Refrigerator Door - Home

Still in the midst of gardening frenzy.  Yesterday I manhandled multiple bags of mulch - big, heavy, steamy bags of mulch; they weighed at least 60 pounds each - in and out of cars, around to the backyard and up some steep stone steps.  I almost killed some just-planted begonias when, late in the day with my arms so tired I couldn’t have smacked a butterfly, I lost control of a full bag of mulch and dumped the entire contents out onto poor, said begonias.  After some frantic digging I unearthed them and while they are still alive, I set them back at least two weeks’ growing time. 

But all is well, as I got the last of the mulch down and raked just in time for a nice soaking rainstorm.

I have a couple of pictures to share.  Now, I told you I got a garden gnome for Mother’s Day.  I was going to have a contest to name the little guy but now it’s too late.  For I have continued a long, cherished Hauser tradition of unimaginative name-giving by naming my little friend “Gnomie the Gnome.”  (We have, in our past, owned a hedgehog named “Hedgie” and several goldfish named “Goldie.”) 

I just started calling him Gnomie the Gnome as a placeholder but now it’s too late; he shall forever be Gnomie the Gnome and even if I held a contest publically, privately I would still call him that.  So - sorry.  No contest for you!  But here’s a picture of the little guy: 

I have a confession to make.  I suffer from a disease, a disease that has no name but that manifests itself in the insane need to see everything as a potential planter.  (I know some people who suffer from a similar disease, except instead of planters, they view ordinary objects as potential lamps.)  Anyway, on Monday I was getting the morning paper when I noticed that our new neighbors had thrown out the most adorable potential planter ever, in their trash.  So I went over and stole it - I have no shame - and now I have a new garden toy:

Isn’t it perfect?  Who in their right mind would throw something like this out, when it was just begging to spend the rest of its days in the garden, holding a pot of begonias?  I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to ask DAH to drill a hole in the seat so the pot can rest inside it, rather than sitting on it.  That’s a very important decision, you see, and I have to think about it a while.

All right, these are my latest adventures in gardening!  But in case it’s rainy where you are, or you don’t like to play in the mud yourself, I wanted to tell you about a new online novel that’s being offered by a terrific writer friend of mine, Eileen Cruz Coleman.  She’s putting up installments of SWEETWATER AMERICAN in blog form, so if you want a good online read that’s free, click on over!   

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go have a cup of coffee with Gnomie and go over our gardening plans for the day! 

Before I head out to the garden center tomorrow (I may post some pictures this week of my work in progress, featuring the garden gnome that Younger Son got me for Mother’s Day, for whom I have not yet come up with a name and might need your help), I have to blog about another Girlfriends’ Cyber Circuit tour!  Today, Shanna Swendson is up.  She has a new book out called Don’t Hex With Texas:

About the Book: Katie Chandler has fled fast-paced Manhattan and returned home to a simpler life, working at her family’s feed-and-seed store in Cobb, Texas.  In a painfully selfless gesture, Katie left the sexy wizard Owen Palmer to battle his demons in the magical realm—after all, she just seemed to attract evil, which only made Owen’s job a lot harder.  But now, it seems, trouble has followed her home.  Despite the fact that Merlin, Katie’s former boss at Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc., has assured her that Cobb is free of enchantment, magically speaking, Katie begins to notice curious phenomena.

Cobb is being plagued by a series of unexplainable petty crimes and other devilish mischief, and after her experiences in Manhattan, Katie knows “unauthorized magic” when she sees it.  As this new dark magic strikes deep in the heart of Texas, Owen reappears (literally) to investigate.  Now Katie’s friends and family must show the bad guys why it’s bad luck to hex with Texas, while Katie and Owen combine their strengths like never before to uncover a sinister plot before evil takes root in the Lone Star State.

Swendson’s contemporary urban fantasy novels have enchanted fans of romance, chick lit and fantasy alike.  DON’T HEX WITH TEXAS—and don’t miss what Booklist calls “one of the best romantic-fantasy series being written today”!

