature minor so interesting, I often wish I had majored in something other than English, just to have an even more random knowledge base. Also, I ended up having to re-read many of the classics we covered at Smith in grad school — and you know how I feel about re-reading. I might tell my younger self to appreciate learning more than I did — that it’s a privilege, not a due reward for being smart. And there are many Smithies that I like a lot now that I wish I had taken the time to get to know...

I remember one of the guys I dated when I first moved to California expressing surprise that I ate so much processed and fast food. Most California girls, he insinuated, did not eat that way. Being fresh out of grad school – where I’d maintained a daily eating regiment of a large cup of coffee for breakfast, Hostess cupcakes for lunch, and a pizza slice for dinner — I sniffed that I wasn’t like these West Coasters with their (pwah!) healthy food and their (eye roll)( eschewing of trans fats. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted it, however I wanted it. A little over a year later, I went on my first diet. There were a few reasons for this: it’s hard to skate roller derby if you’re only eating junk food — you need those good carbs, my formerly rock-hard metabolism started to peter out in the form of fifteen added pounds, and after a year of transfatless food that cost more than $5 per order, I began to honestly enjoy eating cleaner food. You can really taste the difference, and really there’s no easier or yummier place to eat well than California. So after the “Roller Derby” diet, came the unintentional “Break-Up” diet, then a year later, the “Oh No, I’m in Love, and Have Gained So Much Weight” diet, then the “Wedding Dress” diet, then the desperate “Having Trouble Conceiving Diet,” then the three-month “Must Lose this Baby Weight” diet, then the much more reasonable year-long “Seriously, Let’s Shed This Baby Weight/Book Tour” diet. Now, I’m on a new-new diet, one that could be described as the “Enh, Why Not Shave Off Ten More Pounds” diet or the “Because I Always Go on a Diet After Our Summer Vacation”...

Right now, I’m in the middle of a pretty intense rewrite of my second novel. Actually this is the seventh rewrite. I did a sixth rewrite in response to my new agent’s notes, and now I’m doing a seventh to make sure that the sixth rewrite makes sense. This time, however, it’s become like a lover stayed with too long. I can’t help but notice with irritation all of my little writing peccadilloes. For example, I love to have one character say another character’s name at the beginning of a sentence. “Sharita, you promised you’d come… ” and “Thursday, why are you giving me guff about this” — stuff like that all over the manuscript. I also have people looking or staring at each other a lot. In fact, I’m kind of obsessed with eyes and action verbs. In this novel, eyes “land” on other characters, they “pin,” they “blaze.” The eyes are basically the hardest working body part in novel business. And man do I love the word “actually.” The manuscript’s rotten with it. How did that happen? Hopefully by the time this novel gets to you, all these peccadilloes will have been taken care of or at least scaled back. I take solace in the fact, that all of the writing peccadilloes I noticed on my seventh rewrite of 32 CANDLES are not coming up in the second novel. But I also worry about what new peccadilloes I’ll discover, and therefore have to solve, in the third novel. Do you have any writing peccadilloes? Let me know in the comments. The peccadilloes rewrite is always miserable work, and it would be lovely to know I wasn’t alone. featured image credit: jimgrant If you liked this post, please do us the further boon of...

It’s official, I’m old. I know this not just because I am still just wrecked from my aforementioned seriously-delayed overnight flight with our toddler, but also because I’ve had a rather strange craving lately: I want a watch, not as an accessory, but as a practical timepiece. I’m sick of having to dig out my phone every time I want to know the time. When one’s arms are full of toddler that’s not always an easy thing to do anyway. When I was younger, I was fond of proclaiming that I never wore a watch, because “time ain’t my master.” I’ve changed my mind. Now I long to be able to glance at my wrist and know when it is. Time ain’t my master, but I have become its biggest fan. What’s weird is that my distaste for watches used to set me apart, but now I don’t know very many people who wear watches. Whenever someone asks the time, it becomes a race to see who can pull out her or his phone the fastest to check. I also worry that because practically no one seems to wear watches anymore, wearing one myself will ensure that I am inundated with, “What time is it?” questions from chatty strangers, who either are too lazy to pull out their phones to check themselves or just want an excuse to engage with another human being. In either case, you know how I feel about chatty strangers. But how about you? Do you wear a watch? And if so, what made you decide to start (or perhaps continue) wearing one when most people don’t anymore? Sound off in the comments. featured image credit:...

I’m rerunning this one just because it was unexpectedly really, really popular. So many of our readers seemed to either irrationally dislike Gwyneth Paltrow or irrationally dislike another celebrity. If you didn’t weigh in the first time, please do so now. I really enjoy this topic. Also, friendly reminder, that though our paperback swag giveaways end NEXT FRIDAY (seriously enter to win now!), our Book Club giveaways are in effect for the entire summer. So do convince your book club to read 32 CANDLES sooner than later, and get those details HERE. Now for the post, which originally ran on 03/22/11… What I find weird about my dislike of Gwyneth Paltrow is that it has no basis. There are those that dislike her because they feel that she is overprivileged and out of touch. But really acting as a profession with its scattered paychecks and unapologetically non-merit based hiring practices doesn’t attract very many underprivileged and in touch folks to it ranks. I can think of a handful of actresses and music artists who I like just fine who are in the same overprivileged, out-of-touch boat. Also, I find my dislike weird, because I like Gwyneth Paltrow in everything she does. Loved her in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, adored her in SLIDING DOORS. She was the only thing I liked in IRON MAN 2, and I can’t get enough of her on GLEE. It’s to the point that I would happily watch her in anything she chose to star in, b/c she tends to pick movies to my taste. I might even rent COUNTRY STRONG when it comes out on video. Yet, I do not like her. I cannot watch interviews with her. If she is featured in a magazine, I skip over that article....

The one reading sin that I absolutely can’t stand is reading the last page. It didn’t occur to me that so many people do this until I actually caught more than one random reader reading the last page of a just-about-to-be-purchased copy of 32 CANDLES. Anyone who’s read 32 CANDLES knows that it’s not nearly as good of a read if you read the last page first. If I’d had my druthers about me, I would have asked these readers why they chose to ruin books for themselves. Were they afraid that they wouldn’t like the ending? Do they have trust issues when it comes to novels? I wanted to know what books had hurt them so bad that they felt the need to spoil the endings of all future books that came after them. This last page issue bothers me so bad, that I made my prologue my epilogue for the second novel, just so readers would have to work super hard if they wanted to spoil the ending for themselves. But how about you? Do you read the last page of a book before buying it? If so, please tell me why oh why in the comments. featured image credit:...

Like many women, I struggle with low self-esteem. But unlike many women, I’m not sure that’s a altogether bad thing. Here’s why: 1. Better dating experiences. I loved dating with low self-esteem. You know how some women sense that a guy isn’t all that in to her and she thinks that if she just sticks it out with him, or presses him, or makes herself as agreeable as possible, he’ll stick around? I didn’t have high enough self-esteem to feel that way. I didn’t think that there was anything in my arsenal that would make a guy change his opinion about me or like me more than I did. Most of all, I was too insecure to be with a guy who sort of liked me or just liked me well enough. If he wasn’t all in, I sensed it and either got out or forced a conversation that would make him admit that he just wasn’t that in to me. 2. Better friends. I’ve hit my low self-esteem ceiling, so I can no longer afford to hang out with people who lower my self-esteem. At this point, that would be too dangerous for my psyche . I think my friends are beautiful and intelligent and they think I’m beautiful and intelligent right on back. It’s a lot easier to be okay with not having the best inner-support system, when the people you choose to associate with compliment your wonderfulness on a regular basis. 3. Better writing. There’s this weird problem that I encounter not often but often enough in other people’s writing, which I term “Way too high self-esteem.” This is writing that might be technically good, but is exceedingly boring. Whenever I encounter writing like this, I know that the writer is...

Yesterday, a former, much younger work acquaintance took to Twitter, having decided to give more classic movies a chance after seeing CHARADE. He asked his followers for their suggestions. I immediately came back with WHAT A WAY TO GO! There are many more well-known films from this era, but none that I have like more than this one. Basically the premise is that a small town girl (played by a young Shirley MacClaine) is wooed by two small town boys, one a general store scion (played by Dean Martin) and one a poor-but-noble Thoreau lover (played by Dick Van Dyke). She chooses the Thoreau lover, only to have him go and get rich on her, eventually dying and leaving her a wealthy widow. She goes on to purposefully marry another poor man (Paul Newman) and the exact same thing happens, over and over again until an unexpected twist conclusion. This movie would never get made in Hollywood today. The idea of choosing the extremely poor, thoughtful guy over the rich guy has gone the way of the wooly mammoth it seems. And in a day and age when women are constantly worrying about their retirement plans, neither the bohemian nor the pastoral lifestyle seem as romantic anymore. But this is a great gem of a film, with a perfect all-star cast, a clever premise, and perfect story construction for those of us with short attention spans. Still, I’d like to offer more suggestions to my young friend. So if you have a favorite film from the 60s, 50s, or 40s, let us know in the...

I was especially happy to see the below trailer for the upcoming Jason Segel-penned muppets movie on the Facebook page of FaN blogger, Michael Kass, yesterday. Not just because I love Jason Segel — no most of my happiness stemmed from the fact that I can’t remember  a time when I didn’t love the muppets. As long as I’ve had long-term memory, they’ve been there for me to love. However, there is a stain on my muppet love. I’ve only walked out of two movies in my entire life, and alas the first of those movies was the original muppet movie, titled appropriately enough, THE MUPPET MOVIE. But unlike with TROY, I didn’t walk out of this movie on purpose, wondering how a film that expensive could be both exceedingly bad and extremely boring. In the case, of THE MUPPET MOVIE, I walked out — or rather was carried out — because I couldn’t sit still or quietly, and after several warnings, my mother was done with me. I can still remember the glum look on my perfectly behaved little sister’s face as my mother explained to us that we would both have to miss out on the rest of the movie, because I was acting a fool. I never did see the ending of that original muppet movie, but I’ve seen every other muppet movie since. In the theater. Call it my theatrical penace. Except now that I’m a mother and therefore absolved of all my childhood tomfoolery, it’s no longer a guilty but a happy penance. That was actually the first and last movie I ever had to be carried out of. After that, my mother had only to invoke THE MUPPET MOVIE Carry Out to turn me into the perfect movie-going child....

I forgot whether it was on another blog or in a book or maybe a newspaper article, but I was reading something in which a woman was talking about what she and her husband would have died of if not for modern medicine. And I’m somewhat morbid, so that got me to thinking that if antibiotics hadn’t been invented, I might have died from my many bouts of strep throat as a child. If I’d waited for my daughter to come out on her own as opposed to inducing and cesareans hadn’t been invented, we probably would have both died in childbirth. Though strangely enough, regarding getting hit by a car when I was nine and out riding my bike, even if I hadn’t had access to a hospital, I would have been fine. I was, of course, checked out for broken bones and concussions and all that jazz at the hospital, but other than being sore for weeks afterward, I was fine. Getting hit by that car didn’t and wouldn’t have killed me even if medicine hadn’t advanced. But back to being morbid. How about you guys? What would have killed you if not for modern...

I live in California, so while I claim not to believe in horoscopes I kind of do. I tend to get along with Capricorns, Virgos, and Tauruses particularly well. But you know who I get along with best of all? People who were born in May. My husband was born in May. My BFF was born in May. My favorite (and hopefully last) boss was born in May. One thing I know for sure, I will be wishing somebody I know and really like a happy birthday every single day of the next month on Facebook. It’s not that I don’t have friends born outside of May, but a weirdly high number of them — especially the IRL ones — were born in May, to the point that if I’m friends with any Gemini IRL, save for a very few, he or she was born in May. This has me wondering if anyone else has a particular month that’s over-represented in your friends/loved ones group? Sound off in the...

I’m really honored to have been asked to contribute to the multi-blog Dollars and $ense of Family Building Discussion. If you’re new to the this blog, I’ll start off with a simple overview of our family building process up to now. April 2007: I went off birth control. April 2008: After a year of trying to get pregnant to no avail, my husband, CH and I got a referral to a fertility specialist. Some people are surprised that I sought a medical opinion so soon, but hailing from a family of rabbits, I sensed that there was problem after the first six months of trying. September 2008: After lots of testing, and two failed IUIs, our problem was diagnosed, and we were told that our best option was IVF. We went through one egg retrieval and then had our first embryo transfer. October 2008: We got pregnant on the very first try, with five embryos making it into the freezer. June 2009: Our daughter was born January 2011: We started trying for a second child, this time with a natural (no fertility drugs) IVF cycle with one of our frozen embryos. I got pregnant again, but then I had a very early miscarriage. March 2011: We tried again, this time with a natural cycle and two embryos, but didn’t get pregnant. April 2011: I am now in the midst of one last IVF cycle, with a transfer of our last two remaining frozen embryos next week. So here’s the question that I’m answering for today’s Dollars and $ense blog: To what extent have finances determined the family-building decisions you have made? How have you able to balance financial considerations against other factors such as medical, ethical, emotional…? It’s interesting, because being a mom has...

