So, the main things that have happened since I last wrote, and I know
it’s been a long time, are these: I was diagnosed with Type II
diabetes, I met David Lynch, and Ben left the company.
Not surprised about the diabetes –my dad’s had it, diet-controlled,
for 30 or 40 years. And I was told I was borderline after a blood
test a few years ago. But I just wasn’t ready to quit sugar
yet. So my psychiatrist, actually, was blood-testing me to check
my fluoxetine levels, and to see what drug would be all right for me to
add for mild bipolar, and the lab reported a blood sugar level of
394. So he called me and sent me the result and told me to see my
regular doctor immediately. My doctor retested me and got a
fasting level of 250. I learned I’d also had some symptoms — the
extreme thirst, and a fungal infection on the soles of my feet that I’d
taken for psoriasis.
So I’m taking a daily asprin against blood clots, glyburide in the
morning to stimulate insulin production, and a second blood pressure
med called lisinopril. I’m taking additional trazodone for my
mood disorder, and clonazapam as needed for bad mood swings (that weepy
shit). The podiatrist had me mixing three creams, rubbing them on
my soles before bedtime, and wrapping my feet in plastic wrap.
The opthalmologist found no diabetes-related eye trouble, but did find
that the pressure in my eyes was a bit high, so I have drops for
that. And I have a monitor to test my glucose, which I do about
three times a day I have been very good about my diet, and
recently am getting fasting levels around 95-130, and after meal levels
of around 140-180. I haven’t lost any weight yet, but when I get
paid on Wednesday, I’m joining a gym. $76 a month is gonna hurt
(I do, however, get a low initiation fee through my job).
I’m not all that bothered by not being able to eat sugar or much
starch I eat some fruit and some dried fruit and sugar-free fudge
pops and sugar-free yogurt. I drink a lot of green tea and herb
tea and flavored tea, hot and iced, plain or with a bit of
Splenda. The worst thing so far was not being able to eat dessert
at the Gramercy Tavern (Lynch lunch) or Dani (lunch with the other
publicist, Lee, and our publisher after Ben resigned).
We take you to the Gramercy Tavern now, for lunch with our Barnes &
Noble rep, fours Barnes & Noble events and marketing people, Lynch
and his assistant, publicist, literary agent, and agent’s son, the
editor of the book and me. (I arranged a similar lunch in Ann
Arbor for Lynch and folks from Borders, and when he’s on tour in
Seattle, he has a lunch and “fishbowl” — a Q&A with employees – at
Amazon. This here is big-league publicity work, giving the big
chain booksellers a little treat to make them feel like members of the
team and get them to push the book a little more.) You can
imagine that the B&N people in New York are rather jaded; I’ve been
told they’ve had lunches with folks like President Clinton and
Oprah. But they dug David. David is amazing. He’s one
of the nicest, most accessible guys you can imagine, and he is utterly
brilliant, big-time genius.
What impressed me the most about David (who came back to the offices
for a meet-and-greet with staff and signed galleys for anyone who
wanted), is that he has the ability to be totally focussed, which is
probably attributable to TM. So every person he talks to, even if
it’s someone who gets 2 minutes of his time while he signs their
galley, feels he’s totally paying attention to them and totally
interested in the fact that this person, say, copyedited the flap copy
for his book. It *really* makes the person feel very special, and
I sure can say that firsthand, because I spent a whole lot more than
two minutes with him and really felt like we bonded. It’s
probably safe to say that we got along. He’s a very perceptive
and sensitive dude, and it’s a real dream that he’s so willing to
publicize his book, along with his new movie.
Mostly I deal with David’s publicist, Todd, who is another very open,
charming guy. I’m touring David to five cities, five bookstore
reading/signings (1 Borders, 2 B&N, 2 indies), and the NY Times Style section is doing a big piece and the Sunday Boston Globe, and we hope more to come.
The lunch at the Gramercy Tavern was interesting and successful, and I
had booked a beautiful private room. It was my first time at this
ultra-high-rated place, and since I couldn’t eat sweets, I splurged
with an appetizer of seared foie gras, which I’d never had
before. The first thing I thought when I tasted it was how much
my mother would have loved it; she adored nicely crisped steak or lamb
fat. Me too. There’s a word I’ve heard used over the last
year, which I of course can’t remember now, in Chinese cooking, which
means a taste that is rich and savory. That’s sseared foie gras
for you. Lovely salmon for the main, and just cappuccino to
finish up.
Ben got tapped to be publisher of a new US book publishing arm of a big
UK corporation. It’s just starting up, so he wasn’t able to bring
any of us. I was sad and even pissed off. Plus we have a
hellish winter season up ahead, and the other publicist, Lisa,
and I had to split up his books. They did get us a temp for three
months to help with mailings and such, but we have an insane work
load. Our publisher is looking for a new supervisor for us.
He’s made it very clear that he adores Lisa, Lee and me and that we’re
staying, but it’s still a bit nervewracking. But we get great
support from him and I get a lot of support from the editor in chief,
who edits a bunch of the spiritual authors (including Pinchbeck and
Lynch).
Pinchbeck, BTW, is in his sixth printing and has national TV coming up: The Colbert Report on December 14. He’s continuing to do a lot of events on his own, and continuing to sell pretty well. My Power of Kindness
author, Piero Ferrucci, is up for a Books for a Better Life award in
February. We are thinking that this book may continue to build
and may kick some ass in paperback; the publisher loves it as much as I
do, and he says that the president of the entire firm does too.
I’m knitting again now that the weather’s cooler. I’m not having
all that much to do with Will; when we started to have two separate
relationships, the sterile public one and the purely sexual one, we
somehow lost all of the affection we had in our one, pre-sex
relationship. It’s just not warm any more. And since I
decided I really needed a break from the sex part for a while, hoping
to get the friendship a little stronger, it seems like he’s being
friendly in the hopes that I’ll say Yes again. It’s all very
sad. But he’s just turned 68, and it doesn’t seem right to either
of us to totally separate.
