This was a long week of work to get through.  I’m beginning serious campaigns on a couple of new books, though 2012 has certainly not gone away yet.  It’s still selling well, and the Rolling Stone profile hasn’t run yet.

Going to the Harlem Book Fair tomorrow with John Strausbaugh, which ought to be interesting. 

I’m just looking forward to my free afternoon today.  I sometimes end up doing a lot of shopping on Friday afternoons, since I’ve generally been broke up until Leo’s payday (Thursday).  But today I just want to go home and do jewelry.

Another thing that seems to get me into the creative flow is making up mailing lists.  I’m a real artiste with those things.  Really worked hard this week on a list for The Power of Kindness which is another book for which I have great expectations.

I did tell Will at our last lunch that sex was off for the time being.  He said that he’d been planning to suggest that we have a session “as ourselves” — that is, no characters or scenarios.  That would be the best way to do it at this point, but I think I’m going to give us a chance to be friends for a while longer.  He does pull a very convincing lonesome punim (face).  We’re having lunch on Monday and I might suggest scheduling a “be ourselves” date.

And a week from today is my lunch at Nobu with that outside publicist.  Will says the cod is exceptional.

I did, finally, get a thank you note from Bill Clinton for the books I sent a couple of months ago.  (His office had called to request a particular title he wanted, and I sent a couple of others as well.)  It looks to be personally signed.  This is way, way cool.

The Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint show the other night was incredibly wonderful.  I haven’t heard the album yet but I’m recommending it anyway.

My favorite new summer beverage:  Ito En Green Tea with Blueberry.  Runner up is Snapple White Tea with Nectarine.

The party last night was amazing in many ways.  Ben and I traveled
up by car with two good friends of his, a married couple, who happen to
be the designer of Joe’s book jacket and his lawyer.  Ben
introduced me to them as “Joe’s publicist,” to which I said, “I
am?  when did that happen?”  Well, since he’s already Joe’s
editor, he was going to introduce me that way, to pump up my status a
bit, as he was fine just being Joe’s editor.  It’s true that I’ve
done a lot of work on the book, maybe a bit less than half of it, but
Ben’s kept a pretty firm grip on it.  But since Joe is comfortable
with me and Ben of course has a gazillion things to do, I think he’s
kind of handing off Joe to me, which is just fine.

To back up a bit — yesterday afternoon, we got an advance copy of the Times
Book review to be published on the 16th, with an excellent full-page
review of Joe’s book.  His sales have been really sluggish so far,
and I think Ben’s intention is to give me that review and turn me loose
to make use of it.  He said in his evaluation of me that I was
“gifted” as a publicist and I think that’s true; I have always had an
affinity for public relations, and my instincts and intuition are
really good.

So we brought Joe’s wonderful review to the party.  Ben read it
out loud in the car.  I liked his friends a lot.  They were
smart and played cool music in the car.  Ben and I are getting
very bonded as a working team; it’s rather telling that he was saying
to his friends, “we really need a hit, we need a home run, my ass is on
the line, I’m gonna lose my job –” and then turned to me and said,
“don’t tell the kids.”  Which was funny and kind of nailed
it.  He was very bonded with Lee when she was his assistant, but
that was different.

Anyway, the party was in upper Harlem/Washington Heights, near the
Morris Jumel mansion (if I remember correctly, Mrs. Jumel was Aaron
Burr’s mistress), so it’s kind of this funky latino neighborhood with a
national treasure in the middle, plus a little street called Jumel
Terrace with a row of pristine historic row houses on both sides. 
The party was right around the corner from this.  The guy who
threw the party has a little bookstore, African and African-American
interest, on the ground floor, and a garden out back.  Fascinating
dude, a former hippie who worked in book shops and then rare books and
then as a private librarian, stocking libraries for rich folk. 

I don’t think I’ve ever been at a more interesting party.  Most
everyone was literary in some way, the crowd was nicely mixed among
white, Asian, and black, and I talked to bookstore people, a editor of
an arts & culture magazine, the head of some African-American
literary group (good-looking older black man who seemed to be hitting
on me a bit).  There was a collection upstairs of an extraordinary
artist, Michael Ray Charles, plus bits of African art and a santeria
altar in the bookstore.  Just way too cool.

Joe just kind of sat there and let things swirl around him.  He’s
single and dating, I learned (not from him), and it seems his head is
easily turned by pretty girls too young for him.  Some guys are
like that.  He hugged me warmly several times and is eager to work
with me more.  I was working the room more than I was working him,
which was kind of why I was there.  I handed out a lot of business
cards and Ben was very approving.