Lately, Betty has started really loving children’s music. She tries to sing along with YO GABBA GABBA, so tunelessly that we often have to check with each other that she’s actually singing. Sadly, singing ability doesn’t run in either of our families, and it doesn’t look like Betty’s going to break that tradition. However, there’s one thing Betty loves even more than children’s music and that’s funky R&B: Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind and Fire, pretty much any upbeat R&B pre-dating the 90s, she just loves it. Both CH and I love the indie bands, 80s new wave, and quite a bit from the 90s. While she’s in the car with me, I usually listen to Top 40, plaintive indie electronic rock, or until she started repeating words, rap. ABut Betty doesn’t respond to any of my favorite stations. Give her Hot 92.3 Old School and R&B  or give her silence. She also doesn’t care for the Beach Boys or Cyndi Lauper or any of the music I loved growing up. And though I can burn up a dancefloor to “When I Hear Music” myself, I have to admit that I find Betty’s preference somewhat bizarre, because it’s not a preference cultivated by us, like the way she’ll choose strawberries over cupcakes at birthday parties, but one decided seemingly on her own. I’m sure her music taste will change over time — I mean we’ll have to talk disinheritance if she doesn’t get onboard the TV on the Radio train when she’s older — but I’m wondering if any of you have had similar experiences with your children. What were their original music preferences? And do you remember your own? Funnily enough, though my mother loved funky R&B herself, I much preferred rap, 70s rock,...

A lot of singers make a big deal out of singing with their shoes off or on. Before I got super-organized, I used to almost always write in bed with my shoes off. Also, the Writing Pad classes I attend are shoeless, and I’ve often found myself getting what feel to be deep and creative work done there. However, as of late, I’ve committed to either writing at a desk or whatever table I can find free at Starbucks, so now I almost always write with my shoes on. And I’ve been finding that I get more work done this way. It doesn’t feel as arty, no. But something about sitting down at your desk or table, with shoes one like a regular working Jane just spikes my productivity levels. But how about you guys? Do you write with your shoes off or on? Sound off in the comments! featured image credit: Juan...

One of the things that I discovered after a year of making lifestyle changes (read: dieting) is that there are certain foods that I will happily substitute with a lower-calorie alternative and a certain kind of food that I will not. For instance, I happily chow on sugar free jello and pudding. And on the rare occasion that I want a soda, diet will totally do. Light or greek yogurt? Mmm-mmm! Let’s do this. And I think my turkey sandwich taste just as good on whole grain bread with lowfat provolone. But there is one kind of foodstuff for which I can accept no substitute and that is cake. I love cakey things of all varieties. I love Starbucks lemon cake. I love a nice piece of coconut cake. Back when I was in grad school and still had a working metabolism, to the horror of my program mates I used to eat a package of those orange Hostess cupcakes every day in class. I went on several field trips as a child in St. Louis: There was the free zoo, and the free art museum, the gorgeous botanical garden, our state capital, the beautiful central library — I could go on and on. But which trip do I remember with the most fondness? The one we took to the Hostess Factory when I was in second grade. Afterwards we got free twinkies. FREE TWINKIES — seriously, who could ask for anything more? So today, I’ll pour fat free milk over my multigrain cereal and I’ll heat up a Lean Cuisine for lunch and I’ll eat a Weight Watchers toffee ice cream bar for my evening snack, but those Weight Watchers lemon cakes?  No, dude, that’s gross. Thank the Lord for 100 calorie packs...

Like many women raised by women from the south, I am not all that formal with friends, but I try to be unfailingly polite to strangers. I don’t expect the same from others. In fact, I consider the French person’s and New Yorker’s infamous skills for being rude to people they don’t know, to be both curious and delightful. While I was in Paris, my heart nearly exploded with anthropological glee the first time a French person acted rudely toward me — the shop clerk at an expensive mustard shop called the next person in line forward after I said, “I’m trying to decide between this kind of mustard and that kind of mustard.” Then after checking him out, she huffily offered me two small bread sticks dipped in both kinds of mustard. The whole experience was truly amazing and made me feel like Jane Goodall. However, there is one kind of stranger rudeness that I just can’t abide. Often, when I need to get a stranger’s attention, I address him or her as either “sir” or “ma’am” respectively. I’ve never had a man answer me in any way but cordially. However, I’ve had 4 or 5 woman huff and say, “Don’t call me ma’am!” The latest incident came a couple of Tuesdays ago at yoga of all places. “Excuse me, ma’am?” I said, trying to get a fellow yogi’s attention. “Don’t call me ma’am!” she snapped. “Sorry,” I answered. “I was just hoping we could switch places, so that I can be next to my friend.” Looking injured that I had dared to call her ma’am. She switched places with me without a word, not even a “you’re welcome” when I thanked her for doing so. Now that I think back on that...

FaN blogger Ryan Dixon sent me a link to this Psychology Today article, which was really a response to this blogger’s questioning of the way black people are depicted in speculative fiction. Basically the original argument comes down to so-in-so does such a bad job of writing black folks, I sometimes wish so-in-so just wouldn’t bother to depict us at all. As a long time sci-fi/fantasy fan, I find this problem hugely frustrating in all areas of fiction. I tend to lean toward representation — especially when it comes to movies and TV shows. Like another FaN blogger, Monique King-Viehland, I certainly didn’t appreciate the odd, jive depiction of the “black” transformers, Skids and Mudflap in Transformers 2. But my head nearly exploded when I didn’t see any black people in the trailer for COWBOYS & ALIENS (even though 1 out of every 4 cowboys was black). And in the planned incarnation of my third novel, there’s a big discussion about the fact that there are no blacks in THE KING’S SPEECH, when in fact, there was a huge migration of African blacks moving to England to work in its factories during the early twentieth century, and more than a million Africans fought for the Allied Forces during WWII. It feels like white-helmed fiction often erases blacks and other people of color from its annals, to the point that I doubt even black people recognize that we lived in England pretty much from the 15th century on, that our contributions to WWII went beyond the Tuskegee Airmen, and that the African diaspora extends to just about everywhere these days, including Japan and many other countries, where you wouldn’t necessarily think of blacks actually living. So at the end of the day, I’d rather have...

I was informed in a roundabout way that one of my favorite authors, Lisa Tucker, will be releasing a new novel called THE WINTERS IN BLOOM this September. I was filled with a rush of joy, because Tucker never tells the same story. She tries new things and she makes you have to trust her in the journey that she takes you on. Because of this, I’m now willing to read anything she writes. She could decide out of the blue to write a historical murder mystery, two genres I don’t particularly care for, and I’d read it in hardcover, just b/c it was written by Lisa Tucker. However, as often happens when one hears that a favorite author will be gracing us with a new book, my thoughts turn to the authors who will not do the same in the current year. I won’t go into those authors who have only written one book and have yet to write another. To my everlasting sadness, there are too many of them to name, especially when we start talking about black authors. But I’m particularly blue about the authors we get to know through more than one book, who then keep us hanging. Melissa Banks (THE GIRL’S GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING, THE WONDER SPOT), Khaled Hosseini (THE KITE RUNNER, A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS), Junot Diaz (DROWNING, THE BRIEF AND WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO), Judith McNaught (a slew of romance novels), and most heart-pangingly for me, Marian Keyes. Employing the perfect blend of chick-lit, women’s fiction, and Irish melancholy, Marian Keyes is the writer that I look forward to hearing  from the most. Not many of my official grown-up years have gone by without her producing at least one new work, be it non-fiction...

It’s funny, because though I’ve written a book and have at this point written hundreds of blog posts, the post that seems to have resonated most with people is the one I wrote while pregnant, the one in which I worried about how to properly raise a biracial child. People have responded in many ways to that post. They’ve reassured, encouraged, commiserated with and attacked me. People are still leavings comments and writing me privately about that post. And the strange thing is that I brought up so many deep issues in that post, and now that I’m in the actual trenches of motherhood, I’m truly concerned about exactly zero of them. In fact after reading my best friend’s meditation on whether biracial children should consider themselves black or biracial, it occurred to me that at least for me, the issue might not be about how to raise biracial children. It might be about how to be the mother of a biracial child. Before I go on to fully explain this statement, let me reiterate that these feelings are mine and mine alone, not to be applied to every other black mother of a b/w biracial child on the planet. So feel free to cite my argument, but please do my fellow black mothers the advance boon of not lumping us all together and accusing them of having the exact same feelings that I do on this matter. That all said, let’s start at where I was with the whole biracial vs. black issue before it hit the news cycle compliments of Halle Berry and her daughter, Nahla and my best friend, Monique, wrote about it. Even before that, I had begun to realize that with multiracial becoming the fastest growing racial category in...

So back in December I heard “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele for the first time while writing in a cafe. Being a nerd, I used my Shazam app to identify the song, then I went to iTunes and pre-ordered the album without even looking at the release date. Then I proceeded to become increasingly obsessed with “Rolling in the Deep” to the point that I now just play it on repeat during emotional scenes while writing. I’m finishing up the second book, which in my case entails a ton of back-to-back emotional scenes, so I’ve literally been listening to one song for hours and hours on end, while waiting for the full album to release. Finally a few weeks ago I went back to iTunes to check to make sure that the album hadn’t come out yet. iTunes always sends me an email when one of my pre-orders become available, but maybe I missed it, I thought, I hoped. How appalled was I then to see that the album wouldn’t be coming out until February 22??? This felt like eons aways, and I felt angry at Adele for releasing her terrific single over four months before the actual album. That’s like Kanye West lag time. Anyway, yesterday, while finishing up my book about Smithies living and dating in LA and once again listening to “Rolling in the Deep” on repeat, I posted the following tweet/status update: Can Adele just push her 2nd album release date up to like now, so that I can stop listening to “Rolling in the Deep” on repeat already? Lo and behold, a fellow Smithie, Layla Riviera, hepped me to the fact that the entire album was available HERE on NPR’s “First Listen.” And now in a nice little...

Ugh, I’ve started and restarted this blog from several different angles at this point. The first attempt was a meditation on worry, and how you do a lot of it between the embryo transfer and getting your pregnancy results. I planned to list all my worries out in a slow reveal of an epiphany that hit me like a ton of bricks Monday morning while I was brushing my teeth, and preparing to get my blood drawn for the umpteenth time this month: worry, I concluded, really is a useless emotion. I had heard this theory put forth many times — I am after all, a Californian — but I had never understood it on a truly practical level the way I did that morning after a mostly sleepless night of terrible dreams and watching a hamster spin itself into a state inside my head. I’m not sure how I’ll feel about this when I’ve actually gotten a few decent nights of sleep, but right now, my brain seems to have short-circuited. I’m officially too tired to worry anymore. However, I got bored during the listing of my worries and abandoned that post. The second attempt was talking about how getting pregnant through IVF is different from getting pregnant through traditional means. I didn’t even get through the first sentence of that. But if you really want to know: SO many needles; countless ultrasound wands up your hou-hah; tests and more tests for everything — even the things you never would have thought of; unusual emotions that you don’t know whether to attribute to hormones, the situation, or the drugs; shooting progesterone up your hou-hah every night (which feels kind of like the longest yeast infection treatment ever); and most of all the bizarre...

I wasn’t surprised when I read this Jezebel post about Japanese people becoming increasingly uninterested in sex. One of the things that I noticed while I was living in Osaka, was well … a lot of sex. There was porn manga readily available at bookstores, porn anime readily available at video stores, topless European game shows broadcast on non-cable channels late at night. Let’s not even talk about the picture of a naked girl, which was featured every weekday in one of the local papers — which men felt free to read on the subway. I knew I had grown used to Japan, when I knocked on the window of an idling cab, and didn’t even blink when the driver put down his porn manga and asked me where I was going. I just called to the girl I had stayed out late partying with that I had found a cab. I happened to live in a red light district, our apartment building being one of the few residential ones on a street lined with love hotels (really nice hotel rooms that you could rent out by the hour). I waved at the street hookers on my late night walks home from the local gaijin bar. They smiled and waved back. These, I had been told, by another one of my roommates (I had six), were the sex-workers who were too old to make it in a more formal indoor situation. Indeed, if one wanted it Japan, you could buy a woman to keep you company, a woman to give you a bath, a woman to give you a massage, a school girl to fondle, and yes, any manner of hooker to have physical sex with. Which is why, even I began to notice,...

