I just received an email reminding me that I promised another chapter in the Bats vs Learys saga. I meant to do a Part Two to this, but then couldn’t make up my mind which bat invasion I should write about next. I’m a little embarrassed that we have such a wealth of bat stories. We just went through a long period where we kept forgetting to close the chimney flue. If you’re new to country living, please take my advice and never leave the chimney flue open in the summertime. The first time we did this, we were in a rented house. It was before we moved up here full-time and were not so wise about the wild things that fly and crawl and slither into Connecticut country houses at all hours. Our children were very young – maybe three and five years old, and our friends Ted and Amanda Demme were visiting for the weekend. Long story short – I left the flue open and after dinner we saw something fluttering around the living room.

“I wonder what that is,” Denis said cheerfully. Then the thing came fluttering into the dining room, aiming straight for Denis’s head and all hell broke loose. The rapid-fire tragic-comic stunt sequence that followed included (but was not limited to) Denis trampling our children, Denis using the most foul language imaginable in front of our children and Denis nearly knocking the very pregnant Amanda down a flight of stairs.

It occurred to me during those frantic moments, that until that night, I had never seen Denis genuinely afraid. During our years in the city, his courage had certainly been put to the test. There was the night, for example, when I woke up with the spine-chilling suspicion that there was another person in the apartment. I poked Denis awake and he grabbed a baseball bat and searched each room, tapping the thick of the bat against his palm. Another time an agitated homeless crack-addict guy approached us on the street and Denis assuaged him with a cigarette. His bravery was most admirably on display when our building became infested with mice and he would walk ahead of me into the kitchen, while I clung to him, my face buried in his back, whining, “Do you see any? Do you see any?” I had watched Denis stand up to Harvey Weinstein, out-curse a frenzied cabby, walk past gangs from the nearby housing projects without lowering his eyes and once when a snarling pit-bull came barreling toward us in the park, Denis, who loves dogs, began slapping his thigh, and before I knew it, he and the dog were playfully rolling around on the ground together. What I didn’t know then, was that every man has something that makes his blood run cold. For Humphrey Bogart in “The African Queen” is was leeches. For Denis, it’s bats.

Next: Bats vs Learys Part III - The Final Reckoning

The other night we attended a screening of our friend Peter Tolan’s new film, “Finding Amanda,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Peter is the co-creator/writer/producer of Denis’s FX show “Rescue Me,” as well as the writer of major television and film hits such as, “Analyze This”, “Guess Who,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” and “Murphy Brown.” “Finding Amanda,” stars Matthew Broderick and is a really funny movie about a gambling addict who must go to Vegas to rescue his wayward niece.

There was a press line outside the screening. Here’s Denis being interviewed:

And here’s something you might not know about red carpets: almost always, the people on the other side of it – photographers, journalists,etc are more attractive and more animated than the actual stars. You just never get to see them, but I do, because I am usually hustled off to the side so that they can photograph Denis either by himself or with another actor. I am what’s known as a waste of editorial space. Photographers will usually take photos of Denis with me, to be polite, but then will insist on some with Denis and somebody worth photographing. I hope I don’t sound bitter, because, in fact, the photographers are so gracious and good-humored about the whole thing that I’m usually thrilled to step up next to them, out of camera range. There, nestled in amongst the guys lugging the sound equipment and cameramen, I have heard some of the juiciest gossip and filthiest jokes you can imagine, and Denis usually has to drag me away.

“Wait,” I’ll say, as he tugs on my arm, “here comes that crazy Ramona from “Real Housewives of New York City!” And then my new friends will tell me all about the other times they’ve seen her hustling press, and all her outrageous antics. They make it look so easy, these journalists, that I have often thought I would like to have their jobs. Once, at an Emmy party, a TV interviewer asked me to interview Denis and instead I grabbed Cloris Leachman, who was walking past, and interviewed her, because she’s my childhood comedy idol, and I get to talk to Denis all the time

Allow me to introduce Pongo. Pongo is under-represented on my website because he’s not usually running around in front of the camera. He’s usually asleep someplace.

Pongo is 15 years old and is some kind of terrier/poodle mix. He used to be all black with a white chest. We hooked-up with Pongo in Canada, when he was just a puppy. We were staying in a house in Toronto for several months while Denis was making the movie “The Ref.” Jack was 3 years old, Devin was 1 1/2. I was a little lonely and broody that summer - I think I had just weaned the baby and I wanted another baby, but we had a tough time having the two, and were not going to have any more. For some reason that reality hit home hard those months of “The Ref,” when I found myself, once again, friendless in a strange city, my last baby sauntering around drinking out of a sippy cup. So, one day I saw a sign that said “puppies for sale.” I took the kids to the house, just for a look, and we came home with Pongo.

