I bailed.

Yep, I’m a weenie. Either that, or acutely wise to the ways of my body, which clearly does not tolerate vegetables, particularly in a most vile liquid form…

I couldn’t last a wimp-ish 12 hours. My gag reflex was failing me. With each 3-hour “meal” of yet more veggie juice it became worse. I knew when I was attempting to ingest what was euphemistically dubbed “gazpacho” juice, which tasted more like swamp mud, I was in trouble. After attempting to infuse more fruit in an earlier batch to mask the inevitable verdancy of my juice, only to realize it only made the concoction more visually murky (even less appetizing to observe), and completely failed to enhance the flavor, I was downright giddy when we stumbled upon the gazpacho recipe. I could handle cold vegetable soup! The main ingredient was tomatoes! My fruity friend of the veggie world!

But ugh, the end result of my tomato, carrot, parsley (2 cups!!!), celery, pepper, and red onion juice surprise was that the joke was on me. As I attempted my first sip, my son standing just two feet from me, I paused, juice settling in my mouth like an unwelcome houseguest that won’t leave. I proactively plugged my nose in an unsuccessful attempt to mask the rank odor. I knew then and there if I didn’t employ an Oscar-worthy effort of mind over matter, I would soon spew the intestinal-discharge-colored liquid all over my wonderful child.

I had to keep it together for the sake of dignity (not to mention common courtesy). But I also knew that I could no longer pretend I’d get used to this. Rather I found vindication in admitting it was getting worse. Instead of drinking veggie juice as part of this collaborative family juice fast, I’d simply not eat rather than attempt any more adventuresome juice combos. After trying five different variations, I felt like I gave it the old college try.

By dinnertime, I was certain a cement truck had rumbled down my gullet and set up a construction project in my stomach, every now and then launching that rolling barrel belly just to remind me of my digestive misery, as if the lump of death piling up in there wasn’t enough of a constant reminder. Constipation has nothing on complete arrestation of forward motility that seemed to plague me. I can only imagine an H-bomb of toxic gases was building up in my stomach, with no solid food to propel whatever I was ingesting through the digestive process. One would have thought liquid-in equalled liquid-out. Clearly it’s a more complex math computation when it comes to veggie juice.

To make matters worse, I fear I can never drink a Bloody Mary the rest of my life, what with it’s V8-like ingredient list being too comparable to the near-spewn gazpacho.

By nightfall, the mere smell of juicing was sending me to another room, the aroma so reminiscent of the flavor I couldn’t bear to inhale it. But with an open floor plan in my house, escape was impossible. Our enthusiastically-commenced compost pile — now a trash can probably weighing about 50 pounds with the spoils of juicing — wafts its putrid contents throughout the kitchen at all hours. About that weighty compost pile: it sure is staggering what fiber weighs! No wonder I’m so heavy! No doubt it’s all that fiber I usually ingest…heh…

I admit to almost being a bit jealous of our dogs’ excitement toward dinner on Saturday night: their meal was probably far more delectable than was mine. You know things suck when dog food sounds good.

And that headache I’d been nursing since midday in the fast? By Saturday night it felt as if The Massey Corporation was fracking for natural gas in my brain.

I admit a flood of relief washed over me when I awoke in the middle of the night and realized I wasn’t doomed to face a 24/7 veggie juice fast the next day (or the subsequent 8 that would have followed). Lame of me, I know. But I was elated. While on the juice fast, everything I was ingesting was earthen, and I discovered how much a fan of earthen flavoring I am not. Beets in juice taste like dirt (which admittedly is at least better than the vomitrocious flavor they impart intact). Greens tasted like, well, pastures. And not in a good way. A lot of veggies simply tasted of compost. Not like I’ve ever eaten compost, but I’ve smelled it, and believe me there is a direct correlation. Veggie juice tastes as if you are munching your way through Tarzan’s jungle. Minus the munching action.

Of course now I’m left with the guilt of failing my daughter. And the disappointment of my family for not hanging in, not to mention the shame of not being able to tough it out for even a full 24 hours.

In deference to those who can tough it out around here, I’m left to sneak around the kitchen at mealtimes like a junky slinking around dark alleys and crack houses in search of the next fix. I gingerly open and close the microwave door so as to not betray my food betrayal, willing the inevitable timer beep to shut the ever living fuck up. I prep food quietly and in solitude. Last night I ate in the butlers pantry (since I have no butler, at least I’m making use of the space). I hang my head in shame (while actually cloaked in a blanket of sheer relief) as I prepare my morning cappuccino.

Concessions? I really wanted to whip up a Sunday morning omelet, and I actually craved the aroma of frying bacon yesterday, but in deference to my family’s sacrifices and my sheer, unadulterated loser status, I couldn’t reward myself with that breakfast prize. Maybe I’ll work my way through the fruit stockpile assembled for juicing — I have a large share of responsibility to the farm’s worth of veggies sitting in my garage; after all it was my idea to undertake this solidarity juice fast in the first place.

The bummer is I’m now finding that fruits I once loved are completely repulsive, instead only harkening back to the flavor of them combined with juiced kale. Blech.

Yeah, I feel like I let everyone down, to a certain extent. But like a friend said to me, “Juicing’s not for everyone.” Indeed, I can attest to that.

I’m reminded of an old Lays potato chip commercial “I tried, but I couldn’t do it”…

Perhaps had it been a potato chip diet I’d have had a fighting chance (with french onion dip, natch).

I will not quit I will not quit I will not quit…

This has become my mantra today, Day One of the Great Reboot, undertaken in solidarity with my daughter, who has had to begin a vegan juice fast for some stomach problems she’s been dealing with.

My daughter is already a vegetarian, so the idea of a straight-up veggie liquid diet ought not to be so foreign to her, though it is. She likes her veggies in a chewable state, thank you, and isn’t thrilled with this whole juicing mandate, which his why our family decided to support her cause by joining along.

Me? Well, I hate vegetables. I was weaned on Froot Loops and it was only downhill from there as far as my nutritional intake from the get-go. I grew up on a steady diet of Fluffernutter sandwiches and Twinkies and processed garbage that tasted not too shabby, if I do say so myself. Sure I ate fruit here and there. Usually in the summer when peaches and plums were in season. But veggies? No way, man.

It wasn’t until adulthood that I gradually incorporated a handful of vegetables into my annual diet repertoire. Yeah, you read that right: annual. Not like veggies are a daily part of my life anyhow. I’m exaggerating a bit — I do consume vegetables, but not often. With the ironic twist that I’m all about the Buy Local food movement, and buy local produce as much as possible. Mostly for my family.

I mean I’ll eat a salad if someone else makes it and it’s super gourmet. And contains things like nuts and dried fruit and goat cheese and artisanal croutons and homemade dressing. Now that’s my kinda salad. And I pick around all of the vegetables in it and mostly eat the add-ons. I’m fine with a veggie platter as long as it’s really fresh and it has a homemade ranch yogurt dip in which to drown said veggies. Throw in the occasional asparagus, maybe a mushroom or two (only if they’re fresh white button mushrooms), perhaps a sugar snap pea (the operative word there being sugar), and well, you’ve got the extent of vegetables I can tolerate. In fact most of the “vegetables” I find palatable are technically fruit, anyhow (tomatoes and peppers, for instance).

So you can imagine me trying to fathom undertaking a vegan juice fast. Might as well insert the true name: starvation diet. Alas, as explained by my daughter’s doctor, you have to keep your grehlin levels on an even keel, which means starvation isn’t an option, because it will defeat the whole idea of a juice fast. So avoiding vegetables as a means of this juice fast is not an option, darn it.

What, you may ask, is the idea behind a juice fast? Um, hell if I know. I’ll get back to you on that one. Okay, I lied. Basically the plan for your average Joe is to detox, get rid of all that crap and sludge that builds up in your system. Cleanse the liver and whatnot (note to self: no need to make matters worse with that liver by overconsuming delicious red wine on the eve of said juice fast. Of course my liver’s still trying to process that bad Advil I popped at 4 a.m…).

In addition, it can give your stomach a rest if you’re having trouble digesting solids. And by juicing you are piling on the nutritional value of plates full of vegetables, with every glass you drink, while enjoying the benefits of micronutrients or some such gobbledy gook I’ve been told. You’d be hard-pressed to ingest the normal way the amount of vegetables that you’ll consume in a juice fast. Check out the obscene volume of produce we had to purchase for four of us to fast — and this is just for the next several days.

I have a friend who undertook a juice fast last year and became downright evangelical about the benefits of juicing. She’s already one of those age-defying, gravity-defying women who you want to just assume has amazing genes, because most people her age look her age, yet she looks a good five years younger than me and she’s got a decade on me. She’s been a great source of encouragement and a wonderful resource for information. Shame she can’t also just drink my juices for me, since she loves them and I, well, I just don’t.

Which brings me to my first encounter with juicing today. Until now I have used one of those old-fashioned juice presses to squeeze delicious blood-orange juice, which I incorporate into my morning smoothie. That smoothie I thought was so healthy for me, what with mounds of berries and greek yogurt (all that protein!) and protein powder to boot. With fresh-squeezed blood orange juice. But evidently that’s nothing on plunking an orange, skin and all, into the juicer and consuming what comes out. Unfortunately mixed with all sorts of less-desirable greenery.

So breakfast today consisted of a bunch of kale (that’s about 14 leaves), a half head of romaine lettuce, a host of carrots (probably about 8), a cucumber, a lemon, and about 1/2-inch piece of ginger root. I will tell you never once in my life has kale (or any other healthy green, for that matter) passed my lips. I’ve probably eaten about 10 carrots in my whole life, and hated each bite. Cukes? I can deal with them in small quantities in salads. I mean they’re practically tasteless. I do love them in tzatsiki dip, if that counts (which is primarily simply a vehicle for the pita bread, which is what I really want). It was fun watching all those veggies transform into a bright green juice. It was not fun putting that juice to my mouth and knowing it had to go in. And down. While ensuring no return visit.

(Click here to see how that first glass went down)

I tried the first sip cold turkey. It was not delightful. I even put it in a martini glass to make it more festive. The thing is I couldn’t fool myself. It was green juice. I felt like I was on a goat diet. And I don’t mean a diet of eating goats but rather a diet of eating what goats eat. Actually goats probably have it better because they’ll eat the occasional shoe. Plugging my nose helped somewhat but there is always still that moment when you can’t run from the flavor a minute longer. And that’s the moment when you have to gulp and gulp fast, just get it down there, away from the taste buds, and have it start doing it’s thing.

As far as it’s thing? I’m not convinced of that yet.

“Your skin will look great!” Said the doctor (and others have corroborated this allegation).

“You’ll feel so energetic!” Says my friend. She is awfully energetic. I still chalk it up to genetics for her.

“You’ll lose weight!” Claims Joe What’s-His-Name, creator of the inspirational documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (more about that in a minute).