So according to the NEW ZODIAC, I’m not in fact a true blue Capricorn as I’ve always believed, but a Sagittarius on the cusp of Capricorn. It’s funny, because when I studied in China, I was similarly surprised to find out that because of my January birthday, I was actually Year of the Dragon and not Year of the Snake as I’d always assumed. Well, finding out I was a kick-ass dragon as opposed to a snake was awesome. And being a Sagittarius as opposed to a Capricorn isn’t so bad I suppose. It might even explain why my ambition often feels a bit fiery — as opposed to earthy, like a Capricorn’s is supposed to. Also, it will be fun to become acquainted with the qualities of a whole new sign. However, one of things that I loved about my husband being a Taurus is that Capricorns and Tauruses are, according to most astrological sites, super-compatible, for reasons that I can’t quite remember now, because I’m, you know, no longer in my twenties or keeping up with my horoscope. When the new zodiac reports came rolling in, after gasping over my change in astrological status, I immediately checked to see if my husband was still a Taurus — a sign that’s pretty incompatible with Sagitarrius love-wise. But as it turned out, he’s an Aries under the new system — so we’re still super-compatible. Hooray! I can only be happy that neither of us takes the zodiac serious, especially if it’s going to be changing up like this every few decades or so. I do, however, live in Los Angeles, where everyone tends to know their sign inside and out. “What’s your sign, baby?” — we totally invented that come on. And I wonder...

So yesterday I began my third rewrite.  And in many ways, it feels like I’m reporting to you from the trenches of the third year of the U.S.’s involvement in World War II. Allow me to explain this metaphor : Your rough draft feels a lot like 1942. You’re sick of reading books that are not the one unspooling in your head. In many ways, you feel like the books that aren’t your books are the enemy. They’ve attacked your Pearl Harbor, and now your all gung-ho to kick some butt. Full of piss and vinegar, you write your rough draft. However, your first rewrite, the second draft or year of your war, isn’t so pretty. You lose a lot of friends. A lot of friends. Favorite sections and characters. They just disappear. And then the few remaining friends you have start turning on you, doing things you don’t want them to do, betraying your original vision at every turn. You start to feel worn down and crazy. You wonder why you’ve decided to enter this fray. You write love letters to your old life, the one you had before you started this novel, wondering if you can get back together with it, like you never left it for war in the first place. Your old life writes you a Dear John, and alas, you’re stuck with nothing but a war you’re not sure you can win. But you’re the one who enlisted, you have to finish out your service. You set your jaw and just keep writing until you’re done with this terrible draft in which so much blood was shed for the good of your story. Then if you’re me, which in the case of this metaphor, you kind of have to...

So, I guess I’ll do my promised Mexican cruise article tomorrow, since as often happens with IVF, my period came and now my life is fully rotating around my ovulation cycle. It’s kind of like being in a two-week long episode of Private Practice, in which every test and exam has to happen NOW! NOW! NOW! as opposed to later when you have a nice hour or so block available. When I underwent IVF the first time, this wasn’t a problem, because at that point, CH and I had been trying to get pregnant for over a year-and-a-half. We were already well-used to not ever making firm morning plans, and dropping everything at a moment’s notice when I got the little happy face on my ovulation-testing stick. I had even developed systems (yes, systems!) for managing appointments and getting done everything I need to get done at my then-job. This time around, though, I’ve been constantly running after the dropped ball. I started unexpectedly spotting on Sunday, and I was surprised when CH asked me (as he never does unless we’re trying to conceive a baby w/ science) if I had started my period — he must have seen the newly-opened tampon box next to the toilet. I answered that I hadn’t expected it until Monday, but yes, it had just started. And he asked what we were supposed to do next. Now I know that having Baby #2 is important, but along with all the other stuff I have to keep straight including my writing schedule, day-to-day life, new business, and oh yeah, Baby #1, I have to admit that my answer was vague. Something along the lines of, “Dr. Koopersmith told me, but I’m having a little trouble remembering… Um, I think...

There are some common complaints that people who work from home have, and I think they’re pretty valid. I don’t miss having to go to an office, but I do miss the office for the following reasons: 1. There are other people in my age bracket at the office. 2. No one ever comes to the office and says, “You’ve got to stop what you’re doing and come and do this other domestic thing stat!” 3. In many ways it’s easier to resent a boss than the people you actually love. I kind of miss resenting my job as opposed to always feeling like I’m struggling to complete the work I love to do. There are a few solves for this: 1. Schedule meet-ups with people in your own age bracket at least once a week. This will feel like a guilty pleasure, but really it’s a sanity maintainer. 2. Make a faux office. I’ve noticed I have a lot of company at the local coffee shop where I go to write. Apparently a lot of people who work from home have found that they can’t actually work from home. 3. Be a b-word. Remind everyone that asks you to do something during your scheduled work time that you don’t come to their office and ask them to do stuff when they’re working. Keep on doing this until people are loathe to ask you to do stuff, and then keep on doing it even when what they’re asking for is perfectly valid. This third solve will probably only make sense to the people who are currently working from home. 4. Actually ask other people to do stuff during their own work hours. You’ll find that people are surprisingly willing to help you with your...

Have you ever had lunch with a difficult friend, and she’s going on and on about something that’s pretty much the same variation of every other problem she’s ever had, snd suddenly you think… Wow, you’re selfish, insensitive and offensive. You and I have nothing in common. Why do you insist on wearing super-high heels to inappropriate places? Why are you so out of touch with reality? The recession is more than a minor nuisance… Do you ever read? Seriously, when was the last time you picked up a book, because I’m seriously convinced you haven’t read one in over a decade. What’s wrong with looking your age? Is it really so bad? How do you stay so ridiculously thin? I never see you exercising. Do you have any money in savings or do you spend every dime you have on wardrobe? You wear waaaayyyy too much makeup. I’m not sure why I should want to aspire to be you. Being you doesn’t seem that great. In fact, I’m having trouble remembering why I found you so interesting in the first place. Well, to tell you the truth I’ve never felt that way about a friend — even the difficult ones. But I did ask all of those questions while watching the boring, 2 1/2 hour product placement ad that was SEX AND THE CITY 2. That’s...

Well, as you might have noticed if you follow Fierce and Nerdy in real time, today’s post is hours late. Long story, but I basically had a writing deadline and woke up this morning to discover I had used all the time I had left on my travel internet — yes, I have travel internet — I don’t like to risk being w/o internet. Don’t judge me. Well, this normally wouldn’t be a problem, but unfortunately, AT&T isn’t able to get around to setting up our snazzy cable/phone/internet package until Thursday, so basically I’ve been going a bit crazy all day. Luckily, tomorrow is December 1st, so my travel internet will be back in effect. Until then, here are my thoughts on SPECIAL DELIVERY by Heidi Cullinan. Why I Decided To Read It: Long story short, someone suggested the website Dear Author to me as a place where people with good taste review romance novels. I was surprised to see that they had a m/m romance section, a genre I had been hearing a lot about but had yet to read, and this was the first A-grade review that I saw, so I downloaded it on to my iPad. What it’s About: A young college guy, living in Iowa, loses his mother to cancer (or was it diabetes? Sadly, I can’t remember). Her dying wish is that he finds a nice guy to settle down and have sweet, loving sex with. The only thing is he likes to be used and humiliated, which dredges up a lot of conflicted feelings and shame. But when he meets a older, hot truck driver that’s into BDSM, he risks his heart and ethical code to go on the road with him for one summer. What Makes It...

My daughter, Betty, has been throwing fits lately when I put her hair in two puffs. She cries and kicks and acts as if I’m torturing her. Part of me, wants to say, “You want to talk about painful kid? Try getting your hair pressed with an iron hotcomb, and having your mom slip and burn your ear! Until you’ve had hot grease sizzling on your scalp, do not even try to act like I’m even halfway hurting you — which BTW, I’m not. You’re just tender-headed and acting a straight fool.” Sadly, Betty only has a two-word vocabulary and isn’t quite ready for the tried and true method of comparing your old-timey childhood to your child’s relatively easy one. So I did some research, and the internets suggested modeling the activity on a doll, so that your child can be made to understand that it’s fun to not leave the house looking a hot mess. Simple enough solution, but now here comes the question of what kind of doll to get. This is where being the mother of a biracial kid gets a bit tricky. My MIL purchased a stuffed white baby doll for her last Christmas, and I counterbalanced it with a stuffed black baby doll. Betty likes both dolls. She sleeps with the black one and plays with the white one in her playpen. However, this got me to wondering if I’d just have to buy her two dolls at every stage of the development game, one black and one white so that she doesn’t think that one is better than the other. Also, neither a black nor a white doll is great for the hair modeling business. I assume that this doll should at least look a little bit like...

So sorry about skipping out yesterday. I’m a full month behind on my beta reader draft, and yesterday I had my last book event of the Fall, possibly of the year (but we’re working on something at Writing Pad for December, so maybe not). Either way, it occurs to me that I should talk about my beta reader draft as a refresher for our long time readers and an introduction for our newer readers. Basically, my process can be summed up like this. Working with my writing exchange partner, I type up a rough draft, then I let the manuscript rest for a month or two while I do something else. Then I do a huge, deep-clean rewrite. Then I immediately turn around and do a relatively quick beta reader draft. And that’s the draft we’re going to talk about today. Ostensibly my beta reader draft is the draft that I’m going to send off to my editor, but before I do that, I do a quick read-and-dash rewrite and send it off a chapter at a time to one or two beta readers. My beta readers are not editors or really anyone who is involved in the publishing industry in anyway whatsoever. They are normal people who read and they’re stand-ins for “my ideal audience.” For example, I wouldn’t ask my husband to beta read my women’s fiction b/c he’s not representative of the audience I’m going after with women’s fiction. But I did send my sister a copy of 32 CANDLES before I sent it off to my manuscript editor. And now both she and my BFF are in the process of reading my chapter-by-chapter rewrite of THE AWESOME GIRLS GUIDE TO DATING EXTRAORDINARY MEN. I do this for two reasons: 1)  ...

My whole family has a terrible cold. The baby has it. My MIL has it. CH has it, and perhaps, worse of all, I have it. I say worse of all, because I rarely get sick. The last time I came down with anything beyond a mild 2-day sinus infection was back in 2006. And as anyone who has ever known me during this time will tell you, I’m not a good sick person. CH is a great sick person, very stoic about the whole situation, makes himself some Theraflu and goes about his business with grim determination. My MIL retires to her room when she’s sick, submitting to the healing glow of Food Network and HGTV, and only coming out for food and a bit of company. My ear-infection prone baby is pretty used to this by now. She doesn’t let any virus stop her play and the only way you’d know she was sick is her sudden touchiness and her need to snuggle with you while wrapped in her security blanket every half hour or so. As a reward for their good behavior, all three of them get sick all the time, seemingly catching every virus and cold that comes strolling by. I, on the other hand, am … not that great when I get sick. I become impatient and snappish. I remind folks about every ten minutes or so that I’m sick. I resent everyone and everything. I wonder out loud if this sickness could be indicative of a bigger disease, since I never get sick. I become angry, because I have stuff to do and absolutely no time to be sick. With the little time I have, I surf WebMD, then talk about what I found with my husband before...

So don’t drop dead of shock or anything, but apparently legendary musician, Fela Kuti, was a huge fan of pot. Not only did he dedicate quite a few songs to the green herb, but it’s basically a full-on character in the bio-musical based on his life, FELA!. However, I don’t smoke pot. I can hear the audible gasps. As one friend once said to me back when I had locs, “That’s just unnatural.” And during my starving artist years, I did feel somewhat peer pressured into taking a few tokes in social situations. Starving artists often have trouble paying the rent, but for whatever reason, they never seem to have any problems with affording pot. And no matter how squalid the locale, it always seemed that a joint magically appeared at every single California party I went to back in my starving artist days. But I don’t smoke. And my reasons for not doing so have nothing to do with morals. I’ll vote yes on legalizing weed in today’s election, and I’ll always consider “Pass the Dutchie” one of the best songs ever made. No the reason I eschew weed can be summed up in three words: it blunts talent. When I see a great musician like Fela Kuti smoking weed, I always wonder, “Well, what could he have done without the weed?” Same goes for Snoop Dogg and pretty much any other artist that represents for smoking. But mostly, the reason I don’t truck with weed is that in my seven years in California, I’ve seen too many people of great talent not finish or pursue projects because they’re smoking. Really if you ever want to give yourself a competitive edge in the art game, other than working harder than everybody else, giving...

