The way he makes me feel

My relationship status has changed, and not just on Facebook. His name is Mike. He's the bee's knees. He makes me laugh all the time. He's smart and kind and a little evil (as am I...muahahahaha!). He has amazing upper body strength. This may have something to do with the chair. He has cerebral palsy. Yes, folks, his junk works fine, thanks for wondering!

Telling Mike's story would take a whole book, and that's a book Mike needs to write himself. A guy who's met Ronald Reagan, William Shatner, Soupy Sales and various Detroit Lions, and who had Kwame Kilpatric as his schoolyard bully has more than a few amazing stories to tell. That Kwame! Playing the race card since 1979. At least he didn't kill the class flirt.

Mike met my mom and didn't run (er, roll) screaming for the door. He thinks I'm amazing, which is a lot to live up to.

I'll give it my all.

Real men eat quiche

I had a birthday party. I am old now. 37. So my friends came over and we did karaoke OnDemand. Also, I made many delicious foods. I made mini quiches. Never tried it before, but everyone scrafed them, especially the dudes.

My friend Mike came all the way from beautiful downtown Melvindale to hang out with me. He ate quiche. He went to the drag bar with me. He's the man! He came to the drag show because he likes me. He ate quiche because quiche is delicious. He likes me....I dunno why. I want to believe all the sweet things he says about me, but I've got a lifetime of negative reinforcement to work through.

Monni sang "Baby Got Back". My new work friend Kristin has an awesome voice. Also, four dozen cookies seem to have vanished into my pals. It's mysterious. I made sugar cookies and decorated them. Halloween. Nummy.

Happy birthday to me. Happy Sweetest Day to Mike (who is a sweetie). Happy! For now.

Screwing Up

Sometimes, I screw up. I forget things. I can be careless. I screw up without malice. It's not like I'm some weird modern saint, but I can't remember actually forming a plan to hurt someone. I've said things when I'm angry that I regret, and a few that I don't. But I never set out to ruin someone's day.

What do you do if you inadvertently hurt someone? What do you do when they lay it all out, and you apologize, and they are vague about whether or not they accept? If I apologize, I mean it. I just don't know what else I need to do.

This is really vague, purposely so. The situation I'm dealing with involves someone I love, who's been angry at me for a while, and who vacillates between acting like we're friends and acting like I'm a shitty person who should just go away and die in hole someplace. And when I go away (not to die, but to live my life of tutoring and family obligations, and cleaning houses, and writing and trying to have friends and date), she gets angry at me for not paying attention to what's going on in her life.

Nothing I do works in this situation. I don't think I'm a rotten person. I don't want to buy my friend off. Given the level of anger, I wonder what I owe myself? I like me a bit. I don't know that avoidance is a bad idea, either.

Why can't we all just get along? Oy.

Lighting up the Night

My friend Dan had huge blue eyes and said "fuck" an awful lot. He name dropped the top-notch Atlanta country club where he'd managed the dining room. He got into fights in Boston, defending his restaurant from marauding teenage idiots.

"They thought they'd teach the little faggot a lesson, but I was one tough little faggot," Dan told me.

Dan made lobster bisque so light and creamy and beautiful it almost convinced me I like lobster. He brought chocolate pots de creme to me and my mother, and we shared a bottle of Tokaj with him. I met Dan covering the local Stonewall Democrats for my old paper, and soon began inviting him along whenever I reviewed restaurants. Dan trained as a chef in Italy. He had marvelous taste and a twisted sense of humor.

Dan catered a Christmas party for my mother. He came both as caterer and guest, and had all of us in stitches with stories of weird times in the hospital. Dan had cancer, but had been in remission for years.

"Some young tech could not believe my nipple rings," he told us. "So I had to show him the tattoo on my ass. Red devil. Gets 'em every time."

Two weeks later, my mother and Dan were in rooms in different wings of the same hospital. My mother was recovering from a planned double knee replacement. Dan's lymphoma returned. He called my mother's room from his, told us both that he loved us, and died a couple of weeks later.