Right now I have a headache drilling through the center of my skull. My stomach is growling like an angry wildcat. I feel weak and woozy and just screamed at the dog for barking. I’m that surly that I can’t even let the poor dog do what a poor dog does. Ten days from now looks like eternity as I face the prospect of what the hell I can juice without dry heaving?

For me, food is such an integral part of daily life: the shopping, the preparation, the meal, the conversation, the communality that comes with it, the whole thing. So to have fueling one’s body being boiled down to its essence: i.e. stuffing a slew (and I do mean a slew) of veggies down the throat of a juicer and throwing back the end result as quickly as possibly just to get it over with, well, it sort of takes a bit of fun out of the day.

To make matters worse, already I find myself hand-washing dishes out the wazoo: bowls and cups and strainers and knives and cutting boards and all the receptacles that go into the production of a measly bucket of juice have to be re-used frequently all day long, especially when there are four of us juicing. My daughter who is away at college is grateful she’s off-the-hook for this one, happily ingesting dorm food (oxymoron, I know). “Well, looks like I’m not coming home till you’re done with this!” She said. You go right ahead and enjoy that dorm food. Which is going to start sound downright tasty before I know it. Grrrr.

My teeth are lonely and bored. They’re waiting for their chance to get to work. And they’re not gonna get it for a good long while. I wonder if bubble gum counts in a juice fast?

I swear to God my burps taste like meadows. My friend said, “Let’s hope you don’t leave behind meadow muffins!” I second that. I can’t fathom ingesting enough calories this way for that to be a worry.

My juicing daughter says she now has more empathy for her rabbit–though at least he gets to eat things whole!

So far I’ve done two rounds of juice — which translates into about a whopping 16 ounces and it’s nearing 2 o’clock. I tried to make the second juice more user-friendly (i.e. upped the ante, fruit-wise). You can’t get too aggressive with fruit, or you’ll end up with a sugar high and a sugar crash, and insulin levels off the charts. There’s clearly a fine line in introducing sugars (via fruits) to cut the edge off the green. I’ll be working on that. My second juice consisted of: a stick of pineapple, a blood orange, a handful of kale, a half head of romaine lettuce, 6 carrots, a cucumber, an inch of ginger (too much!), some watercress, some mint, and the kitchen sink (well, practically). The ratio is supposed to be 25% fruit to 75% veg. My daughter and I object and wish to reverse that, though clearly we don’t get a vote in the matter. That said, fruit in the juicer isn’t like fruit juice: once you throw it in there with the rind and all, well, it just doesn’t taste spectacular. Or maybe it’s the added kale juice that’s the killjoy.

The irony is my husband and my son, neither of whom needs a juice fast, are totally loving it. My daughter and I, the food lovers in the group, are muscling through, like it or not. For her, it’s not an option: she has to in order to maintain enough nutrition to not need medical intervention. For me, I have to, primarily to have her back while she’s suffering through this process. Though I admit I could definitely use the weight-loss that sure as hell better happen in great volumes from this thing. I’ve admittedly been in food hangover mode from a 3-month long food bender thanks to extensive traveling and celebrating a landmark birthday, with holidays to top it off.

For my third juice of the day (and I’m at half as much consumed as I’m supposed to be — I’ve only had 24 ounces and should be double that), I came a bit too close to puking it all back up. My daughter cackled at me.

She shouted up to my son, “Did you hear that?”

“The retching?” he asked.

Clearly sound travels. Glad we’re all getting a laugh at my expense.

“Think of barium, Mom,” my daughter said, cheering me on with glass #3.

This in reference to the hideous chalky liquid one has to ingest by the gallon when having an Upper GI done. Swallowing barium is an unpleasant experience, to say the least. And it ranks a close second to this juice fast so far.

Even the dogs are averse to this thing. When my daughter dipped her finger in and gave it to the dog to lick, she backed away with a shudder. So clearly even dog food is preferable to this stuff to some of us…

My evangelizing juicing friend had told about the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. About a very wealthy (and personable) Australian man who’d lived it up a bit much and was paying the price for it with a huge gut and autoimmune problems for which he was on permanent steroids. He decided to fly to the States and cross the country while on a 60-day juice fast, recording his experience while enlisting people along the way. When my daughters doctor also referred to it, I was more curious to watch it.

I’d contemplated joining her on her mandatory fast, though there was that niggling problem of hating veggies. It was kind of like I really want to run a marathon, but my bum knee won’t ever allow it. So I can’t control the marathon dilemma, but dammit, I could control the vegetable aversion. I think. I thought. I don’t know.

But once in on this thing (and with a vast stockpile of vegetables we have to plow through), I’m in on it for the long-haul. I just wish the long-haul could be a bit more pleasant….

In the big picture, I have to stay in it to provide moral support for my girl. That is what will force my hand, when the taste of this stuff gets me down.

A doctor on the documentary said “It’s about retraining your tastebuds.” But I’m wondering if they’ll simply become deadened to their misery. Hard to say. I’m seeking out recipes on their Reboot website, hoping I’ll hit upon something that is my jackpot juice. In the meantime, my face is really itchy. Could I be — horror of horrors — allergic to vegetables? Maybe it’s been my body’s way of avoiding them all these years, by making me hate them.

I’ll keep you posted.

 
Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

Slim to None

Anywhere But Here

Where the Heart Is

Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who’s Determined to Kill Me

Accidentally on Purpose (written as Erin Delany)

Compromising Positions (written as Erin Delany)

I’m Not the Biggest Bitch in this Relationship (I’m a contributor)

And these shorts:
Idol Worship: A Lost Week with the Weirdos and Wannabes at American Idol Auditions

The Gall of It All: And None of the Three F’s Rhymes with Duck

Naked Man On Main Street

find me on Facebook: fan page
 find me on twitter here
 find me on my website

Wellllll…I haven’t been around my blog in a good while…I’ve got plenty of excuses, but who wants to hear them? But I’m baaa-ck, with a giveaway!

But finally dragging me back over here to blog is one of my favorite shows, FINALLY coming back to the States, for all of us Anglophiles…Downtown Abbey returns Sunday night!

I’ve teamed up with Tracie Banister, whose book Blame it On the Fame I might have mentioned I really enjoyed, along with a host of other fun writers to celebrate and dish about Downton. To get ready for Sunday’s show, feel free to stop by everyone’s blogs and read their amusing answers to these Downton questions. Oh, and please join us for a virtual tea and crumpet-fest Sunday night on twitter, where we’ll partake in #DowntonGala to tweet/snark as we watch.

One lucky winner will receive a copy of a veddy Downton-esque novel, To Marry An English Lord, so please, join in the fun! {and p.s., to ratchet up your chances of winning, you can earn up to nine entries if you want to leave a comment on all nine of our blogs}.

(the giveaway will run until midnight on Thursday, January 10th and a winner will be announced on the 11th)

From the Gilded Age until 1914, more than 100 American heiresses invaded Britannia and swapped dollars for titles–just like Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, the first of the Downton Abbey characters Julian Fellowes was inspired to create after reading To Marry An English Lord. Filled with vivid personalities, gossipy anecdotes, grand houses, and a wealth of period details–plus photographs, illustrations, quotes, and the finer points of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette–To Marry An English Lord is social history at its liveliest and most accessible.

Here are our questions, and I’ll tell you MY answers. In the meantime, check out the other authors answers as well by linking to their sites.

Without further audieu, pip, pip, cheeri-o and all that rot!

1) You’re planning a dinner party for the Downton crew – who would be No. 1 on your invite list?

JG: Duh. Matthew. And NO ONE else but Matthew. And me. ‘Nuff said?

2) Whose closet will you raid before the party?

JG: Definitely not the Dowager Countess LOL. I’d have to go with Mary’s. And while I’m at it, can I steal her figure too?

3) Once your guests have arrived, who are you most likely to flirt with?

JG: Duh. Matthew. I wouldn’t even play hard to get. I’d be easy. You might say a downright Edwardian trollop!

4) Who will you likely smack before the dessert course?

JG: Welllll…I don’t want to smack Mary for taking Matthew, but I mean how else do I get rid of her? If not her, then definitely her venal sister Edith. Someone needs to set that chick right!

5) Let’s adjourn to the drawing room for some not-so-polite conversation: What’s your theory on Patrick Gordon aka The Bandaged Man? Impostor or legitimate Crawley?

JG: Totally an imposter. How dare he insinuate himself wrongfully into my clan?!

6) How about Bates? Did he do it? Could he do it? If not, who killed Vera?

JG: No way! I think Thomas, the conniving footman did it so he could set Bates up. He’s that sinister.

7) Favorite quip from the Dowager Countess?

JG: In deference to living in Charlottesville, which I’m surprised isn’t called Jeffersonville…Here’s one of many favorite exchanges of Violet:

Dowager Countess: Good heavens! What am I sitting on?

Matthew Crawley: A swivel…chair

Dowager Countess: Oh, another modern brainwave?
Matthew: Not very modern; they were invented by Thomas Jefferson.

Dowager Countess: Why does every day involve a fight with an American?

8) Favorite Downton spoof? 

JG: Hands-down, Jimmy Fallon’s is my favorite

 

9) Now you’ve done it! You’ve landed a guest spot on the show. What’s your storyline?

JG: I’m Matthews long-lost bride and mother of his children (this’ll cement the deal) who’s come to retrieve him to his rightful home with moi, naturally. I might have to jack up some of those princesses to get my wicked way.

10) What would you like to see happen in series three?

JG: Well…I saw a PBS teaser and they’re saying the Crawleys lose their fortune, which does not please me. I’m hoping my darling Matthew hasn’t lost his, at least. If they all have to start wearing dowdy second-hand clothes and serve meals to the servants, it won’t be quite the same show, will it?

 

Okay, then. Thus concludes my answers to the the Downton Abbey Q & A. Don’t forget to visit the other participating authors’ blogs to see what they’ve got in store!

And if you’d like to be considered to win the book, I need you to answer question #4: Who will you likely smack before the dessert course?

And I hope to e-see you at the #DowntonGala on Sunday night!

Now scurry off to visit these other authors’ blogs for more fun Downton questions and answers!

Sipping away at my Earl Gray, with pinky extended…

Jenny

 
Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

Slim to None

Anywhere But Here

Where the Heart Is

Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who’s Determined to Kill Me

Accidentally on Purpose (written as Erin Delany)

Compromising Positions (written as Erin Delany)

I’m Not the Biggest Bitch in this Relationship (I’m a contributor)

And these shorts:
Idol Worship: A Lost Week with the Weirdos and Wannabes at American Idol Auditions

The Gall of It All: And None of the Three F’s Rhymes with Duck

Naked Man On Main Street

find me on Facebook: fan page
 find me on twitter here
 find me on my website

Really, I did.