About the Author

SHANNA SWENDSON escaped the corporate rat race to be a novelist and pop culture essayist.  She is the author of Enchanted, Inc. and Once Upon Stilettos, in addition to contributing essays to books about television series, authors, and novels.  When she’s not writing or watching television and movies so she can write about them, she enjoys cooking, traveling, and singing.  Visit her web site at www.shannaswendson.com, and her blog at http://shanna-s.livejournal.com/

* * *

New episode in the Adventures of Saffron Sally is up!

Starting tomorrow, I will be embarking upon my favorite week of the year.

Mother’s Day is the unofficial start of the planting season here in the Chicago area.  So I will be unearthing my garden gloves (which I’m prone to losing, one from each pair, like socks, so that I putter around in the garden with my hands clad in different colors), throwing out the pots that cracked over the winter, renting a roto-tiller, hauling enormous bags of mulch and compost up the stone steps that lead to my backyard, and then on Monday, bright and early - no shower; I’ll plunk an old baseball cap on my head, climb into my oldest, shabbiest clothes, grab a travel mug of coffee - I will get in my car.  (First folding down all the backseats for maximum storage.)  And I will drive to my neighborhood garden center and spend and spend and spend - I’ve been saving my money for this for months. 

I will grab a huge flat-bed cart and head over to the side of the nursery that’s filled with sun-loving plants; our yard doesn’t have a lot of sun but there is one nice little patch that I will fill to the brim with brightly blooming flowers.  First perennials - I always pick up a couple of new ones - then I’ll load up on the annuals. 

I’ll take a detour around the garden accessories part, and I’ll be tempted to buy something pretty and functional and expensive, but I won’t.  Because I want to save my money for plants.

Then I’ll go over to the shade section.  There I start with the annuals - all the begonias and impatiens, so many varieties to choose from.  But our yard has mostly shade, so I really load up on these.  Then, because this year we’re reclaiming a new section from our overgrown backyard, a little area I’m turning into an outdoor living room (this is why we have to rent a roto-tiller tomorrow), I’ll go over to the shade-loving perennials.  I’m excited about ferns this year.

That’s not a sentence you hear very often, is it?  

I will be tempted to load up the car so densely with flowers that I will not be able to see out the front window.  But I will remind myself, sternly, that this is just the beginning.  There’s another garden center - not as big as this one - yet to visit, and where I generally go to pick up the things I will forget.  Like hanging baskets, and some trailing plants for a window box I never, ever, remember that I own until everything else is done. 

And then I’ll go home, and I’ll start planting.  I’ll fill up my rusty old Radio Flyer wagon with all my tools; my spades and trowels, and then I’ll start in the front yard.  That’s mostly pots, except for the huge circle of impatiens I will plant around an old bird bath.  Then I’ll move to the back yard, which will take me much more time.

But I won’t be in any hurry.  I will enjoy it all - every bit of it; there’s no part I wish to skip, no ending I’m in a hurry to reach, and there’s a lesson in that, I think. 

I love the hauling of the plants from the car to the yard, laying them out, moving them around, studying them.  I love the actual digging; I’m a very hands-on gardener.  I get down on my knees and plunge my hands into soil - with or without gloves, I really don’t care; I use my hands where others use trowels because I need to feel the dirt, feel the plants, feel them settle into the ground or the pot. 

I will get sweaty, muddy, tired; I’ll require many long drinks of water and iced tea; I’ll have to rest, sitting on a stoop or rock, just listening to the birds, smelling the earth, admiring my own handiwork.

I will not hurry, because I know I have an entire week to get it all done, and it’s my reward. 

It’s my reward for working hard this winter; writing and revising and blogging and online serializing, for hauling my son around to untold numbers of college visits he hasn’t wanted to go on, for nagging him about his ACT test and all his grades this crucial Junior year; it’s my reward for putting up with this horrible winter we’ve had, the gray skies and endless onslaught of snow, ice, snow, ice; it’s my reward for not spending much, for coloring and cutting my hair on my own, for only buying two pairs of summer sandals, for cutting back my Starbucks runs from every day to every other or sometimes even less.