I’ve been reading a lot of great books lately, and I feel truly blessed. Except… while on the plane back from St. Louis, I was dying to read a romance novel. I haven’t read a good romance novel in like forever. This is partly the industry’s fault. I don’t need the writing in romance novels to be high literature, but I do want it to be strong, and there’s so much crap out there, that I often find it hard to give new romance authors a chance. I’ve lost so much money on intriguing situations with poor execution, that I’ve become loathe to take risks. And though I enjoy reading “good” books, I lately find myself wishing I could turn back the clock to a time when I only cared about situation and not so much about the writing. At the same time, I grew up on Johanna Lindsey, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Judith McNaught, Nora Roberts, and Deborah Smith. These ladies (with the exception of Roberts) aren’t churning them out like they used to, but at the same time, I haven’t really found a new crop to replace my old crop of dependable light airplane reading. So I’ve decided to crowdsource the problem. Outside of mystery (a genre I can only abide if the writing is particularly excellent), who are your go-to authors for light reading these days? featured image credit: Lara...

I was talking the other day with a friend online about second child births. I’m already feeling a little anxious about getting pregnant again in January. I’m aware that Californian moms have a reputation for just loving on pregnancy, but I’m not going to lie, I’m one of those people who enjoyed the result WAY more than I enjoyed the pregnancy. I’m concerned about being tired all the time again. When folks ask me the “how do you do it all” question, I answer, eyes-open-wide: “Buttloads of coffee.” So yeah, I’m not too happy about giving up my perfect sidekick come January. Then there’s the fear about even being able to get pregnant a second time, since it was rather difficult the first go-round. And even if it’s as easy as we hope it will be, since this time our embryo is all set and ready to go, thanks to the first IVF treatment, I circle back round to the energy question. Ya’ll, I need my energy. I have no idea how I’m going to get by without it. But we’re going through with the January date anyway, mostly because of biological imperative — I believe in siblings. But also because of morbidity. CH and I both have parents who died before we got together and that would have been hard to go through without a sibling. And also because it’s not like I’m not going to need my energy in 2012 (which is hopefully when the second book will release) or 2013 (which is hopefully when the third book will release). 2014, 2015, and 2016 aren’t looking like low-energy years either. So I might as well do it now. During the first pregnancy I joked that if it were up to me I...

For those in LA….if you can get tickets to Il Postino — the opera version of the movie — GO! Incredibly beautiful, lump in your throat score. [Placido] Domingo at 70 (!) still has it & then some. The two leads are boths tenors — why no one has ever written duets for this combination is beyond me.... Friend of FaN, Howard Leder, posts this last Sunday, but I don’t see it until last Friday. I go to the LA Opera page, and see that there are only two weekends left on the production.” I forward the link to my husband with a note that says, “I really want to see this. Do you think we can get your mom to babysit?” All three of us, he, my MIL, and myself are in the same room when I send this. CH gets the email, checks the dates, says out loud, “The last week of that opera is sold out.” Then he looks at his mom and says, “Can you take care of Betty tomorrow? We want to see this opera that starts at 2…” She agrees, he buys the tickets, and for the first time in a long while we are doing something spontaneous on a weekend. Which is kind of strange, because I had just spontaneously moved up my brunch date with Kelly, after reading this, so I now have two spontaneous things planned for the same Saturday. On Saturday, there is a lot to do. I usually dress up for the opera, but today I throw on jeans, a 32 CANDLES t-shirt, and my “Yeah, this is what I’m wearing. And what.” stare. We take Brian to the groomers for a full work-up at the Best Little Cathouse in Pasadena. We’re told...

Did anyone else catch NO ORDINARY FAMILY last week? The premise of a family that unexpectedly gets super powers is great. And I also liked that the husband and wife are having problems.  [FIRST EPISODE SPOILERS AHEAD] However, the depiction of the teenage daughter really bothered me. She was just so stereotypical. Good girl trying to hold on to her overly precious virginity? Check. Has a bad relationship with her successful working mom? Check. Slut-shames another girl in her very first high school scene? Check. Is pitted against other high school girls, all of whom seem to want to steal her boyfriend? Check. Kudos for actually putting her on the girl’s basketball team – though neither of her parents show up for her basketball game, and this doesn’t seem to be an issue. Also she ends up getting the rather safe mind-reading power, as opposed to something like super-strength or intelligence, because we wouldn’t want her to be too aggressive or too smart, now would we? I care 0% for this character, and I can already tell she is going to make this show a very hard to watch. Moreover along with MODERN FAMILY, I’m concerned about the dearth of interesting high school girls on television. Having had DARIA when I was in high school and college, I worry that all depictions of teenage girls on tv seem to fall squarely into pretty, virtuous, or teen mom with not a lot of in-between. What say...

To my great surprise, the best part of being out on the road for the book is getting the chance to talk to friends for long unadulterated periods of time. There’s an ugly thread in certain movies, in which women are accused of talking too much (almost always by men). But in my opinion, we don’t get the chance to really talk to each other enough. I’ve had several meaningful one-on-one conversations with  different friends over the past six months. And I already know that when I look back on this time in my life, this is what I’ll remember: the talking, which we so rarely have or make time to do anymore. featured image credit: Fascinating...

Can I just say that this is like my favorite time of the year. Thank the Lord, Betty and I got CH Eye TV for his Father’s Day gift (after receiving a heavy hint via a “Buy Me This”). At the time we thought it would just benefit him, b/c quite frankly, we still weren’t all the way clear as to what Eye TV does. But then CH downloaded an Eye TV app on to my iPad, which allows me to access our television (live or recorded) while I’m on the road this week for 32 CANDLES. This means that I won’t miss a thing while I’m away. Yay, technology! But enough about that. Let’s talk TV. Here are the new shows I’m going to give a chance or two, complete with level of interest (LoI) on a scale of 1 to 5. 1. MIKE & MOLLY: Two fat people, not as side characters (gasp!) actually falling in love (double gasp!) with each other (triple gasp-gasp-gasp)!!! I’m so there. It also helps that the actress who plays Molly was my favorite part of SAMANTHA WHO. LoI: 5 2. THE EVENT: So it’s sci-fi AND Blair Underwood is in it as The President??? Dude, c’mon. LoI: 5 3. HAWAII 5-0: Soooo much testosterone just dripping off this one. But I like to support people of color getting acting work. And I just adore both Daniel Dae Kim (LOST) and Grace Park (BSG), so I’m going to give it a chance. A small one. LoI: 3 4. NO ORDINARY FAMILY: The only thing making me watch this is my utter love of sci-fi. But I do not have high hopes. LoI: 2 5. BETTER WITH YOU: It looks like this is a FRIENDS clone, and moreover,...

If there’s one folk saying that makes me gnash my teeth, it’s the one that goes something along the lines of “Want to make God laugh? Start making plans.” Seriously, how many people do you know who have been blessed with unplanned success? The vast majority of successful people are successful because they set goals and made actionable plans to achieve them. When you dig, you’ll find that there really isn’t really a lot of dumb luck when it comes to succeeding at something. What really makes this piece of conventional wisdom regretful is that it gives people an excuse not to plan ahead. I wish the saying went, “Want to make God laugh? Don’t make any plans whatsoever.” I think that God is in the blueprint you make for your life. Planning is good. Planning helps you achieve goals. What’s bad is inflexible planning. For example, I set a writing goal to finish this current draft of my novel by October 15th. When I made this plan, I didn’t think I would need any time off for six weeks, but as it turns out, that’s a recipe for burnout. So this past Saturday, I adjusted my plan, and now I’ll finish the next draft by November 1st, because I’ll be taking off on the weekends. I don’t feel like my plan failed, I hear no rumbling laughter from the heavens above. I’m just glad that when an obstacle (like burnout) got thrown in my way, I was able to adjust my blueprint. Voila! Speaking of obstacles, we’re going to talk about those tomorrow. Meanwhile I”m wondering if there’s a piece of conventional wisdom that you just don’t believe to be true. Let me know in the comments. Featured Image Credit:...

If we were at an airport, I would run to you in slow motion and swing you around in my arms — that’s how much I missed you all. The good news is that we won’t have to be apart again until the holidays. The bad news is that though I’m happy to be back home, I am seriously missing Hawaii, to the point that I’m wondering if we shouldn’t put a moratorium on going there just to avoid the terrible case of post-vacation blues that we get whenever we come back. One of the best things about living in LA is that I become more grateful for living here whenever I go other places. For example, when I go home to St. Louis, I wonder how my family puts up with the weather extremes, as I no longer have to deal with being too hot or too cold. For the better part of the year, the weather in LA is just right, and even when it’s in the 90s-100s, it’s nowhere near obnoxious as unbearably humid St. Louis at the same temperatures. When I go to New York, I love the gritty glamour of the city, but tut over that fact that it’s now almost impossible to live in Manhattan unless you’re super rich. So most of time I’m happy to come home from wherever I’m visiting, but Hawaii is different. Every time we go, it seems that we spend less and less time enjoying our vacation for what it is, and more and more time lamenting that we don’t live in the Aloha State. I love writing by the ocean. My husband loves the state’s friendly vibe. But he’s firmly entrenched in the entertainment industry, and though I now romanticize my many...

I’ve been thinking about this blogumn a lot lately just b/c not having the same last name as your husband always becomes a bit more hard to manage when you’re traveling. I know a ton of women who haven’t changed their last names, but apparently a lot of travel professionals don’t. This has come up daily on our trip. Still my original opinion on the matter stands. From March 24, 2009 It’s funny, b/c though I’m a feminist, it would never occur to me to get on top of another woman for changing her name after she got married. For one thing, I do realize that this is a choice, and if you give people a choice, I don’t necessarily see why you would chastise anyone for not making the exact same choice that you would’ve made. Also, I have a few conditions that made not changing my name particularly attractive: As a writer I place a lot more value on my name than a woman in a different profession might. Plus, I love my name. I mean really, really love it. My first name is unusual but not so much so that it’s embarrassing or particularly hard to explain. My middle initial fits in perfectly with my other two names, and because I loathe my middle name it comes with an air of mystery that it wouldn’t otherwise have if I didn’t often refuse to answer the question, “So what does the T stand for?” with anything but “Terrific!” And did I mention that my initials are “etc?” C’mon why would I ever want to change my name? However, a few of my relatives have had a hard time understanding that. One of the few aunts who had dared to navigate the scary...

Hey Darlings, So I know I promised you pics of the dye job. And once again, I’m falling through. Basically, my MIL went into the hospital yesterday with a godzilla of a stomach flu. She’s going to be fine. They’re just running tons of tests and rehydrating her. But about two hours after my husband took her to the emergency room, our dog Tulip up and had a seizure, complete with foaming of the mouth and bladder release. Now, I’ve never seen a dog have a seizure. I’ve never even seen a person have a seizure (though, at least I’ve written about that scenario). This happened during the Price is Right. I had just finished eating my cheerios and had moved on to my coffee. Betty was petting Tulip who had just finished with her monthly dog grooming appointment. And suddenly Tulip started vibrating in a really weird way. “Tulip?” I said, moving Betty out of the way, so that I could see what was going on with her. Then like a horror film, Tulip went into full-on seizure. I screamed. Betty cried. I picked Betty up and called my husband, who called a family friend to come help us get Tulip to her vet. Tulip stopped seizing after 5-10 minutes, but she was so out of it that our friend had to carry her to his car, and then she had to be carried into the vet’s office on a dog stretcher. They ran a bunch of test and basically found that her glucose was really, really low. So they gave her a bunch of … wait for it… baby food. So by the end of the day, we found out that the hospital was keeping my MIL overnight for observation and rehydration...

That’s what I call it when I’m so wrapped up in a book that I can’t stop thinking about it and become obsessed with finishing it. If I’m listening to an audiobook in the car, then I ask friends that live in Santa Monica to meet up, just so I have an excuse to take a long drive. Or I volunteer every time someone in our household needs an errand run.If I’m listening to an audiobook on my iPhone, then Betty gets taken on lots and lots of walks in her stroller. I lost like five pounds messing around with the audiobook for Carleen Brice’s Orange, Mint, and Honey. But the worse, I mean the absolute worse, is when a physical book sends you into book thrall — a physical book that’s not available as an audiobook. You see, I can clock a lot of mom time walking the neighborhood, but finding time to read a physical book is extremely hard these days. My rule is that when Betty’s asleep I’m working, so that time is out. And the few times I’ve tried to read in Betty’s presence, she’s come over and closed the book and/or chucked it across the room while giving me a look that reads as a stern lecture about being “fully present” for her childhood. It get this look a lot. I’m actually in a rather tough book thrall situation right now. I’m reading the ARC of Lori Tharps’s SUBSTITUTE ME. I won’t go into it too much, but something surprising just happened and I’m dying to find out “what happens next,” except you know: motherhood, career, and blog come first. And sadly, they don’t hand out ARCs of audiobooks — though I have a theory that publishers would probably...

