Mark Fiore is more inspirational than Oprah

Did you hear about my friend Mark Fiore (he's the one who got Dengue Fever at my birthday party)? He won the Pulitzer Prize last week. The Pulitzer Prize, people! That's, like, the most colossal and public pat on the back a journalist can get.

I did the voice for this one. It earned him death threats!

I have dealt with my pride and excitement by working the information into as many conversations as possible. I run into a parent preparing snacks in the preschool kitchen and say something like, "Man am I tired; it must be because my really good friend Mark Fiore just won the Pulitzer Prize." I'm out to dinner with some work friends talking about learning to make Chinese dumplings and I say, "That reminds me of my really good friend Mark Fiore, who just won the Pulitzer Prize." An acquaintance mentions she just got back from New York and I say, "Oh, my really good friend Mark Fiore will be going to New York to accept the Pulitzer Prize he just won."

Ahem, I did the voice for this one too

But seriously, I am really proud of him. I tried to make a toast at a party in his honor earlier this week but because of my weeping problem (it prohibits all public toast-making and reading of poetry), I couldn't do it. What I wanted to say was this: I am proud and happy for him not because the Pulitzer is a big deal, super-prestigious prize, but because he was justly rewarded for following his passions.

I got a book when I graduated from college called Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow. This, of course, is the kind of soft-minded pap that makes me dislike Oprah (I jumped off her bandwagon around the time of The Secret). But the first part of the title, the part about doing what you love, has some merit. Mark Fiore has done what he loves, regardless of whether the money was following or taking a totally different route. He worked hard, super hard, at doing it well. He invented a form (the online political animation) and he found success. It's positively inspirational.

Mark helped us build our chicken coop. What a stand up guy.

I was waxing thusly to my dad the other day when he reminded me that talent plus hard work does not always result in success. Lots of people do what they love and find neither money nor notoriety. Lots of good, smart people toil away at what they love in anonymity. My dad, by the way, is perhaps the least sentimental person on the planet. He's also right.

But this doesn't mean I can't get a little lift from Mark's reward. Just because in the end very few of us will win venerated awards, doesn't mean we shouldn't try to remember to pay attention to what moves us, to work hard, to practice discipline, to ignore the bullshit, and to follow what we love. That could be pretty rewarding too.

Congratulations, Mark! Woot! Woot!

Turning 40 in Yelapa. Ole!

Last time we met I was off to Mexico and promising in my haste to discuss a million important things (such as the success or failure of my spray-on tan) upon my return. Well, I'm returned. The larder has been restocked. The laundry is in various states of washing and drying and waiting to be folded. The junk mail has been tossed, the checks endorsed. The sunscreen and bug spray have been put away. Let me just pour myself a glass of wine, and we'll settle in for a nice long chat.

We have so much to go over, so many adventures and mis-, that we're going to need a real working week to get through it all. Plus, as regular readers of this blog will attest, I've been a bit slack of late. And what better way to get back into the frenzied American pace than to commit to five full days of writing? I will picture you all as cranky overworked editors in soup-stained ties impatiently slapping the backs of your hands against your palms, demanding I file my next missive.

It was the Mister and Mark taking the kids up dangerous rocks

Let's start with Yelapa, Mexico, where I went with 17 family members and friends to celebrate turning 40. How was the trip, you ask? Well, it was so many things.

It was watching the chubasco from our open-air apartment

It was sunshine and blue sky, and it was unseasonable pelting drops of rain. It was hanging out with my dear friends, and it was fighting with my mom. It was our kids eating only white food for ten days. It was a pod of eight whales putting on a show, and it was a kidney-damaging boat ride on the pounding waves. It was heaven-sent piña coladas and a little touch of the Mexican revenge. It was bug bites, bee stings, and tetanus shots.

It was the invention of beach cereal

It was eating pie on the beach everyday. (That's right, I wrote "pie on the beach." And then I wrote, "every day.") It was turning 40. It was a shower of birthday Haikus recited in an outdoor disco. It was me feeling slightly anxious about making sure 17 people, ranging in age from 3 to 67 were having a good time. It was 17 people having a pretty great time in one of my favorite places on Earth.

It was customized birthday match boxes

It was Maggie forsaking her dinner for a lollipop

It was Julie reciting her Haiku a little tipsy on mango margaritas

It was me looking ridiculously drunk while Jono and

my dad discussed grant writing (I was sober)

Tomorrow's missive: Sayulita, boutique hotels, and why I regret ever becoming a travel writer. Plus, gringoes falling in cement holes prickling with rusty rebar, and, finally, the verdict on my spray-on tan.

Love!

This is the most recent letter from my friend h., who lives in another country and has been quite sad and lonely lately.  She just—like a month ago—fell in love and the crazy, unabashed joy in this letter makes me smile every time I read it.  I mean, damn!  Falling in love is such fun.  All us old married folk should just take a minute to remember that feeling.  You will grin.  I promise.

samantha, 

i just want you to know that things are so, so good.

t. is great. great, as in kind, smart, interesting, caring, tender, funny, honest, original and talented. and he is TOTALLY completely NUTS about me. and he shows it all the time, and i love it and i am super kitty-meow-meow girl and just kiss him constantly and purr with delight. the other night, after dinner, we met my friend e. for a drink before she goes off to india for a month. then we caught a taxi back home and when it stopped we got in and we were talking about going to rajistan together the next time he has to go for work (he goes maybe twice a year) and we just kept talking and at some point the taxi driver said, "India sounds great, you two, but where are you going NOW?" we had completely forgotten to tell the driver where to take us, so absorbed in our little smoochy love bubble world. we are utterly SICKENING in public. 

and i no longer think he's kind of ugly. i think he's the SEXIEST most SENSUAL man in the whole world. isn't that amazing?

yesterday i also met his daughters, a. and o. we went to the marionette theater for cindarella and then took byron out to the park. i think they were more thrilled with byron than they were with the marionettes. during the intermission, o, the 5 year-old, climbed up on my lap and stayed there for the rest of the show. then when we went to go get byron they saw my fuschia kitchen and all of them approved. even a. the 10 year-old, who is much more introverted and serious than o. was really eager to tell me all about the philip pullman series, the Golden Compass. we also had a long, serious discussion about which cookies are the best for breakfast. 

t. and i were careful not even to hold hands in front of them, but later, when his daughters were walking ahead of us with byron in the middle of them he took my hand and kissed it and told me he felt like the luckiest man in the world. i feel so different samantha. it's so odd. it's like my neighborhood feels like the most magical place and i feel like i just got awarded some crazy life-long sweepstakes award prize jackpot thingy. 

just wanted to update you. because you said not to be remiss in the correspondence department and so here i am corresponding. AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! 

ha ha HA! AND the best part, is that because bryon was so fundamental in getting us together (as the dog was the focus of our first conversation) t. wants to do something nice for him. i really think that byron would love a kitten as a friend. so when t's house is finished (he hopes march, i think it'll be may) he says he'll get a kitten for byron. and i can choose the name of the kitten. i think colette sounds good, don't you?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

LOVE!

remember when i thought i would literally DIE from lonliness? i won't.

h