It’s my reward for living in suburbia, where there are whole months I chafe at it, chafe at the sameness, the dullness.  But come spring, I don’t.  And I know I’ll have four months of paradise - a paradise I could not have in that city condo I sometimes dream about. 

Gardening is one of the few things I do that is only for me.  My sons don’t understand it; they don’t understand why I save my money only to spend it on something like flowers; flowers that will ultimately die. 

But they don’t understand that it’s because I know they’ll die that I love this time of year so much.  It’s my chance to start over, every year at exactly this time.  It’s my chance to play God; to create my own Garden of Eden and if I get it wrong this year - if I plant something that won’t take, if I make a mistake about colors - next year I’ll remember, and try something different.   

And I know this is the reward for living in a climate that’s as harsh as Chicago can be; we pay our penance with our long, gray winters but I know I wouldn’t enjoy this time of year so much if I didn’t have to suffer through them. 

Plantin’ Time - it’s also an act of redemption.  For it’s how I am able to forgive Mother Nature.

So if I’m not around much next week, I’m sure you’ll understand.  I need a week in which I don’t have to worry about anything other than the rising and the setting of the sun, the clouds, the chance of rain.  

Everybody could use a little time for that.  A time to plant ideas as well as flowers, because there’s no better way to clear your mind from all the clutter and noise generated by our busy, Internet-dependent lives. 

So go forth and plant your own garden, and if you choose to take that metaphorically rather than literally, I won’t mind one bit.  

OK, really, people.  Get a hold of yourselves - the exhausting conversation that we had yesterday concerning the fate of the novel!  I really cannot keep up with you.  My mind, it is spinning.

And that was written in my best sarcastic voice, if you didn’t get it.

Moving on - because obviously enlightened conversations concerning fiction and publishing hold no interest for most of you.   So today I decided to see what Twitter was all about.  I just set up a profile.  Now what?

Apparently none of my email contacts have Twitter accounts - or else, I didn’t do that application correctly, which is entirely possible.  So if any of you have Twitter accounts, please connect to me - or whatever it is you do there?  For the life of me I can’t figure out if you invite people to be friends - as you do on other social networking sites - or what.  Right now, I’m just hanging out there all alone, telling nobody what it is I’m doing. 

And really, I can get that same satisfaction here at home. 

So help a girl out, and tell her how to Twitter!

* * *

New episode of Sally is up. 

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of publishing blogs that are concerned about the future of the novel.  Obviously - after all, this is their business. 

But one thing I keep hearing is how the publishing industry appears to be shrinking, finally catching on to the (disturbing) fact that readership is doing the same.  It seems to me - and please, this is totally unscientific! - that more editors and sales staff are leaving the business and they’re not always being replaced. 

Now, in the recent past it seemed that the industry’s reaction to shrinking readership was to publish even more books than before.  Not the most logical reaction, me thinks.  But that’s what happened, and while it would seem this would be good news for an aspiring author, I’m not sure it was.  Because if you have a choice between not having your book published and having it published poorly - just sort of thrown out to the wolves with no marketing plan, no real chance at success - I’m really not sure which choice is the better.  They both kind of stink, if you want to have a career. 

But these blogs seem to be speculating that the future will bring fewer books, but bigger ones.  And that leaves authors like me scratching their heads and wondering, “Hmm.  Well, define bigger.”

And that’s what I’m asking you to do.  What constitutes a “big” novel?  I’m not talking sheer heft and weight - I mean, yes, Tolstoy knew how to write him a big book. 

I’m talking about what defines “big” between the covers.  (Hey!  I just made a sexual joke!  All by myself!  Heh.)

Off the top of my head, I’d say that a big novel is one that has a sweeping, almost epic story.  Compelling characters.  And most importantly, really universal themes, set against the background of this sweeping, epic storyline. 