All summer long, I pushed Dev’s stroller back and forth to the park with Jack running ahead of us and Pongo tucked into a diaper bag that hung from the back of the stroller. Pongo loved his rides and would sit with his scruffy paws and face peering out over the top of the bag. Now, I know I’m partial, but Devin happened to have been a strikingly beautiful baby. She was plump and pink-cheeked with strawberry blonde hair and always a big gummy smile for everybody. So, when all the little old ladies of Cabbagetown (the neighborhood we stayed in) stopped me and said, “How adorable! What a precious baby, how old is she?” I would thank them and say, “She’s fifteen months old!” Then, they would almost invariably say, “And what breed is she?” because they were admiring the puppy, not Devin. The Canadians are like the British that way, from what I have seen – they just love dogs. Kids, not so much.

Pongo was the perfect dog for our young family because he’s small and we lived in New York City, and he had incredible amounts of energy and so did our family. He cured many kids in our building of their fear of dogs, because he always approached children with his head down and tail wagging slowly. He wouldn’t dream of jumping up on a child or growling at a child, let alone nipping one. And he suffered some abuse at their hands, though I tried to prevent this. In those days there were always playdates at our house and sometimes, when I was distracted, a toddler or child would grab Pongo by the whiskers and he soon developed an instinct for recognizing undomesticated children and would slink off to the bedroom when those kids darkened our doorway. But unlike many dogs, he never developed a prejudice against all children and still gets excited when a little one comes to visit.

Pongo’s story is too long to tell here, but I will summarize by saying he’s a classic terrier. He’s made of steel and has always been the boss of our pack, even when it included two boisterous Irish Wolfhounds. He has been run over by cars, not once, but twice (once he was attacking his enemy, the UPS truck and the other time, it pains me to tell you, he laid down behind the wheel of my hybrid car, which he didn’t know was running, and I…I…backed over him). Both times he recovered in record time and though he has suffered a shattered leg and broken pelvis, he takes himself on a little tour of our property each day, and he doesn’t have the slightest limp. And the blessed dog has forgiven me for running him over, because he’s a dog, in the very best sense of the word, which is to say that he lives in the present, lets bygones-be-bygones, and still shows his unwavering devotion by refusing his supper when I'm away, and howling with joy when I return.

Driving home the other day, I saw a pair of cardinals. It was a dreary day and cold and there was a dull drizzle that had churned our failing dirt road into mud and left my horse field a boggy marsh. My mind was spinning dark truths at me (cost of replacing road/nobody will buy my book/someday I will die/there are demons who lock children in cellars) Suddenly this bright red pair of cardinals was swirling across the road. They were like a pair of cartoon hearts flitting in esctatic spirals around each other. Across the road they frolicked and into my neighbor's field. They bounced and flit about the wet spring grass, then fluttered up into the branches of a thin sapling and suddenly the branches were bouncing and swaying with this bright tumbling fruit. I stomped around in the sodden weeds trying to get a picture, but they wouldn't hold still. I finally got a shot of this guy as he rested on a wire fence. I wish I was a better photographer. In real life, he was better.

This morning I was searching an online image database for photographs (for book publicity) and I found many photos I had never seen before, including this one:

This was probably the first time a professional photographer ever took our picture (besides our wedding). The date on the photo is January 1, 1992. I was twenty-nine years old, and although you can’t tell from the photo, I was pregnant with our daughter, Devin. We were at a party celebrating the opening night of Denis’s one-man show “No Cure For Cancer,” which he was performing at the Actor’s Playhouse in the West Village.

Denis had originally done “No Cure For Cancer” at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, a year and a half earlier. We had been temporarily stationed in the UK, for reasons surrounding the birth of our first child, Jack, that are detailed in my book, "An Innocent, A Broad." When we returned to the US, I had assumed that Denis would go back to work in comedy clubs, as that was our sole source of income at the time. Denis, instead, chose to do “No Cure For Cancer,” off-Broadway. This made me concerned. I was pregnant and hormonal, so by "concerned," I mean, actually psychotic with anxiety. We had incurred a lot of debt, living in London and now we were trying to live in New York on … I don’t even know what we were living on. I’ll have to ask Denis. I do know that a few weeks before this photo was taken, we received, within one 24-hour period, a notice that our insurance was about to lapse for non-payment (we had a baby and another on the way) and a summons that was delivered by a very frightening man, ordering us to vacate our apartment within 30 days, because we were several months behind in rent. Unfortunately, my poor mother was visiting when these notices arrived and she was beside herself with worry. Anyway, it was a VERY stressful time in our marriage.

