I’ve moved.

My new blog is here.

www.dorothythinks.tumblr.com


Sorry, My Space. I've left you.

7:06 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Snow pants

I'm wearing snow pants and cooking a venison ragu from a deer shot on our family farm--I'm all up in some Martha Stewart shit right now, people.

I also just hung out with a puppy playing in the snow. It was really, really hard not to tell his owner, "Excuse me while I puppy-nap your dog and roll around with him in the snow while he licks my face. Thank you." Instead, the owner just picked up some snow and told me that it was "Good snowball making weather."

Why can men say things like that and sound cute and women would just sound fucking crazy? If I said that, everyone in the park would just kind of nod, walk away slowly, grab their dog and make a run for the exit.

I'm kind of hungover. Had a night of "celebrating our friendship" with Trish which means we just get wasted and eat Thai food. It's almost better than Christmas, really. Still working on edits for the book--co-writer dan is fading fast. he was on Radio Times today (!) Talking about Oscars. Maybe you heard him?

Have a good weekend, friends! May you find a puppy and roll around with them in the snow before too many dogs pee/homeless people in it.

1:41 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

A few thoughts before i finally go to bed

1. I finished editing the manuscript and I'm very happy. Tired, but happy.
2. I really, really like this Alison Krauss / Robert Plant album. This means I'm pretty much turning middle aged.
3. When I was home over the weekend, I heard my parents yelling at one another over cooking a duck and I think their conversation pretty much sums up their 40-year union.

Dad: Do you think I should put the duck in at 5?
Mom: I think maybe a little later would be better.
Dad: GOD, NOTHING I SAY IS EVER RIGHT, IS IT?
Mom: You asked my opinion!
Dad: Oh. Right.

It was the best duck I have ever had, so they are doing something right.

9:11 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

I am up early!

Happy Valentine's everyone! I told Nat two weeks ago if he didn't give me flowers we were breaking up because, as I said, "You never give me flowers anymore!" And he said, "I do! I just bring them home instead of the office." And ladies, we all know flowers don't count unless there are other women around to see you getting them. Men really need to understand this.

I'm starting my V-day off right. Sometime in the past six months, I haven't been able to wake up early. This has never been my style. I've always been pretty obnoxiously pumped to start my day. But then Nat bought me a nice bed, I bought some really nice sheets (that's one thing great about getting older--learning the joys of 400 count bed sheets), and now I can't get out of bed.
Doc doesn't help matters. I should be getting up to walk him but when I rub his belly to wake him up he gives me this look like, "Hey, we can sleep for two more hours. What does it matter to me? I'm a dog whose back legs don't work. It's not like I'm going to walk any faster now or at 10 a.m." And wow. Is my bed ever comfortable. And so I just roll over and go back to sleep instead of doing all of the wonderful things I could do in the morning such as, but not limited to--writing, doing some sun salutations, push ups, straightening up the apt., taking Doc for longer works, drinking my yummy a.m. veggie smoothie, and actually doing my hair--I sleep and then I wake up at 10, rush doc around the block, and hop in a cab to work. (One upside about sleeping 10 hours a day? My skin looks pretty fantastic.)
But I actually woke up early! And I have no idea how as I was totally drinking lots and lots of Tequila last night! I'm enjoying my morning! I drank my veggie smoothie (I'll give you the recipe if you ask. It makes you feel like a million bucks), Doc had extra time to bark at other dogs at the park, I perfected some awesome dance moves in the mirror to Blur's "Girls & Boys," I'm writing and my hair doesn't look half bad.

I think I'll start a new trend for myself! If only I can get out of bed, that is.

In other news, I drove up to Penn State on Monday to interview Will Ferrell. It felt so stupidly good to drive and get out of the city and the apartment for a while. In honor of them blowing my fucking mind 10 years ago, I grabbed my old "Ok Computer" disc and listened to that through the mountains. I got to see a sound check with Will (we're on a first name basis), and since I was the only one in the audience, he pointed to me and sang the Alicia Keys' song "No One." (Okay, that was for like 10 seconds but that was still pretty cool.) The interview was probably the best of my professional career and it was nice to see snow covered mountains.

This weekend is my Mom's 70th birthday party. My sister-in-law and I are throwing her a ladies brunch and I'm commissioning a portrait of her by a very well respected Delaware artist. The party was to be a surprise but my father, who can't keep a secret worth his life, told her like right away. "Dorothy! I had to tell her. She's 70 years old, you know. If you surprised her, she would drop dead from a heart attack."

6:27 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Please, judge this by its cover

What do you think?

1:30 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

How editors handle the force that is Britney spears as explained through an IM conversation

Editor in NYC: hey there
how are you handling britney?

Me: Is she dead?

Editor in NYC: not yet...

Me: Then who cares?

10:06 AM - 6 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The results are in!

So for Christmas of this year, I got the Doggie DNA test for Doctor Lance Pemberton III (other wise known as Doc, Lancey, or Doctor P) for Nat. You can see him here (the Dog, not Nat).



So it turns out that he's a basset/chow/akita/and sher pei mix, which is like the craziest thing in the world that we can figure that out. And before you call "bullshit" check out this basset/chow mix that I found on the interweb...



