These times

Ay yi yi!  I apologize a thousand times over to all of my 3 adoring fans.  I have been so busy. 

Here's a list of things that have been keeping me from my blogging duties:

1.) Looks like I have a new agent for my current book project.  Getting a new agent involves much spit shining of my book proposal and general gussying up of my writing, personality, potential and general bankability.  We'll see how it goes, but keep your fingers crossed.  

2.) Looking for a daycare situation for the twins.  I won't bore you with the woes, but suffice to say that it's painful to send your squishy little tots out into the world of people who are not their parents, family or very close friends. There might be TV out there!  Or Gogurts!

3.) I got sick.  Lame excuse, I know.  But really, the snuffling, the sneezing, the  moaning.  Nothing is worse than facing down 2 two-year-olds when you feel like crap. Quick knock on wood here for general good health.

4.) In case you haven't noticed, there's an election going on, people.  This means I have to spend much of my time with the liberal media reading the NYT and watching The Daily Show online every night.  Plus there are the debates.  Plus the recovery time when my blood pressure finally  returns to normal.

5.)  I got tipsy last Wednesday and it took me two days to feel myself again.  Note to self: quit it with the white wine!  Especially at dinner parties thrown by co-workers.

6.)  I'm keeping bees.  Sort of.  Sunset is keeping bees.  I just like to put on the suit.

That's me with the bees.  Underneath that suit I'm all business casual.

7.) I am finally reading Beth Lisick's newest book Helping Me Help Myself and aside from the fact that she is hilarious and just crazily likable, the book is having the strange side-effect of making me all self-helpy.  It's this smart and funny exploration of the self-help world and while I'm laughing right along with it, I'm also making this on-going mental list of all the ways in which I am going to improve myself.  Here's a good one: character over personality.  In other words, out with the arch and slightly mean gossiping and in with the timely response to emails.  And blogging.  You can count on me again.  Really.  

The good life

This is getting embarrassing and I'm sure my pinko grandparents would not approve, but my little  family is sure getting used to the good life (probably good to get while the gettin' is still good).  

This past weekend we spent a lovely 24 hours up at the lovely Stinson Beach with our lovely friends from England and their lovely son, born on the same day as the twins.  

For like the fourth time in as many weeks we partied like members of the chattering class in good standing—with wine and cheese and these outrageously tasty little Gorgonzola crackers from Trader Joe's. The weather was, as my friend Hilary likes to say, "absurdo" and the view was beautiful.  All of it was just too, too pleasant. Pleasant enough for me to feel the fuzzy outline of guilt (again, with the Commie grandparents whispering "softie" into my ear).  

So what if the economy is crumbling around us?  So what if we are at war?  Nothing beats an afternoon of crab fishing with your two-year-olds off the edge of your private dock, glass of wine by your side.  

So what if I'm toast when the revolution comes?

Oliver checks out a crab we caught with my ingenious

plastic-citrus-bag-and-raw-hamburger invention

This picture is all the husband's fault, but those are the $100 jeans

This morning

This idea was inspired (some might say ripped off) by this website and the new book.  Both are loveliness at its simple best.

Train in Vain

I'm sitting in the Whole Foods in Potrero Hill downing a turkey sandwich before the Porchlight show.  This is the most gleaming, bright, appealing store I've ever been in.  It's a cathedral to fetishized eating, the apex of smug, groovy good taste. 

The Clash's Train in Vain is playing (I love that song!) and I am noticing that people on this side of the city do not look so much like people on my side of the city.  They are hipper, for one thing.  Grungy t-shirts, sculpted facial hair, tattoos, knit watch caps and flip-flops.  There is not a single old Chinese woman in a a down parka to be seen.  No retired cops or old muttering Russians with big hair and sweat suits.    

Sometimes I think I'd like to live over here.  But where would I park the minivan?

On another note, I found this incredibly funny.  