I had been against his doing the show from the beginning. I thought it was too big a gamble. What if the critics hated him? What would we eat? Where would we live? But Denis kept saying, “This is it. It’s our chance. I don’t think I can work in comedy clubs for the rest of my life.”

So in the photo, like I said, we were at the opening night party. The show had finally opened after many weeks of rehearsal. It had sold out. Critics were raving. Agents were calling. We didn’t know it then, but within months we would be on a movie location in Mexico with two healthy babies, all our debts paid off. I can’t begin to describe the joy and relief and heady exhilaration of that time – of all of it - our sweet-smelling babies in our bed in the mornings, Denis's energy, the sudden media attention, the show - but I think the photo says it all. Denis's hair is all sweaty and he's rethinking the show, sorting out which material worked best (I recognize that look). I was so proud. I had been wrong about the show. He was so tired, so exhuasted, satisfied. We were so young.

When I began this blog, just over a month ago, I made a commitment to myself to write in it every day. Of course, I had little confidence that I would actually do it. I even blogged about my lifelong habit of making all these big plans, and then not following through with them. But, with the exception of one or two days when I was either in the car all day or too busy to sit down and write, I have kept up with my blog. Recently another author asked me how I do it and I explained that I do it out of shame.

Every morning, I wake up around five (I have an old dog with bladder issues who must go out), make coffee, then nestle back into bed with my dogs and my laptop. Usually, the day before, I will have thought of something very clever to blog about, so I will quickly type up the blog – just as I’m doing now. Sometimes the blog was inspired by a photograph, so I will spend some time reformatting the photo. Then I copy the whole thing onto the blog page, and preview it. My blog software allows you to have a look at it all formatted along with the photo before you “publish” it onto the web, and I often chortle with delight at my own wittiness, or blink back tears reading my tender reminiscences. Then I click the “publish” button, and magically the blog appears on the web, for all the world to see. This is the exact moment that the shame sets in.

Immediately, I log onto my website and view the blog there. It always looks slightly better on the real blog page, for some reason and I breathe a sigh of relief until I start noticing all the typos. I fix these, which takes a little time, have one last look, and then get out of bed so I can drive my daughter to school (my son, who goes to a different school, drives himself). On the drive back from school, I worry that the blog was a little too _____ (fill in the blank: corny/dumb/incoherent/smug/other). When I go home, I log on again and decide that it is one or all of these things. But it’s already up. It’s on the World Wide Web. It’s like graffiti in the bathroom in high school saying, “Ann Leary Sucks.” It’ll stay there until the janitor cleans it up or until I cover it with more graffiti. Graffiti that says, “No she does not!” My next day's blog is the covering-up graffiti. In my mind, it will hide the shameful previous day’s blog. There have been days when I almost posted two entries in one day, so desperate was I too hide a bad blog.

So I go through all these mental contortions over the blog, feel exposed, de-gloved, humilitaed by my own self-reporting, until it dawns on me that, for all I know, nobody reads the stupid thing. I know my mother and sister read it, and I get the odd email from good friends saying they’ve checked it out, but even my husband and kids are too bored to log onto it on a regular basis. Mercifully, I have not yet learned how to see how many “hits” I get in one day.

So, my blog is a daily exercise in overcoming the fact that I’m an outrageous egomaniac with a staggering inferiority complex. It works for me.

Here's the view from my bed/blogatorium. My legs are on the right in grey sweats:

This is Daphne after she's pushed the laptop aside with her paws:

In an earlier blog, I shared the little known fact that the men and women on the other side of the red carpet (photographers/journalists/cameramen) are usually far more attractive and entertaining than the actual stars themselves. Today, I would like to share another secret, which is that the behind-the-scenes workers on any television or film set are usually: a)more educated, b)more hilarious, and c)just all-around happier than not only the stars, but also the general population.

