Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Wow, look at all the links!

Sometimes you have the kind of weekend where so much happens that it’s nearly impossible to condense into a bloggable, bite-sized nugget without it sounding like play-by-play commentary on ESPN. And then you think, Maybe I’ll just blog about how my husband nearly burned the house down today by accidentally nuking a shitty microwave burrito for ELEVEN MINUTES and the stink will never wash off you, not even after 35,495 showers in purified water and bleach, and the dog was sneezing and rubbing her nose all over the carpet and your furniture will now and forever smell like a charcoal sphincter and your nose hairs have petitioned the Body at Large for a change of address, they are so wounded.

But then, you have a change of heart. You should write about the weekend, because you had FUN. You want to capture the moment for posterity.

So Friday night I hung out with my fellow Deb, the all-around lovely, gracious, and amazing Gail Konop Baker. We attended the Wisconsin Book Festival to see T.C. Boyle read on Friday, and then all sorts of martini-fueled hijinks ensued, which Gail very eloquently wrote about here.

(Okay, I’m making it sound more exciting than it was. But to me? Curl-up-with-a-good-book-and-tea-on-a-Friday-night Girl? Who will use her prosaic powers only for beige-colored good? It was like being strapped to the most dangerous, condemned ride in the history of amusement parks, and the carnie just broke the lever off in “Neck-snapping whiplash” position. It rocked.)

Note to all drunken young people: YES! People have in fact told me I look exactly like Tina Fey. But, now listen—and this is important: I am not her, or I’d be in New York, rolling around on a bed of money, tossing off jokes to my entourage of laughing, sycophantic, bare-chested young men/errand boys as they scurry behind me from party to party. *sigh* I love her...

Saturday Gail and I got to see Alan Weisman’s talk on his book The World Without Us, and THEN (this is the exciting part) Gail and I got to have lunch with him! He was so truly cool and down-to-earth. And SMART. I was a bit goggle-eyed in his presence. I have only recently begun to actually email my favorite authors to tell them how much I adore their books, so having lunch with such a talented, amazing writer … (well, see the part above about the carnie and the broken lever).

And then today? I saw my first potential cover design for Driving Sideways. I can’t share it yet, because it may be tweaked here and there, but…I’m happy.

More to come...

19 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:10 PM

    I love Tina Fey. And you're talking to an LA denizen about smart people. Are you TRYING to kill me?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who gets excited for a night out!

    I'm part of the curl-up-with-a-good-book-and-tea-
    on-a-Friday-Night sisterhood.

    Sounds like a great time! I love Tina Fey too. She's so great in Mean Girls

    ReplyDelete
  3. As a fellow book nerd, that sounds like an amazing weekend! I am insanely jealous.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Who will use her prosaic powers only for beige-colored good?"

    HA!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Some days the only thing I look forward to is everyone else going to bed so I can curl up with a book. It is nice to get out now and then especially with a girlfriend. Glad you had such fun.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh, you are SO lucky. That weekend AND looking like Tina Fay? Sweet.

    ReplyDelete
  7. HELLOOOOO!?!??!?!?!?

    Where HAVE I BEEN?

    Driving Sideways?

    LOVE IT!!!!

    But, I will say I am going to sell my original first print of the Riding with Larry Resnick book mark I still have from the Spring Fling!

    ReplyDelete
  8. First off, I LOVE your blog. And I have just very recently started reading it, but I will probably buy your book if it's anything like what you write on here.

    Secondly, I've wanted to contact a few of my favorite writers too... but I always felt like they're too busy doing whatever fabulous things writers do to reply to fan mail. Good to know that many of them are not above meeting their fans.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I too get mistaken for looking like Tina Fey, but I don't take it so much as a compliment.

    Tell your husband everyone knows you don't nuke a burrito for more than 10 minutes. Duh.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The more I think about it, the more I love the title.

    It's like Sideways meets....um... Driving?

    ReplyDelete
  11. I get the Tina Fey thing too, especially when I'm wearing my "don't mess with me" glasses. Maybe AMEX will hire us for their next commercial? Or we could do cameos on her new show?

    The theme could be "Beige colored fun in Wisconsin..."

    ReplyDelete
  12. Want an exciting Friday night? Alphabetize your blog roll!

    ReplyDelete
  13. What an amazing life we can live vicariously through...
    (Even the bit about the burned stuff in the microwave... because that just shows you are like one of us, Ms. TIna Fey...)

    ReplyDelete
  14. I'm with Mom101 -- the title is terrific.

    The nasty nuked burrito -- not so much.

    ReplyDelete
  15. well, at least you don't get carnie wilson as i have in the past month.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi Jess, 11 seconds would have done the job...?

    I'm so glad you had a terrific weekend. You know, it's possible Alan might have been goggle-eyed over lunch with you, too :o) I would be...

    Your new book title is good - I think, Driving Sideways is more catchy than the other. Can't wait to see the cover!

    And I want to hear about LUNCH.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous6:52 PM

    Tina Fey's got nothing on you. Does she have a book getting ready for release? I think not. Does she make a lot of people laugh on a weekly basis, okay maybe, but so do you.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Just wanted to say hi. It's been a while. What's new?

    ReplyDelete
  19. Tell your husband he's not alone! I,too,have microwaved a buritto for over 10 minutes. I popped it in and wandered away, the only reason why it did not start a small fire was because my mum saw the black smoke coming out of the window! Needless to say the buritto was incinerated, the bowl melted, and the microwave forever smelling of eu de burned buritto. I still get ribbed about it years later. I maintain that the buritto box instruction writers make them tricky for kicks, and I was just the hapless fool who stumbled right into their trap.I'm thinking I should really be worried about my cooking skills if it doesn't cross my mind that microwaving a buritto for 17 minutes it bad...though in my defense, it was frozen!

    ReplyDelete