For years I would lament to my friends, family, agent, anyone who would listen to me about how annoyed I was with the vampire trend; like the subject matter of these novels, they simply would NOT die. Made me crazy that fabulous novels were being passed on by publishing houses while mountains of tripe were being published under the guise of a “literary” craze. Sure there were good vampire novels out there, but really? I’d bet the vast majority of them were mediocre drivel.

So I was meeting with my agent at a conference, bemoaning the finicky state of publishing, and jokingly mentioned an idea I had for a vampire novel, one I’d never write, because it was a ludicrous idea, so I figured it would be the thing publishing houses would go for (as opposed to the books I wanted to pitch but weren’t the ones pub houses were looking for).

“So you have this woman who is turned into a vampire by her cheating husband, who was turned into a vampire by someone he’d slept with,” I say with a laugh. “She then spends the rest of eternity trying to exact revenge on him for his betrayal. And it’ll be a funny book.”

I expected her to pat me on the knee and tell me to get back to writing a good book. But instead she said she liked the idea and thought it might have legs.

A week or so later, she tells me she had lunch with an editor who loved it and wanted to see pages. Pages of a book. One I hadn’t planned on and wasn’t planning on writing. So I got to work cranking out this non-novel of mine; I hunkered down and wrote and wrote and wrote. Got about 80 pages into it and slapped together a synopsis and sent it off to my agent, assuming that would be the last I’d heard of it.

Turns out the editor loved the partial I’d sent on, and she was taking it to ed board. Well, if you’ve been around the publishing business long enough you learn about ed board. It’s the gathering of insiders in a publishing house who either green light or kill your dream. Long gone are the days in which ed boards embraced risky books, or different books or anything but for what seems like something penned by the reality TV celebrity du jour, who doesn’t actually write the thing anyhow but goes on a huge national tour earning gobs of cash while flacking their lousy book that no one with a modicum of self respect ought to even purchase, let alone read. Okay, off my soap box.

Anyhow, after the economy tanked and the publishing industry lost its last ounce of true soul, it became damn near impossible to find consensus on a whole lot of books, particularly in women’s fiction, which at the time was a hard sell on a good day anyhow. So when my book went to ed board with an editor who loved it and really pushed for it, I still figured it had a minimal chance of getting the thumbs up. And sure enough, apparently the editor in chief or the publisher or someone all-powerful in this ed board determined that humor in these kinds of books either works or it doesn’t work and they weren’t going to chance it. Thus driving a stake in the heart of my vampire-novel-that-wouldn’t-be.

My agent shopped it around a little bit more, found another editor who apparently really liked it but then she quit the business a week later. By then the genre had finally, finally died. Just in time for me to try to break into it. (This tends to happen with me–give me a genre and I’ll kill it in a day flat; certainly worked well with chick lit).

Since then, my novel has been collecting dust in the far corners of my computer. I’ve entertained the idea of finishing it and publishing it myself, but really have just been too busy with other things to get around to it. So I figured I’d throw this up as my trunk novel and get your read on what you think of it. Should I keep this vampire hermetically sealed with garlic cloves and silver stakes in my laptop dead file that should be re-named “The Graveyard”? Or should I resurrect this monster and give it a new life on your e-reader of choice? You decide…

It all started innocently enough. Well, as innocently as these things can start, anyhow. And perhaps I wasn’t entirely guiltless, if only because I succumbed to that most human of conditions: lust.

Although it wasn’t the lust that killed my marriage. That came later. The demise of our union came courtesy of my execrable, lamentable and most deplorable husband, who decided to spring upon me an unexpected midlife crisis, in which he was overtaken by the entirely selfish urge to sow some wild oats. Or barley. Or grass seed, for all I know. For that matter I didn’t know much of anything. All I did know was that that fucker dumped me. High and dry. While I was doing a load of his whites.

“I’m not feeling fulfilled,” he’d said to me that day as I sorted the more stained clothes from the hamper into a separate pile.

“Fulfilled?” I asked, not even looking up as I un-mated yet another pair of his soggy gym socks (why he re-rolled dirty socks was always a mystery to me). I thought he was talking about a dearth of intellectual stimulation in his life. “Take a class or something.”

Jude toed the ground in front of him with his black-soled sensible accountant shoes, scuffing the freshly-polished hardwoods of my sparkling laundry room. I’ve always felt that a laundry room is a reflection of the rest of one’s life and my laundry room floor was clean enough to lick. Not that my life was particularly lickable, but you know what I mean.

I leaned over with a spray bottle of Murphy’s Oil Soap, always at the ready, and pumped two squirts at the offending marks, wiping them clean with a pair of his BVDs that were awaiting a bleaching.

“Are those my Calvin Kleins?” he asked, grabbing them from me, glaring at the brownish Murphy splotch right on the butt of the things. I suppose if that didn’t come out in the wash it could cause some embarrassment. But then again who would see them but me, anyhow?

“No worries. They’re going in the wash for a good soak, so I thought I’d just save myself having to clean a dirty rag.”

I suppose it should have been a red flag that the underwear in question was of the designer variety, and that he even knew that they were. Until a few months ago I could buy Jude’s tightie whities in bulk at Costco and he’d have only praised me for my thrift. But at age forty-five, his seeking out designer drawers should have been the first of my indicators that our relationship had gone awry.

“Look, Marina, I don’t appreciate you using my Calvin Kleins as a dishrag.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, there are no dishes here. Besides, I didn’t use your underwear for anything more than wiping up your scuff.” I pointed to the ground for emphasis.

Jude put his hands in his pockets and looked toward the doorway, sighing, his shoulders actually slumping as if I’d tossed a hefty sack of potatoes over each one.

“I need some space. Some time away. I’m not happy.”

I stopped in mid-sort and stared at him, trying to peer into what I then realized was quite a blank face, one masked with apathy.

“Just because I used your tight whites to wipe up some dirt off the floor?”

“They’re not tight whites. They’re boxer-briefs.”

Oh, my god. Boxer briefs. Twenty years of marriage, dissolved over a semantic disagreement about a pair of undies. I began to wring my hands, stammering to find the right words to come out. But what could I say? One minute I was just attending to my household obligations and the next I was being kicked to the curb.

“Look,” he said, his usually pleasant face contorted in such a way that he appeared as if he was torn between trying to apologize for being a dick and thrilled that he’d finally come out and said it — his inner demons plying his visage like a glob of silly putty. “I’m sorry. I tried to fight it. Really I did. I just need to work some things out.”

“Things? What sort of things?” I sobbed, spritzing some Windex on the surface of the washing machine to clean up the liquid Tide that had dribbled there. “Or is it some woman named ‘Thing’?”

He shook his head back and forth. “No, there is no thing. Well, there are things. But no Thing. Does that make sense?”

“Of course it makes no sense. You’re not making sense.”

Jude buried his face in his hands. “It’s bigger than me. You simply have to believe me when I say this. It’s out of my hands.”

With that, he turned and walked away, striding through the kitchen and out the garage door as if he was late for a doctor’s appointment, with only these parting words, “I’ll make sure you’re taken care of, you know. I don’t want you to think I’m a complete asshole.”

As if.

But it goes without saying that when you’ve been married for two decades and you have gratuitous sex on a somewhat regular basis for half your life and then wham!, you aren’t having any at all, well you might just overlook your better judgment when that green-eyed horntoad comes hop-hop-hopping along. I hadn’t gotten laid in several months; a girl can only take but so much deprivation.

So how was I to know it was going to be a huge mistake? And not just shit, I wish I’d bought those fabulous shoes on sale at Nordstrom’s last week huge, but oh crap, it’s the end of the world as I know it huge. As far as mistakes go, this was of the A-bomb variety.

Jude had come by to drop off a support check. It was the least he could do after everything. Bad enough he abandoned me and our lives, but to do so and leave me with no cash to pay the bills and the mortgage, well that would be entirely unseemly and Jude was nothing if not seemly when it came to finances. What more could you expect from a CPA?

I’d already poured myself a second glass of wine (having tossed one down my gullet in anticipation of his arrival) so I didn’t exactly notice Jude’s peculiarly cold stare and peaked countenance at first, the whites of his azure eyes a stippled with red. I thought maybe he was just tired, and I was plenty satisfied to see that his footloose lifestyle might not be agreeing with him so much. Hey, I know at this point in life carousing all night is not as easy as it once was.

I invited him to have a seat and I took my place to his right, expecting him to initiate conversation. I straightened a stack of magazines in front of me on the coffee table, then fanned them out, finally settling on a neat stack while awaiting a word from his pursed lips.

“What’s the matter  — cat got your tongue?” I finally asked him after a few long minutes of awkward silence. I know it seems weird that I’d even let the man into my house, all things considered, but I am a firm believer in trying to remain on speaking terms with one’s ex. Of course I never knew I’d have to practice what I preached in that regard, but now that I must is no time to drop one’s standards.

I grabbed another Waterford goblet (the pattern we’d registered for together at Bloomingdales all those many years ago) from the china closet to pour Jude a glass. I couldn’t have the man leaving me money without being somewhat polite toward him.

“Wine?” I asked.

His eyes lit up a little bit. “What do you have?”

“Red okay?”

He loosened his necktie, looking ravenous, as if he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in days and my offering was going to solve that problem pronto.

“I’ve been dying for something red,” he said.

Of course I didn’t even think twice about it. Sometimes I could kill for something red myself. We talked for a little bit about this and thats, nothing important. I asked if he was doing his laundry fine and he said he’d found a woman in his apartment building who had offered to do it for him. Figures. Wonder if she’s staining his Calvin Kleins.

“What’s she getting in return?” I asked as I squinted a bit, afraid I could guess at the answer. He merely raised his eyebrows, but I swear I saw a passing glimpse of pain alight on his face. But just as quickly it dissipated, and he leaned back against the sofa, stretching his arms across while crossing one leg over the other.

“You look good, Marina,” he said, nodding up and down at me. I guess he liked my new red highlights.

I half-laughed a sort of sad, hollow laugh.

“No, seriously. Good enough to eat.” He reached across and tucked a finger beneath the strap of my pink camisole Hello Kitty! pajama top. I guess I had been looking a little better lately; a marital break-up has a way of helping a girl slim down in no time.

“But not good enough to see you through your crisis of self I suppose,” I said looking down at the ground. I couldn’t help but remain conflicted about the man. Part of me hated him down to his DNA and wanted to reach into his throat and extract his internal organs and splay them in front of his face, just to exact a bit of revenge. But the other part of me couldn’t get over what we’d once had. Up until a month ago I had loved this man and no other. I’d trusted him.

“I told you, Marina, I’m just trying to get my head on straight,” he said, running the fingers of his free hand through his wavy, black hair as if whatever was on his mind was paining him. Yet he continued to twirl the strap of my top.

We sipped some wine and talked about Bittsy, our black cat, a bit. So far Jude hadn’t made a play for custody of Bittsy, which was good. Because I’d no sooner give her up than I’d die for the man.

Jude wiped his lips after finishing off his glass of wine. I took a final sip of mine and a trickle of wine missed my mouth, trailing down my chin to my neck. Just as I was about to dab it away, Jude, always the chivalrous man, came to the rescue.