Take Lorraine Coppin, for example. Lorraine works as a Wardrobe Supervisor on Denis’s series, Rescue Me. Lorraine showed up on the set one morning in a gown. Why? Because she had been to a great fashion-industry party the night before and realized as she was leaving the party (at 4:30 in the morning), that her purse was missing. In true Holly GoLightly form, she wasn’t too terribly concerned and decided that since she had no money to get home, she would just walk to Union Square, where a van usually picked up cast and crew to go to the Rescue Me set at 6:00 AM. As she strolled through Manhattan in those darkest hours before dawn, a car pulled up and the driver asked her if she needed a ride.

Lorraine looked the man over very carefully, then asked, “Are you a murderer?”

“No,” said the man.

Satisfied, Lorraine hopped in and not only did the man deliver her in one piece to Union Square, he asked her out on a date!

How Lorraine got into show business: Lorraine’s cousin was a script supervisor who worked on The Bernie Mac Show, and on various films. One day, Lorraine got a frantic call from her cousin. They were on the first day of shooting an independent film, and the Set Costumer was a no-show. Lorraine had attended Rice University with the intention of becoming a lawyer, but had always been interested in fashion. She had worked in the Men’s Department of Barney’s and had become quite adept at dressing men. So she said, “I’ll be the Set Costumer.” She showed up that day, figured out what she needed to do, and she did it. Then she showed up the next day and then the day after that. The production was so pleased with her work that they asked her to go to Los Angeles with them to finish the shoot, and she gladly agreed and off she went to LA. Now, Lorraine had not been paid for her work and, she naively reasoned that since she was learning as she was going along, perhaps she wasn’t supposed to get paid. In fact, one of her job requirements on that job was to repeatedly rub lotion into the shoulders of Antonio Sabato, Jr. It defied logic to Lorraine, that anybody would need to be paid to rub lotion into the shoulders of Antonio Sabato, Jr. Finally somebody realized that Lorraine had worked for an entire month without pay and she received back pay and the rest is history.

This is Lorraine outside the wardrobe truck. The photo doesn’t do her justice. She’s gorgeous.

The other women who work in wardrobe wouldn’t allow me to take their photos but I did get them to admit to something I had long suspected, which is that the men of “Rescue Me,” could out-diva the Desperate Housewives any day. “Go talk to the ladies in make-up,” they laughed.

My mother is in Colorado, visiting my brother, but it's Mother's Day, so I thought I would dedicate today's blog to my dear mother, Judith S. Howe.

My mother is extremely charming. She has an old-fashioned sensibility when it comes to manners and applies them to modern situations, often with interesting results. For example, once, one of her grandchildren persuaded her to take them through the drive-through window at McDonald's. Judy drove up to the speaker, and said, smiling brightly at it, "Hi, I'm Judy Howe! I'd like two orders of Chicken McNuggets, please." Then she waited in the traffic line and when it was her turn, she pulled up to the window, and said, gaily, "Hi! Judy Howe!" I'm not sure if this story is as funny in blog form, because you have to get the accent with it. She talks a little bit like Katherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story.

Here's my mom with my brother Paul and me, during my very short career as a natural blonde. My mother was about 24 years old.

Here she is with my brother and sister and me, on the beach in Bay Head, NJ. I guess it was the early 70's. In those days they didn't know how to diagnose and treat ADHD, so if you were saddled with "special" kids like us, you just had to tough it out.

Okay, this is my mother sitting between Denis and me at our rehearsal dinner, the night before we were married. I don't think I have ever seen a photograph that better captures the look of sheer terror on a grown man's face as vividly as this one does. Seriously, Denis looks like he's just soiled himself. And, I have no idea what was going on with my hair. It was the 80s? Everybody had bangs like that?

She's not the type of granny who sits around knitting. Here's a recent photo of her sporting around in the surf with a bunch of dolphins.

I know. She's beautiful. Mom, I love you. Happy Mother's Day!

Not that you were asking, but I came up with the name of my new novel,

after Denis and I watched Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage, one night last winter.

Scenes From a Marriage was recently re-released on DVD. It’s very long, as it was originally a series on Swedish Television. It’s shot like a documentary but it’s a drama. Like a Christopher Guest film – only not funny. And artfully shot. It’s beautifully shot (okay, it’s not like a Christopher Guest film at all.)

The film, Scenes From a Marriage was made in the 70’s, and my first thought, while watching it, was that the clothes and hairstyles reminded me of my parents and their friends during that time. As the drama unfolded, and this couple’s marriage was revealed as being hopelessly frayed, I became riveted. These people really were like my parents and their friends. And also, I realized, like Denis and me and our friends, and probably all married people, everywhere. I watched it all in one sitting, on a winter night in front of a dying fire. Denis fell asleep during the first 15 minutes and slept right through.