So I’m dreading going to the library today, because I’ve once again managed to amass large overdue fines –this time while I was out on book tour. I think there are two types of people in this world, those who amass library fines and those who don’t go to the library at all. I simply can’t believe that there is anyone in between. But maybe I’m wrong? Maybe you’re one of those mythical people who have actually managed to both check out books and not have to regularly pay fees on them? If so, please tell me how you managed to achieve such a feat, so that I may teach my daughter to appreciate reading, without having her end up in a bunch of library debt like me. Sad face. . Photo Credit: Terry Bain (click on the pic for more...

I usually write in bed. In fact, I am writing this in bed, with back support provided to me by my husband — the stuffed kind, which was funnily enough, given to me as a back-saving gift from my real husband when I was pregnant. As for the three hours a day that I dedicate to writing business and writing-writing, I used to do those hours in bed, too, but as of this spring, I’ve been officially using my basement office. I have my grandfather-in-law’s heavy wood desk down there along with a swanky ergonomic chair, both of which I bypass to write on the gnarly basement couch with my feet up and my dog Tulip snoring while snuggled against my legs. I write in silence (aside from the soundtrack of Tulip snoring and my baby playing with my MIL upstairs) and in comfortable clothing. I do own a vintage orange typewriter, but I don’t actually write on it. I write on the MacBook Air, which I promised I would buy for myself if I ever got a book deal. I don’t know why I can’t seem to get into writing at a desk. I wrote in a proper chair all the way up until I got my post MFA day job. M/b I wrote fiction in bed to separate it from my actual work back then. But now that fiction writing has become my actual work, and I’m still writing with my feet up. Go figure. But that’s “how” I write. I often wonder how other writers write though. I imagine they actually use their writing desks with nice music playing in the background and clever little desk buddhas and all sort of other romantic writer accoutrements. Let me know if that’s true...

The other day after my Dallas book event, someone told me that I must feel so glamorous, having a book signing with a crowd coming out to you know, see me. I told her it didn’t feel all that glamorous, but when she challenged me with “Really?”, all I could come back with was a bunch of mumbo jumbo about the loads of anxiety that accompanies publication. This didn’t seem like an authentic answer, since technically I’m way less anxious now. And there’s something to be said for the fear of failing to meet your sales goals as opposed to the fear of failure all together. This new fear is very specific and therefore attackable. The old fear had felt like it was crushing and choking the life out of me before I got my first full-time writing gig. I love the new fear way more. It makes me feel like a future titan with several thrilling challenges lying before me. The new fear actually makes me happy. So no, my “more success, more anxiety” didn’t really answer her question. As I go about my book tour, why don’t I feel glamorous? Then my daughter Betty did me the favor of answering that question the very next day. After we put Betty down for her nap, I was working hard to clear out my inbox before she woke up. But then she started crying again. I asked my nephew to mute his video game. Maybe it was keeping her up. But a few more minutes went by and she seemed to be getting more upset. I sighed. My husband offered to go pick her up for a few minutes and then put her right back down when she calmed down, as my most beloved...

So because of the book, there are a ton of new people on Fierce and Nerdy these days. Welcome! Welcome! But you’ve probably noticed something strange about this site. That’s right, we’re not actually “puttin’ the chic in your geek.” You see, when I first started Fierce and Nerdy, I imagined that it would be a haven for girl geeks everywhere. We’d talk about all the things girl geeks like to talk about and leave the boys to their BoingBoing and the like. But then I invited one boy to contribute and then another and then another, until the next thing you know we had a very, very rare thing to find on the old interwebs — an equal site. I’d take credit for this, but I totally didn’t mean for it to happen, and I’m still rather stunned that we’ve achieved such a rare feat. I’ve been racking my brain for another site that has a thiscloseto equal number of boy and girl contributors, and I can’t come up with one. It occurs to me that “puttin’ the chic in your geek” not only doesn’t fit but also manages to misrepresent what our site is all about. So yeah, we need to brainstorm a new tagline. Got any ideas? Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. Fierce and Nerdy — It totally computes Fierce and Nerdy — We come bearing gifts Fierce and Nerdy — We’ve got your geek right here Fierce and Nerdy — Because we said so Fierce and Nerdy — Run geek that Fierce and Nerdy — Let them eat pi! Any of these resonating? If so, let us know in the comments.  We also want to hear your tagline ideas, b/c we’re gathering up suggestions today, then we’ll...

Thank you so very, very much to the many who came out for my Barnes & Noble Event at The Grove. I really couldn’t love you guys more for your enthusiastic support, and it was just so nice to have such a great turn out. And for those who couldn’t come, thanks for providing my first joke of the night about the “glamorous excuses” that you get in LA, when people can’t come out to your event. I felt like you were there in spirit. Also, big thanks to my nephew/assistant who when I suggested the possibility of running (after I saw the Barnes & Noble space all set up in the most intimidating way possible with tons of books and several rows of seats) promised to tackle me and tell the Barnes & Noble people where I was if I even tried. The kid is good. As for the reading itself …I highly recommend doing something that just scares the crap out of you every so once in a while. It keeps your heart strong and it’s good for the soul. That’s...

So remember last week, when I said that we had decided to move from Altadena, and would probably be renting a town home or large apartment next? Well, apparently I lied to you. Not intentionally, it’s just that I wasn’t aware that my family was having a moment of temporary group delusion that would come to an abrupt halt when we actually saw an apartment. Also, I wasn’t aware that what I really meant was, “I have my youth by a thin thread in a death grip and I’m afraid to let go.” Let’s review what happened. Due to issues with old pipes, a creaky A/C system, and a not-as-responsive-as-we’d-like landlord, we decided that we hated our house and that it was time to move. We envisioned a new abode that would be within walking distance of shopping and a decent grocery store. However, the only thing we could find that had all of those qualities within our price range were apartments and townhomes. So we discussed it as a family, and remembering how all of us had at one time lived in apartments that we loved, we decided to pursue non-house living. I wrote all about it here. Well, the very same day that I posted that article, we went and saw two apartment complexes. The first one was Park La Brea, which is so close to the Grove, it could almost be called mixed-use housing. Actually, we didn’t actually see Park La Brea. The receptionist at Park La Brea was so rude, telling us to hold on for 20 minutes straight while she answered phone call after phone call and dealt rather brusquely with a resident who was simply requesting a park space reassignment that we left. We figured that if this...

… I think you know why. This is basically the last week of season finales, and then I’ll be left with … well, pretty much the same thing I had last summer. I’m planning to pick up ROYAL PAINS for another season. And I’ll probably watch the second season of THE MENTALIST in re-run, not b/c I like it, but b/c I don’t completely dislike it, and in a pinch it’s one of the few shows that my husband, MIL, and I can all agree on. Looking forward to a new season of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE. And will definitely rent the second season of TRUE BLOOD on DVD to watch on CH’s laptop in the privacy of our bedroom, since TB isn’t the kind of show you watch w/ your MIL. I imagine I’ll get all caught up in WEEDS again (though is it me, or do they manage to put M-LP in less clothing for each subsequent ad campaign? I wonder what they’ll come up with for season six). And DR. WHO ain’t over yet, though I’m starting to get annoyed with the general spasticness of the new Doctor and his need to say the equivalent of  “I’m the em-effin Doctor” in like every episode. I’m beginning to fear that Steven Moffatt might be per-episode brilliant as opposed to over-arching season brilliant, but we’ll see. Also, I will be watching the second season of BEING HUMAN, and DROP DEAD DIVA will get a second nod, too. Other than that, it looks pretty dismal. An ad for SCOUNDRELS on ABC made me chuckle once, so I’ll probably throw that one a pity watch. But the tween version of me is very excited for the KIDS IN THE HALL mini-series on IFC....

So this Sunday while on vacay in San Diego we were forced to watch The Heartbreak Kid (starring Ben Stiller, directed by The Farrelly Brothers) due to an extreme dearth of real-time television options. Yes, I’m prone to hyperbole, but I really don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that this was the worst movie of The Oughts. Maybe the worst movie of all time. Okay, “all time” is actually exaggerating, but The Oughts totally is right. This movie was misogynistic, unlikeable, bad (bad-bad, not bad in a good trainwrecky way bad), and worst of all, not funny — I mean seriously not funny. But the scene that really stayed with me as particularly ridiculous is when the hotel manager asks the newlyweds (Stiller and his hot blond new wife) to take off their wedding rings and leave them in the hotel safe, so that they won’t lose them on the beach — thus setting off all kinds of (convenient) misunderstandings and (massively unfunny) hijinks. I’m still saying, “Yeah, right!” over that one. What newlywed would really take off their rings for the whole of their three-wek honeymoon for that flimsy of a reason? I certainly wouldn’t. But then the movie got me to wondering about why and when other marrieds take off their wedding rings. I take mine off at night to wash my face, then put it on again after I’ve showered the next morning. I do this, because I hate having rings on when my hands are wet, yet I don’t take off my ring when I wash my hands or when I swim. So go figure. And I never, ever leave the house without my ring, even if I haven’t taken my morning routine. But that’s my routine. What’s yours? Let...

So a few people (okay, my sister) have demanded pics from my trips to Scotland and France. Scotland was wet and cold, which means it must be beyond awesome, b/c I had an amazing time. Pics from left to right: 1) me enjoying a 20yo Highland Park Scotch in the converted library bar at one of the many castles we visited. 2) My lovely host Fiona explaining haggis over a plate of delicious homemade haggis. 3) Fiona’s son Michael and I in front of a tardis police box. And then here’s France. Pics from left to right. First Row: 1) Ran down Dominic Pignon from Amelie and everything Jeunet on my very first night in France. I had been there maybe three hours! 2) Mmm, macarons! Second Row: 3) My wonderful hosts, Gudrun from “Secret Life of an Expat” and her husband, M. 4) Shopping at the Chanel flagship store for a big thank you gift for my MIL. Gotta make babysitting Betty for a week worth her while, and I’m sure the super swanky experience will make it into a future novel. Third Row: 5) Three kinds of escargot. Mmm!  6) Finishing off a Moroccan meal with mini desserts and mint tea. 7) Gudrun’s 15 month neighbor made me miss Betty sooooo...

For the most part, I think getting older is the bomb. In my opinion, I’m happier, smarter, saner, and more good-looking than I’ve ever been. I still have a few leftover anxiety issues, but even those seem to be getting better with time. And if this is what my 30s are like, I can’t wait for my 40s, b/c they’re going to be DOPE. Except … The memory thing. I’ve never been the type to write things down, as I’ve long held the theory that if an idea is really good, then I’ll remember it. And that worked quite well for a while, but not so much anymore. I’ll look back through my Writing Pad journal, and I’ll find all sorts of fantastic ideas that I just don’t remember writing. And I can often remember quite clearly coming up with the perfect solution for a problematic plot point in the shower … but I don’t remember what it was. I can’t tell you how frustrating this is. The memory erosion has also worked its way into my regular life. I’ve come to accept this year, that if I don’t make a list before going away on trips, then something super-duper important will be left behind. For example, I forgot to bring my contacts to Hawaii — that was an expensive and time-consuming mistake. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to Target, only to discover when I got home that I had forgotten to buy something really important, because I had forgotten to put on the shopping list. So I’ve accepted that I need to start keeping lists of questions, ideas, shopping items, etc. But I still haven’t figured out how to remember things long enough to put them on the...

So I cleaned the kitchen yesterday … and the dining room … and our bedroom … and  the nursery. If you know me IRL, you probably just fell out of your seat, since my somewhat infamous philosophy on cleaning is this: You only need to clean when 1. Not doing so would cause a potential health hazard. 2. Not doing so would attract critters. 3. You need to find something. 4. Somebody is coming over. I consider doing so for any other reason than those listed above a form of procrastination, since there is always something better and more productive that I could be doing with my limited time. Yeah, I know, that’s probably the exact opposite of how most women feel, but really the point of all of this is to say, that I never, ever clean outside of these four reasons. Ever. But as it turns out, cleaning is the perfect activity when you have a crawling kid, and need to kill a few hours. It’s a fun way to talk and “play” with her, while feeling productive yourself. Each room gives both of you new stimuli, and it’s a great way to figure out what all needs to be childproofed in the rooms that your baby doesn’t visit as often. (CH, if you’re reading this, remind me to remind you about childproofing our bathroom cabinet). Anywho, Day 1 wasn’t so bad. We’ll see how tonight goes with the first non-related babysitter Betty’s had since last November. Fingers...

