The Lipstick Chronicles

(sugar) Free Me
By Harley

Of all the bad ideas I’ve had lately, this week’s takes the cake.

I made a deal with my friend Gary. I said I’d finish the first draft of my screenplay by last Thursday—screenwriting being the latest of my “wow, this is harder than it looks” projects, a series that includes wallpapering, childbirth, and making lemon curd. Anyhow, I was tired of slogging along on my first draft and decided to just get it all on paper, no matter how badly. And if I didn’t finish my first draft by Thursday, I told Gary, I would give up . . . sweets. Sugar, Sweet N Low, Nutrasweet, honey, fructose, stevia, molasses, rice syrup—all those substances that give life meaning, for those of us whose dominant biological feature is a sweet tooth.

Gary and I have been at this motivational game for awhile now. We make up goals and rewards and consequences, and egg each other on. We’re also supposed to hold each other accountable, one of those phrases that always reminds me of the No Child Left Behind Act. Gary and I suck at that. We like cheerleading more than coaching.

For some reason, rewards don’t do it for me. The best ones are either A. fattening; B. expensive; C. time-consuming or D. clutter-producing (a consideration, as the house is still unsold, despite Saint Joseph interred in the backyard.) I know I’ve left out sex, but Sarah’s doing that for all of us. Sex for me is like “Get a pedicure.” If it requires finding a babysitter, let alone an accomplice, it’s just another thing on the To Do list.

And consequences work. I’m not sure what that says about me. Gary’s partial to things like No TV until I Make Those Cold Calls, and mine are along the lines of 90 Minutes Of Aerobics Every Day for a Week if I Don’t Read 17 Screenplays, and our personal best/worst was Send $25 to the Wrong Presidential Candidate. I’ve stopped short of “eat a cheeseburger,” because I can’t eat a cow, even to become the next Preston Sturges.

Anyhow, this week I flunked. Instead of writing my screenplay, I taught a course at the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference, fabulously fun, but hideously time-consuming. I didn’t write a word that wasn’t related to lesson plans. Not. A. Word.

So now I’m in a sugarfree zone. No protein bars, granola, hot chocolate, sweetened ice tea, popsicles, fudgecicles, frozen yogurt, regular yogurt, Gummi Bear Vitamins. Gum. Mints. No breakfast cereal worth its salt.

No chocolate.

Fruit, yes. Mustn’t die of scurvy (rickets?). And diet coke because that’s a staple item. But for the rest, there’s no end in sight. Today I’m off to Texas with the kids, for a working vacation (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) to act in a super-low-budget film. No spare time there.

I realize I am whining about something I JUST MADE UP. But whining is allowed. As long as it’s not a la mode. With whipped cream. Maybe some chocolate shavings.

For those of you interested in what makes us stick to our goals, check out www.stikk.com, the brainchild of some guys from Yale. For the rest of you, how do you do it? What motivates you, aside from the paycheck, to roll out of bed, to suit up and show up, to go the extra mile? I’ll tell you this: when I’ve finished the screenplay, I’m going back to rewards; I’m buying Sarah’s book and a cupcake to match.

Happy Monday!
Harley

veSmoking Amy Winehouse

By Sarah

Last summer while I was driving along, a song came on the radio and was sooo good I had to pull over and listen. There were a couple of things I could tell right off: it was an old song, kinda Billie Holidayish, and the person who sang it must have been a black woman with as tough a background as Billie. Also, it was brilliant. It hit a chord and resonated deep within me. Her voice was my voice. Too bad they didn't make music like this anymore, I thought. She's a classic.

So imagine my surprise when I come to find out that not only is this brilliant singer alive (for now), but that she's only 23 and she's a short Jewish kid from London. This was Amy Winehouse? That tabloid fodder who pranced around like an idiot in beehives and tattoos? Shoot. Where had she been all my life?

Since then, I've bought every Amy Winehouse song including the remakes. My favorites, aside from Rehab, are Stronger Than Me and Amy, Amy, Amy. She's crude. She's edgy. The simple power of her descriptions blows me away. Here's her singing Stronger Than Me when she was healthier.

.....This is what she looked like then.

This is what she looks like now.....

Drugs. Crack, mainly, has robbed her of her talent with the aid of alcohol, Ecstasy and heroin. And this weekend it turns out that even a bigger culprit may be robbing her of life: cigarettes.

Funny. It seemed like cigarettes were the least of Amy's problems. And while there's no doubt that smoking crack is doing its own special damage, her doctors have confirmed that Amy's heavy cigarette habit has launched early emphysema. If she keeps smoking she'll be in a wheelchair by the end of the summer. If she doesn't stop then, she'll need oxygen. Death is almost assured by the year's end.