Dan deserved more than fifty years. Dan had so much kindness and wit and talent and love in him. I miss him every time I pass the farmers market where he sold exquisite homemade cookies and handmade red wine syrup. One of the last kind things Dan did for me was to walk me through the process of applying for disability. Dan knew the program because of earlier, devastating bouts with lymphoma. When I called him for help, I weighed nearly 600 pounds and was immobilized by sciatica. The advice Dan gave me led me to health insurance, surgery and a healthy, worthwhile life. I truly believe that, without his grace and good sense, I might not be alive today.

I owe him. On October 17th, I hope to repay a few of his many kindnesses to me during our all too brief friendship. I will Light up the Night for Dan Holmes.

Anyone who'd like to sponsor me can e-mail me through the blog. I'm not really in it for the donations, but the charity would probably appreciate it.

Ben Folds Project:Philosophy

I'm crazy, but I get the job done.


A couple of years ago,my therapist left Catholic Charities, and I made her a CD that organized my magical mental health in song form. I drew a human brain on the CD using Sharpies. I drew the brain in rainbow colors and loaded it with songs. I started off with the Johnny Cash version of "Hurt", moved along through such sad girl classics as "Save me" (Aimee Mann) and "Because of You" (Kelly Clarkson). The disc gets less depressing with songs like "In Between Days" (Ben Folds' cover, naturally) beforing ending with "Proud" (yes, the song from The Biggest Loser, a show I kind of despise for reasons I won't get into here).

"You made a mix tape for your shrink!" My friend Paul could barely get the words out, he was laughing so hard at the idea.

I like to think I take a creative approach to mental illness. Over the years, I've made my shrink cookies, crocheted her a hat and scarf, and passed along Hungarian recipes. She's helped me to realize that I can't change other people. Sometimes, I can't fathom changing myself, but I keep trying, at least where it matters the most.

A few years ago, I'd cry for hours if the cat got out. I once wept uncontrollably because I couldn't find my keys. Which were in my car's ignition. I don't do those things anymore.

I don't know that I always see the forrest for the trees. I'm trying to imagine the mortar, block and glass that'll be my city when I'm done. When will I be done? Are we ever really finished? Don't ask me. I'm crazy. But I get the job done.*





*Litter box cleaning not included.

Ben Folds Project: Jackson Cannery

I'm starting a new project. I love Ben Folds. Why? Because he's a genius. His sense of humor, the brilliance of his piano playing, the plaintive keen/whiteboy whine in his voice....I don't know if Ben Folds is perfect as a musician, but he's the perfect musician for me.

I'm going to use his songs as jumping off points for blog posts. Some of the posts will have almost nothing to do with the songs. Some of the posts might describe the things I associate with the songs. No rules, just Ben and me.

#1: Jackson Cannery
(Track 1, Ben Folds Five, 1995)

Stop the Bus....Don't want to be lonely

I do lonely well. Better than I do almost anything else, or, at least, I do it more often than I do other things or other moods. I go to bars alone. I don't drink. I might meet acquaintances. I dance by myself. I watch pretty people mime intercourse and simultaneously envy and disdain them. I leave, alone. To my apartment, alone. To bed. Alone.

I go to the bookstore. I put on makeup. Maybe someone will talk to me. Maybe a man. Maybe I'll run into friends. It's happened. I talk to the barristas in the bookstore cafe. I know their names and college majors. I bring them cookies at Christmas. I've lived in Toledo for ten years. I've been invited to exactly two Christmas parties.

Odd that I love Chirstmas. I bake and give gingerbread men to friends. No one ever gives me cookies. My friends don't bake. Or host parties. They work. They date. They have children. I press my face against the glass and watch couples looking at wedding magazines. I see young mothers choosing picture books. Goth kids in little clusters, talking and laughing. I drink coffee by myself. I go home alone.