“Here, let me,” he said, and I fully expected him to blot the drip with his thumb. Instead he leaned forward and dragged his tongue from the base of my neck to just beneath my chin, then licked his lips for emphasis. It sent chills up my spine. Unfortunately not bad chills, either.

There was something eerily sensual about Jude that night. Like how a male stripper can be both a turn on and a turn off at the same time. Fact is, I’d never done it with someone as seductive (or forbidden) as a male stripper before, and for some reason the notion of illicit sex (or at that point, any sex) sounded so appealing.

“What was that for?” I panted out the question as if I’d just sprinted the hundred-yard dash.

“You know you can be terribly irresistible, Marina.”

Jude licked his lips again in an almost wolfish manner. Now, throughout the course of our marriage, the sex was fine, but it was never downright erotic. There was never once a moment when I felt the kind of thrill you might get, say, if you rob a bank. Not that that would thrill me, mind you. Yet here was my ex-husband, the ink barely dry on the divorce decree, heating up my libido with the mere trace of his tongue across lips?

I was trying to figure out what to say next when Jude took matters into his own hands. He grabbed the bottle of Merlot from the coffee table, and poured a splash down the center of my neck, into my cleavage. A small part of me was mentally shrieking “Why! I never!”  — what with the guaranteed wine stain on my pajama top (and don’t even remind me of the one on my dupioni silk divan). But an ever bigger part of me was in hubba-hubba mode, because I hadn’t ever driven a man to do something like that.

Before I knew what was happening Jude was atop me, licking me like a starving schnauzer that’s been given a bone coated in peanut butter. His hands were under my top before I could even protest (and at that point how could I?) and before I could do much more but surrender both of us were clawing at each other, hurling clothes as far away as the kitchen. I should’ve demanded a condom —what if he’d been sleeping with the laundry lady?— but foolishly discounted it (we’d given up worrying about pregnancy years ago, to my dismay).

“Marina, you make me do strange things,” Jude said as he entered me with far more force than I ever recall, yet far more passion as well, grabbing, groping, pulling, and nipping as he was.

“If this is what you call strange then I’m all for making it more familiar,” I said as I searched for his mouth, which seemed to be in a frenzy trying to stake his claim all over my body.

“Oh, my God,” Jude groaned with one final thrust as his hungry mouth came down along the column of my neck.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” I screamed as I felt as if a staple gun had just punctured my throat. “What the fuck are you doing?”

For a moment all I could hear was panting, his and mine intermingled, but mine more with fear, his more with what seemed to be repletion. As Jude finally released his grip on my neck, I reached to feel what the branding iron pain was from, and my fingers came away smeared with blood.

I pushed Jude off of me and sat up, naked, trembling. ”What the hell is wrong with you? You hurt me!”

“Oh, shit.” He wiped away a trickle of blood from his lips then rolled off of me and groaned, first quietly, but then louder and louder until he was screaming. “Oh God! How could I have done that?”

“Done what?” He was really scaring me. First with that bite that came out of nowhere and then this, as if he’d unleashed the Hounds of Hell on me and now regretted it.

I looked closely at his face and saw that his pallor seemed to have perked up. He almost glowed with good health.

“Have you done something that will get you into trouble?” I ask, rubbing my neck, which hurt like a sonofabitch.

Jude stood up and began to pace, muttering inaudibles over and over again, dragging his fingers through his hair as if raking up a leaf-strewn yard.

“Marina, you’d better sit down.”

Considering I already was sitting down  — stark naked, I might add — that was hardly sage advice. I had this feeling come over me, a really bad feeling. Like when my mother broke the news to me that my father was dying of cancer. Somehow I must have sensed that whatever Jude was about to say was going to throw my world into upheaval.

Jude was pacing like a convict awaiting the executioner, and deliberately not making eye contact with me. Naked pacing ought to be considered an obvious sign of trouble ahead.

“Now what I’m about to say you’re not going to like,” he started out. And by phrasing things that way he assured himself that I’d be unhappy with it. By then I’d grabbed a dishtowel to blot the blood from that bizarre little love bite of his. Whatever was up with that I figured I’d never know.

“You’re giving me the creeps, Jude. Just get on with it.”

Jude sat on the coffee table, facing me, then stood up again, pacing some more, his dangly bits flapping around like a semaphore warning.

“Christ, Jude, the floor’s going to catch fire if you don’t stop making so much friction on it. Okay, okay, I get the hint. You regret having slept with me. I can deal with it. To tell you the truth I only did it because I was horny anyhow—”

“You only slept with me because you were horny?”

I gave him a “no duh” look, rolling my eyes.

“But—“ 

He began to knead his face with his hands. 

“When I said I had to leave you it wasn’t because I didn’t love you, Marina,” he said. “It was because something happened. Something horrible happened.” 

I just stared at him, not sure whether I should call 9-1-1 or push him out the door.

“I met a woman. And I’ll admit, she was beautiful. Blonde, stacked. She had an amazing ass.”

“Cut to the chase. I don’t need to hear about your infidelities at this point. We’re divorced, now, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Talk about tacky, fresh after hooking up with your ex, chatting about a booty call with another woman.

“No, but see, I didn’t want to be unfaithful. Sure, I didn’t mind looking at her. I mean she was a knockout. I’ll admit she got my blood stirring. God, that wasn’t well-phrased. Let’s take that back. So maybe she inspired some thoughts in me. But I loved — love — you, Marina.”

“Don’t talk about love with me, Jude. I’m the one who loved you and look what you did to that.”

“But that’s what I’m getting at. I had to leave you. And it’s because of this woman. I met her through work. She came in one day, without an appointment, said she wanted to meet with me. I told her to talk to DeeDee about setting up a time. She did, but in the meantime she followed me after work one day—she seemed so insistent about this. Claimed she needed an accountant for a business that had been in the family for many generations. Wanted to meet over drinks to discuss what she needed from me. I was going to tell her to just stick with her appointment but she begged me.”

“Since when did you succumb to a woman begging you?” Jude was not your average bird dog when it came to women. I can’t remember him even watching another gal in my presence.

He put his finger to his lips; I shut up and let him continue. “Finally I relented and told her we could meet for a drink. I met her at Q Bar, the one we went to for your birthday last year.”

“You took her to my birthday bar?”

“I didn’t take her — I was just meeting her there. I was a few minutes late and she was drumming her fingers on the bar, looking most impatient. Once we sat down to talk, I realized there was something about her, something eerily mesmerizing. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, like I had no control over myself. Sure I stared at her. Who can look at a Da Vinci without an appreciative eye?”

“Are you trying to piss me off?”

“I’m just saying. But I soon realized the more I tried to look away from her, the more she fixed her gaze on mine, pinning her focus on me so precisely it was like a laser beam being used to hone in on its target. I couldn’t do a thing about it. Before I knew what was happening, we were in an alley behind Chili’s and she had her hand on my—“ 

“I told you I don’t want to hear about your dalliances, Jude.” 

“But it’s relevant information,” he said. “Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, she had her hand on my crotch and even though I knew in my heart it was wrong, I couldn’t help myself, babe.” 

“Don’t babe me.” 

“Honestly I couldn’t help it. And then I was pushing up her skirt and she was tugging down my pants and somehow deep down in my gut I felt certain I was going to be having the best sex of my life when she opened her mouth wide, wide like a snake about to eat something ten times its size, and then she clamped down on my neck and I felt this pain, like someone had—”

“Shot a staple gun in your neck,” I said, my whole body beginning to tremble.

“I didn’t know what had happened at first,” Jude continued. “I looked over at this woman and she looked as if someone had just infused her with sunshine, she practically glowed all of a sudden. And then I—”

“Reached down and felt your neck—”

“And it was warm and wet—”

“And when you took your hand away—“

 ”There. Was—”

“Blood.”

I was shaking, the sort of 7.0-on-the-Richter scale tremors that happen when you’re coming out of anesthesia following surgery. I wanted a warm hospital blanket and a soothing nurse at that very moment to calm me, to tell me I was all right. For that matter I’d have been much happier to realize I’d emerged from mere surgery with a simple organ removed, rather than my entire future excised without having even signed a consent form.

“Before I could find anything more about this woman, she was gone. The only thing I had left with the slightest hint about her was a web address she’d given me:

“I thought it was her business website, so I looked it up, but there was nothing there. Nothing. Then when I typed in the word sanguine, I hit the jackpot. Well, jackpot in a bad way. I realized then what had happened.”

By that time I’d grabbed the wedding afghan that my Aunt Bertie had crocheted for me, her twelfth niece, and wrapped myself , mummy-like, with it. I didn’t particularly like the thing, but always felt so badly that poor Aunt Bertie died a spinster and I knew someone had to appreciate her handiwork, even if it did catch fingers and toes if you tried to sleep with it. And was the color of — oh, God — dried blood. 

“I still hadn’t fully embraced what had happened. I mean, yeah, I’ve watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But that was just television. I knew there was nothing like this in real life. Surely this was just some insane woman who had a really creepy fetish.”

I was feeling especially lightheaded, the way you feel after you’ve given blood. Only no one was nearby to hand me a cookie and a glass of orange juice. Oh, wait, I had given blood. Only not of my own volition. I still hadn’t the energy to say much of anything, so I sat back and listened, staring as if in a trance. 

“I knew I’d done everything wrong. Everything. I mean, I had sex with this stranger. Even though I was married to you. And that was bad enough. But then, but then…” he trailed off and just sort of stood there, still naked, his shrunken willy looking about as forlorn as I think he was. “After I came home, I tried to research more about this. But everything I read kept coming back to the same thing. And as the days progressed, I began to feel weaker, I knew what I needed, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I mean what was I going to do, go down to the local blood bank and ask to make a withdrawal?” 

At that my stomach began to lurch, like a very flat tire trying to progress down the road. Flop, flop, flop. I could feel the wine and the Moo Goo Gai Pan I’d eaten an hour earlier (along with about four Chips Ahoys and a box of Jujubes) all vying against one another to be the first back up the chute. 

I raced to the nearest receptacle, my kitchen recycling bin, and heaved repeatedly. For the record, the Jujubes won. 

I stood up, my ugly vermillion afghan draped across me like Dracula’s cape — oh, God, no — and stared at my husband. My ex-husband.

“You mean to tell me you’ve fucking turned me into a vampire?” For a whisper of a moment, the amount of time it takes a hummingbird to flap its wings, I stood frozen in place. But then I surged forward, pounding my fists against Jude in rapid-fire motion, as fast as Phil Collins with a set of drumsticks.

“YOU FUCKING TURNED ME INTO A VAMPIRE??? You bastard!” I screamed, pounding with what felt like a bizarrely superhuman strength, as if I’d suddenly been imbued with invincibility, but realizing that it wasn’t even eliciting a flinch from the man. Beast. Whatever he was. Or I now am. “Everything!,” I shrieked. “Everything! I had everything ahead of me!” 