When Amy will be 24.

We all know cigarettes are bad, but I kind of find it ironic that most concerned fans (and record producers) have focused on her illegal drug use, instead of Amy's favorite legal drug that not only is tacitly approved by the government (British and American), but actually supports government programs through its taxes.

Her story also scares the hell out of me. I smoked from age 20 to about 27, when I found out I was pregnant and stopped. In the years following, I was a party smoker. Never more than 2 cigarettes at a time unless it was a really good party. But it was disturbing how every day I'd look forward - crave - those two cigarettes at night when the kids were asleep. Smoking became rarer and rarer after Anna and Sam grew and hiding it wasn't so easy. Finally, a year ago last Christmas, shortly after celebrating my 44th birthday, I sneaked outside for a cigarette in a snow storm. Charlie - a former smoker who quit long ago - asked, "Aren't you a little old for this now?"

I was. I never had another cigarette again. Oddly enough, I never wanted one either. And I have to credit the anti-smoking Nazis who made smoking so uncomfortable by banning it in restaurants and any other covered place that it just wasn't worth it. Thank you. I hate you, but thanks.

Amy's not long for this world, I and everyone other fan fear. Billie Holiday was only 44 when she died of heroin - almost twice as old as Amy will be when she died of cigarettes. It's just so freaking sad.

So ... what's the solution? Do we just let people smoke themselves to death? Or do we go even further than restaurant/bar/shopping mall/airport bans?

Sarah

PS: I'm not letting go of this plug until the first week of sales are over!

SWEET LOVE is featured in this week's PEOPLE magazine as a "Sizzling Summer Read"! Whooo,hooo!

And better yet, they've dubbed me the -wait for it - "Chick-lit queen."

                                                  ****News Alert****

SWEET LOVE is featured in this week's PEOPLE magazine as "Sizzling Summer Read"! Whooo,hooo!

And better yet, they've dubbed me the -wait for it - "Chick-lit queen."

I can now leave this mortal coil fullfilled.

Trash Talking RITA Finalists

By Sarah

Whoops! In all the excitement of throwing the 6th grade graduation party (at our house which is under construction and surrounded by a moat of mud - good planning, huh?) I totally forgot to write today's blog. Eeep!

And now I've got to get my daughter to work. So when I come back I'll post construction photos and dish on the practice of trying to Up-Redneck one another. (What the parents did while the kids last night broke numerous fire codes by setting of M-80s. Okay, so maybe one or 2 adults started throwng coffee cans of gasoline into the bonfire.)

For now, though, please enjoy this video of my fellow Trash Talking RITA Finalists. Diana Holquist, a former advertising guru turned Romance novelist, thought of the idea. I, of course, wimped out. Hey...I was busy. Anyway, there is something hysterical about normally nice, mild-mannered, respectable Romance novelists busting on each other's mother. Ya gotta see it. I think my favorite is Susan Anderson primly on her couch, threatening. Or maybe it's Diana dissing on the "long history" of trash talking in the RITA community. (RITA, by the way, is an award presented by the Romance Writers of America. I'm up for one in the single title contemporary category along with these "Ladies" - if you can call them that.)

Here's the video.

I think they deserve to win - don't you?

Be back soon!

Sarah

PS - Meanwhile, if you haven't done so, why not tiptoe out and pick up a brand new copy of Sweet Love!

Don't Blink

By Kathy Sweeney aka Rebecca the Bookseller

Most creatures have basic instincts and reflexes.  We are designed to survive, and therefor avoid situations that cause us harm.  We recoil from extreme heat or cold.  We duck if we see an object, be it a fist or a buzzard, heading straight for us.  We protect our faces when we fall.

Some of us have stronger reflexes than others.  For example, I have a very strong blink reflex.  I'm not just talking about closing my eyes if the sun is too bright.  I'm talking about, the last time I scratched my cornea, it took one nurse, three big male residents and the Doc to keep me still enough for them to even LOOK at my eye.  I overheard one resident mutter, "Jeez, girl, we're not trying to brand you." 

So when, earlier this week, my right eye started to burn and run with tears, I tried self-medicating first.  I knew I hadn't scratched the cornea (again) because on the great pain scale, that ranks between the final stages of labor and a broken bone.  I tried wearing sunglasses all the time, even inside, and even a hat to protect my eyes from the wind.

To no avail.  So Wednesday, when I woke up to find my eye swollen shut, I stoked myself up pyschologically, which is to say I did some meditation, did a section of the Rosary, and took a whole Xanax, then went to the Urgicare Clinic.  (These things are great, by the way, especially if you are out of town, don't know the Docs, and the local emergency room is known for sending its patients out feet first.)