Weekends, I scramble. I call and text and e-mail. I chat. No one has time. No one wants to have coffee or see a movie or come to my place so I can make them a lovely dinner. No one feels like singing or dancing or talking. I go to the bookstore. I go to the grocery at 10 pm on a Saturday night. I think the place will be empty, but it's full of couples. Old, toothless men in wifebeaters with the wives I hope they're not actually beating. Yuppies giggling over the bottle of pinot grigio they're buying. A black woman in a sleeveless sundress, hair dyed platinum. She has to weigh 250 pounds, but there's a guy walking by her cart, carrying her purse. I buy ingredients to make risotto. I scale the recipe for one and go home alone.

Stop the bus. Stop it. Don't. Ben's right. Seconds pass slowly. Days go flying by. Just....stop.

Late

Late at night, when I can't sleep, I sometimes read his blog. The one with the halitosis. The one with the twin bed and the artsy, smoky roommates. Him. And I wonder how it is that a man who had breath like an unflushed toilet, a man who expressed fear of soup and who had never eaten a strawberry before I fed one to him, I wonder how a man like that can have a girlfriend when I'm alone.

And I look at pictures of the other one. The one who called me a whore because he was terrified I'd write about him. The last guy who kissed me. I wonder if he's the last guy ever. I really hope not.

What have I learned? Tall isn't a good personal quality. Nice isn't enough. I need to remember to brush my tongue.

It's something, no?

Tiny dogs, Huge house

Today, A. and I cleaned a giant McMansion --no, a McEstate -- on 40 acres in the middle of nowhere. Huge house. 8000 square feet. Every floor in the place was made of wood or marble or stone tile. The basement entertainment lounge had a fireplace, a full kitchen, a bar, a skeeball table, a pool table, a ping pong table and many presents from the asses of the family's collection of tiny, yappy dogs. And larger dogs. And cats. I cleaned a spot of something biological off a window ledge. A. told me the owner told her it was doggie-rhea. I want to bleach my entire body.

That said, the house had a central vac system and the owners had a wheelie mop bucket. This made cleaning the place not so bad. A long, exhausting job, but not impossible. The owner's 24-year-old son (hottttttttt) came into the basement just after A. told me about the 'rhea. I'd used one of my own rags wiping the spot. I said something about mailing it to her ex as a tea bag. Then, as Hottt Sonnnn was walking in, I made one of those comments that echo and expand and you wish you could unsay them.

"You ex'll love it. He lives for tea bagging." Hottt Sonnnn seemed like he didn't mind. Later, upstairs in the dining room (lovely tray ceiling, Broyhill knock-off furniture, three mouldering, hair-shrouded dog beds), he introduced one of the dogs.

"I think something's licking my ankle," I said.

"That's Buddy. He's a mini-pinscher."

The dog looked like a Doberman. Only tiny. I said another one of those echo-y things.

"I want to breed a pack of them and train them to hunt midgets." Hott Sonnn laughed. I laughed. Little People of America sent an angry letter of protest to the mailbox in my head. Joking! But sometimes, I have these bad thoughts.

The family who own the McEstate (40 acres, no mule) consist entirely of 6-foot blondes, including the 22-year-old daughter. They were all so shiny and tan and blonde and perfect that I wanted to have a weird orgy with all of them. Hottt Sonnnn eats ice cream in the tub. I know this because I found an empty carton of Haagen-Daazs Dulce de Leche in the soap niche along with a spoon. I imagined myself in his parents' enormous spa tub, licking caramel ice cream off his chest.

And then we cleaned the rest of the house. The lady of the house came home in the middle of the cleaning, unaware that cleaning and spackling (an impromptu project for her husband) would be taking place. She screamed at Hottt Dad, scattered dogs around the dining room like so many yappy, shitting throw cushions, then went out to have a nice, angry smoke by the pool.

Hotttt Sonnn paid in full, didn't dispute our price, and complimented the work, and said something about having us back the next time the Hottts throw a party.

I can't wait. I'm buying Haagen Daasz and a loofah.

Death, Birth, Phlegm

My friend John had a heart attack a week ago today. I met him through a dating website, and our single date involved looking over crochet patterns and drinking coffee. He told me about his family. He hugged me goodbye because "Hugs are good." He reminded me of a polar bear. Not the real kind who would totally eat you but are probably starving to death because of global warming and Al Gore. The kind from Coke commercials. I could imagine John enjoying a Coke and sharing his treat with cute seal pups.