Well, maybe not everything, but I could have if I’d have wanted it.

“And now, just-just-just look at me—” I pointed at my chest. “Look at these!” My droopy middle-aged breasts were slumped across my torso like a broken spirit. 

“I kept meaning to make an appointment with a plastic surgeon to discuss fixing these puppies! Couldn’t you have at least waited till I’d gotten around to doing that? Now I’m stuck with sagging tits for all of eternity?” 

“I’m sorry, Marina, I tried to resist,” he said, letting out a sigh that seemed to reached to the bottom of the earth. “But when I saw you looking all sexy like that, what could I do? You know that all men think with their dicks. Why would I be an exception? Besides, I love your breasts just the way they are.” He reached over in an attempt to tweak one but I swatted him away immediately. 

“Sexy like what? I was sitting here minding my own business in my Hello Kitty! pajamas! You’ve got a hell of a lot of explaining to do.” 

Jude grabbed a throw pillow and plunked down on my burgundy leather Queen Anne (which would surely stick to his sweaty flesh. Unless vampire flesh has a Teflon quality to it I don’t know about). He at least had the decency to cover himself up with the pillow. 

“So the more I read about my dilemma—“ 

“Dilemma? Are you mad? Dilemma is trying to figure out how you’re going to get to work on time when you’re stuck in rush hour traffic—“ 

“Okay, fine, the more I read about my predicament, the more I realized it came with all sorts of, well, let’s say contraindications to our staying together.” 

“Contraindications? Now we’re cribbing from the pharmacy warning labels?” 

“Would you let me continue? This is hard enough, in case you hadn’t noticed.” 

“You just sucked blood from my neck, Jude. Like some greedy two hundred pound mosquito. You’ve apparently just made me immortal, for fuck’s sake — nothing I ever wanted, by the way. So don’t look for much sympathy from this corner of the peanut gallery.” 

He gave a subtle nod in my direction, meager acknowledgment for his transgressions if you ask me. “Anyhow. The longer I went without sustenance, the more I craved it. At first I was able to stave off the yearnings. I was eating steaks — rare — every day at lunch. But I soon discovered that steak alone wasn’t going to do the job. I had to go on the prowl.” 

“The prowl? Like some middle-aged Mr. Goodbar?” 

Jude rolled his eyes at me. “I was trying to protect you, Marina.” 

“Clearly that worked.” I glared at him. “So this is when the fancy underpants came into play?”

“They’re not underpants.”

“Whatever. So this is when you started dressing to, what, kill?”

Jude flinched at that. “I wasn’t trying to kill anyone. But I didn’t know what to do. And really, I didn’t exactly kill them. I just changed their natural state.”

“I’ll say. Like going from a state of ecstasy to the state penitentiary. Only this prison’s for all eternity.” Was it for eternity? I was trying to probe the recesses of my memory for some notion about vampire lore. I dressed as Dracula for Halloween once or twice, but I didn’t bone up on Drac’s habits for the occasion.

“So did you have extended hook-ups with women? Or did you just nab ‘em in the elevator and give ‘em the old one-two?” I made a hook and an uppercut with my arms, then looked over and saw the truth carved like wrinkles into his face. “You slept with them and you killed them?”

“I couldn’t help it, Marina,” he said. “And I didn’t kill them. I just—“ 

“I know what you just—“ 

“I was trying to preserve us. Honestly, I did this for you.”

“For me!!!” For about one more millisecond I was rendered speechless but then the tidal wave of fury beckons forth from my mouth -— that very mouth that is now going to have to find a taste for blood. With me, a vegetarian. Jesus. I’ve always been pretty good at math, but this sort of calculation doesn’t add up no matter how many ways I try to work the equation. 

“First you have sex with a strange, beautiful woman in a dark alley. Then you start cruising for new meat like some sort of, of, of cannibal, doing god knows what to get your fix, and now you’ve destroyed me, destroyed my life.” I pace the room back and forth like some nervous father-to-be awaiting a cigar and an It’s a Boy! declaration. “Jesus! My mother warned me about men! But did I listen? No. I told her you weren’t like other men. But she told me one day I’d know better. This is one time I wish my mother wasn’t right.

“It’s all making sense now,” I said, trying to feign calm while teetering on the edge of manic rage, a veritable cattle stampede of anger. “First the damned underwear. Then the steaks! You gave up red meat for me years ago. But then you started sneaking behind my back eating steak again. I thought I smelled blood in your sweat at the gym, dammit. Steaks. Now my life is going to be about steaks and stakes. Jesus, fuck. And you knew about my blood aversion. It’s why I didn’t go to med school. I can barely attend the annual Red Cross gala. And I practically faint at the sight of blood! Goddammit Jude, how could you? You know I’m not a night owl! And now I have to avoid daylight?? How the hell am I going to get a suntan? You tell me that. Christ, I should’ve known ex-sex would lead to no good. This is bad. On a bad scale with zero being a paper cut and a hundred being my dog got hit by a train, this is a bazillion on that bad scale. A bazillion, Jude, do you hear me? You’ve just sentenced me to an even worse fate than you because a) you betrayed your wife when you fucked some strange woman behind the Chili’s — and god, we don’t even eat at Chilis! — so you deserve this, and b) this is going to really put a kink in my life. How the hell do you expect a vegetarian hemophobe to survive as a vampire? You tell me that? Am I supposed to mug a blood courier? Cause I’ll never do what you just did to get by.” 

Jude grabbed another nearby blanket and wrapped it around his waist. “First off, I don’t know where you get the idea that somehow you’ll be afraid of gay people—“ 

I poked him in his forehead with my forefinger, wishing I had the power to make an actual indentation, a keepsake for him to remember what an ass he is. “I said hemophobe, not homophobe.” 

“It was a joke, Marina. Remember, we always love to joke together?”

“Joke’s on you, too, cause this is no laughing matter. Why’d you go and kill me, Jude? Did you hate me that much?”

“I didn’t kill you — I made you immortal!” 

“Whoo-hoo! I get to be immortal. With these!” I screamed, pointing again at my ta-ta’s. 

“But don’t you get it? It’s not about that stuff. It’s bigger than all of that. It’s about Us, with a big U. Us reuniting. Back together again. Maybe on some subconscious level I did this on purpose, because I wanted — I needed — to share my forever with you. Just think, now we can be together for all eternity.” 

“Me? Together with you?” I shrieked yet again. It seems that shrieking might well be a hallmark of vampirism. “For all eternity? Are you out of your fucking mind? You just killed me, and now you want me to be yours? Put it in a goddamned valentine.” 

I got up, supercharged with my newfound and roiling anger heaving like a stomach with a bad case of food poisoning. I stormed across the living room and kitchen, collecting bits of my ex-husband’s clothing, confetti that started out celebratory but now only served as a stale reminder of what wasn’t. I opened the fireplace screen, pulled the flue handle down, and piled his pants, shirt and shoes atop the andirons. I pulled the matchbox off the mantle, upon which was the last remaining picture of me and Jude together, which I grabbed and threw in with the rest, and lit the pile on fire. Jude came rushing over. 

“Marina! You can’t do that!” 

“Oh I think you broke the bank on can’t do that’s. I most certainly can, and watch me.” I blocked his body as I let the conflagration erupt, the soles of his shoes smoldering longer than the flash-fire cotton of his shirt. 

“My clothes. I need my clothes—“ 

“My life. I needed my life, and you snatched that right out from under me.”

“Honey, why don’t you just sleep on this, maybe you’ll see things clearer in the morning.”

“This isn’t like breaking up with my first boyfriend. Nothing will become clear in this picture. Now. GET OUT.” I wiped my hands against each other, as if erasing him from my existence. I grabbed a fireplace poker and skewered him in the butt, pushing him toward the front door.

“But Marina, honey, I love you.”

“Out!” I began hitting him, hoping he’d finally take the hint. As we made it to the doorway, enacting the very reverse of that newlywed tradition of the groom carrying the bride across the threshold, a flash of white caught my eye, and I reached down to spear what I saw.

“Don’t forget these,” I said, passing Jude his beloved Calvin Kleins on the spear tip of my fireplace poker. “I think you’re gonna need them.”

 ### 

Please check out my books that have been published!

Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

Slim to None

Anywhere But Here

Where the Heart Is

 

Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who’s Determined to Kill Me

Accidentally on Purpose (written as Erin Delany)

Compromising Positions (written as Erin Delany)

I’m Not the Biggest Bitch in this Relationship (I’m a contributor)

And these shorts:

Idol Worship: A Lost Week with the Weirdos and Wannabes at American Idol Auditions

The Gall of It All: And None of the Three F’s Rhymes with Duck

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find me on my website

“Chick lit” is a term that started out as a catch-all phrase used to describe lighthearted, sort of “fluff”, dare I say even mindless, books about women, for women. While it originated as a clever term it quickly became a derogatory one, used with a sniff as if one needed to plug ones nose when referring to it. The literary crowd, women in particular, loved to take powerful swipes at writers of chick lit, contending that such writers aren’t actually writers at all, but rather purveyors of schlock meant to dumb down women even more (to which I would reply, “No, that’s any book by Snooki.”)

The first chick lit novel I stumbled upon years ago I think was Bridget Jones’ Diary, which was an original and hilarious take on the life of a going-nowhere-fast twenty-something in London. Much of what drove the popularity of Bridget Jones’ Diary was the voice of the author. And voice, frankly, is what made the genre work. And lack thereof contributed strongly in its rapid demise.

That and an industry bent on greedily capitalizing on the popularity by publishing gobs and gobs of inferior books pawned off as chick lit but really just poorly-written, boringly-told poseurs. These books all exploited the original concept, and turned it into generic drivel: single-girl-in-the-city-with-crap-job-loads-of-credit-card-debt-cad-of-a-boyfriend-who-invariably-dumps-and-humiliates-her-and-sage-gay-male-best-friend-who-dope-slaps-her-into-reality-and-enables-her-to-recognize-the-real-white-knight-on-the-horse-when-he-gallops-up-to-her-doorstep-and-saves-her.

Back when chick lit first surfaced, you couldn’t get much of it here in the States. I used to order books from Amazon.co.uk, which got pretty costly when transatlantic shipping was added into the mix. Not to mention the lengthy delivery times too forever. So I was pretty happy at first when American publishing houses started putting out chick lit, starting with the now-ubiquitous Jen Weiner, one of maybe three authors allowed by New York publishing houses to actually still publish books that could be accused of donning the mantle of chick lit; every other author who wrote anything that smacked even narrowly of chick lit fell victim to the fact that the industry glutted the market with crap, and so readers turned en masse away from the genre. And the industry response naturally was that “oh, then only three authors can write and sell these books!” Rather than realizing that had they screwed things up royally and that perhaps they could fix it by offering up actual books of substance within the genre. Instead, chick lit became Voldemort: “she who shall not be named” within the industry.