Gone With the Wind comes immediately to mind.  More recently, I’d say Water for Elephants probably fit this bill.  And I think I understand why publishing may be heading in this direction, even more than usual. 

We’re living in a world of 24/7 reality.  When people do grab a book - which they’re doing with decreasing frequency - I think they want to be swept away into an entirely different world, a world where ordinary people can be heroes and heroines, where circumstances are much bigger - maybe even nobler - than those encountered on a typical episode of “The Hills.”

So that’s what I think a big novel encompasses.  But I’m really interested in what you think. 

Because it seems, even in publishing, it’s all about size. 

I’m going to be out of town for a couple of days, but I managed to take care of a couple of things first:

There’s a new episode of the Adventures of Saffron Sally up.

Also, if you just cannot wait until Wednesday to see what important, insightful post I come up with next (because a blog that talks at length about hair color, well - I mean, come on!  Where else are you going to find that on the Internet?), head over to MidCentury Modern Moms on Tuesday morning when, due to the marvels of technology, a new post of mine will miraculously appear, even though I won’t have access to a computer. 

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you to ponder this: 

Why is it that the two days I have to be out of town are the only two days it’s supposed to be lovely this week?  Why does that always happen to me? 

And in that vein, why does my hair always look great on the days I stay home and nobody sees me; why have my feet shrunk while my bosoms have grown (and they didn’t really need to do that; they were just fine the way they were); why does my son act like a caveman at home but apparently is the most delightful, gentlemanly person in the world when he’s at other people’s houses; why does my cat only throw up on the one good rug when 99% of the house is bare wood floor but no, he can’t manage to throw up on anything that’s remotely easy to clean; why do candy bars always look so much better than they taste but even though I realize this with the first bite, I still force myself to eat the entire bar anyway; why do people look at my author photo and then look at me and say, “So.  How long ago was this picture taken?”; and finally -

Why do I still get pimples, when I’m at the age where I have to start using wrinkle cream?

Ponder away.  I’ll see you guys on Wednesday!   

In an effort to save money - you know, there’s a recession going on! - I’ve been cutting and coloring my own hair lately. 

Now, I don’t recommend this for everyone.  But I have thick curly hair that never looks the same way twice, so I can get away with a little unevenness.  And too, I always ended up taking scissors and fixing what hairstylists - most of whom just never got it when I’d tell them, “Seriously, you have to cut the left side shorter than the right because it always puffs out more - see all the cowlicks?” - wrought. 

Then the gray came.  And coloring, which used to be a fun, frivolous little thing to do became essential.  And much, much more frequent.  All of a sudden, I was racking up $120 salon bills every month.  And you know what?

I really can’t afford that. 

It’s not just that we can’t afford that - I mean, at the end of the day I suppose we could.  If I cut back on Starbucks and shoes and food and driving and other necessities.  But it’s that, in my old age, I am becoming cranky about paying for certain items and services I didn’t blink an eye at, a decade ago.  Makeup, for example; I never used to buy makeup anywhere but the MAC store or Sephora.  Then one day I realized that at my age, nobody is really going to notice whether or not my eyeliner cost $5 or $25.   Actually, no makeup is going to turn back the clock and make me twenty-five again, no matter what the ads say, no matter how many small animals were killed in the making of it. 

Actually actually, nobody is going to notice whether or not I’m wearing any makeup at all.

Stuff like that - I’m just unwilling to pay big bucks for it anymore.  I’m unwilling to make special trips to fancy malls or salons.  I’m just plain tired of trying so hard; I’m about two seconds away from becoming one of those scary ladies with straggly hair, shapeless skirts and sweaters, tennis shoes and no bra.  To which point, for the sake of all humanity, we should all pray that I never, ever arrive. 

