Now I’m working insanely.  New books have been added for 12/28
publication (so we can meet a goal of x number of books out there by
year-end), and it’s madness.  I am now lead publicist for nine
books being published that day.  Granted, four are reprints of old
inspirational books that can be publicized as a group, and two are
paperback reprints.  But one is also the David Lynch book.

I had an awfully good time with my friend in Jersey, who I will call
Patty for now because it’s easy to remember. I think Patty is a little
depressed living in the ‘burbs.  For one thing, she hasn’t worked
in nine years or more.  When she was about to go back to work
several years ago, she came up pregnant for the second time at age 47
(!!!), and now her son is 3-1/2.  Daughter is nine.  Patty,
who for some time would not date a non-Jewish man (while I dated every
color of the rainbow), married an Irish guy from Jersey who hates New
York City with a passion.  Patty lived in Forest Hills all her
life until she married her husband.  Forest Hills is a
neighborhood in Queens, NY, which was a very nice Jewish middle-class
neighborhood for a lot of years.  These days it’s very Russian,
but Patty always lived among her own kind.  Well, anyway, where
she lives now is really heavily Christian, which is weird for her, and
really white, which I don’t think she minds but which I found
bizarre.  It’s way the hell out of New York, and Patty won’t drive
on highways (like a good city girl, she learned to drive really late
and is nervous about driving that fast).  So she really only gets
around locally.  Plus they are temporarily without a second car,
so she now doesn’t get around much of anywhere without being driven.

A lot of the other at-home moms around there get together in various
ways, but it’s generally around things like scrapbooking or (shudder)
bingo.  She is friendly with a couple of neighbor women with whom
she goes to horror movies, which is also not Patty’s thing but more her
thing than bingo or scrapbooking.  Her neighbors are just not as
cool as Jannah or her neighbors, and I’m not sure what that’s about,
just what the difference is.

Patty was actually thrilled that I brought reefer, since she doesn’t
know anyone there who smokes or how she’d ever get any.  (The kids
were with their grandparents when I was visiting, so that wasn’t an
issue.)  Her husband had a rather roller-coaster time with booze
and drugs as a youth and quit them all, on his own, at age 21. 
She said she probably hadn’t gotten high since the last time she got
high with me, which might well have been my batchelorette party (we
didn’t smoke at the wedding).  Also, we hadn’t visited since I
started making jewelry, so I let her choose a ton of stuff; I think she
ended up with three necklaces and maybe 15 pair of earrings.  (Her
husband, predictably, gives her the sort of dinky-ass boring
gold-and-diamond stuff that you get at Zales or whatever,
mass-produced, you know the deal.  But she was really into my
stuff and chose some pieces that were a bit wilder than I would have
expected.)

I did love hanging out with her; we were estranged for a couple of
years between her wedding and mine, and since then haven’t seen too
much of each other.  But really, we know each other so long and so
well.  We’re very different kinds of people in a lot of ways, and
I think at times I’ve dwelt heavily on the differences.  But now
what I mostly feel is how much I love her and how comfortable I am with
her.  I’ve known her almost 40 years and she’s the closest thing I
have to a sister.

We are finally, finally buying a fridge this weekend.  The plan is
to go to Sears on Saturday and pick one out, then get it delivered one
day next week, since we’re on vacation.  I miss cooking.  I
really look forward to shopping and cooking.  I made a chicken
dish at Patty’s on Friday night, and was surprised at how much I
enjoyed making it and eating my own cooking and how impressed Patty
was.  I guess she doesn’t cook from scratch too much.  Right
now, our  fridge holds milk for about two days and says “I think I can” when it makes ice.

I’m looking forward to making some jewelry next week.  Other plans
include the beach, and seeing the Holmes Brothers on Thursday
night.  I know the Holmeses from the early 80s, when they played
at my favorite divey blues bar.  But unlike a lot of bands and
musicians I “knew” from those days, they were really my friends,
particularly Sherman.  When I got sober and stopped coming around
the bar, Sherman was the only person from that scene who picked up a
phone and called me. In the olden days, I used to carry the tip can
around the bar for them.  Now, they’re so in demand
internationally that they’re out of the country about 225 days a
year.  They’re still amazingly talented, they were always tight,
and I’m so very happy for their success.  Sherman’s about 70
now.  It’s going to be good to see him; I invited him and Pinkie
to my wedding, but he was away.