The God Realm

My alternate life fantasies are spinning again. It all started with a lovely weekend spent at my aunt's house on Tomales Bay where I got to go running among the oak trees and kayaking through the clear waters of the bay and where I ate oysters and drank crisp, cold white wine and showed Maggie her first sea anemone and "drank" cup after cup of the "tea" Oliver made out of Boggle dice. It is a place of such beauty, it is literally almost painful.  My father calls places like that the "God realm," places where life is extraordinarily good and beautiful and infused with good karma. 

So, of course, instead of just being there and feeling lucky to be there, I start to think about how I can hold on to the God realm, and scratch out a little piece of it for myself.  Enter Buddhism's main tenant about desire and suffering.  I am so, so far away from enlightenment, and so, so close to the God realm (a mere 40 miles!) 

Some of my new alternate life fantasies:

•Moving to Pt. Reyes Station and starting a lavender farm

•Becoming a ridiculously successful writer so that I can move to Pt. Reyes Station and just write

•Becoming a second grade teacher so I can move to Pt. Reyes Station and not have to commute

•Living in a world where money has no consequence so I can move to Pt. Reyes Station and just stare out the window eating oysters and drinking crisp, cold white wine

My real life is pretty sweet too.

And PS.  I'm so sad about the suicide of David Foster Wallace.  Man!  What a terrible thing.  I got to meet him a couple of times when I used to host literary events, and despite my fears that he would be intimidating and cooler-than-thou and just way dismissive of a little nobody like me, he was one of those extraordinarily kind, polite, interested people. He remembered names.  I always really like that in a person.

Something sweet in the world

Although she does not capitalize and this is one of the things that really bugs me about the internet, I still love Andrea at Hula Seventy.  She is so kind and humble and she has great taste. I think I have a girl-crush on her.

This post, about her 14th wedding anniversary at Old Navy, made me weep.  Read it if you are married or if you are in a relationship or if you ever hope to be and you will be left feeling all sweet and refreshed and like maybe people are good and you are like them and they are like you.  And that, my friends, can be very comforting.

Now I'm old enough to raise money

Twins for change

Yesterday we had our Auction for Obama party and raised more than $8,000.  Our friends were so generous and good-natured and in the mood to bid.  We plied them with hot dogs and potato salad (and white wine and brie because we are, after all, Democrats) and they supplied us with check after check for Obama.  Big smakaroos to them all.  Moo-ah, moo-ah.

Really the only downsides were the multiple skinned knees (so many kids running around--it's as if all of my friends have exploded in the last few years) and the woman whom I'd never met who accidentally put her baby down in a huge pile of dog shit (damn you, Woody!).  But otherwise, the yard was just alive with happy, rosy liberals—all of us smugly munching our foreign cheese and French wine.  And the mother of the dog shit baby still gave $100!  Thank you.

Our auction table--lots of good stuff!

Now it is the day after and I am literally sitting in my underpants having finally roused myself from my Office stupor (kids are napping).  I curse the day (today, actually) when I discovered hulu.com. I'll never nap again. 

I'm ok with my new found laziness though.  After fulfilling my American fundraising duty, I deserve a couple of hours in my underpants watching Pam and Jim and Dwight.  Don't I?

Oh, and I think the statute of limitations is up on writing about my 20th reunion, which happened a week ago (five days if you subtract the two days I spent recovering from my hangover).  So I'll just say it was fun.  It wasn't a seminal life moment or anything, but I did get to dance to Purple Rain for the first time in a long time and since dancing to Purple Rain is possibly one of the few constants on my "things I love to do" list, I have to say I enjoyed myself very much.  I wasn't the prettiest or the richest or the most successful.  But I was fine and everyone was in great cheer and here's a little secret: women age better than men, at least until age 38.  I'll report back at 50 and let you know how it's going (I am not optimistic).  Oh, also personalities don't change.  Details change, but personalities don't.  I've heard that.  Now I know.

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