I borrowed something from the film. The Liv Ullman character, at one point, tells her husband of a love affair that she had with her psychiatrist and a shrink/love interest found his way into my novel soon after.

Anyway, Netflix it if you’re a 70s junkie like me. I love 70s films. I watch Klute every couple of months and delight in it anew each time. I watched Klute for the first time, years ago with my sister Meg, and to this day, when I see Meg’s name on the caller ID, I answer the phone, rasping “Bree Daniels,” in Jane Fonda’s sexy whore voice. Meg does the same thing when I call her and it shames me to have to tell you that we actually laugh until we can’t breathe every single time we do this. What can I say; we’re simple people. Anyway, I’ve seen Rosemary’s Baby countless times. For some reason, I find it soothing. I could recite The Godfathers I and II - every word. Our friends Richard LaGravenese and Ted Demme made a documentary called A Decade Under The Influence about 70s films. Netflix that too while you’re at it. Anyway, there’s something very comforting to me about the style of certain 70s era films, even the scary ones. Okay, I have to list a few more: Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The Sting. Dog Day Afternoon, and my all-time favorite - Paper Moon, starring our friend Tatum O'Neal , who is now a star of Rescue Me.

Outtakes From a Marriage hits bookstores on June 3rd.

People often ask me if I miss living in the city. My friends tell me they think it must get terribly depressing to be “stuck” up here in Connecticut all winter long. “Yes,” I tell them, “it’s awful. You’d hate it!” Then I receive all sorts of sympathy and attention and kindness from them, because it seems that nothing pleases people more than discovering somebody else’s regrets and I’m happy to let people savor their action-packed city life at my expense.

“We've thought about moving up there, but I think I would need more …stimulation,” people have said to me. I'm never really sure how to respond to this, but have often been tempted to say, "well, I'm a simpleton, so watching grass grow is about all the stimulation I can handle." Instead, I say, “It’s mind-numbing. Really, you’d hate it,” because the truth is, I don’t want neighbors who are running around jonesing for stimulation all the time. I like neighbors like this:

I have this little nervous condition that offers me stimulation-a-plenty, so I need neighbors like this guy, who lives down the road. He's a Scottish Highland calf. He likes to ruminate. Me too. Every day I drive past his field and sometimes I have to get out of the car for a proper visit. I have often wanted to offer him a treat, but am against feeding anything that has more than one stomach, plus I really don’t know what is safe or unsafe for cows to eat. But this handsome chap doesn’t need treats – he seems to thrive on compliments. He always wanders over to the fence and waits for me to start in with my gushing praise.

“Good God,” I always say, “you’re making me sick, you’re so cute!” and he blinks and tosses his bangs. “Okay, get in the car,” is what I want to say to him then. I want him to live in our house and sleep in our bed with us. I want to frolic with him in a meadow, then I want to curl up on the couch with him and watch an old movie.

This gorgeous redhead lives at another farm in town. She's part of a small herd of Scottish Highland Cattle at Maple Bank Farm, which has been owned by the Hurlbut family since the 1700s.

Here's a photo of their farm stand:

They sell fresh vegetables, homemade pies, yarn spun from their sheep's wool, homemade jams, flowers, plants, fresh honey, maple syrup, apples from their orchard, fresh blueberries, fresh eggs and the most delicious sweet corn on earth.

Last night we attended a screening of Recount, the new HBO film about the 2000 election fiasco in Florida.

The film stars Denis, Kevin Spacey, Laura Dern, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson among many others, and it was directed by Jay Roach (Meet The Family, all the Austin Powers movies). The performances are all wonderful, of course, with that cast, but what really makes the movie outstanding is the great script, written by a formerly unknown screenwriter named Danny Strong. If you go to the HBO/Recount website, you will find an interview with Mr. Strong, which I found very interesting.

Here are Kevin, Laura, Jay Roach and Denis.

I was nestled in among the photographers, and journalists, as usual, listening to their comments about the stars who lined up for photos. I love Laura Dern's smile so much. Every muscle in her face smiles and somehow, it breaks your heart to see it - or mine anyway, because it always reminds me of the many fragile yet courageous characters she has portrayed so brilliantly over the years. In Recount, she does a scathingly funny and dead-on Katherine Harris (Florida's dull-witted state Attorney General). Denis plays Michael Whouley, Gore's Chief Field Officer and a key Democratic strategist from Boston. Denis and I went up to Boston last fall so that Denis could meet him just before shooting began. Whouley is a very private man but a powerful resource for Democratic campaigns. Kevin Spacey plays Ron Klain, Gore's Chief of Staff. Tom Wilkinson plays James Baker.