So.  I’ve been coloring and cutting my own hair, as I said.  And I’m pretty good at both; nobody’s looked at me, gasped, then run away.  I even get compliments.  And the great thing is whenever I see those horrible gray hairs popping up, I don’t have to start combing my hair over my face in order to cover them up because it’s still three weeks away from my next expensive salon appointment.  I can just run to the drugstore, grab a box of hair color for $6.00, run home and cover them up.  Takes about an hour, and it’s not even very messy.

So last night, I prepared to cover up those roots with something called a root touch up kit.  It was from Marc Anthony, I’ve used it before, it’s a nifty little thing that has a small amount of dye in a container that you just shake up, twist, and apply to your hairline.  Very easy, and it really does the trick.

Except last night, when I shook and twisted and prepared to apply it to my hairline, I noticed something funny.  I noticed that the color of the dye was a deep, dark, startling - blue.

Now, I’ve colored my hair long enough to know that the dye coming out of the bottle isn’t the same shade that it will be on your hair.  Usually, it comes out a brownish orange that darkens over the course of a few minutes. 

Never, though, in my experience, has it ever come out blue. 

Now, a saner, more cautious person would have said, “Hmmm.  Dark blue.  That can’t be good,” then toss the bottle into the trash and call the Marc Anthony people and tell them their product was defective.   

But I am not that person.

See, despite the fact that I appear to be, on the surface, a worry-wart and a scaredy-cat and a person who never, ever leaves the house without sunscreen, I actually have an adventurous streak that surprises people.  It surprises me, too.

It’s the kind of streak that makes me look at a carton of eggs, see that they’ve expired a month ago, and say, “Hmmm.  They look OK to me.  What the hell.  What’s the worst that can happen?”  And then make myself an omelet and sit down and eat it, all the time chewing with a wild look in my eye, giggling a little in anticipation, wondering if the next bite will be my last.  Literally.

It’s the kind of streak that compels me to buy certain things - lots of things, actually; clothes, shoes, household gadgets - on blind trust or instinct or just a disturbingly curious desire to see how truly bad they can be, without trying them on, without seeing them first, without checking to see if they fit or what color they are or if they come with a warranty or return policy.  In fact, the more specific the advertising is in this way - if there’s a big, bold “ALL SALES FINAL! PURCHASE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!” sign plastered all over the place, well - I simply cannot be contained. 

It’s the kind of streak that persuaded me to bring that container of blue hair dye up to my hairline anyway.  And dab it on.  And look at it for a while, fascinated, wondering:  Really, how blue will my hair get??  Or will it change color?  Turn black?  Fall out??

I actually did this.  I thought, ”What’s the worst that can happen? So what?  I’ll be the funny lady with the blue streak in her hair.”

I looked at it in the mirror for a long couple of minutes.  My skin, underneath the dye, turned blue, too.  The dye did not appear to be changing color.  Yet still I almost persisted; I almost took that blue bottle and applied it all along my hairline, not just the one little part that was still a strange blue color.  The bottle was in my hand, I was about to go crazy with the blue dye, but -

Finally, I said to myself, “Are you nuts?  Is your life so boring that you have to shake it up by applying what is obviously a bad bottle of hair dye to your head just to see what will happen?”

Fortunately, while that last part is sadly true, I snapped out of my strange little trance.  I ran to the sink and stuck my head under it and shampooed off the blue dye and today there is no trace of it. 

But today, there is also just a little sadness, a little let down, in my world.  I’ll never know what would have happened if I’d left the dye on.  I’ll never know if it’s just a new formula and everything would have been fine; I’ll never know if it would have turned my hair an amazing new shade I never would have picked on my own. 

And that makes me a little sad. 

But all is not lost.  I just spotted a forgotten carton of eggs in the fridge.  Now, excuse me.  I have an omelet to make! 

New episode is up!

I was once talking with a writer friend of mine, who hadn’t yet sold a manuscript and was finding it tough to find a reason to keep writing.  He said, “If only I could sell a book.  Then I’d have the self-confidence, the validation, to keep going.”

I thought about that.  And I said, “Well, yes and no.”