It will be a laid-back week.  Can’t hardly wait. 

Currently reading:  Lisey’s Story by Stephen King, to be published
in October.  Ben snagged me a galley, bless his heart.

It’s not so much that I’m working a lot of extra hours, but I’m putting
my whole self into this job.  And we’re heading into a really
insane season.  We are publishing a ridiculous number of books
this fall, and five were just added to 12/28, to boost our 2006 figures
somehow, and we were already pubbing eight titles that day. 
Granted, a few of them are paperback reprints, but still.  We have
only three publicists, and that’s counting Ben, who’s also an editor
and publicity director, and me, who’s also Ben’s assistant. 

I’m going to visit my old friend in Jersey this weekend, the one who
isn’t Laurel, first time I’ve seen her in a few years.  Strictly a
catch-up visit.  Leaving Leo at home for this one.  But Leo’s
coming with me to Hannah’s on the 25th, which is the end of our
vacation week together.

That writer guy wasn’t for me.  Too shallow and too damaged, tho I
still like & admire him for being talented, interesting and
funny.  Leo is very needy, still, and driving me a little crazy as
he often does when money is tough.  Money has been tough because
our fridge is nearly dead and we basically have been ordering in nine
meals a week, which is killing our money.  We’re a little over a
week away from buying a new fridge.  I get paid on the 15th and
we’re going to Sears on the 19th and hope we can get it delivered
before the 25th, when we’re on vacation.  Then there will be much
shopping, cooking, and taking of lunch.

Will and I are finding our way back together, in fits and starts. 
We’ve agreed to an “as ourselves” date a week from Friday, tho he’s
still trying to plan all the moves ahead of time.  We’ve had
lunches, talked some, and I’m starting to experience moments, just
flashes, of affection again.  This had been absent for a time, and
whether it was really gone or whether I was just doing a damned good
job of suppressing it, I can’t say.  Don’t know. 
Did someone ask if Will and I liked to role-play?  ooh, you gotta
read back to over a year ago, when he and I broke up for eight months,
but before that, there’s a couple of years of way serious role-playing
pretty meticulously chronicled.  In brief, he has very specific,
vanilla sex with his wife, so that’s one thing we don’t do.  We’re
mostly pretty much Dom/sub, tho we’ve reversed it here and there. 
He’s very fixated on “forced” blowjobs/face-fucking, and we both love
it when he butt-fucks me.  So we generally make up a scenario that
leads us to that kind of thing.  One we’ve repeated is “The
Strange Man,” where I’m me and Will plays the strange man, someone Will
has lent me out to, and I’m to obey him absolutely.  There’s one I
love where we’re a teenage couple who finally get to make out in a
bedroom when someone’s parents are out.  I connect heavily with
horny teenagers.  A classic is The Shady Masseur, which I’m sure I
don’t have to explain.  There’s one that involves a pony that Will
carried around for many years before he finally got to do it, involving
a cute little pony and a sadistic vet who also happens to love sucking
pony dick.  I really loved that he shared something so out-there
with me, and I got very enthusiastic about it, and it was quite
memorable.  There’s also one where I’m a hooker named Cherie (I
have a nice voice for that one, soft and a little southern). 
Actually, when we were having lunch the other day, and were talking
about the just-ourselves session, I said, “I thought up a good one, for
some other time:  The Passed-Out Prom Date.”  He just lit
right up.

I have to go to bed soon.  Never enough time.

Oh, but I did think I should at least list some of the books I’ve read lately:

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by I don’t remember but it’s the #1 paperback on the Times bestseller list
Persian Girls by Namid Rachlin

That’s a little pathetic that I’m not remembering what I read before
Memory Keeper’s Daughter.  The books are in the room where Leo’s
asleep.  But I’m about to finish Persian Girls (both of those
books are excellent).  Oh, I also read that Jeans book that just
came out.  I do end up getting access to almost anything I want
from our publishing house, tho not always right away.  I even
score things from other houses, but not regularly.  (I got a
galley of Stephen King’s next novel today, the one pubbing in
October.  I consider that a biggie.)

Oh — I also read Pizza Face by Ken Siman, which I also liked.