Who else was there? Naomi Watts, Mike Myers. My friends Bob and Nancy. All sorts of studio and industry executives. A giant who worked for security and whose picture Denis forbade me to take. The man was a living, breathing giant, I tell you, standing right out in front of MOMA, talking into his sleeve. Now that I think of it, there must have been some important politician there last night because there were quite a few people talking into their sleeves.

One day, last fall, my friend Paula and I were in ABC Carpet and Home in Manhattan. Paula is an interior designer (among many other things) and so I was running around with her, envying her very fun job. Anyway, we hadn't seen each other for awhile and as we walked up the stairs from floor to floor, we were chattering and laughing with such gusto that we barely registered the fact that there were all sorts of men and women on each landing. They were all dressed in suits, talking into their sleeves. Finally, we walked into the Bath and Bedding floor and Paula grabbed my arm. "It's ....her!" she said. "It's Laura Bush!" So I turned and there, no more than three feet away from me, was that walking zombie Laura Bush. She smiled toward me - I can't really say she smiled at me, because that would require some focusing of the eyes. Whatever medication cocktail sustains her these days (can you imagine trying to dull that level of shame?), has turned her eyes into two flat, glassy, unfocusing pools. One eye seemed to be a little crossed. It was hard to imagine that she wasn't seeing double. And yet she smiled toward us, and we smiled back. And then she floated off, buoyed by her assistants, and tailed by her huge Secret Service staff.

I couldn't stop thinking about poor Laura after that. No wonder she's never interviewed or allowed in front of the cameras. I wonder when they decided it was time for her chemical lobotomy. Does she agree to the drugging, or does George slip her a mickey each morning? Laura, if you're reading this, do what Jack Nicholson did in Cuckoo's Nest. Hide the pills under your tongue and then spit them out. Later, you can sneak out a window. I know tons of nice guys you could date, not everyone will reject you. Many people marry losers and go on to meet great men later in life.

I'm fascinated by the women behind certain men, so much so that I wrote a novel about one. Yes, that's right, I wrote a novel called Outtakes From a Marriage, which will hit bookstores June 3rd!

The other day I was taught how to look at my “web stats,” that is, how to see the amount of traffic on my website. Guess what my new obsession is? It turns out, there are more than just a few relatives looking at my blog each day – I’m getting lots of hits, which thrills me, but it was suggested that I blog about my book Outtakes From A Marriage more, since that’s why I started this whole blog in the first place. And I will. But first, I have to blog about Daphne, because I just realized that, though I’ve featured her photo a few times, I haven’t really introduced her properly. I love my two children equally, but among my dogs, Daphne is my absolute favorite (the other dogs seem fine with this). Anyway, here she is on a recent hike:

We got Daphne in …brace yourself …be ready to hate me/report me to PETA/send me death-threats…A PET SHOP. There, I’ve said it. Yes, I know that pet shops are the scourge of society, that the puppies come from inhumane puppy mills, that they’re bred willy-nilly, etc. I know. Now, be ready to move me a notch lower in your esteem, when I tell you that she’s a LABRADOODLE. That’s right, the ridiculously yuppy/trendy hybrids that are seen, suddenly, running across every other suburban lawn and trotting around urban dog parks. I know. I get it. I suck. But I didn’t go to a pet shop looking for a Labradoodle. I went there looking for a dog brush. This was four years ago and I was at the dreaded mall with my kids. They were shopping for video games and I was killing time. I walked past the pet store and decided to stop in and pick up a brush. It was shedding season and we had wolfhounds at home. When I walked in, one of the workers was walking past with this very floppy, scruffy, blonde puppy in her arms. I think you know what happened next. I asked if I could pet the puppy, I asked if I could play with the puppy. The puppy was keen, alert, made eye-contact, attacked my shoelaces. Within the hour she was seated between my kids in the backseat of my car, and to this day there’s no place else she’d rather be.