Yes, of course - selling our work through traditional paying channels is the measure of success in this field.  Of course, there’s a sense of validation, of satisfaction.  But if you think it’s all smooth sailing from there; if you think everyone will fawn all over you and continually tell you what a wonderful writer you are, and if you’re the kind of person who needs this in order to keep writing, well -

I’m afraid you’re in for a bit of a surprise.

I’ve been contemplating this lately, as I’m waiting to hear what my agent thinks of the revisions I’ve done to my manuscript.  (Every author/agent relationship is different, but how the process works for the two of us goes something like this:  I sit and think for a long time, finally coming up with an idea for a new book that hits me, hits me hard, until I can’t think about anything else.  Only then do I sit down to write (having learned that if I start to write without this amazing revelation, I basically just type non-related words on the page and waste a whole lot of time).  I write about three chapters and stop.  I spend a lot of time working on those three chapters.  I think about where they’re leading me.  I send them to my agent.  She reads them, tells me what she thinks, then I go off and finish the book.  I send it to her, she puts it aside until she has time to read it - this part always takes longer than I think it will - then she sends it back to me, all marked up with her suggestions.  Usually we argue about some of them.  Usually she wins.  (That’s because she’s smarter than I am.)  I fix everything.  Then I send it back to her.  Then she reads it again.  Generally, there are just a few more things to fix on my end, then she submits it.)

Anyway.  My point is, little time is wasted telling me how good I am.  How brilliant.  How awe-inspiring.  The thing is, by now it is a given that I’m a good writer.  I wouldn’t have an agent, wouldn’t have been published, if I wasn’t.  So nobody spends a lot time reassuring me of this notion.  Instead, we all concentrate on what I can do better, what needs to be fixed. 

So if I didn’t already have some level of self-confidence, I’d be in pretty bad shape.  Even though, according to my writer friend, I should be at the place where I’m constantly told how good I am.

Nobody really ever tells you that.  Oh, sure, in the very beginning of every relationship - when an agent wants to sign you, when your book is first sold - you are told nice, pretty things about your book and your writing.  But as soon as everyone signs on the dotted line, it quickly becomes apparent that this wonderful book is just full of things that need fixing.  It becomes a product, a commodity, and everyone has a stake in making it better.  So fairly soon all you, the author, hears are the negatives. 

My agent once told me that everyone in the industry - agents and editors, especially - reads manuscripts looking for reasons to turn them down.  It’s a tough business and there are far too many writers than there are consumers.  So nobody reads something going, “Oh, goody!  I just want to buy, buy, buy everything I read today!”  They read it going, “Well, I have no slots left to fill and there are five thousand manuscripts I have to read after this one, and my last couple of books didn’t sell so well so my boss is breathing down my neck…how much do I have to read of this before I can, in all good conscience, tell the agent that I considered it?  One down, four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine to go.”

Yeah, it really is that tough.

So once you break out of that pack, it’s still a long road.  A tough sell - to the marketing people, to the sales force, to the buyer at B&N; ultimately, to the dwindling number of people going into bookstores looking for something new. 

And you, the author - you’re going to have to learn to live with criticism, with people looking at your book coldly, with appraising eyes, trying to squeeze it and shape it into something that will sell, somehow.  Somewhere.

I’m not saying all this to scare anybody away.  I’m just saying it to remind you - remind us all - that we have to have good reasons for doing this that have nothing to do with approval and praise and validation.  We have to love the art of writing enough to withstand the business part.  We have to know, deep down, that we’re good enough - know it so well that we don’t need to hear it from others.  

It’s just like being a mother, in a way, isn’t it?  I’ve spent the last eighteen years of my life parenting kids who will go off and do whatever they feel like and maybe they’ll crash and burn, maybe they won’t, but in the end I won’t have a lot of say in the matter, a lot of control over this product I’ve crafted with so much care. 

And just like my writing, nobody spends a lot of time telling me what a good job I did.  My kids certainly won’t; they will, however, constantly remind me what I could be doing better. 