I walked in, took off the sunglasses and watched the receptionist write down "pink eye?"  Then I waited - not long - to see the Doc.  I told her the story, and that I didn't think it was pink eye because (a) no pink and (b) no gunk.  I don't like to talk about excretions of any kind, so that's all I'm going to say about that.

Then I warned her about my aversion to people getting near my eyes, but that I'd taken a Xanax and hoped it had kicked in.  She nodded, got out the eye light thing and stayed at least six inches away.  Smart woman.  Smart enough to send me to an opthomologist when she couldn't tell what the hell was wrong. 

So off we went to Cape May Court House (that's the county seat for Cape May County, near Stone Harbor) to see the Eye Doc.  Nice Guy.  Called me counselor and asked about my specialty.  "Opthamalogical Med Mal" came out before I could stop myself.  I blame the Xanax.  Then I told him I was kidding, but be careful any way.

Then I gave him my speech about the blink reflex.  After I finished, it went something like this:

Doc: "Uh huh.  No problem, counselor, I get that all the time."

Me: "Okay but I'm just telling you that if you are going to try to touch my eye, we need another body in here or someone could get hurt."

He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "Xanax?  We'll be fine."  Clearly, the man had little experience with people who look like me - round and happy, yet to be recokened with.

"Okay, Doc"  I said, "That's informed consent, babe."  The 'babe' part was really probably the Xanax. Normally, people from Pittsburgh call everyone 'honey'.

So he told me to sit back and relax, and he braced his left arm against my right shoulder. Smart, if only he didn't need his right hand to hold the instrument.

I tried.  As God as my witness, I really tried.  But alas, as any fighter knows, when you leave the midsection open, fair is fair.  I got him with the heel of my left hand right in the sternum.  Hard enough to send him and that little wheely stool halfway across the room.

"Sorry", I said, "but I tried to tell you."  Whereupon he rubbed his chest, gave me a look that was part accusatory and part admiration, and then he got the two assistants to come in.  He even asked who was in the waiting room.  I'm guessing that if one of the Philadelphia Eagles or Flyers had been out there, I'd have met him up close and personal.

So.  Turns out I have something called Recurrent Corneal Erosion Syndrome.  It's okay - it's not permanent.  It means that the very outside layer of my cornea (some kind of epidermal concept) is fragile and if it is injured, it takes longer to heal.  I have to put drops in every hour and put some kind of gel in at night.  Hey, I'll do whatever they tell me.  I can't read without my eyes, honey.

The Eye Doc, still absently massaging his chest, explained it to me like this:  The cells in the epi-cornea are not smart.  They don't know how to anchor - so they regenerate, but if there's not enough moisture and you blink, they slough off and have to start over.  He asked me if I understood.

"Yeah", I said.  The Xanax had fully kicked in, plus he'd put a drop in to numb my eye, so I was feeling no pain.  I may have been slurring, and when I got back, the kids said I tried to get some egg salad out of a bowl without removing the saran wrap.

So I'm going to forgive myself for saying.  "Gotcha Doc - not smart.  Like you when I told you not to touch my eye."  The whole staff cracked up.  I learned from the receptionist that this Doc insists on being treated with nearly royal respect.  I guess I'd better take him a present when I go in for the follow up this morning.

***      Special Bulletin     ***

        SWEET LOVE

     by Sarah Strohmeyer

released in bookstores today!

              

100 Things

by Nancy      

I just counted, and I have 14 pairs of black pants hanging over the bannister in the upstairs hallway. When we first moved into this house, I graciously ceded the walk-in closet to my husband, and I just haven't found a more efficient way to store my pants since then. It's easier to keep theim folded over the bannister outside our bedroom.

My aunt came up the stairs recently and took one look at the eyesore and said it looked like a bunch of Amish men had taken off their trousers and were waiting inside my bedroom.

Very funny.

Okay, so I have a lot of pairs of pants that might look very similar to an innocent bystander. But they're all different--jeans, dress trousers, Capris, yoga pants (which I will loan to any houseguest, not just Ms. Kozak) not to mention fat pants and skinny jeans and--well, I'm sure you're the same about something in your life, maybe matchbooks or teaspoons or hot water bottles. Me, I have a lot of black pants.

I should be ashamed of myself. I know that.

Especially while watching those news clips of families who have lost everything in the Iowa flooding. Or the floods in Burma, where people have even less property to lose, and their circumstances are so life-threatening.

An article in last week's Time magazine was even more shaming. The piece explains how/why we should streamline our lives to include just 100 items. That's right, my fellow American packrats, 100 possessions, that's all you really should need to function in the world.