While I was contemplating the purchase of this puppy, I weighed out all the moral implications. I had scolded friends who had bought puppies in pet shops. But this puppy had already been born. She had just arrived at the pet shop the day before and who knew how long she’d have to stay in her smelly cage, her wet nose pressed up against the glass. I could see how bright she was; what if stupid people bought her? What if they were cruel and left her chained up in the scorching sun all day? Again, I know - not the right logic. Anyway, puppy mill or no, this dog is a genetic marvel. Her IQ is off the charts. And just look at her!

Where do I begin? She’s got a great sense of humor. For example, she likes carrying stuff around and when she wants to get my attention she will offer me a sock or something. If I’m busy, I won’t really respond to the sock, so she looks for something really funny to carry to me, like an over-sized stuffed animal or a small piece of furniture. She knows she’s being funny when she does this, because, as she approaches, her entire hind end wags slowly at her own gag and her eyes narrow with mirth. She knows I’m about to start snorting with laughter, and this makes her laugh with her body, the way dogs do. She will go to give me the thing and when I reach for it, she will turn away so that it’s just out of my grasp – another favorite joke of hers. Like most dogs, she doesn’t understand one of the basic tenets of comedy, which is that a thing is usually only funny the first time. Daphne thinks it’s just as funny the fortieth time and has no idea why I am not still hooting with laughter when she tries to hand me the sofa cushion again and again and again.

She also thinks it’s very funny to push the laptop off my lap. She does this when she’s lying next to me in bed and I’m trying to write something. First she’ll just tap it once or twice with the tip of her paw, and when I smile, she thumps the bed with her tail. Then she taps it a little harder. Once, she accidentally closed the laptop doing this and apparently she found my reaction very amusing ( I thought I had lost something I had written and was spazzing out) and ever since, she’s been trying to repeat the joke. Usually, she succeeds in knocking the laptop off my lap.

And she’s smart. She understands everything I say. She is at my side, always, when I’m home, and would like to go everywhere with me when I leave.

Sometimes I can’t take her along, so when I walk through the house and she sees by my energy, that I’m about to leave, she becomes giddy with anticipation and begins to prance alongside me. I will then say to her, in the same tone I would use when speaking to any human, “Oh, sorry, I can’t take you with me,” and she will stop dead in her tracks, her whole body sagging with disappointment. We can be lying in bed together and I will say to her, casually, “Well, I guess I’ll go take a shower and then let’s go into town. I need to get some gas,” and when I go outside, she’ll be sitting next to the car, all ready to go. I have a convertible and she spends her entire summer in the driveway, seated in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, waiting for me to get in and start driving. Did I mention that she can open doors? She can. She knows how to hit the handle of all our storm doors with her paw and then, when it unlatches, she pushes the door open and out she goes. She only wandered from the property once, during her adolescence. She was picked up by the dog officer and spent the night n the pound. I don’t know what happened to Daphne when she was in the can, but she was apparently scared straight because she has never strayed again.

Oh, I could go on and on, but I’ll stop there. She’s a dear friend, my Daphne. Now go check out my book!

I had this website created a couple of months ago in order to help promote my novel Outtakes From a Marriage, which, for all you latecomers, hits bookstores June 3rd. During a discussion with the web designer, he said, "you really should have a Q&A about your book on your bookpage."

"Oooh, a Q&A!" I said, "I love that idea. Who's going to interview me?"

"Well, you know, a lot of authors just write the Q&A themselves," he said.

"So....I would ask the questions, and then I would answer them?"

"Right," he said.

So I gave it a shot. I decided the questioner should speak in italics, to differentiate him/her from me, and I would reply in a regular font. I began with:

Q: Why this book? Why now?

A: Well, I knew I had this great idea for a book. And so I thought I would right it ....now.

And that was as far as I got. I guess some people are better at self-interviewing than others. Then I had an idea. I would ask Denis Leary to interview me. This would be great because a) He's funny and a lot of people know who he is, and b) he and I were sitting in the same room.

He agreed, but only on the condition that I email him the questions, because he wanted to answer during the commercials of a baseball game he was watching. The interview is on the Outtakes From a Marriage page of this website, but I'm posting it here in the hopes that it will whip all of you into a frenzy of anticipation for the book's release (on June 3rd.)
___________________________________________________________________________________
After much pleading, Denis Leary agrees to interview his wife Ann Leary about her new novel, Outtakes from a Marriage. (Though the interviewer and interviewee are in the same house, the interview is conducted via email as Denis is watching a split-squad spring training game between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays and can only really participate during commercials.)