It’s assumed that if I’ve - we’ve - made it this far without serious trouble - drugs, failing grades, STDs - then I’m parenting at a higher level. 

I haven’t gone into either of these careers - motherhood or writing - because I need someone to tell me what a good job I’ve done.  I’ve done it because I couldn’t do anything else; because I love the work, alone.  Because I get such a kick out of the creative part. 

Validation?  It has to come from within, not without.  Nobody can ever tell me all I need to know about either my parenting or my writing.  Nobody can ever tell me because I don’t need to hear it.  Because every day I sit down to write despite the odds - or tell an angry teenager he absolutely has to be home by midnight, I don’t care what everybody else is doing - I know.

I’m doing the best I can.  And I’m pretty good at it.  Or else I still wouldn’t be doing it, after all these years.

(New episode of Sally is up!) 

Yesterday DAH and I met for a brief moment in the kitchen, both of us either coming in or going out, and I said to him, ”Don’t take this the wrong way, honey, but you look awful - like Keith Richards without makeup!”  ”You do, too!” he exclaimed.  There was an uncomfortable pause during which I debated whether or not to smite him.  But finally I did not.  Because he spoke the truth.  

So we sat down and did a quick inventory of the last three weeks.  And we realized that since the first weekend in April we have:

Driven to and from Minnesota for a wedding.  Driven to and from Milwaukee for a college visit with younger son.  Driven to and from Peoria for the same.  I’ve driven to and from St. Louis for that walkathon.  He’s traveled non-stop for work.  (So actually the Milwaukee college visit was just me and younger son.)  Celebrated two birthdays - both boys, which meant for two consecutive weekends we’ve had to drive into and out of the city to retrieve older son.  Got caught up in all the prom activity for younger son (prom was Saturday; he and his girlfriend looked very nice).  Done massive amounts of yard work preparing for the spring planting, and also house work, cleaning out the attic and garage for our town’s unlimited trash day, which occurred this weekend.

I finally got my revisions back from my agent, and so I spent last week being all wild-eyed and distracted and surrounded by pages and pages of my manuscript, which I can never keep all tidy and neat.

Anyway - all that’s just to tell you that man, I’m tired.  (And feeling old; driving your youngest child around to visit colleges and watching him don a tux and look all grown up with a lovely young woman in a formal gown, well - that will make you feel ancient.  Proud.  Broke.  But ancient.)  And also, to offer an explanation as to why things have been slow around here but I promise they’ll pick up this week. 

Also Also - to bitch about the high cost of gas.  Because usually I can go two weeks without filling up but lately with all the driving, well - Holy Freakin’ Petroleum, Batman!  For the first time ever in this affluent little town I call home, I feel very smug in my tiny fuel efficient Honda.  And emboldened enough to go, “Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!” to all the housewives driving - now with tight, panicked smiles - their big Hummers and Suburbans and Explorers.  They envy me now, I tell ya!  They envy me now.

Phew.  All right - now we get to tour another Girlfriend, Sara Hantz, whose first book The Second Virginity of Suzy Green is just out:

Suzy Green used to be one of the coolest nonconformist “almost-Goth” party girls in Australia. That was before her older sister Rosie died and her family moved to a new town. Not even her best friend would recognize her now. Gone are the Doc Martens and the attitude. All she wants is to be like Rosie—perfect. The new Suzy Green makes straight As, hangs with the in-crowd at her new school, and dates the hottest guy around. And since all her new friends belong to a virginity club, she joins, too. So what if she’s not technically qualified? Nobody in town knows . . . until Ryan, Suzy’s ex, turns up. As the past and present collide, Suzy struggles to find her own place in a world without her sister.

Read an excerpt on www.sarahantz.com
Check out Sara’s blog on www.sarahantz.com/blog

Bio:  Sara Hantz started writing when she ran out of degrees to study and decided it was much more fun to make things up than to comment on dry academics. Born in England, she moved to New Zealand a few years ago. The Second Virginity of Suzy Green is Sara’s first novel.