John had already found the love of his life, though. He and Carmela were back together, probably before my Starbucks cup hit the trash can as I waved goodbye after the coffee date and wandered toward my car. I forgave this lapse -- I didn't enjoy feeling like a backup plan, but John's kindness and gruff sense of humor eventually won me over. He ran a local open mic where I did the first readings from Butterbabe. He gave me advice about my last boyfriend ("Dump him. "Dump him. DUMP HIM"). I called him to check up from time to time. We always had funny conversations and I'd hang up the phone feeling a bit lighter and more cheerful than when we'd started.

John struggled with Type 2 diabetes his entire adult life. He spent most of the fall and winter last year having toes chopped off and recovering in a nursing home. He had a demented roommate who'd sit in his wheelchair in a hospital gown, spindly legs bare, knees wide apart. Carmela stayed with him as much as she could. I came by with a copy of the book, and for more boyfriend advice ("Seriously -- dump him. He's a douche.").

I last saw John at Artomatic 411, a sort of grand fleamarket of the arts that ran for three weekends in May and June. In a warehouse downtown, local painters and sculptors and writers and musicians and filmmakers put on a show. John looked so much better than he had in the nursing home. He'd lost weight, become engaged to Carmela and was making plans to finish his social work degree.

John had a heart attack a week ago today. I know I told you that, but I still don't believe it, and I feel like if I say it, I'll convince myself. I'd rather not believe it, but it's immutable and sad and terribly real now. John died a week ago today. He lived 47 years, all of them in Toledo. He wrote lovely, gritty, clever, poems that evoke this rusty little town by the Maumee and Michigan. He made the place softly forlorn, shaved the edges so that the city's oddball charm stood out, glowing softly like sodium lights in a steady rain.

Becca and I went to the visitation. We hugged Carmela and beautiful Caroline, the brilliant young woman John mentored and loved like a little sister or daughter. We met his mother. We left.

Becca's birthday was Saturday. She's 43 now. We had delicious food and a party in the park. There were gifts and songs and piggyback rides. I can't believe I can carry a 180-pound woman, but I used to carry a good 250 more pounds than I do now just in my own body weight, so I guess it makes sense.

And now I have a head cold and the phlegm keeps coming.

Better things are coming. Better days ahead. They have to be. My birthday is in six weeks. At least I've had another year.

Hitler!

Hitler! He ruined that mustache for everyone.

I saw Inglorious Basterds. Enjoyed it, but also came at it from a fairly unique perspective. The movie centers on the titular group of soldiers, Jews who fight a guerilla campaign and kill Nazis in occupied France. My father, a Jew who fought in WWII, was sort of a bastard, too. Note the correct spelling there.

My father died in 1996. We never managed to come up with a functional relationship. During his last days in the hospital, he went from gesturing inarticulately into the silence of a morphine coma. I never managed to forgive him and he never managed to express any feeling for me apart from a sort of bemused contempt. We didn't understand each other. He never told me about the war.

Every dark-haired young man in uniform, all eight original Basterds, reminded me of my father. In wartime photos, my father looks like the actors in the Tarnatino movie.

Inglorius. Kind of a bastard. My dad. I'm pretty sure he never scalped any Germans, as they didn't store many of those in New Guinea or Australia. And I still haven't a clue about who he really was.

I'd like to blame Hitler for this, too.

He's got Bite

Tonight, I did laundry for my mother and hung out with her and her boyfriend. The boyfriend, Mike, has an African grey parrot named Crocky. Crocky is cute but unpredictable. He sometimes tries to attack my toes. I asked Mike if Crocky enjoys the taste of human flesh when he bites you.

"Crocky bites you because he wants to bite you," Mike said.

Weirdly zen and pithy, I thought. I'm keeping my toes to myself.

Swimmingly

I have a scholarship to the Y. In Toledo, the Jewish Community Center and its giant outdoor pool are part of the Y.