Now I know my attitude about this genre is likely to be viewed as subversive by industry insiders. And likely so by the three authors anointed as the only industry-approved standard bearers allowed to publish books with strong first person voices, a hallmark of chick lit back in the day. It was frustrating to a generation of authors that the drawbridge leading to the castle had been shut tight, the moat secured with guards (i.e. editors) prepared to dump vats of boiling oil on interlopers who would dare attempt to publish a book that might be accused of being a — horror of horrors! — chick lit novel. Instead many authors I knew eventually stopped writing women’s fiction altogether and instead turned toward young adult fiction, because that market was burgeoning and it seems even if plenty of YA books were lackluster at best (as had been the case with the chick lit mania), for some reason there was a ceaseless demand for more of the genre, regardless. Ah, I’ve often bemoaned the shoulda coulda woulda in that regard: had I been in touch with my inner teen angst, I, too, could’ve made a killing writing dystopian, vampire-drenched novels targeted at teens in perpetual need of further edginess in their reading material. But alas, I wasn’t.

The funny thing is I have long been drawn to first person narrative, and it had nothing to do with chick lit. My first exposure to first person likely came with JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, or maybe it was Gene Shepherds fabulous In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, or maybe it was in a few of James Joyce’s stories in Dubliners. I always find it ironic that the publishing industry shunned first person writing across the board with little exception for women writing books for women about women, but it seemed to have worked well for some of the masters of the 20th century. Go figure. Which brings me to that double standard regarding the chick lit genre. We like to call it the Dick Lit dilemma.

You see, authors like Nick Hornby have written stories about young adult slacker men frozen in their inability to grow as human beings (the male version of the crap-job-lousy-fill-in-the-blank-going-nowhere-fast-life, though usually with a woman at the helm to ultimately kick their butt and set them straight), really the male version of chick lit, and the attitude of the publishing industry toward men writing dick lit has been “bring it on.” While overtly shunning women authors writing pretty much anything shy of literary fiction or genre fiction such as romance, mystery or crime novels. Because, god forbid, the book might be perceived as chick lit, and don’t forget, no one buys chick lit unless written by one of three sanctioned authors. Naturally because they’re the only ones who actually succeeded in publishing chick lit books. But never mind that.

At first women authors initially had to rename whatever it was they were writing and trying to sell to New York houses as “women’s fiction,” but then the industry got sly to that tagline, and then it had to be even more cloaked in disguise. I picture a manuscript wearing a Groucho Marx nose and glasses in a lame attempt to sneak into the party.

Because there was a party there, just no one but three authors were invited to attend and swill the free-flowing expensive champagne. And those authors somehow found their audience again and again with their novels (natch, as they were the only ones whose books made it to the marketplace!). While everyone else had to make a rapid u-turn and start writing other types of books instead (or take a job working at Taco Bell), because the gatekeepers, i.e. the publishing industry, were standing around the moat with those vats of boiling oil. All the while, readers who thought that no one wrote chick lit anymore (but for those three authors) just continued to await any new release by the Chosen Three, buying a book or two a year, tops. And no doubt eventually walking away from chick lit to find authors in other genres because the pickings were so slim in chick lit-slash-women’s fiction-slash-anything written for women that wasn’t literary or didn’t refer to Jane Austen in the title (which is a guaranteed sale to New York). Tail wagging the dog, perhaps? Had the genre not been diluted down to a sewage pit in a Mumbai slum by the industry, mayhaps these readers could have had a much deeper selection of women’s fiction novels from which to draw for their chosen reading material.

But then one day Amazon came along, and changed all that. Because they made possible the impossible: they enabled authors to go directly to their readers. And provide books that readers have been interested in finding. But couldn’t. And guess what? To borrow from Sally Field’s somewhat embarrassing Academy Award acceptance speech of about a hundred years ago…authors learned “They like us! They really like us!” Turns out they thought we’d all stopped writing or something, when nothing could have been further from the truth. The beauty of the digital era in reading and the internet in general is the populist revolution has occurred: all of us have learned that the middle man, while sometimes providing a useful service, has often only served as a detriment.

Sure, now readers have to be perhaps even more vigilant because there is a lot more schlock available for sale in the book world than ever before. Every Tom, Dick and Harry (or should that be Tammy, Dana and Sally?) thinks they should publish a novel, and frankly, maybe some of them ought not quit their day jobs. But the great thing is a) the books are cheaper, and so maybe you lose out $2.99 on a lousy book, versus in the Gilded Age of publishing’s chick lit (which lasted for all of 6 months), you were out $10-$15 on a lousy book; b) you can read a sample for free to be sure you want to shell out the money, and 3) hey, back then most of what you bought that actually had filtered through those gatekeepers was ghastly bad anyhow — we could only go up from there!

So the moral to the story is this: yay. Writers have some great choices these days. And readers have some great choices, too. And all those books that were collecting dust in writers laptops are finally finding their audience, which is all good for everyone!

Thanks for indulging me in my vent. It’s always fun to moan and complain a bit. More fun to explain to you why you haven’t been able to find these books. And now you can! I hope you can check out some of the authors on this blog hop and maybe find a new favorite.

Here’s how the blog hop will work . . .

• Each of the 34 participating authors has written a special Chick Lit-centric piece and these posts will go live on Monday, May 14th.  At each blog hop stop, you will have the opportunity to enter to win a FREE Chick Lit e-book from that particular blog’s owner/author. All you have to do is leave a comment on the blog post, including your name and e-mail address, and you’re automatically entered to win.  If you visit each blog hop stop, that means you have the chance to win 34 different e-books!
• The blog hop will start at Natalie Aaron & Marla Schwartz and end at Jen Tucker.  You will find a list of all the stops on the blog hop at each auther’s blog.  Authors’ blogs will be listed in alphabetical order according to last name.
• In each of the author’s blog posts, there will be a “secret word.”  This word will be italicized, so it will be easy to find.  All you have to do is make note of this secret word at each blog hop stop.  Collect all 34 secret words and submit your list to CLABlogHop@aol.com before midnight on Sunday, May 20th and you will be entered into the Grand Prize Drawing!  The winner of this drawing will receive a$150 Sephora gift card!  $150 to spend on make-up, fragrance, bath and body goodies, skin care, and hair products!  How fun is that?  This gift card can be redeemed online, or at any Sephora store in the US.
• Winners of each of the participating author’s e-books, as well as the Grand Prize winner of the $150 Sephora gift card will be announced on Monday, May 21st.
• Contests are open to citizens of the United States only.We hope you’ll join us for this exciting event!  Don’t forget to tell all of your Chick Lit-loving friends!  The more, the merrier!
• To be eligible to win a copy of Slim to None on my blog, please be sure to leave a comment on my blog, and I will choose from those entrants
• here’s the link to the authors:

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(ps: apologies for my book covers being cut off. My blog has just upgraded and with it totally messed with how to upload images and I have no idea how to fix it so it cuts off my covers…Good thing I’m a writer and not a computer programmer…)

(I wish I’d made this cute cake but alas, I didn’t. found the pic on the internet)

My husband joined AARP. I told him it was a mistake, if for no other reason than a psychological one. Who wants to be lumped in the oldster crowd the minute you crest 50?

(I had to put this picture in–I googled “old man with walker” to pull up a picture of an old man with a walker and THIS is what it shows me?! So I’ll say this is me defying the old man with walker mentality

Now we get brochures in the mail for nursing homes, which is premature, for one thing. Plus, with this lame economy, don’t they know we’ll be sleeping on park benches by the time we actually need a nursing home? Although by then I envision gulag-style developments where all the broke, aged baby boomers who lost their retirement savings in the real estate bubble will be relegated to wither away during their twilight years, tooling around in half-broken wheelchairs over cracked failing pavement. How’s that for golden years?! If we’re lucky we’ll be housed in all of the default-loan houses that can’t sell because no one can afford to buy them because no one can get jobs because corporations are too busy stockpiling record earnings for the top 1% of their staff to bother hiring anyone else and creating jobs so people can afford to, um, live. Sorry, I got a little off-topic. Back to early aging (although I call dibs on a house in Miami if it comes to my prediction).
My girlfriend, now in her early 50′s, joined the senior’s tennis league because she can happily whip the butts of the much older gals. She thrilled to win and win handily this way, and she’s got a valid point there. So maybe acceding to age isn’t always a mistake–it can be gratifying.

(my friend would not appreciate this picture and what it suggests about older tennis players losing their, um, charms)

I enjoyed a brief phase as a tennis player (not a good one, just serviceable). I’d always wanted to flit about in a cute tennis skirt and the only way you can really get away with that is if you play the sport. So I did, until I kept getting injured and had to stop. So I had to give up my cute skirts. Now they have exercise skirts which I’d so love to don but as a keen observer of what does and does not work in gym wear, I recognize that a) you have to have a rockin’ body to wear exercise skirts and b) you can’t be my age and get away with wearing them unless you’ve run at least ten marathons in the past five years–it’s like a golden ticket pass.
Wise to the cuteness factor of tennis skirts, for years I tried to encourage my girls to play tennis but they would have nothing to do with it. “Think of the cute outfits!” I told them, but it fell on deaf ears. And then my youngest finally got her chance for adorable sportswear last year when she was recruited to pinch-hit for her varsity field hockey team when they needed a goalie. A long-time soccer goalie, she’d never played field hockey before, and I’d never seen a match before, so I naively thought, “At last, she’s going to have a cute uniform, those adorable little plaid skirts! Lucky her!” Imagine my surprise when I showed up at the game to see my daughter in goal looking like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, garbed as she was in boxy padding that essentially hid every hint of her existence. I was happy for her from a safety standpoint, but felt badly she got the short end of the uniform stick.

I saw an exercise skirt today that I really want (but will not succumb to, knowing that it’s the female equivalent of the very large guy on the show Modern Family wearing tight bicycle shorts–a big no no for all involved. My girls forever warn me not to look like that at the gym and I generally take heed. But this girl had on a skirt with back pleats that swished when she walked and darn it, I want to swish when I walk but then I realized I’m not a swisher, never have been, and nearing 50, it’s past the point at which I’m even allowed to swish. You have to recognize your limitations, I always say. But it also doesn’t mean I have to yield to my age and join the AARP, which I won’t, thank you. At least not till I can reap the benefits of the senior citizen discounts, maybe.
Last week my husband got a special gift from AARP. A leather-look vinyl man-purse. Just the thing he needed to complete the loser picture he signed up for. As if it’s not bad enough, it’s emblazoned with the AARP logo, just to seal the deal. I suppose at least it wasn’t a man-skirt.