I see the good in this theory, I really do. Things aren't important.  People are important.  The less stuff you have cluttering up your life, the more---I dunno--pure you are, right? The more centered your soul.  If you spend less time re-arranging your knick-knacks, you have more time to devote to yoga or reading the great philosophers or making millions via internet stock trades--whatever floats your boat. (As long as the boat is metaphorical.)

Well, maybe if you live in 600 square feet of space in New York City and share it with a significant other and a large, drooling St. Bernard mix rescued from the SPCA, you can't fit any more than 100 pieces of anything else into your home without a shoehorn (and who really uses a shoe horn these days, besides my husband?) so this round number makes sense.

But the rest of us---average Middle Americans who have made room for ourselves to spread out--we've managed to save so much crap that our basements bulge and our garages groan. I don't know about you, but I still have all my wedding presents---30 years after the big day---and I haven't used the pewter ice tongs yet. Or the table linens my aunt (God rest her soul) brought us from Ireland. (If somebody spilled red wine on the tablecloth that nearly got her arrested when she smuggled it through customs, I'd be afraid to face her in heaven.) I've also kept all my children's favorite toys, but now that we've learned my daughter is carrying a boy (due August 23rd, folks) I am beginning to wish I'd pitched all those Barbies and princess dresses to make room for . . .well, air, I guess.

Or pairs of black pants.

In the interest of simplifying our lives, should we try the 100 Thing Challenge? Could my husband and I trim down our possessions? I have a suspicion that the 100 Thing Challenge is even more challenging than the pact Sarah and Charlie have made. (But I could be wrong. Sarah?)

Last night I posed the question to my husband as I squirted toothpaste onto my toothbrush. (Which is two more items in addition to 14 pairs of pants and the Irish table linens so we're already up to 17, if you're counting.) Could we strip our home down to just 100 things?

Jeff said kindly, "Babe, I see more than 100 things just in that medicine chest."

To get my brain around how much useless junk we own, I tried categorizing it all as I fell asleep.  (Note to self:  If sleep is the goal, don't try to re-organize your life.)  Books.  Could I donate half my book collection to a library book sale? Yes. Gardening supplies. Now that we live in a much smaller house with a much smaller yard, could I call the Vietnam Vets to pick up a dozen unused flower pots? Yes.  Sporting equipment.  Is it finally time to part with the dressage saddle I haven't used in 36 years? The skiis? The warped tennis racquets? Yes, yes, and yes.

But what about the stuff we use sporadically? Like the ice cream churn.  Every 5 or 10 years, don't you hanker for homemade ice cream?

And the sentimental stuff! The Waterford candlesticks from Aunt Nancy. The paintings we bought on our honeymoon. The framed photo of our long-dead golden retriever. That's harder.

I visited my mother recently, and she pointed out a thingie that's been hanging on the wall outside her bedroom for years. It's a kind of miniature folding shelf, slightly warped. She told me it was hand-carved rose wood and intended to hold a vial of holy water. It must have belonged to her great-great grandmother---a Catholic girl who ran away from Ireland because she married a Protestant in 1846!  It hit me then.  If my mother hadn't mentioned that tidbit of family lore, I might have someday pitched that little folding shelf into a Dumpster! And I'd never know a family story that defines me, in a way.

A woman descended from a poverty-stricken Irish background has the right to own a few extra pairs of black pants, right? Or am I justifying my own packrat laziness? Is there a way to organize all our junk into at least 100 categories (kitchenware, linen closet, garage tools, summer clothes. . . .) and keep the meaningful stuff?

Well, I'm on a mission to de-clutter a bit. Here's a good article that might help you get started to a life of just 100 possessions. Or would you rather accept the Sarah/Charlie challenge instead?

Be Spontaneous

By Elaine Viets

Be spontaneous.That's the standard advice in women's magazines to help keep your marriage fresh.

Spontaneity is difficult for a German-American like me. We krauts are not a spontaneous people. We are happiest doing the same thing over and over. Which is one reason why Germans make good beer: Brewing requires cleanliness and mindless repetition. It was no accident that many of my relatives worked in St. Louis breweries. Others happily supported the local industry.

But on Monday, June 3rd, I'd had enough of the same old thing rut. I'd been sitting in too many doctors' offices for reasons too boring to repeat. All my money seemed to be going for insurance co-pays.

I got home from a doctor’s appointment at 11:30 that morning, and said to Don, "Enough. Let's go to lunch at your favorite restaurant."

That's Ferdos, a Mediterranean place that has first-rate lamb and humus, as well as delicious salads.

Don drove Ralph, my car. As we pulled into the restaurant parking lot, I said, "Is that smoke coming out from under the hood?" At age 22, Ralph is old enough to smoke, but it’s not good for his health -- or mine.