I had a white bikini once. At six. The first and last I'd ever wear. I wore it to the JCC, where I swam in the shallow end with my mother. I grew up swimming at the J. I'd see how long I could stay under water. I'd climb the ladder to the high dive. Sometimes, I'd chicken out and climb back down, but most of the time, I'd leap. I ate malteds from the snack bar. I got lobster red sunburns and golden brown tans. I read books on the chaises longues.

Two years ago, after losing a couple hundred pounds, I returned to the pool at the JCC. I could finally get out of a pool using a ladder, and that meant I could swim laps in the deep end. The first time, I kept the line of my backstroke using a pine tree as a guide. I'd look at the tree to orient myself so that I wouldn't go off center and hit the lane dividers. I swam my first mile that summer, though my left shoulder started to give in the middle of the last full lap.

I got my scholarship letter last week, and am now a member of the Y again. Given the recession, I had to give up membership for about six months. I managed a few swims this summer using a cache of guest passes I managed to assemble from friends and strangers (thank you, Craig's List benefactress). I decided that if I got the scholarship, I'd swim thirty times before the pool closes in the fall.

Three swims down. Twenty seven to go. I almost think I can do it.

The Old Cat and the Litter Box

I spent ten hours cleaning last week. I cleaned for my mother and for a one-time client. My own apartment smells like urine.

Don't look at me -- I generally make it from the living room to the toilet without incident. My ancient, wizened tabby, Spenser, has taken to peeing outside the box. While some would commend him for his maverick ways, I cannot. I've had Spenser for fourteen years. I got him in East Lansing, where I spent a miserable couple of years flunking out of grad school. I came away from MSU with one good thing: a 12-pound silver tabby who loved me to pieces.

Spenser would curl up around my head whenever I was sick. He'd groom my hair and stay with me. When I weighed nearly 600 pounds and took a hard fall on a wood floor, he laid down next to me and wouldn't leave me til I'd righted myself (nearly an hour later).

Now that he's old and weighs about six pounds because his kidneys are failing (slowly), Spenser has become a crusty oldster with a limited sense of humor. He hates the kids and their music. He wants you to stay off his lawn. He has an autographed picture of Wilford Brimley and moons over cheesecake shots of the late Estelle Getty dressed as Sophia Petrillo on the Golden Girls.

My old man pees everywhere and on everything. He pees on my rugs. He peed on a pillow, soaking the sham I'd sewn and embroidered by hand. He pees behind the bathtub if I forget to close the bathroom door. He can't sleep with me. If I leave the bedroom door open, he pees on anything he can find on the floor. Like my clothes or bedsheets I kick off in my sleep. This means that my other cat, Siouxsie, can't sleep with me, either, despite her own fastidiousness about the box. She meows piteously outside my door every morning.

Spenser needs to go on one last visit to the vet. I don't want to take him. I have no idea how putting him to sleep will make me feel. Also, putting him to sleep will cost money I don't really have. I studied up on it online; do-it-yourself home pet euthanasia is a very bad idea. It's like the last twenty minutes of Blood Simple, only your cat is Dan Hedaya. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do that to any pet, let alone my sweet boy who still licks my face between trips to the corner to whiz under the radiator.

So. What to do? I'm thinking I could by him a copy of Final Exit. That could work.

More on cleaning...

The Salon essay conveyed a certain tone well, I thought. There were details that didn't make the final cut. I don't resent cleaning clients. I've had a few terrible ones. The regular and even the good one-of clients just aren't interesting enough to make the essay cut.

One story that missed the essay: I cleaned two week old vomit out of a bathtub once. My client had never cleaned the house in eight years of living there. There wasn't dust. There was actual grime. The bedroom was decorated in a Texas flag motif. I told my agent, Joanne.

"Puke in the tub and Texas crap? I don't know what's worse," she said. Joanne has a Long Island accent. She's not a fan of redneck chic.