God, what did we do before we could Google search? Seriously, how did the world work? How did we entertain ourselves? But I digress. This dog (known as Sophie) is a spitting image of Doc! But with really, really stubby legs. It's Sophie Pemberton!

That's my boring update for the day. Have fun watching the Superbowl tonight. I think people are coming over but there was much debate about if Nat and I had a big enough TV. What kind of world do we live in when a flat screen TV isn't considered big enough? I remember when I first started dating him, I actually thought to myself "That man has the nicest TV I have ever seen."

11:42 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

I blame Oprah

I read a lot of self-help things. I read blogs about how to clean your house (current status of my house: messy). I read articles about which vitamins to take (current vitamins I take: none). I read books on how to manage your money. I read Oprah magazine (I know. It's crazy). I read things on which exercises will make might tighter. I read all these things on how to enrich your life.

I think these things are making me miserable.

Well, not miserable, per se. But not happy with my lot in life. Because these self-help items always make you feel like you can do BETTER. That you can ACHIEVE. That you can BE A BETTER PERSON. Don't stop! they say. Keep aiming for gold! So I often feel like I'm not doing enough. That I'm not really striving for the best. Which is simply just crazy. Things are awesome. But how come I always feel like I could be doing better?

I think my frantic disposition is just the American way of doing things. I was talking with my mom today about the Iowa caucuses. And how all the politicians just spend so much time talking about how awful things are in the country. And my mother said, "If things are really so bad, then how come most everyone else is beating down our doors to live here?" My mother, of course, lived through WWII, the shooting of MLK JR, Robert Kennedy, JFK, and she grew up with many a story about the Depression from her parents. She has a point. I think when people complain about how bad things are here, I think they really mean, "It sucks we don't live in Europe."

Our generation just only knows good things--so we have no comparisons. We complain about our jobs but at least we have them. We complain about relationships, but at least we're in them. We complain about money, but we really have so much of it that it's frankly obscene. We complain about our looks, but we don't have MS or are in wheelchairs or are missing a limb.

But enough of that. I can't fix that. Let's get back to me and my general malaise, shall we? Seriously folks, what is my next challenge? I need to get working on something so I can be more proactive and not just sitting around and complaining about how awful my life is (as I said before, my life is awesome. It's just that my muse is my own dissatisfaction). My mom said I should write a two person play based on the book. I've never written a full-length play but I bet I could figure it out. As my mom said, "It would be good for community theater!" I think my mother should write a self-help book on how to always aim low and then be excited when things defy your expectations.

I also just applied to Columbia Journalism School. I just Fed-Exed in some clips. I guess I need to read more blogs on procrastination as the mailing fee was A LOT more than regular mail. As my old boss who is now the Deputy Editor of TONY said, "Are you sure you want to do this? That's a lot of money for something you already know how to do." Which is what everyone is telling me. But I have the money (I was kind of saving that for a house but whatever) and I think it's prudent to apply. I can always decide I don't want to go if I do get in, which really, despite my hubris on the situation, I might not even be accepted to. But that whole "Ivy League" thing is SO attractive to me. I will never get over the fact I went to a second tier university (see what I mean?).

Currently listening : Ruby Vroom By Soul Coughing Release date: 27 September, 1994

11:19 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Catalog copy!

10:10 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Some happy things

So, how's the book going you ask? It's in, is the answer. Although we are still waiting for line edits from the editor we did get a note that said, "I'm reading now and it's laugh out loud funny." And then she gave us a 50 page document about our lives that we need to fill out. My father says I should talk about being a Republican page (true story. It was in the Senate for Bill Roth when I was 16. Edward Kennedy looked down my shirt ALL THE TIME) and how i starred as Charlotte in my high school's performance of "Charlotte's Web" when I made all the retarded children cry with my goodbye speech to the pig. To whit: "Goodbye (cough) Wilber (cough)! My one, true friend (cough , cough, cough)!" Have I talked about that before? I might have. It was my one shinning moment in life.

But I think I'll leave that out and include those factoids in my memoirs.

Also, we got this email in from our agent. Although we pay him to say great things like this, it's always nice to hear:

"The manuscript is absolutely fantastic. I finally sat down with this weekend and think you guys have done exactly what you need to do for Kathy and the Collins team to take it and make some very big things happen. We might have a real winner on our hands here."

When we emailed to say, "No! Stop it! Go on!" He responded:

"I'm telling you I have a really good feeling about your book. Kathy is the hottest editor in book publishing right now and Collins is huge upward trajectory with Steve Ross at the help. Your book is in a great position to take advance of all of this and you helped your chances tremendously by writing one hell of a manuscript."

That's the best e-mail a writer can get, I think. My mother, who is eternally my uh, what's the word, downer? sensible person? says that it shouldn't go to my head and that she's worried "he's setting me up for a big fall." And I couldn't agree more. Just nice to hear.

How are things in your life, readers? I feel like My Space is so spooky now, like a ghost on-line town. All of my friend's old profiles haven't been checked in weeks. Their comments are all graffitied up by people named Emily and videos of naked chicks and totally abandoned. So sad.

In totally non-related news, I'm on Facebook now!

1:26 AM - 4 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment