I call this post to order

First order of business: Okay, Winter? You can go away any day now. Ehh-neeee day now.

Second order of business: Clarifications and corrections. Last October, I went out on the town with my best friend and her sweet, wonderful sisters. We had a grand old time, but that evening happened to be the one in which I spent far too long listening to someone at the bar drone on about his life without demonstrating one iota of reciprocal interest in my life. He was, in short, an All About Me. Unfortunately, I did not clarify WHO this particular All About Me was. So. These dear, sweet wonderful sisters (one of whom will be thanked by name in Driving Sideways for her insightful feedback on an early draft) thought my AllAboutMe post was … ALL ABOUT THEM.

“We thought she liked us!” they said, and I wanted to rush over and soothe them with hugs and chocolate martinis and buckets of reassurance. I wanted to weep, because they are the furthest thing from an AllAboutMe--they are AllAboutYOUs, thoughtful and empathetic and kind and funny in a warped way that I'm particularly fond of. “Do we really talk about ourselves all the time? We don’t, do we? We were about to adopt her and make her an honorary sister, but now she’s back in the foster kid pool!”

Make that the ugly red-headed stepchild foster kid pool.

My best friend told me these misunderstandings are bound to happen because Mercury is in retrograde until next Tuesday.

In other news, when a bell rings, a new angel has gotten her wings. Also, if the bottom of your right foot itches, you are going to take a trip.

Third order of business: Pimping. Pimping of books, to be more specific. And to really pin down exactly where I am on this issue, pimping of friends’ books. I was lucky enough to read Unpredictable months before it came out, and I must say: my dear friend Eileen Cook has created one of the sweetest, quirkiest, and loveable protagonists I’ve ever encountered between the pages. (Between the squires and knights, too. *echo, echo....* And we wonder why my stand-up career never took off.)

Anyway, this is her official ‘launch’ week over at The Debs, so each day will feature a post singing the praises for Unpredictable—and deservedly so, as it has just hit #24 on the Barnes and Noble trade paperback romance bestseller list! And our fellow Deb Jenny Gardiner's Sleeping with Ward Cleaver just hit #32 on the B & N mass market romance bestseller list!

I tell you, I am feeling the LOVE for these books. Especially since they have bumpy covers. You KNOW you want to feel those bumpy covers, you tactile lover of textures you…go on, treat yourself to some bumpy cover love—and prepare to laugh and wince along with the characters between the covers as they fall in and out of love, mess their lives up, and sort it all out in the end in a way that makes you want to email the authors to tell them that you love their work, and maybe you could be friends if they ever came to your town, maybe you could get together for coffee or dinner, but you’re not a stalker, no, you’re just a really, really big fan, and even though that word is derived from FANATIC, it truly doesn’t apply to you, you just love their work and do they like footrubs? No! Wait…that just slipped out, you’re just an average, everyday kind of person, a reader, a lover of books, and you ALWAYS carry binoculars and duct tape in your trunk, it in no way relates to how much you LOVE their books, and no, you had no idea that “Cockadoodie” was one of Annie Wilkes’s favorite expletives!

Anyway, in all seriousness, even if you only buy books featuring the faces of grouchy white political commentators, you should think about buying these books. And they're not even paying me to say this.

Well, not much.

Thank you, go in peace.