Don turned off the engine and raised the hood. It was smoke -- and flames. Don put out the fire. I called AAA to have the car towed to the repair shop.

Don walked home two miles in the searing Florida sun to get his car, so he could drive me home.

AAA and Don arrived about the same time. Ralph was loaded onto the flatbed truck and hauled off to the repair shop. I was afraid that Ralph was facing the same fate as Nancy’s beloved Silver Bullet, and I’d lose my 1986 Jaguar.

Ralph's problems turned out to be fixable, thank goodness. The repair shop is run by a Bostonian named Peter with a wonderful accent. (I love what Boston people do with their R's.) Peter lifted the thick floor mat and discovered the floor on the driver's side had rusted out.

In fact, he could see daylight. When the floor collapsed, that caused the power steering hose to break and spew fluid on the engine, which caught on fire. It also killed the cruise control mechanism, a part I never used on that car.

All I had was a floor mat between me and certain injury. It’s a good thing I’m not a cat, or I’d be nearly out of lives.

Peter removed a rusted section of floor nearly three feet long and two feet wide. His shop soldered in a new piece of metal. This time, the new floor is aluminum, which should take care of the rust returning.

The useless cruise control was disconnected. A new power steering hose was added.

Oh, one more thing: The restaurant turned out to be closed for vacation. I bought Don beer and barbecue at a franchise joint, which was OK, but not as good as Ferdos.

Our spontaneous lunch, plus parts and labor on the car, cost $863.79.

As one friend said, "There’s a big difference between spontaneous and spontaneous combustion."

****

NOTE: Elaine wishes she could join in the discussion today, but she is touring for CLUBBED TO DEATH, her seventh Dead-end Job book. Wednesday night, she’ll be at the Barnes & Noble in Plano, Texas. Thursday she’s at Foul Play books in Westerville, Ohio. Friday, she’ll be at the St. Louis County Library. She hopes to see any TLC readers in those cities.

For details, check out the Events section of her Website, www.elaineviets.com.

Homemade Root Beer

By Sarah

Every summer, my mother would don her flowered apron to brew up a batch of root beer for our family and the neighborhood kids. It was a sweet mom kind of thing to do, except when the root beer got a little hard toward the end and it became clear that not only was mom loading us up on sugar, but she was also getting us drunk.

Not that she meant to, of course. She was just lousy at directions.

Mom would embark on these kicks now and then- preserving tomatoes or canning tomato sauce, "antiquing" the hutch, pickling watermelon, trespassing estates in the hunt for wild blueberries or clearing the poison ivy from the mulberry tree by hand. (Sent her overnight to the hospital.) But of all her wacky summer projects, none was more potent, nor more risky, than her homemade root beer. Especially toward the end of a long hot August when the bottles, one by one, began to explode.

Why make root beer? Because the stuff you buy in the store - like most stuff you buy in the store - bears no comparison to the real thing which happens to be yeasty, not too sweet, and incredibly refreshing. I can still taste it over ice on a hot day, sitting in the backyard after swimming or playing tennis. Crickets in the background, a cooling breeze hinting of fall on its way, badminton, blueberry pie and croquet.

Ahh, summer.

Fuzzy warm memories aside, the actual making of root beer was that odd combination of bug-filled nightmare and child's fantasy. Like all Strohmeyer family rituals, frankly.

First there was the Coke we had to drink all year long. This was okay because as part of my father's package at the newspaper where he was an editor, he had stock in Coca-Cola Bottling. For this reason, Pepsi was strictly verbotten, though A-Treat was okay because it, too, was bottled by Coca-Cola. (Now you know!) Instead of returning the bottles we - in theory - cleaned them and put them aside for the summer root beer. I said in theory.

Mostly, being kids, we didn't and the sugar-lined bottles turned into personal centipede traps. (Anyone who's read my Bubbles books knows how I feel about house centipedes.) Thus began the scary part of the root beer brewing journey - gathering up the dusty Coke bottles from the basement, gingerly searching for centipedes, clearing off the spiderwebs and then getting a bottle scrubber and scrubbing the damn things until our fingers were raw. Usually, I roped a friend into helping with the promise of root beer afterward. Big joke there since the root beer wouldn't be ready for two weeks. But, hey, I never said how far afterward.

Then came the childhood fantasy part. Five pounds of sugar. Maybe ten. I dunno, it was a lot. All dumped into a huge canning vat on the stove. Add to that water, yeast and (cheating) Hires extract. (No, we did not boil down roots like my witchy babysitter Mrs. Sandt who also fed her six children onion sandwiches on Friday nights to keep them healthy.) Heat and stir and then funnel into the bottles.

Then the kids left the room so the swearing could begin.