So I’m five chapters away from being done with the rough draft of the follow-up to 32 CANDLES, and I just found a fairly cheap ticket to Scotland, which will allow me to stopover in France on my way back to the States. And oh hey, I would be leaving at the end of this month. Since it’s just me, I’ve got places to stay in both Scotland and France, and I can write most of the trip off, since it’s for research. Exciting, right? Not so much, I can’t stop feeling guilty about leaving Betty and CH and my MIL for a whole week. The practical side of my brain says that I’ve got to work and that it would be silly not to layover in France for a few days, since my writing exchange partner lives there, and when will I get such an opportunity again? Also, of all the times to leave Betty, this is probably the best, since she’s in full routine, taking regular naps and going to sleep fairly easy; and while she’ll definitely notice that I’m gone, she won’t remember it in the long-run. But the guilty mom in me feels bad that I’ll be having fun while others attend to my baby, that I’ll be going to two countries that my husband would love to visit himself, that Betty will not be happy for a day or two before she gets used to my missing presence. And the feminist in me is just mad, because if I was a male writer had the resources I had, he’d probably be off without near this much fret. I’m reminded of this Malcolm Gladwell article about a write-at-home dad who made several trips to the Dominican Republican to research his...

So I’ve been having trouble sleeping for awhile now, due to a combination of anxiety and anticipation. I have no problem getting to sleep, but rare are the nights when I don’t wake up around 5AM in the morning with racing thoughts. But yesterday, I woke up at 2AM. And I wasn’t able to get back to sleep until 6AM. After being awakened at 8:30AM by a screaming baby, who had just busted her lip in an ill-fated cruise around the coffee table, I tiredly peck out this blogumn only to ask, Do you guys have any cures for middle of the night insomnia? I seriously need them. That’s...

Today, as I was taking my daily walk and I remembered something embarrassing that I said, and I got what I call an “Embarrassment Seizure.” That’s basically when a wave of embarrassment washes over you and it’s so big, that it actually makes you emit a wounded sound and/or stop in your tracks. In the case of this memory, I did both, and actually had to wait a few seconds for it to pass. And the sad thing was that this was something I said a couple of days ago. Not when I was twelve or when I was aflood in teenage hormones or when I was in my angsty 20s — TWO DAYS AGO. And as I continued on in my uphill trek to the library, I wondered two things: 1) When the eff will I stop saying things that come back to haunt me in embarrassment-seizure form? When I was twelve, I was sure I would have a handle on this by the time I was an adult. And now that I’m an adult I’m beginning to think that the only thing that will stop the embarrassment seizures is that I’ll probably be incapable of embarrassment when I’m senior citizen. 2) Do other people suffer embarrassment seizures? I get them about three or four times a month. Please tell me I’m not...

Yesterday I was in the Carter’s outlet in Pismo Beach, buying WAY to much clothing for one Betty Angela Hibbard. And while my husband and I were justifying the large purchase by saying we were providing her with an entire summer wardrobe as opposed to say being rampant consumerists, easily dazzled into handing over our credit cards by bright colors and sale signs, a woman with a baby boy came up to us and said, “I hear Carter’s is pretty true to size and Target runs small. What do you think?” This has been true in our experience, but I could barely answer her, because her baby, who was 6 months if he was a day, had a face that looked exactly like a small version of the grown-up he would one day be. Betty seems to change day-to-day. I have no idea what she will look like once she hits puberty, but looking as this kid was like looking at one of those parodies of baby comedies where they put a grown-up’s head on a child’s body. Completely freaky. Has this ever happened to you? The grown-up head-on-a-child’s-body-bit, not the getting-suckered-in-by-a-sale-bit. If you’re American, I already know that’s happened to you at least...

So I FINALLY watched Chris Rock’s documentary, Good Hair. I don’t have a lot to say that hasn’t already been said on the subject, but I will mention these few things: 1. Betty can do whatever she wants with her hair, but we’re not paying for it. 2. Non-black women with weaves are kind of where black women with weaves were in the 90s. That is, they’re not really talking about it. I also wonder if 10-20 years from now there will be a documentary about white women doing the exact same thing. 3. It was a nice primer in the politics of black hair, and I’m glad I watched it with my husband and MIL. Funnily enough, I had been waiting to watch it w/o them, but as we were watching it, it made me think, “Yeah, this is stuff you need to know, too.” We kept on having to pause to discuss certain aspects and what we would do in certain situations with Betty. It was a great discussion jump off for a multi-racial family. 4. I was shocked that Chris Rock’s wife, Malak, was nowhere to be seen. She is the mother of his children, and since this movie was “made for his daughters,” it seemed just really weird to exclude her, their main influence, from the conversation. 5. If one more black woman with a perm says that it’s “impossible” to get a good job with a natural, I’m going to go off. I wish people would stop trying to perpetuate this myth. My BFF has dreadlocks and works high up in government. I have another friend with a natural who works in investment banking. I’ve got another friend with a natural who’s a lawyer. I could go on and...

So I’ve recently made the switch from a glass of wine with after-dinner TV to a cup of tea. Wine tastes great and makes me happy, but it’s also 125 calories a glass and it encourages me to say yes to my MIL’s homemade gelato, even if I don’t have any calories left for the day. So new rule, I’ve started drinking a cuppa tea whenever I have a hankering for a glass of wine. I’ve also started drinking green tea to make sure that I’m both comforted and alert during my daily writing sessions. And for the most part, I’ve loved getting into the habit of tea. I’ve always wanted to be a tea person, and now I am. The only problem is that I’ve yet to find the perfect cup of night time tea. I’m perfectly happy with my caffeinated strawberry rooibos and pomegranate green teas before five pm, but so far I haven’t found something that is both fruit-infused and BOLD for the decaf hours. Chamomille’s so bland. Mint is just not minty enough. I found this sweet and spicy tea from Good Earth, but drinking it feels a bit like drinking a pale imitation of chai. Is there anything such as a BOLD-but-herbal tea? If so, I would love to hear your recommendations. I fear that if I don’t find a good tea soon, the bottles of wine that keep calling to me whenever I wander past them after 8pm just might win. Don’t let the wine win. Recommend a tea I can...

When I first read this article about how we should expect more Edwards and Bellas in the future b/c of the successful Twilight franchise, it got me to thinking about how right now the trend seems to be old-fashioned names — at least in my friend-group. In fact, while Betty and I were standing around with the mothers of Liam, Annabelle, and Delilah, I joked that if our kids fell into a time machine, they’d have no problem passing as natural-born citizens of the past. But more than that, this prediction got me to wondering if Twilight had staying power. I doubt that this book will ever make it into the classroom canon. The story while compelling isn’t exactly great literature. But is the story compelling enough to keep it in the cultural zeitgeist for decades to come? Can I expect Betty to be reading and re-reading her copies of this series in the 2020s? Will my grandchildren still be love it in the 2050s? My mom didn’t have teenage novels to read when she was a kid, while I thought the Sweet Valley High series would be popular forever. Today kids are in love with Twilight. What YA book'(s) got next? I firmly believe that the Harry Potter series has the staying power of Lord of the Rings. But does Twilight? I guess we’ll have to revisit this subject when Betty’s...

Hmm, well, this ought to be interesting. After getting started late this morning, I saw that our political blogger had decided to write about feminism, too. I haven’t read hers yet, but I’ve been meaning to say a few words about feminism, which I feel has been particularly under attack lately and often blamed for everything from general unhappiness among women to the current fiscal crisis to the demise of marriage. It seems like the MSM wants to paint a picture of the perpetually angry feminist, but wants us to believe that the happy feminist is just a myth. So last week, I decided to start representing. I’ve become “Ernessa the Happy Feminist” or “Ernessa the Practical Romantic” — more on the latter later — when I leave comments. And one of my rotating email signatures declares that I’m an “Author, Blogger, and Happy Feminist.” And just for the record, I don’t think I’m happy despite being a feminist, but because I am one. There are men and women who paved the way for me to make choices that I wouldn’t have been able to make years ago, and for that I am grateful. I feel that feminism galvanizes me into attending to my happiness in a way that women did not before it was constructed, and I also feel that feminism caused a few break-ups and kept me away from men I would not have been happy with in the long run.Thank you, Feminism! Do I think the current Feminist Movement has a few problems? Yes! I also have issues with the Civil Rights and Gay Marriage Equality movements, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not a Happy Feminist or a Happy Black Woman (we’ll get into that later, too) or a Fierce...

Oh guys, wifein’, motherin’, and visitin’-ailing-GIL-in-the-recovery-center-up-in-Santa-Maria ain’t easy, so last week’s book is once again late, but I promise to do better this week. Meanwhile, here are my thoughts on WENCH by Dolen Perkins-Valdez Why I Decided To Read It: About a month ago, Dawn Davis, my editor at HarperCollins/Amistad told me that she was really excited about this winter release, and then it seemed like I was hearing about it everywhere. So it made my must-read list. What’s It About: It’s a fictional story set at a real resort in pre-Civil War Ohio, where white slave owners used to take their black slave mistresses for summer vacay.  The book centers on one slave in particular named Lizzie (the optimistic one), and the three other slave women that she befriends at the resort: Mawu (the sassy one), Reenie (the serious one), and Sweet (the sweet one). It’s a bit like Slave and the City — except technically its set in the country. What Makes It Different: I have read many a slave story, but I have never read anything quite like this. The main character, a dark-skinned slave named Lizzie, who loves her master, and has two children waiting back home for her somehow reminded me of modern day women stuck in toxic relationships. It made the novel seem less removed from present day than any other novel I’ve ever read that was set in the this time period. What I Loved: First of all, the book is beautifully written. Also, it didn’t feel like a history lesson or a list of awful situations. I adored the complicated relationship between the women and the way Perkins-Valdez navigated race, class, love, fear, and motherhood. Basically motherhood in this book is both a saving grace (it...

My book for last week got read a few days late. Please forgive. But here are my thoughts on FLATLAND by Edwin A. Abbot. Why I Decided To Read It: A couple of weeks ago, this book was mentioned in passing on my favorite sitcom, Big Bang Theory, and I said, “What’s Flatland?” and my husband said, “You haven’t read FLATLAND???” Then he stomped over to our bookshelf and threw it down onto the coffee table. He didn’t say that he wouldn’t have married me if he had known I had yet to read this sci-fi classic, but it was implied by his tone of voice when he said, “You really want to read this.” What’s It About: It’s about one A. Square, a professor who lives among Circles (spiritual leaders and Statesmen), Hexagons/Pentagons (The Rich), Squares (Academics), and Triangles (Soldiers and the Working Class) in a two dimensional world. So imagine his surprise when a sphere from Spaceland pays him a visit. What Makes It Different: First of all it was written in 1884. So in reading it, you see a lot of old ideas [heavy allusion, metaphysics], but you get a feeling that everybody else who has written such things, read this first. I’ll bet you $2 Kurt Vonnegut read this before writing Slaughterhouse Five. What I Loved: This book blends science and religion together in a way that I can wholly swallow. And there was a certain thrill that I had while reading it, the feeling that oh yes, this is a dangerous book. Also, it’s a neat little primer for the concept of dimensions. Let me tell you, FLATLAND definitely has made my Top 20 Best Books of all time list, and I will make sure that my children and...

More interesting than this NYT article about people suffering horrible side-effects from skin lightening cream usage was my reaction to it. “Oh, you hate your dark skin so much that you would lighten your skin with shady creams?” I thought. “Well, then you deserve what you get.” Then I wondered where the compassion I drum up so easily for most other subjects had gone. What is it that makes me hate this particular brand of self-hating so much more than any other crime against self? I don’t feel this way about people who try kidney-failing weight loss drugs or Kanye West’s mother or even Faust. Why am I so hard-hearted about those who use skin-lighteners? Then I realize, that there but for the grace of self-acceptance go I. I can remember like it was yesterday, hating being dark-skinned and actually praying to God to wake up with lighter skin. I used to daydream about how much better my life would be if I had light skin. I still can’t put my finger on when I began to not just accept my dark skin, but also appreciate it, but I do remember striding into my college orientation, thinking that I was one of the baddest chycks around, b/c I was dark-skinned and that set me apart. And I remember even more clearly, thinking one day in high school that if somebody offered me the option of painlessly lightening my skin, I would turn them down. Today, there are a few things I would change about my appearance, but the color of my skin is definitely not one of them, and I don’t feel that I’ve suffered at all after the age of 18 for having dark skin. It enrages me that there are still both...

So Leap Year looked bad in the commercials, but I went to see it at the Mommy & Me movie at Americana yesterday and it was even worse than I expected it to be. All American women movie rom-com cliches, but this time exported to the Irish countryside. First of all the Amy Adams character is a successful Type-A control freak. I find it interesting that so many rom-coms revolve around successful women, who all seem to have the exact same personality. I also think it says something about our country that successful business women are often depicted as uptight and lovelorn, as opposed to awesome and bad-ass. So we start with that annoying cliche, then… Of course, she and Matthew Goode (seriously doing a 180 from his usual uptight rich boy roles by growing a scraggly beard which I liked) hate each other on first sight, b/c she’s all uptight and he’s all laidback and good-to-the-bone as he tries to keep his country pub/restaurant/hotel afloat. He basically spends the whole film putting her down, which I guess is supposed to be sexy, but really isn’t. Then we’re supposed to cheer for her to get together with him as opposed to the perfectly nice cardiologist that she’s spent four years with. The film sent a lot of weird messages 1) Passion equals argument — I didn’t agree. 2) If a guy doesn’t ask you to marry him after four years, then he’s somehow lacking. Now see, usually I would agree with this one, but the original couple had never talked about marriage. I wasn’t quite sure why she hadn’t brought it up before. Did she expect him to read her mind about what the timeline of their relationship would be? It seemed to me...