I hope to get to more parties like that.  What a blast!

It’s all too crazy, really.  Still having a lot of success with 2012.  The Rolling Stone feature is due in the August 3 issue and I think it’s really going to catapult sales.  Ben gaving me a rather glowing probationary evaluation, and said he hopes I can be patient for a couple of years; if there’s no room for me to move up in T_____ at that point, he’ll help me go somewhere else.  I’m in no rush to leave T____.  It’s a good little imprint.

I went to Hannah’s over the July 4 weekend.  I actually didn’t go until Sunday, since the area had flooded for the third time in two years.  Hannah’s house was raised ten feet after the second flood, so they were basically okay, tho they had to move stuff off the garage floor and then clean up after the few feet of water receded.  Hannah’s garden was trashed and mud got into the pool and the phone and electric were off for a while.  Some of her neighbors who hadn’t raised their houses didn’t get off nearly as lightly, and it was sad to see. 

Leo didn’t feel up to coming to PA with me, so I went alone.  We sat in the sun, ate, smoked dope, watched some movies.  Very nice.

I’m kind of fed up with Will.  I don’t think he can manage not to be greedy and selfish when it comes to sex, so no more sex with Will.  I’m just tired of trying to correct him away from what he is.  Leo and I went to the screening of the Whitefish film at Lincoln Center (Walter Reade Theater) last week, and he and the film guys did a Q&A from the stage after.  Needless to say, he announced several things that I at one time would have expected to hear before he announced it to 200 strangers (like that his ex-girlfriend is coming to town this summer, that he’s recording some of her songs for a ‘zine insert, and that Milo is allegedly sober).  I can’t make myself be more important to Will.  I’m tired of trying to make him more user-friendly.  He can be who he is.  I can pretty much walk away.  We’re supposed to have lunch on Monday.  I don’t mind having the occasional lunch with him, but I don’t think he’ll be a close friend again.  It’s not what he wants, no matter what he thinks.  He wants a sex toy.  He keeps *saying* that the friendship comes first, but he didn’t even approach me before the screening to say hello or anything.  (Neither did Sherry.)  I sure haven’t been invited to visit or to come to a rehearsal or anything.  I’m just sick of both of them.  (Their daughters were both at the screening, and were extremely nice and friendly to me.)

Things have been somewhat quiet between Joe and me, but tonight’s his party.  I read a four-year-old interview with him where he mentions a girlfriend, but no matter how many times I read it and how much I thought about it, there’s no way to tell if he still does.  (Duh.)  Then again, I’m married, so who am I to talk?  Him, I’d like for a friend at this point.

I’ve been enjoying the jewelry thing again lately.  I can get into that flow, that creative spot, and it’s a real thing of beauty; being a weekend hobby doesn’t take anything away from that feeling.  I can get there pretty fast.  I didn’t go to work on Wednesday — I’d actually had a really bad stomach for a few days, since PA.  It was my first sick day since I’ve been at this job, the two months temp and over two months permanent, which must be a record for me.  So I had a couple of blissfully long sessions making jewelry.  Hannah had brought back some beads from Mexico which she wanted me to use to make some things for her, and I made all three pieces in one morning, and started on a really pretty necklace for myself.  I’m using rougher, funkier pieces these days, and ending up with pieces that are much more naive than refined.  The one I’m working on now is a necklace of irregular, polished natural mother-of-pearl (tan striped with white), wire-wrapped, and a fringe (beads on headpins attached to the wraps on the main beads) of small blue-brown beads (some rough Peruvian blue opal, rough apatite, and a few funky little aquamarine rondelles). 

Things at home are okay.  Leo is needy these days, but I’m not.  The two new air conditioners have been life-savers, but our little old hand-me-down fridge is close to croaking.  The freezer, which is fairly clogged with frost, barely makes ice cubes, and milk goes bad after a day in the fridge.  So it looks like we’ll be buying a new fridge next month.  Cooking is basically impossible without a good fridge, since the food stores in our neighborhood are pretty much closed when I get home on a weeknight, and there’s no way to keep fresh or frozen food.  (I was having serious food-storage lust at Hannah’s:  she has a huge new fridge in the kitchen, with a freezer drawer and ice maker and water filter/dispenser, plus a second fridge in the laundry room, plus a big freezer in the garage.)  I tend not to be an every-night cook when I’m working, but I’m going nuts not being able to cook at all, or to keep ice cream.  Basically, we only use the fridge to keep bottled drinks cool and for the bit of ice we can make.

We are seeing Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint at the Beacon on Tuesday, and I am extremely psyched!