Bottling, never easy, was made worse by an old capper my mother insisted on using and that worked maybe, at best, sixty percent of the time. When it was over, bent bottle caps lined the floor and we children were allowed to return to the kitchen to clean up the sticky reside and wait.

Two weeks was the minimum, according to my mother who must have never read the directions that stated root beer had to be consumed within eight days OR ELSE. By waiting so long, not only did the bottles pop their caps, but they did so for a reason. The root beer had fermented.

Maybe not Molson level, but close enough for kids. Unbeknownst to her, my sweet mother annually got the kids in our neighborhood mildly toasted.

Years later, when I wrote Bubbles In Trouble, I discovered a faster way to make root beer with dry ice and even more explosive potential. A great Fourth of July party trick.

I meant to put this vignette in SWEET LOVE - which comes out THURSDAY! - though I forgot. Therefore, I'm mentioning it here since SWEET LOVE is based on my mother and her recipes which have endured way past her death. It wasn't until I wrote SWEET LOVE that I finally understood why my mother busted a hump doing stupid stuff like making root beer and watermelon pickles. Because, though she's long gone, one sip of homemade hooch, one whiff of the syrupy clove in watermelon pickles, and she's back and so real it's like she never left.

Here's a recipe I lifted off the McCormick's Root beer Recipe site.

So what's your bizarre summer ritual?

Sarah

PS: (My latest research shows that rootbeer can, at best, reach .4 alcohol percent. A far cry from the 6% of beer.)

Here We Go Again -- Obama's Baby Mama?

by Michele

                                                           

Have you seen this video?  It's a compilation of all the truly vile and disgusting things that male pundits with fat contracts said on-air about Hillary Clinton and other female politicians (and women in general!) during this primary season. 

Here's just a small sampling.  A Fox News anchor saying of Hillary, "A ho is a ho." Tucker Carlson lovingly displaying the Hillary nutcracker and confiding that he involuntarily crosses his legs every time she comes on t.v.  Mike Barnicle saying Hillary reminds him of "everyone's first wife standing outside the probate court."  Bill O'Reilly asking Mark Rudov what the downsides would be to having a woman as the most powerful person in the world, and Rudov answering, "You mean besides the PMS and the mood swings?"  Morton Kondracke comparing Nancy Pelosi to the wicked witch of the west; another pundit commenting on her botched face lift.  And no list of sexist doggerel would be complete without Chris Mathews, who brings his brainless frat boy mentality to national television five nights a week.  I'd include a choice few of his comments, but they'd take up the whole rest of the blog.

I've gotten into a few debates with friends and acquaintances over whether the ugly tone of Hillary's coverage is due to sexism, or whether it's simply that people legitimately hate her because she is in fact a castrating manipulative bitch.  For those of you who've managed to convince yourselves there's a distinction between these two propositions, I have two words for you: Michelle Obama.

Here we go again, folks. We're getting in on the ground floor, with a front row seat to the demonizing of another proud outspoken (potential) First Lady.  Add the race card, and what do you get?  Fox News calling Michelle "Obama's baby mama."  Right-leaning websites spreading the rumor that a videotape exists of Michelle Obama railing against "whitey" from the pulpit of Reverand Wright's church.  Or how about Sean Hannity's entire Michelle Obama montage on Fox news, where he calls her "bitter" and "angry" over and over again as video with unflattering lighting and camera angles streams on the screen.  Or the video produced by the Tennessee Republican Party interspersing her "proud of my country" statement with "good" Americans talking about their patriotic pride.

I've been confining myself to the mainstream stuff, the news anchors and pundits who reach millions of Americans in their living rooms every night.  If I even tried to address the ugliness of what's out there on the internet, I'd ruin everybody's day.  Try blog posts with titles like, "They Don't Come Any Blacker Than Michelle Obama."  How long is it before entire websites are devoted to hating Mrs. Obama, as they are to hating Hillary?  (Check out www.AgainstHillary.com). Hey, we live in a 24/7 information cycle.  Between the time I write this blog and the time it posts, such a site will probably have spawned from the primordial dreck of on-line hate.

The image of Hillary as castrating bitch was carefully and intentionally crafted over a period of decades.  It started in the world of right-wing talk radio, with people like Rush Limbaugh who were against Hillary for partisan reasons.  But there's enough deep-seated sexism out there that it easily made its way into mainstream discourse.  Men and women, liberals and conservatives -- everybody bought into it.  The Obama campaign bought into it, and used it for political gain. Hillary's wicked witch image is so ingrained that media bigwigs continue to insist that there was nothing wrong with her coverage, that it was her own fault because -- well, she's such a bitch.