So last night, I got home and immediately slipped back into being a nerd. I took my contacts out of my dry eyes and thought about consulting with a doctor about Lasik again. Last time I was told that I was shackled to glasses and contacts for another year or so, b/c my corneas were too thin, but that was two years ago. Maybe they’ve gotten thicker. I threw my disposable contacts into the toilet. I probably won’t be wearing contacts again til April, b/c of the dry eye situation, but I tell people it’s because I like to wear my glasses in the winter and my contacts when it’s warm. I got a really cool pair of glasses right after Betty was born. They’re vintage, silver and very tame Elton John. Unfortunately, they sit a little too close to my face, so my sensitive skin protests everytime I wear them. I’ll have to go get them adjusted. Sooner than later if I want to wear them in my author photo. Should I wear them in my author photo? We’ll see. I wish I could still fit in the shirt that I wore in my old “nerdy” mood photo. I love it, and I’d totally rock it for my author photo, which I need to take right about now, but I’ve still got 40 pounds to go til I’m at that weight, so I guess I’ll wear something else. After I put on my glasses, I started applying creams. There’s the dermatitis cream I purposefully left behind, mistaking it’s working as a reason not to bring it, only to be burned by dry scalp issues towards the front of my hair line throughout most of the vacation. Then I put on the cream that...

Alas, so many traits came to mind for for the question of “What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?” that they’ve been battling it out. Over the weekend, when I tried wearing a girdle to my friend’s play, only to have it go excruciating on me by the second act,  I thought I might put down Vanity. Then it became Jealousy when I realized that I was the fattest woman in an audience of mostly actors. Then it became Procrastination when I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to get done on Monday. Then it became Obnoxiousness, when I became aware that I kept on interrupting with my own thoughts whenever the friend I was shopping was making a point or telling a story. Then it became Lack of Will Power, when I had a glass of wine and vegged out in front of the television last night as opposed to working on Fierce and Nerdy or my novel. Then it became Sloth when I woke up this morning and immediately started coming up with reasons why I couldn’t formally exercise for the fourth day in a row. Then it became Generally Horrible Friend, when I saw that my inbox which I was supposed to be emptying out every single day was now at 137 messages for my yahoo account alone. Then as I was writing this, I realized that I had been doing nothing but putting myself down for a few days now, and I thought, “Oh, well it’s time to stop that now. The point is you’re fine. You’re better than fine. You’re wonderful, Ernessa.” And then I added Optimistic Despite to the mental list of things that I most like about myself. So instead of answering this...

Of all the questions in the PQ, I think this one is the most liquid for me. For a very long time, my greatest fear was failing “to do anything big” before I died. The idea of a wasted life kept me up at night. Then I got married and my greatest fear became something catastrophic or fatal happening to be husband. I tell him to “Be Careful” whenever he answers the door or gets out of the car on a busy road in order to get the diaper bag out of the trunk. I’m pretty infamous amongst my group for failing to return calls, but if he’s learned to return mine w/n an hour, so as not to worry me. However, now, this all pales in comparison to the fear I carry around for my child. It’s constant and big to the point of cliche. So big, in fact that I think it has actually made me a more relaxed mother. I’m constantly reminding myself that I cannot allow my fear for Betty’s safety and well-being transform into restrictiveness. That helps no one. So I drive with her and I take her places and I don’t allow myself to fly into a panic every time she coughs. Lately I’ve begun to think that great fear is a gateway to zen. Accepting my fears and learning to function within them has been my greatest mental health achievement, and I’m stunned how much less anxious motherhood has made me. But that’s me. What’s your greatest fear, and how has it informed your...

A series of introspection based on Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire. Oh wow, today’s question is a doozy: What is your idea of perfect happiness? It’s also an interesting question, b/c much as children eventually stop believing in Santa Claus, I have stopped believing in perfect happiness. There is simply no such thing IMO, b/c happiness is just so vague and fluid. But I do believe in perfect moments ala BabySmiling’s Perfect Moment Mondays. And sometimes — usually when I’m laughing with family and/or friends — a burst of clarity comes over me, and I realize that this is indeed a perfect moment and that I will remember it forever. I often think that if I get Alzheimer’s or dementia when I’m older these will be the happy moments that remain, and that gives me comfort. But how about you? Do you believe in perfect happiness? And if so, what is your idea of perfect...

An interesting thing happened at church the other day. For the first time ever, I almost completely disagreed with a sermon. It started off with a moral-lesson story from the reverend about how she decided to treat herself to a concert in another city, because she “worked hard and deserved it.” After finding cheap airfare and arranging to stay with friends, the concert was canceled, which she took as a a sign that she had been sinfully overindulgent. I was stunned. 1) This seemed like a perfectly reasonable expense to me for a working mother and pastor who probably doesn’t do much for herself. And 2) standing in an aisle with other mothers who were trying to calm fussy babies while our partners listened to the sermon, I thought it was a dangerous message to send to moms who already overextend themselves in every aspect of their lives save for themselves. Just once, I would like to hear a sermon that urged mothers to take some time for themselves. Seriously, I’ve been to a lot of church services in my day, and I’ve never heard any aimed at overextended mothers, though I imagine that they’re a high percentage of most congregations. This message was then followed by a sermon on prioritizing your money, in which it was suggested with a straight face that we make giving offerings and/or tithing our first priority above budgeting and creating a rainy day fund. Another piece of dangerous advice in my opinion and so self-serving on the church’s part that it made it hard for me to listen to the rest of the very good points in the sermon about creating a budget (which we totally need to do). Having two week’s beforehand gone to another United Methodist...

So a few weeks ago someone broke into CH’s 80s-era diesel Mercedes, which runs on vegetable oil, and destroyed the door lock. When CH went in to get an estimate on how much it would cost to repair it, it was pretty hefty due to a series of reasons which I was told but promptly forgot and don’t care to be relearn b/c I find car talk boring (unless listening to “Car Talk” on NPR — that’s an awesome show!). So we started thinking about getting a new car for CH. This decision was sealed when CH drove my Ford Escape Hybrid the 10 days we were apart while Betty and I traveled to NYC, then to St. Louis to introduce her to my family. He fell to the siren call of having power locks, rear parking assist, a radio (his was stolen), and a navigation system. And when he came to join us in St. Louis, I was informed of his desire to get a new car almost as soon as he climbed into my sister’s Ford Escape — yes my sister and I pretty much have the same car, with the same exterior and interior colors. The only thing is that hers isn’t a hybrid. In fact, when we went to pick her up from the hairdresser there was a funny 10 minutes when CH was trying to start the car only to have the wheel lock on him and the security system go on. We couldn’t figure out why the car wouldn’t start and we tried everything. We were just about to call a tow truck when CH realized … he was using his key to my Ford Escape. But getting back to the car-buying present, when we got back to...

Because I like to rep my hood, a lot of you know that I bleed blue and grey — that is I’m a super-proud graduate of Smith College (or Smithie, as we like to call ourselves). I never really intended to go to an all-women’s college, but I was legacy at Mount Holyoke, thanks to an aunt on my father’s side who got in on full scholarship during the 70s, and I had promised that I would at least look at Holyoke on my college tour. MH wouldn’t put me up on a weekend. But a dear teacher who thought that I would like Smith, given my personality and then-just-budding feminist leanings found a sister of one of her SAT prep students, who was willing to host me during Family Weekend (though back then it was called “Parents Weekend”), which happened right around now every year. It was just one stop on my college tour and not a school I was seriously considering, but I got off the Peter Pan bus the morning after a Halloween party at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where I had been allowed to drink copious amounts of beer for the first time in my life. Duffle bag on shoulder, I walked up the slightly inclined State Street until I came upon Smith College in all of its black-gated, fall-leafed-up glory. And I fell in love. I can still remember thinking that I wanted to go to school on this campus, as I walked until I found and opening in the gate. And everything that happened that weekend seemed to confirm it. I asked my hostess how she liked going to an all-girls school and she answered that she loved going to an all-women’s college. I had always been...

Now here’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: How exactly am I going to spin being biracial to Betty? It’s interesting, because I grew up in the wake of the Black Pride movement, and even as formerly Afroed boomers were rushing to get perms and trading in their dashikis for business suits, they were encouraging my generation to hold our heads up high, and to take pride in where we come from, and you know, say it loud. So yes, I’m black and I’m proud. And CH, he’s … well he’s white. And Betty she’s biracial. Now, I’m not talking about picking one or the other. After talking with all of you about this a few months ago, I’ve decided to encourage Betty to embrace being both black and white, even if others are too small-minded to do so. It’ll be good practice for life, because people are always trying to tell You who You are, and what You are and are not capable of, and how You should be. But of course only you can do You, and really you’re the You expert, so you’ve got the last word on all about You. But I am wondering how one goes about spinning being biracial. I grew up feeling I was special, born of a storied people, who had overcome much. But how to instill both black pride and white pride? One is referenced often in a joyful way, and the other is the stuff of skinheads and racists. The simple answer to the question of Betty is that she is a testament to our love and an awesome example of two races coming together. But does this make her special? Should I tell her she is special for being biracial...

One of the reasons I’ve been avoiding talking about being in an interracial relationship is because to me it’s no big deal, which is maybe the most surprising thing about being in an interracial relationship. Though neither CH nor I are average, our courtship wasn’t outside of the ordinary. We met at a bar, then talked for a few moments at few different events, he asked me on a date, we fell in love, I moved in with him, and then he asked me to marry him in the privacy of our home after about a year of dating. Millions of people throughout history and across the world have this exact same courtship story. Only thing is I’m black and he’s white. However, I’ve noticed that the media and many black bloggers who both support and don’t support interracial relationships want to give my relationship a script that it simply does not have, so I wanted to spend the first day or our series dispelling three of those myths. 1. I don’t hate black men. I think a lot of people assume that if a black woman marries a white man that she must have been terribly hurt by a black man. For the record all of the black men I have dated have been lovely. A couple of them have also been on the marriage track. But none of them have been CH. I like CH better than any man of any color that I have ever dated. Period. 2. I didn’t settle because I was desperate for a husband. Now this is the myth that irritates me the most. Black men aren’t considered desperate for marriage when they marry white women. Asian women aren’t considered desperate for marriage when they marry white...

I haven’t really talked about this extensively on the blog or IRL since doing it, but here goes… Don’t drop dead of shock, old friends (especially those who know me mostly as a playwright), but I joined a church. No, not a church of writing, or a church of reason, or a church of awesome — though I like to believe that I belong to all of those churches. I joined a church-church. Yes, seriously. But Ernessa, my old friends ask, what about hat play you wrote about Joseph slapping Mary around because she wants to confess that Jesus isn’t really the son of God but a product of rape? Yeah, I wrote that. Or that play you wrote about God being a suicidal manic-depressive drag queen who’s only mad at the devil because they went through a really bad break-up? Yeah, I wrote that, too. Or that play you wrote about — Yes, yes, that one, too. But the main point is that I joined a church. I wouldn’t say I changed my mind, but I did make a decision. And when you live in a world of reason, I do believe that belief is a decision. I’ve never been an atheist — though I do understand the appeal and don’t believe that religious belief or ceremony are a prerequisite for living a moral life. I’ve never met an atheist who wasn’t an upstanding citizen, but awful Christians make the news like every other day. In some ways I do believe that there will always be a nagging voice of reason in the back of my head that wonders if belief isn’t an opiate or a self-imposed ball and chain to keep us from growing up too fast through science or our cowardly...

It’s funny, b/c when I had a full-time job and was exercising regularly, and was writing 32 CANDLES during my off hours, I thought I was busy. But as it turns out, even without the job and a relatively easy rewrite of 32 CANDLES and Fierce and Nerdy, I’m way busier now that I have a baby. I’ve mentioned before that I want to be in way better shape for any future pregnancies, since while my eggs will only be 31, if the IVF gods are kind, I’ll be 34 while carrying a second child and 36 while carrying the third. I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s going to take my body nine months to maybe never to get back down to my pre-pregnancy weight, but I haven’t come to peace with the fact that for the most part I’m not exercising. So starting today, I’m bringing back the 21-day-challenge. I want to formally exercise (going to the mall for an hour or picking up the house won’t count) for at least twenty minutes every day and since I can’t restrict my calories and nurse at the same time, I’ll settle for cutting unhealthy snacks all together — though when I write things like this, I am immediately inundated with tempting mental images of sitting in front of Grey’s Anatomy with gummi candies and coconut cake. Oh, the humanity! Betty and I are flying to New York on October 21st and after that we’ll spend the rest of the month in St. Louis. I don’t have to be at my old weight for the New York meetings or my homecoming, but the funny thing about exercise is that no matter what weight I’m at, I tend to feel better about life...