I dunno, maybe I’m being unfair with this whole AARP thing. Perhaps it’s useful to get the inside scoop on the latest in retirement villages. Even if it is cruel, dangling fancy retirement homes in front of him, considering at this rate we’ll never even be able to sell our house, let alone retire. We might even have to turn it into a retirement apartment or something, at the rate the economy is going.
Jenny Gardiner is the author of the award-winning novel Sleeping with Ward Cleaver, as well as the novels Slim to None and Over the Falls, the novel House of Cards, and the humorous memoir Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who’s Determined to Kill Me. She also has a story in Wade Rouse’s upcoming humorous dog anthology I’m Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship (NAL/Sept ’11), a fundraiser for the Humane Society of the US and selected animal charities.

Sometimes I’m startled that I am as old as I am. Because despite the maturity that comes with age, I can’t help but occasionally revert back to juvenile middle-school behavior that I’d thought I’d outgrown.

In my attempt to be mature and worldly, I enrolled a few years ago in my first yoga class. I needed to learn how to chill out a little bit, and figured being in touch with my inner Zen would help to center my balance, achieve yin-yang, and maybe I’d get a little feng-shui thrown in for good measure.

It was great. First class, I learned my sun salutation, stretched limbs so tight from lack of use that they deserved to snap like tree branches. My instructor, a former type-A New Yorker-turned-Yogaville devotee whose chosen Yoga name, Suraya, more closely resembled that of an Indian guru than someone from the Bronx, was very serene. His soothing voice tranquilized even the tensest of class members: me. In his calm coaxing tone, he encouraged us to rid our minds of any pollutants, to focus on our center, and be at peace within. Fine, I was on the same page at this point. I’d really started feeling that I could change, become a woman unfettered by the stresses of life.

The final fifteen minutes of class were devoted to complete relaxation. Cool, I thought. That is right up my Type-A alley. We all lay on the floor, eyes closed, focused on our own inner universe. The mesmerizing music on the boom box washed over me as Suraya talked us through letting go of whatever tensions remained. He began with the toes, worked his way up ever so gradually to calves, knees, thighs.

And then came the clincher.

“Relax your anal sphincter,” he said, as serious as an executioner, not even remotely cracking a smile.

What? That’s impossible. First of all, It defies the laws of nature. And secondly, even if we could, just think how nasty that would be! We can’t do that, I thought. Like a naughty kindergartener whose head is supposed to be face down on the desk during naptime, I snuck glances all around me. No one but me thought that was the funniest line ever uttered.

I could feel my laughter erupting, and from my unrelaxed belly it rose. I tried desperately to suppress it, but it was of no use. I cackled so loudly that the entire class opened their once-relaxed eyelids and glared directly at me. Even Suraya looked a bit uptight.

As the class drew to a close, the peaceful silence destroyed, I slunk from the room, somewhat embarrassed at my level of immaturity. But I actually felt more relaxed, having belted out a good chuckle.

Yes, I realize I have gone from middle school to middle age, but isn’t it nice to know that you don’t always have to totally grow up?

I read recently about a new yoga craze: hot nude yoga. Please, dear Lord, let’s hope Suraya’s not teaching that one.

I know I’ve been pretty slack about keeping my blog updated. Excuses, excuses, I know, but really, life’s been crazy busy.

So rather than toiling away at a new post today, instead I’m going to just throw some names out there. Writers I enjoy. This is a random off-the-top-of-my-head selection, so if I’ve forgotten someone, I’m sorry! It’s early and I’ve been sick all week so have slept like a snake with one eye open. Bear with me.

So I’ll start out with my friend Kim Stagliano, whose memoir, ALL I CAN HANDLE: I’M NOT MOTHER THERESA: A LIFE RAISING THREE DAUGHTERS WITH AUTISM comes out this fall. I’ve known Kim for several years now and am so delighted that her amazing story is soon to appear on the pages of a no-doubt bestseller (it”ll be out this fall). She is one of the smartest, funniest women I know and I have admired for years how she handles with such grace, aplomb and humor what would drag many other people under. You’ll just have to read her memoir (or “Kimoir” as she likes to call it) to understand what I mean, but truly, she is about as close to a diminutive Albanian (with Indian citizenship) nun as you’re gonna get without having to have taken vows of chastity (she has, after all, had three children).

I can’t wait to read the entire book and I hope that you’ll run out and put it on your pre-order list right now.

Another author I’ve been thinking about is Lisa Dale, who is so delightful and whose writing is evocative and thought-provoking. I’ve been promising Lisa all summer that I would do a book giveaway with one of her books and I really have meant to but you know my excuses about being overwhelmed  (see above, crazy overloaded schedules). Lisa—if you’re reading this, let me know and I’ll add it in here!!! Lisa is a lovely writer and a lovely person and just a very thoughtful one as well. She is on the fast track to becoming a big name in women’s fiction so do check her out.

Okay, so some other writers I’d like to mention. I often cite Danielle Younge-Ullman when I discuss the inequities with the book business. Danielle is one of the most talented writers I know. Her book Falling Under is one of the most kick-ass books I read the year it came out (the same year my novel Sleeping with Ward Cleaver was released). In fact it’s about the kick-assiest of kick-ass books. But as you will note when you link to it on Amazon, it is no longer available from the publisher, because it was left to wither on the vine. Which is a shame, because the book is awesome. So while Danielle won’t even see a penny for the sale of the remaining used books, you should buy them anyhow, because you’ll be amazed at her writing and the passion therein.

Eileen Cook is another friend whose writing I love. She’s funny, smart, clever. While she started out writing humorous women’s fiction, that genre is for some bizarre reason not in favor with the reading public, and so she took a turn to YA and mid-grade fiction, and is starting to burn up the charts there. I LOVE the cover for her YA novel Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood. I love that Eileen didn’t let that little detail about no one buying humorous women’s fiction get in the way of her forging onward in her writing career, and instead her little flower is pushing through the sidewalk cracks in another neighborhood. Check her out.

JoAnn Ross is a lovely writer as well. Despite being a hugely successful New York Times bestseller (The Homecoming is kicking butt on the Times list), she is always willing to take the time to talk with readers and other writers. She’s toiled in this business for many years and has seen a lot of ups and downs and many, many changes. Talking with JoAnn is often simply reassuring, which is a good thing in this business.

Malena Lott, well, she’s another of my writer homegirls. I love her savvy business sense when it comes to marketing and publicity, and am charmed by her writing style. She needs to have had about ten books out by now, but that women’s fiction market is prickly at best, so she treads water while deciding what her next course of action is, but whatever it is, you should check her out. I really enjoyed Dating DaVinci and think you will too. I have a feeling she’ll be doing what many authors are doing now–putting her next book up digitally, as she has a fan base anxiously awaiting her next novel.Throwing a few other names into the pot: Jamie Ford—adore him, his writing, and absolutely love that he hasn’t let success go to his head. He’s a talent to be reckoned with. Beth Hoffman, ditto. She’s sweet, clever, smart, fabulously talented writer. Check her out. Sarah Pekkanen—she’s hilarious and charming and much fun, love her writing. Eve Brown-Waite—her fish-out-of-water memoir First Comes Love Then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life about contending with life in a sometimes confounding difficult African nation is fabulous and hilarious. Ad Hudler—such fun, terrific writer, very truthful in his writing, which I love. Hilarious. Oh, in the better-late-than-never category, I just got around to reading Mary Kay Andrew’s Savannah Blues. Charming, fun, intelligent. She has a keen reporters eye for details that I appreciated, and she is great fun to hang out with (and has such a lovely agent and publicist, to boot!).

Ooooh, there are soooo many writers I’d like to shout out to right now but my middle-aged brain is only coming up with a handful. I’ll add more as they come to me. But in the meantime, check out the aforementioned and I hope you find you love them too!

Pity the man who looks like Charles Manson. Because no matter if he’s a perfectly sane accountant from Dubuque with 2.5 children, a wife and a home in the suburbs, most everyone will snap to judgment that he’s a crazed maniac with murder on his mind.

Perhaps the thing about Manson that set him apart was that maniacal glint in his eye, the very anti-twinkle that translated into the suggestion of the evil of which he was capable.

Thus was my thinking at my very first book signing. I was already apprehensive about the event, feeling an enormous sense of pressure to perform well, to sell enough books to justify the efforts the booksellers had gone to on my behalf. To not be a complete loser.

So when I ended up at a bookstore that was located in the sketchier part of the unfamiliar city in which I was signing, I was a little dismayed. Most of those entering the doors of this bookstore had more piercings on their faces than the sum total of pierced anythings on my entire street back home. These customers didn’t strike me as the type willing to pony up a moment of attention (let alone seven bucks) to learn about a book titled Sleeping with Ward Cleaver. Nary a happy (or unhappy, for that matter) housewife meandered into the store for the first 15 minutes of my signing. That’s who I was on the lookout for: a wife, a mom, the type of person who would most definitely get the humor behind Sleeping with Ward Cleaver because let’s face it, there’s an experiential element to the novel. If you’ve been there, done that, with my protagonist Claire, you’re going to be far more receptive to randomly picking up a book you’ve never heard of and spending money on it at the behest of a newbie author, especially when you only went into the store to purchase a book for someone else in the first place.

Now, I’d heard warnings from authors about book signings:

Prepare yourself for everyone coming up to you, looking enthusiastic and ready purchase your book at first sight, only to instead ask you directions to the nearest bathroom.

Expect people to come up to your table just to grab a handful of the free candy you’ve got on display.

And expect the nut jobs, the ones who show up at your table with no intention of leaving, prepared to regale you with endless tales of their public transportation experiences and parents who don’t love them, all the while helping themselves to half your candy stash.

So when the Charles Manson look-alike ventured into the store about 30 seconds after I’d sat down at the signing table, I wasn’t surprised. It was fate, I knew it. As soon as our eyes met, I immediately averted my gaze—I couldn’t not. I mean come on. Who wants to encourage a mass murderer over your way? But the eye contact had been made, and I knew, I just knew, sooner or later Charlie boy would wend his way over to my table.

Now I should mention that yes, this guy had the grizzled, unwashed look of Charles Manson. He had the creepy glint of madness in his eyes. He also was lugging a small watermelon beneath his armpit. Don’t ask me why.

Charlie didn’t come immediately to my table. Perhaps because the bookstore employee was nearby, who knows? But within ten minutes he’d made his way back to my lone desk. He looked at me. He looked at my candy. He looked at me. He looked at my candy. He then proceeded to pick up a copy of my novel from the pyramid of them stacked in front of me, and feigned interest. In case you haven’t seen my cover, I’ll describe it. It’s a campy 1960’s-style green, pink and aqua cover that triggers the tune of “I Dream of Jeannie” whenever I look at it, what with the Judy Jetson-lookalike woman perched atop the bed, her striped pink hair pulled back in a headband a la Marlo Thomas in “That Girl.”

Trust me, this is not the cover that normally lures 40-something men (and certainly not those who look like they’ve just been sprung from court-mandated rehab. Again.). I have yet to have a man pick it up and leaf through it out of interest, unless their wife is along or unless it’s someone I know.