We can sit here and watch the same thing happen to Michelle Obama.  (And as a Hillary supporter, I confess to having moments where that seems like poetic justice.  But I fight them.)   It's too late for Hillary, but it's not too late to stand up and say no, we will not let this happen again.  Give the woman a chance to talk.  Treat her with respect.  Be glad that she has a brain in her head.  And when the brainless frat boys of punditry make their nasty, insidious comments, turn off your t.v.

 

                                 

How to Get a Working Girl to Work for You

By Barbara Parker

Barbara Parker is a Book Tart favorite. Last time, she gave us a semi-scandalous blog about legal brothels in Nevada. But for her new book, "The Dark of Day," Barbara goes deeper . . .er, explores sex and sin even further. Here’s how she did her research.

On Miami Beach, private investigator Judy Mazzio visits an old friend from Nevada, Harold Vincent. They haven’t seen each other in a long time . . . .

He shifted in his chair to put Judy in the light. "God, you’re gorgeous."

"I’m pushing fifty, Hal."

"Look at those boobs. Those legs. Gorgeous."

"Look at you. Successful, a good business, traveling all over. And grandkids."

"Yeah, they’re great. I’ll show you their pictures. My son should have turned out so well, and his wife—don’t get me started."

"You’re a decent guy, Hal. I always thought so." She poured more champagne into their glasses. "You played fair with me. With all the girls. Nobody had anything bad to say about you."

"You were the best, Judy. I say that with all sincerity. You shouldn’t have quit."

"It was time."

"To my brown-eyed girl," Hal said. "L’chaim."

They touched glasses and drank.

The mirrored wall of the living room threw their reflections back to her, but she didn’t look. Twenty-five or thirty years ago she would have seen a man in a shiny silk suit passing out hundreds as tips, and a woman with long black hair, six-feet-four in her platform shoes. They’d go to a table right up front, and after the show Frank Sinatra or Flip Wilson or whoever would come over to say hello, and pull his chair close and whisper in her ear, would she like to come up to his suite later? Sometimes yes, but more often, she would give him a look through her lashes and say thanks, but I’m already occupied.

"It’s true, Hal. We did have us some fun," she said.

Sometimes a writer is lucky: a character like Judy Mazzio walks right onto the pages of your book. A couple of years ago, I was visiting a friend in Las Vegas. She asked if I’d like to meet a real "working girl." Heck, yeah! At the time, Dana was 58 years old, a twinkly brunette with a wicked sense of humor. And still working. Wow, did she tell me some stories!

It’s like that. You learn a lot if you keep your eyes and ears open.

My sister Laura used to do the website for a Miami company that ran an internet gaming operation out of Antigua. (Legal then, but now? I dunno.) Not Laura’s first choice, but they paid well. It didn’t take her long to find out that, except for the minions who toiled for hourly pay, the owners were sleeeeeeezy.

They also employed people without a defined job, who could have been extras on The Sopranos: Big Dave, whose jokes curled the wallpaper; Wiley, who sat in a corner with his hand over his mouth, mumbling into a phone; and Bonita, a red-haired, bug-eyed woman who ran around barking orders like a chihuahua on crack.

Laura gave her notice just before the IRS shut them down, but I managed to collect more than a few juicy bits for my files. The luxury sports cars these people leased; the mirrors and chrome decor in their waterfront houses; the jewelry; the trashy clothes (yes, yes, tight leopard print tops and leather pants); all of it a cliche that writers don’t dare put on the page. Nobody would believe us!

There were the lavish dinners at Joe’s Stone Crab; trips to the casino on Antigua. The family and upper management attended the "Adult Expo" at the Miami Beach Convention Center together; they went on porno cruises. The stepmother and the daughter (ten years apart in age) appeared on the Howard Stern show, lifting their tops to show off their boob jobs. Howard said they were saggy, and the stepmother didn’t come out of her funk for days.

One day Laura turned on her computer and saw that someone had changed the photo on the company’s internal home page. There, spread-eagled on satin sheets, was one of the owners, completely nude, with a big grin on his face and . . . oh, my God! How much Viagra does it take to get into that condition?

In the end, not even the steady paycheck and the fun of observing these horrible creatures could compensate for the stench that followed her out the door and clung to her clothes.

I was sorry that the stories were over, but knew that someday, someday . .  .

In THE DARK OF DAY, I made Harold Vincent a veteran of the same business, but I liked him too much to make him a sleazewad. Really, Hal isn’t a bad guy, I mean, compared to some people. He knows the free-wheeling days of internet gaming are over:

"The goddamn government trying to control everything we do, their noses up everybody’s skirt. Now you make your money in porn. That’s where the action is, till they take that away too."

"It’s a different world," Judy agreed.