Ironically, I was cleaning while texting last minute edits to my Salon editor. The house was gigantic and owned by Mormons. I didn't know there were that many paintings of Jesus in the world, let alone in one private home. Not paintings, really. Kinkade/painter-of-light schlock prints. I also didn't know Jesus was a Viking, but the shiny blonde hair and blue eyes in all that artwork told a different tale. I had to fight for my price. At the end of six and a half hours (mainly because they wanted all the woodwork cleaned -- not a standard service), the visiting grandmother who was paying tried to get me to take $50.

I told her that for six hours, I'd need $120. I rounded down, trying to be nice about it. She offered $100, which I took. She looked at me like I'd woofed up a hairball on the rug before opening a red leather wallet and peeling off a bill from the giant stack of hundreds inside.

My regulars know the drill. They know that cleaning people are there to dust, vacuum, mop, and to clean kitchens and baths. We aren't there to pick up children's toys, laundry from the floor or anything that comes out of pets. When I arrive, the regulars' houses are clutter-free and ready for cleaning. I'm thorough. I move furniture (I should say that I shove it over using my body weight -- I can't really lift anything all that heavy). I take all the tchotchkes off of shelves before I dust. I change linens and throw the old sheets into the washer. I've brought baked goods to regulars. They're decent and solid and not the stuff of essay writing.

So! I wanted to thank the Salon peeps again. You really made my day with all the comments. Even the weird ones (UK health system, bad driving guy) were good for a laugh.

One clarification...

Someone on Salon accused me of SSDI fraud because I am physically able to clean houses.

It's a strange thing, given how my weight limited me, how physically painful some aspects of weighing over 500 pounds were, but I was awarded disability primarily because of depression. I take medication for it and see a therapist (which I pay for out-of-pocket because that practice doesn't accept Medicaid). My first depression diagnosis came when I was nine years old. I like to think that if I could find a job that offered a living wage and insurance, I could do it. I worry that the more severe depression would come back, despite the medical interventions I accept, and leave me without a job, insurance or any form of on-going income.

Cleaning houses is, at least, something I can schedule myself. SSI also allows additional income, though they will deduct from your cash assistance if you make more than a certain amount. I never have.

More about my private, glamourous writing life. If we had national health care, if I didn't need to rely on my status for insurance, I'd try to have a job, even a bad one. Maybe because I'm not strong enough to ignore the judgement some people throw my way for living on the guv'mint tit.

Toilet!

My Salon piece is out.


Never thought I'd see so many letters -- mostly positive. The readers have been so kind and supportive. I'd kiss al of them on the mouth, but I don't know where they've been. Kidding! Of course. As usual.

Ironically, I was cleaning a giant McMansion for Mormons while texting my editor at Salon about that essay. I was a gift from Evil Mormon Grandma who had come from the home planet to help with the birth of live young. I cleaned for seven hours. Grandma (black haired, botoxed, wearing jaunty capri pants and a lot of mauve lipstick) tried to pay me $50 for this. She purposely misunderstood my pricing structure. I told her I could clean for $50 - $70 if I just did a few common areas and we set a time limit. They wanted the whole 3,000-square foot house cleaned. Four bedrooms, two and a half baths, a basement, plus blinds, woodwork and the doors. Seven hours later, I reminded her that I charge $20 an hour. She offered $100, which I accepted. It really wasn't enough. It should have been $40 more. I felt bad for a second -- no idea why -- until she opened a wallet stuffed with hundred dollar bills and fished one out for me.

Before dusting the many Kinkade-esque portraits of him in that house, I had no idea Jesus was a Viking. There were many busts of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. I felt a little let down at not seeing any magic Mormon underwear. The boys' bedroom featured large prints of ancient Mormons fighting Indians. Good times!

This weekend, I relaxed with much swimming and ethnic festing and a zoo concert at the outdoor amphitheatre. I feel almost able to take on my own apartment, which is full of bad things that come out of old, sick cats.

Nervy!

Sorry to have been so lax in blogging. I've been busy teaching college students to write, one awkward tutoring session at a time and submitting essays. I had one in Nerve last week.

Okay, brace yourselves: it's about my deflowering.