So I was onto Charlie. I knew he wanted something from me, and it wasn’t a humorous 300-page novel about a housewife in the throes of a mid-life crisis.

I tried to make small-talk. But Charlie didn’t talk beyond a few indecipherable mutterings. It was like being in the presence of Sherry and Lambchop, or a ventriloquist from the Ed Sullivan show. Or Charles Manson.

Instead, Charlie plunked his watermelon onto my miniscule tabletop, knocking over books in the process, picked up my signing pen (and his dirt-encrusted fingers did sort of bum me out, since I knew I’d soon have to touch that very pen myself), took one of my business cards, flipped it over, and started to draw.

Now the first thing Charlie inked for me looked suspiciously like a puerile attempt at a set of naked breasts. I forced a weak smile, unwilling to ask exactly what he was illustrating. But he finished it off with what I soon realized was a mouth and eyebrows, and it dawned on me that he’d drawn a rudimentary smiley face. Okay, I was hoping Charlie was done at this point. I thanked him for his lovely illustration. But he continued. His palsied hand trembling in classic heroin-withdrawal fashion, he then sketched out a Keith Haring-like stick figure that had a hint of Mr. Bill to it. And topped off his masterpiece with his illegible signature. What do you think of it?

For all I know I am in possession of a work of art by a famed contemporary pen-and-ink master who took a wrong turn in life. Who once knew of fame and fortune and now wanders aimlessly, unwashed and odoriferous, with a watermelon tucked in his arm like a pigskin cradled by a running back. As much as I was oddly charmed by my newfound artwork, I wasn’t particularly interested in having Charlie block my signing perch from the few mom-like individuals who ventured into the store that night. So I immediately offered him some kisses (the kind from Hershey’s, not my lips), which mercifully satisfied his need. Grateful, he wandered off, peeling the silver wrapping and discarding it in his wake.

And leaving me well aware that I’d experienced one of my first rites of passage as a published author. Armed and ready for the next one to come along.

Excuse me, can you tell me where the bathroom is?

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((¸¸. ·´ .. ·Jenny-:¦:-
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When Kathy Patrick invited me to attend the Pulpwood Queens 10th Annual Girlfriends Weekends, I was thrilled to take her up on the offer. I’d heard it would be an entertaining weekend, but little did I know you really have to live it to know how very much fun it is.

Founder and hostess Kathy Patrick—dressed as Tippi Hendren Barbie (note attacking crows)—with author Melissa Conroy (Little House on the Prairie Barbie)

It was my first time in Texas (apart from flight delays in DFW airport, which definitely don’t count) and what a place in which to be initiated, suthuhn stahl, y’all: Jefferson, Texas, a lovely little town rich in history with a cache of fabulous shops and antiques stores that could keep you busy for weeks (more on that later). The town—affectionately dubbed Mayberry on the Bayou-–boasts a bevy stunning historic homes converted into bed and breakfasts. I enjoyed a delightful stay at the Hale House Inn, thanks to my lovely hosts Timm and Karen Jackson, who provided sumptuous meals each morning for both me and my new author friend Mary Kay Andrews, who is a stitch.

Mary Kay Andrews trying not to spill gumbo on herself

The weekend commenced Thursday evening with an author dinner in which the 30 or so guest authors served and bussed a mouthwatering meal prepared by author chefs Debbie Thornton (Any Blonde Can Cook), Janis Owens (The Cracker Kitchen), and Lynn Frederickson (Lynn’s Specialities of the House). The keynote speaker for the weekend was an author who has held a place in the pantheon of Great Southern Writers, Pat Conroy (The Great Santini, Beach Music, Prince of Tides, South of Broad and others).

Pat has long been one of my favorite authors, and I was hoping to possibly get a glimpse of him maybe from the back row in the auditorium while he spoke to the group on Saturday (it ended up being a lovely little room, no inhospitable auditorium at all). Little did I know that Pat fully intended to get his hands dirty, however, and he did indeed roll up his sleeves, don his apron (signed by all attending authors), and graciously pour wine and serve up gumbo to the Pulpwood Queen Book Club members in attendance.

Prior to our serving the Pulpwood Queens, we got to enjoy the meal ourselves (I’m buying their cookbooks; it was that good), while Pat regaled us with tales of his youth. He’s quite the raconteur, and held all authors—many of whom are highly regarded NY Times bestsellers in their own right—rapt in his spell. Pat had accompanied his sweet daughter Melissa, who has a most charming children’s book out titled Poppy’s Pants.

Meanwhile, having been a waitress in my heyday, I enjoyed taking up the tray again (well, not really a tray, I just carried plates), and was thrilled I didn’t drop food on anyone (college dining hall flashbacks, anyone?). Our evening ended at the bar in town, Skinner’s, a honkey-tonk speakeasy sort of bar you wish every town had (with a fabulous waitress who even remembered my drink two days later!).

Friday we all convened at the visitor’s center for two days of panel discussions led by Kathy and the hilarious and debonair author Robert Leleux with a host of amazingly talented and interesting authors, including: Ad Hudler, John Pritchard, Jamie Ford, River Jordan, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Sam Barry, Tracy Lea Carnes, Karen Harrington, Kerry Madden, Judy Christie, Mary Kay Andrews, Kathryn Casey, Nicole Seitz, M. L. Malcolm, Lauretta Hannon, Ron Hall, Patti Callahan Henry, Janis Owens,and Hester Bass, among others.

Friday night was a Happy Birthday Barbie! party, with authors strolling the “catwalk” posing as their favorite Barbie. Mary Kay Andrews dressed as Bitter First Wife Barbie; Ad Hudler was Obsessive Compulsive Ken; I forget the other costumes. Pulpwood Queens’ costumes were incredible–ranging from the Threesome Barbie to a svelte gal doing an exact replica of The Original Barbie. Since Parrot Barbie didn’t seem to be a viable option, I went instead with June Cleaver Barbie. I forgot to pack a dress however, and my signature rubber gloves I take to signings got signed by authors the previous night, so I spent a short while in an amazing vault-from-the-past antiques shop across the street from the visitors center, a store with five city blocks worth of vintage everything. I was able to accessorize after finding a slightly musty black dress, adding in white gloves, a clutch purse and perfect June Cleaver velvet hat (complete with netting) and chandelier earrings, all for under $20. My bargain of the day. I was pressed for time or I’d have spent all week in this store–as I wandered around I found several things that we had in our house growing up–books, toys, even a dress I swear my mother owned. Talk about blast from the past.

Saturday found us back for panel discussions, the first one showcasing an author whose writing informed my own, Elizabeth Berg. Her bestselling novel, Open House, was one of the first books I read after having abandoned reading anything more mentally taxing than People Magazine when my kids were little. She tackles relationships in a very different way than I do in books, but I love how evocative her writing is and that taught me a good lesson in how to write to draw in the reader’s emotions. I was lucky enough to have my picture taken with Ms. Berg before she departed for the airport—a picture I’ll be thrilled to add to the photo album (as soon as I get that copy!).

Pat Conroy spoke to the group during a fabulous locally-catered Texas brisket lunch on Saturday, again holding us all spellbound with his tales. Other compelling speakers of the day included Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet), Ad Hudler (Househusband), River Jordan (Saints in Limbo) and the hilarious Shellie Rushing Tomlinson (Suck Your Stomach in and Put Some Color On). I had the pleasure of sharing a delightful lunch with Kathi Kamen Goldmark (founder of the literary rock band the Rock Bottom Remainders and author of My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You) and her new husband Sam Barry (talented and funny harmonica player and author of How to Play the Harmonica: And Other Life Lessons, and also brother of Dave), along with M.L. and Tracy.

During the entire event Pat Conroy was entirely approachable and hugely supportive. He thoughtfully and generously made sure to purchase (and have signed) books from every author in attendance. He was indeed the anti-Diva author, a sheer delight and an example to all authors of how not to let success get to your head.

Throughout both days Patti Ramey, a manager with Barnes & Noble in Tyler, TX, worked tirelessly to sell-sell-sell authors’ books to a very enthusiastic and generous audience of Pulpwood Queens, all of whom clearly have a passion and abiding respect for the written word. I don’t think Patti sat down the entire weekend. I enjoyed visiting with her during my frequent forays into the makeshift bookstore for yet one more book acquisition. Later Saturday afternoon, there were also awards handed out to those working hard to advance literacy, and Kathy, so generous in spirit, ensured that local organizations got in on the act by selling concessions to benefit local organizations. Each author supplied a silent auction item, the proceeds of which went toward providing books for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library Project to promote literacy in an area of the country (East Texas) with a high illiteracy rate.

Saturday night was the infamous Great Big Ball of Hair, with this year’s theme being Over the Rainbow. And what a ball it was…The lengths to which the Pulpwood Queens went to outdo one another in spectacular costuming was mind-boggling. Each time I saw a stunning Wizard of Oz-themed outfit I thought I’d seen the best of them, until I witnessed yet another. One group came garbed in ethereal white gowns as Glinda the good Witches, complete with white wastebasket-turned-jeweled crowns atop their heads, wired with glowing lights. Their coordinated table was topped off with a mojito-flowing fountain (a very popular destination that evening) served in neon-flashing shot glasses. Another group dressed as singing bluebells. Another still, Wizard of Oz in hot pink (and anyone who knows me knows my affinity for all things hot pink, so I did love their costumes). I could even get used to a hot pink flying monkey—far less creepy that way.

The best costume prize was awarded to a hilarious mother/daughter team who dressed as munchkins and they really could have walked right off the set of the movie, they were so authentic. (Oh, and my costume? I went with the easy-to-pack Judy Garland: the Dark Years and simply tied my hair in a scarf, strung a host of pill bottles around my neck, and sucked on a cigarette holder while toting a wine bottle all night. Judy Garland, Liza Minelli, I felt very interchangeable).

Ad Hudler as the Wizard of Oz (fabulous costume created by his daughter)

I can’t talk about a trip to Jefferson, Texas without mentioning incredible pie. I knew I had to stop on my way out of town Sunday for a slice of the Hamburger Store’s famous pie. I was yearning for something meringue but knew it wouldn’t travel well, so instead opted for triple berry, which was the perfect layover dinner in the Houston airport later that day. Those who know me know I am a pie snob, and I wouldn’t lie and tell you the pie was good if I didn’t believe it. Trust me, the pie alone is worth the trip to Jefferson.

I swear, y’all, I came home with a thicker accent. Having lived in Virginia for more than half my life, I have co-opted the word y’all, much to my kids’ chagrin; but for the most part I don’t usually sound like much of a Southerner. But for one weekend this January, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was part of the Deep South, heritage be damned.

***I had planned to put a whole host more pictures up here (including White Trash Dorothy and Auntie Em, the ethereal Glindas, and more) but I had such problems uploading images that I finally had to give up and leave it as is. Maybe if I have time I’ll try to add some more, but I have many of them posted here if you’re interested (and will put up the rest of them there as soon as I can).