I know, I know. You hate talking dog mysteries. Dogs are dumb animals. But J. F. Englert’s protagonist, Randolph, is a New York dog of great sophistication. Randolph may be smarter than his owner, which is often the case, though we don’t mention it in polite society. TLC readers, please welcome J. F. Englert, and read his delightful, er, cozy mysteries -- Elaine Viets.

Accepting Your Inner Coziness

By J. F. Englert

When Elaine Viets suggested that I use this space to consider what it was like to be a man writing cozy mysteries, I instantly realized that no matter how well-adjusted and secure I might be as a male, if I was sane I should never explore this question on a blog called The Lipstick Chronicles.

Something very untamed and Teddy Rooseveltian reared up inside of me at Elaine’s suggestion. I felt like charging up a hill. And not a cozy hill either where everybody had already surrendered or was about to. Had I kept a cigar at the ready (be assured, I do now), it would have been promptly lit and a group of nonsmokers found to torment. Yes, a spirit of defiance swept over me. Cozy, indeed, I bellowed (I tend to bellow). This wasn’t the first time I had been linked to that awful word.

I actually used to like the word "cozy." I would employ it conversationally and at all the appropriate moments. For example, when we lived in the West Village and it was winter and snowing and my wife and I walked by a townhouse with the windows of a lower room aglow with yellow light and a book-lined wall visible, I might say something like: "Isn’t that cozy?" (For the record, I have never used the word "delightful.") I can even admit to feeling cozy at times –usually in winter and usually when hot chocolate, a fire and a warm bed were involved.

Not anymore. All of that ended when I saw the word cozy appear in a review of my first book A Dog About Town.

"P." I said to my wife who goes by her first initial like everyone else in our family including R. (pictured above –the one on the left). "It’s a nice review, but it’s ungrammatical. They’re using the word cozy like it was a noun."

I really was this ignorant.

I have read many accounts of writers assiduously studying the publishing marketplace, developing an intimate and exacting sense of the professional landscape, cultivating agents and contacts, attending conventions, wearing name tags before making a single, literary move as if getting published was the strategic equivalent of putting a lander on Mars.

Needless to say, this was not what I did. I blundered into the whole business the old-fashioned way. I found a character, Randolph, the sentient Labrador retriever. Or, rather, Randolph found me and after springing to life in my imagination made incessant demands on my time. This character had a story that needed to be told, so I went ahead and wrote a book. Then I sold the book. Then some bastard called the book a cozy in a review and I realized I had blundered into a genre I didn’t even know existed like stepping in a Number 2 at night under the only broken light on my street.

I might be a simple man but I divide books into good books and bad books. There will always be more bad books than good books and this is the way I basically think the world should be arranged. I had hoped to write a good book. But here I was, not the author of a good book or a bad book, but a cozy book. What had I done wrong, I wondered? Was it my character? Was it that Randolph lived in what he himself had labeled a "cozy" apartment? Or was it his tendency to overdo his feedings, enjoy naps, read poetry and relish routine?

Suddenly, Randolph, who I had envisioned as a kind of heroic, moderately rugged, very sophisticated New Yorker was a credulous patsy inhabiting a marshmallow world where people didn’t die for real, humor could elicit a giggle but never a howl, and the ticking time bomb of a love story was defused by a single word: "cozy."

A cozy . . . For a while I didn’t recognize my own book. It was a bleak time. But then after multiple therapeutic interventions, things became clear again. The interventions were encounters not with psychologists but with the people who had actually read my book –not reviewers with publishing shorthand on the brain or book publicists who actually coin terms like "cozy."

No. These were the flesh-and-blood readers who I had always been writing for and these readers never used the word "cozy" (if they occasionally slipped with the word "cute" I instantly forgave them). These readers only talked about the character, the story, in other words, the book as a book. They didn’t think of themselves as "cozy" readers and they freed me from thinking of myself as a "cozy" writer.

Elaine asked me an insightful followup: whether I (being a male) felt like a second-class citizen of cozy land and whether Randolph occasionally wanted to turn into Cujo for the same reason. I guess I would have to answer both and neither. Both because a single-word is a powerful thing and "cozy" still hangs over us a little bit. And neither because ultimately I don’t think we’re citizens of "cozy" at all –no more than those many fine authors who write about women’s lives with lightness and wisdom can somehow be filed away under the term "Chick Lit." I wonder what Austen and the Bronte sisters would think about that term.

Now I have to run and get my new kayak ready for this summer. A rare purchase, but it’s tax-deductible (at least I hope my astrologer is right on this one). Why tax-deductible? Because I’m off to do research for the next book in the series: A Dog at Sea.

And if I don’t make it back, please, please, please don’t let them say that a man died trying to write a cozy.