Hope it amuses/horrifies/uplifts. Or something like that.

I've also tried more dating. I think I hate men now. Or myself. But really, men.

No news

It's been a slow month in Toledo, Ohio, my hometown. The children? Average, mostly. Also, I have it on good authority that there are men in lipstick shoving things into their urethras. In my neighborhood, if not in my apartment.

If you love me, buy my book Write to Oprah about it. Buy my book and send it to Oprah. Mama needs a pony.

In other news, I went to Chicago and had a really cool first date at what turned out to be a Latina tranny hooker bar. I saw naked boobies there. Naked boobies not envisioned by nature. I also rode the ferris wheel at Navy Pier and had catfish at Wishbone. I would live at Wishbone if I lived in Chicago.

They'd let me install a cot in the mens' room, right?

Blade of Glory

My hometown paper, the Toledo Blade, ran an interview with be about the book. There's a really nice picture -- I look borderline thinnish. The reporter did a lovely job. I'm always amazed when people like me, even after all this time and all the work I've done towards being a fine, funny and likable person.

The reporter did say I went to Boston College. I did not! I went to Boston University. Go terriers. I don't know where to, but go...someplace.

Anyway, here's the awesome Blade story.

It'll be linked to the right as well. Along with, of course, the link to the book at Amazon UK. I've heard it runs about $20 including the shipping. If you buy a copy, feel free to find me at Borders Toledo. I'm there a lot and will happily sign the book for you. I will allow you to buy me coffee, too, should you desire that special privilege. If you want to make sure I'll be around to sign the book, feel free to e-mail me through the blog.

More UK Press

I didn't have lapband surgery -- I had gastric bypass. And I'm not quite as direct about a link between my father being cranky and me being fat. But there's a new story about the book in syndication in the UK.

You can read it here.

Reading!

The reading at People Called Women was awesome. Lots of people came (most called women, and a few guys). I read a funny chunk o'book about buying new clothes and about drag clubs. People laughed a whole lot. I felt very good about it. Angelle -- who took the pic of me in the Times of London -- came a took even more pix. Lyhnn and Esther, my dear pals and former employers -- turned out. Becca read a lovely poem about me. And people ate the cookies I made (some of which were naughty conversation hearts).

I want to welcome all the lovely people who showed to my blog. I've sent them e-mail about it. Many of them asked about buying the book. While we're thrilled with the UK response, we do want to tell them that they'll buy it in the States soon. But til then, I've posted a link to the book at Amazon.uk and include it here as well:

Butterbabe!

I am going to sleep. Tomorrow, I must buy new tires. Damn. But also: Yay! Book readings!

Times! Two!

The Times of London ran an excerpt of the book.

It's not the piece I thought they'd run. It's in the health section. I kind of hoped they'd run something from a later part of the book, but the publishers wanted something in close to publication.

Anyway, here's the link:

Times Piece

Publication Day

I still don't know what to make of the actual publication. I'm very hopeful and the book will receive a lot of attention the the UK press. Tonight, mini-celebration with my mother and a family friend.

Everyone who helped me through all of this, thank you. The book is for all of you.

Count down and a Reading

I'll be reading from Butterbabe at People Called Women on February 13th. I hope to have awesome news by then. Maybe lots of people will queue up and buy my book? I love English people. Especially the ones who buy the book. And the ones who review it positively. And anyone who gives me money to write more stuff. All of those. Also, Daniel Craig and Jude Law and the hot guy who played Titus Pulo on Rome.

The reading starts at 7. The address is 3153 W. Central Avenue, Toledo, OH. The bookstore is cozy and lovely and the staff have been kind and welcoming. They have a great selection of books, especially books by women, and also sell nice ceramic things, jewelry and the odd piece of candy. I hope to have cookies for all my new readers. Valentine hearts as befits the occasion.

The reading is free. If I have copies of the book, you may be able to obtain one.

I was four years old. Happy. Cute. Tiny. Hard to remember, except for the joy. I remember smiling and the sunlight and the crunch of leaves in my tiny hands. Bliss!