It all kind of started with my sister. “Now you really look like Mom,” she said, when we sat down for breakfast after I picked her up from the airport. “You mean because of the weight,” I said. “No, I mean because you now have a nurturing spirit that I have never seen on you before.” Hmm … well, as much as I love my friends who are nuturers (I mean really love them. The vast majority of my close friends didn’t have to spit out a kid to happen upon this kind of spirit), there was one realization that had been getting louder and louder for a few weeks ere my sister’s visit: Though I adore being a mommy, I do not want to look like a mommy. But her words sealed the deal. It was time for a makeover. I’ve made myself over quite a few times before this. My junior year of high school I started “dressing like a hippie” — my father’s words, not mine — in long peasant skirts, bellbottoms, with authentic wide-brimmed Fat Albert hats which I had stolen from my father’s collection. I didn’t get a lot of compliments at my high school, where kids valued hip-hop and designer labels above all. But I loved having “a look.” And soon after followed the Orange and Yellow winter wardrobe makeover during my college years, the Expat Fashionista makeover during my Japan years, the Bright Colors Overcast City makeover during my Pittsburgh years, and of course the Laidback Denim makeover that all new Angelenos are required to undergo, before they are truly considered residents of this fair city. Within that look, I have avoided hipsterism, but have embraced Rock and Roll nerd — which now that I think about...

So mostly I like our daughter Betty’s handle b/c she is named after my mother. But I also like it b/c I am hoping that like everyone else in my immediate family, she goes into math and/or science. My name is Ernessa, which is uncommon, b/c I’m named after my father and my mother felt “Ernestine” was just too ugly to bear, so she got creative. My sister’s name is Elizabeth. She’s sorta named after my mother, Betty. Now my father was an accountant and eventually became a teacher. My mother was an accountant. My sister is an engineer. And I’m an artist. See where I’m going with this? So much of the reason why Betty nor her hypothetical future siblings will be named creatively is because I would not wish a career in art on anyone. Also, my husband has an awesomely nerdy last name. So I think when you combine the elements of old-fashioned first name with nerdy last name, Betty will really have no choice but to pursue a mathematic and/or scientific career … and go to Smith … and marry one of the three boys that I that I have already hand-picked for her (working on future wife picks, too, just in case.) Other than that she’s free to live her life as she pleases — as long as it includes giving me grandchildren. The point is that I’m convinced that names really do matter. For example I was watching Dreamgirls last night, and I can tell you right now that Effie White’s daughter, Magic, didn’t not go on to become an astronaut. Girls named Magic White just don’t get asked to go into outer space. But do you think your name influenced your career and/or life path? Let us...

I don’t know about you, but I never quite grew out of thinking of the post-Labor-Day-Fall as a brand new school year. And that always makes me want to make a New School Year Resolution. Now I was a nerd, so after every summer I always vowed to be a new person once I hit school. Each Fall, I promised myself that this would be the year that I finally found my cool, dressed better, made more friends, attracted more (okay any) boys. Of course that never happened — nerd for life, yo. But as I got older, my New School Year Resolutions got more practical. My senior year of college I started vowing to read books as they were assigned as opposed to right before Finals week. In grad school, I vowed to finish everything I started, even if I didn’t think it would amount to much. During past autumns, I’ve recommitted to Derby Dolls, decided to take every invitation that I received (which led to meeting my husband), and started Fierce and Nerdy (bt-dubs our one-year anniversary was yesterday!) So this autumn I decided to go big or go home. I tried to think of a resolution so huge that I would feel like the queen of the world if I actually pulled it off. And I came up with this show-stopper: I will return every single personal email and Facebook message that I get within 24 hours. Now if you know me, you know that I’ve a spotty email reputation. Sometimes I get back to people in nano-seconds, but sometimes it takes me eons to get back to people — especially if an answer requires more than 2 sentences, logging in to Facebook, or any extra steps outside of hitting the...

So my best friend, MMKV from “Political Physics” cut her hair into a pretty fierce “lockhawk” last Friday. And, of course, this wasn’t a decision that came easily. We talked about it for hours, and from what I can tell she receive tons of counsel from her other friends as well. You see, when you’re young, changing your hairstyle is a must. I cut off all of my hair at the age of 17, and then changed it up in some sort of way every six months until the age of 21 when I got dreadlocks. And even after that I dyed it and styled it and curled it, so that it felt like a new hairstyle all the time. Then I hit my 30s. Suddenly I was okay with wearing my dreads strictly straight or in curls. No new styles, no more funky dye jobs. For almost two years straight I wore my hair like that. Then one day, I washed my hair and couldn’t retwist the new growth. Seriously that’s how it felt. Like I simply couldn’t possibly bear ever putting my hair into the same style again. At first I thought I was just being lazy, but then one week passed. Then two. And when I was facing down a third week straight of wearing hats and bandanas to cover the little afro of new growth that I was letting grow wild, I started looking into dread comb outs. As it turned out, my 12yo, waistlength dreads were way too long and old for a comb out. Also, I couldn’t find anyone in LA who specialized in them, so even if I cut them down to pick out size, I wouldn’t have any help. Still, I was loathe to let go...

Photo Credit: Sarah Perez One of my Facebook friends posted this CNN rundown of the 12 Most Annoying Types of Facebookers w/ the note, “You know who you are!” Well, I definitely know who I am. I’m an unabashed mix of the “The Let-Me-Tell-You-Everything-About-Your-Day Bore” and “The Self-Promoter” — most of my 9 to 5 posts involve promoting Fierce and Nerdy. And the rest are things like: “Reading a wonderful book by Attica Locke” and “Betty just head-butted me” and “Should I be embarrassed or proud that little Betty is big belcher?” and “Thinking of buying some running shoes. Any suggestions?” and “Trying to work up the inspiration to get out bed. Mind is willing. Body is all ‘I don’t think so.'” I have been de-friended for being not one but two annoying types of Facebooker, but I don’t care. I love FaN and I think my Facebook friends should know about the posts that go up here. I also love my Facebook friends who along with me post about every aspect of their day. I don’t find it boring, I find it interesting, and apparently so do a lot of people or Facebook wouldn’t be so popular. In the end, what’s annoying to one person is “the very reason I use Facebook” to another person, and I think complaining about these types when you have a perfectly useful de-friending option is probably just another way to feed the ever-hungry content dragon. Still it was a pretty funny rundown. See the list after the jump and let us know which kind of annoying Facebooker you are in the comments. In my opin, we’re all at least one of these annoying types of Facebookers — unless you’re one of those people who gets on Facebook,...

“Well, the nice thing about IVF is that your eggs will always be 31,” my OB said at my 6 week post-natal check-up during our discussion about family planning. The thing about our particular fertility problem is that, for whatever reason, there are many cases of it being reversed by the presence of children in the house. So though we hadn’t had to worry about birth control for quite awhile, it was now something that our doctor was telling us we should reconsider. And I’ve decided to follow his advice on that. Here’s the thing that happened to me on the IVF road to Betty. After our IVF retrieval turned out so well and produced several “good” fertilized eggs, I decided that it would unfair to have a child spontaneously when we had so many fertilized eggs waiting in the freezer. I’ve been told about couples that have decided to bring all of their embryos to term, b/c of religious or ethical reasons, and that’s not us. CH and I are definitely not looking to become a TLC show. But I do believe that I owe something to our remaining embryos. For me it’s either an IVF pregnancy our second and possibly third time around or it’s nothing at all. So birth control, until we’re ready to undergo the second embryo transfer, yes. But the other strange thing that happened to me on the IVF road was that after all the tears and disappointments and frustration, IVF became rather convenient. First of all, there’s that 31yo egg situation. Under the current plan, we would have child #2 when I am 33, and (still under financial consideration) child #3 when I’m 35 or 36 — m/b later or never if our money isn’t right. It’s...

Photo Credit: Denis Collete Now I’ll give just about any wine a go. And I often answer, “Surprise me” when bartenders ask me if I want a particular brand of scotch, whisky or bourbon. Well drinks? I ain’t hating! But there is one thing that I don’t truck with and that is bad beer. So imagine my abject horror when Obama chose Bud Lite for the now infamous “Beer Summit.” Listen I know POTUSes are supposed to sacrifice for country and all that — but Bud Lite??? Seriously, eww! Even in my most starving and (therefore hard-drinking) artist days, I did not abide Bud Lite. And furthermore, I did my civic duty by making fun of people who did. To their faces! So now I say, “Mr. President, hath ye no pride … or palate?” Are the hearts of middle America worth letting a terrible concoction that looks like piss and tastes like hops-flavored water pass your lips? Methinks not. I still don’t understand why President Obama didn’t choose a Sam Adams, since both the professor and the police officer came down from Boston to visit him. Sammie A ain’t great, but it will do in a pinch. I also would have accepted Pabst Blue Ribbon, but Bud Lite? No, no, no. When CH was not drinking with me in solidarity during my pregnancy, I told him he could drink Bud Lite since that wasn’t really beer and in my opin worst-tasting than O’Douls. He passed on that particular offer. Of course this all begs the question: if you were to have the now-proverbial “beer with the president,” what beer would you choose? When I’m drinking beer unaccompanied, I usually go with a Guinness, but since it’s summer and on the East Coast, I’d...

Photo Credit: chooyutshing So it occured to me the other day that I’m finally coming to terms w/ not being tall. When I was seven, I went to the doctor and he told my mother and me that based on my large hands and feet (9.5) and my parents’ height that I would probably grow to be at least 5’7. And things seemed to be going in that direction for quite awhile. I was never the tallest girl in my class. But I was taller than most of the other girls. So imagine my horror when I reached 5’3 at the age of 12, then stopped growing, while many of my female classmates w/ smaller hands, feet, and parents seemed to keep on going. My father was 6 feet tall. My sister made it to 5’6. Even my mother at 5’4 was taller than me. In a way I’ve always felt cheated out of being tall, or at least tallish. For five glorious years I walked, talked, and felt like a tall person, and then it turned out that I just … wasn’t. Though, that didn’t stop me from holding on to my tall-girl personality, I’ve just never had the physicality to match it. But lately, I’ve been very grateful to be short. I can’t reach the top shelf, but I can curl up just about anywhere, I can lead w/o being physically intimidating, and I think flying is super-comfortable. Also, lately I’ve been thinking that there’s something to always having that one thing that you really, really want, but will never, ever get. It keeps me striving for the things that I can get, if that makes any sense. Still, if someone offered me a pill that would make me grow to an...

This is a cross-post with Deep Into Sports So apparently, the officials at Wimbledon have admitted to taking looks into consideration when making court assignments at Wimbledon. This “sex sells” practice isn’t so surprising, as much that a group would actually admit to doing this in the 21st century. And while I agree with many of the points in this Jezebel article decrying the sexualizing of women sports, as far as tennis goes, I can’t agree that this is a feminist issue, b/c in my opinion, sex is also selling men’s tennis. I mean, c’mon, who from my generation doesn’t remember when Andre Agassi burst onto the pop culture radar in the early 90s with a commercial series for the Canon Rebel EOS camera? He rocked a mullet and wasn’t afraid to take his shirt off or wear neon pink shorts — hey, what was sexy in the 90s isn’t so much now, but trust me, Andre definitely moved Wimbledon tickets back in the day. Andre eventually lost all his mulletastic hair, got creakier, got married (twice!), stopped taking his shirt off and lo and behold, we needed a new Wimbledon sex peddlers stars. Now we’ve got Federer and Nadal. Both extremely talented players, and I’m sure their rarely-cited sex appeal didn’t attract any new eyes to Wimbledon. Their legions of female fans are a testament to their skill, not their looks, right? Oh, wait… So while I agree that sex perhaps shouldn’t be used to sell tennis. I don’t think this is a women-only phenomenon. In fact, if men were suddenly allowed to play shirtless at Wimbledon, I’d be interested to see how many of them would do so. After all, sex does sell, whether you’re a man or a woman. And those...

Photo Credit: Ebonezer I’ve been offered vicodin a couple of times but have never taken it for fear of becoming one of those soap opera plots where I’m suddenly burning through money, time, doctors and close relationships, trying to score just one more hit of sweet V for the “pain.” But now it looks like I’ll no longer have to resist the temptation of heavy painkillers, b/c a federal advisory panel is trying to get Percocet and Vicodin banned. Think they’ll succeed? My bet is that there are enough politcos with Vicodin addictions that won’t let this ban proposal get past the consideration...