DENIS: So, how did you come to write your novel, Outtakes from a Marriage?
ANN: Great question. Well, I walked into a restaurant with a celebrity one night a few years ago and later I jotted in my notebook the following line: “he walked through the room with his ‘yes, it’s me’ expression…” and those words were the genesis of this book. I wanted to write about how fame changes the way people behave, how people react to celebrities and about the way marriages, like people, age.

DENIS: This “celebrity” you “walked into a restaurant with” – was it Brad Pitt?
ANN: Okay, very funny. I'm trying to get the reader to think I'm always breezing in and out of restaurants with famous people. In fact, I think we both know that the celebrity was you. But thanks for mentioning Brad Pitt. Somebody told me that anytime a person Googles certain names and phrases that are in my site, the Googler will be sent here!

DENIS: Oh. Hey - have you ever met Lindsay Lohan?
ANN: No

DENIS: Tom Cruise?
ANN: Tom Cruise what?

DENIS: How about that Jennifer Aniston pregnancy?
ANN: You can stop now.

DENIS: Okay - moving on. So - the book. A lot of the stuff in the book - which is extremely funny - is based on experiences that seem very real when it comes to show business. Are you worried that some readers may think it's autobiographical?
ANN: All of the events in the book are fictitious but they are inspired, in some instances from real experiences in my life. Like my heroine Julia, I have access to certain “inside Hollywood” events, but I perpetually feel like an outsider and, like Julia, the amount of elbow-grease required to get me red-carpet ready is astonishing.

DENIS: You’re being hard on yourself. Once they work the hay out of your hair and dig the saddle soap out from under your nails, you clean up real good.
ANN: Why thank you.

DENIS: No problem. So you’re saying ….what?
ANN: You’re really not very good at this are you? I was just saying that in this novel I wrote about an environment and characters that I’m familiar with and hopefully that will make the story more real for the reader. One of the main themes of the book is Julia’s feeling of inadequacy when it comes to her parenting skills and I think many women will relate to her. As you know, our kids went to preschool in Manhattan and the admissions and exmissions nightmare was ridiculously traumatic for me but with time I have been able to see the humor in it and think many urban mothers will relate to Julia’s difficulties with her precocious son’s teachers and school administrators. So the plot is fiction, the events made up, but the characters of Julia, her friends and her children have been molded in the likeness of people I have known and loved (and in some instances loathed) over the years.

DENIS: So you don’t think people will think these are “outtakes” from our marriage?
ANN: Well, the fact that we’re having this romantic Q&A instead of arguing over visitation rights should sum it up for most people. The couple in the book has a marriage that’s in shambles. Our marriage is a far cry from in shambles … isn’t it?

DENIS: We barely ever even argue. Except after couples therapy. And sometimes during the sessions. And maybe right before we go in. But other than that - and when we're in the car together and I'm driving - almost never. Speaking of shambles - how about Governor Spitzer's marriage? Now THAT'S a shambles. Just curious, it’s been all over the news today - what do you think the 'unsafe acts' the Governor was paying for may have included?
ANN: Probably bondage stuff. Maybe some flogging. Hey, I see where you're going with this. More hits!

DENIS: Really, last night was enough. Let’s give the welts time to scab over.
ANN: No, I mean hits to my site.

DENIS: Ok, calm down. How many more questions do I need to ask?
ANN: Maybe end with a leading question about what type of person might enjoy the book.

DENIS: Okay, would a penis enlarging, barely legal, hot young girl like the book?
ANN: She very well might, and again, smart idea, but those search words will probably attract nothing but fourteen year old boys. Not sure it’s for them. But seriously, thanks for doing the interview honey.

DENIS: It was my pleasure. Where’s the remote?

Yesterday morning I drove my daughter to school, and when I returned, these boxes were waiting for me on our front porch:

They were filled with the hard bound copies of my new book! The boxes had the name of my books on the outside! I opened the box and it was filled with shiny, fresh books with my name on the cover. I took one out and flipped through it and read a few of my favorite parts and cast an anxious eye on some of my not so favorite parts and I have to say, a book looks infinitely better when it's actually a book, not just a printed out manuscript. I admit it, I cried.

I decided to place it on a bookshelf to see how it looks among it's peers.

I decided it looked a little...small. So I put it on a shelf with a bunch of paperbacks, and it looked giant. That's Tim with the appalled expression. Tim is Denis's beloved childhood ...we think it was a bear. Now it looks like a germ or an amoeba or something. But I love Tim and have a very romantic view of him. I see him as a sort of real-life Velveteen Rabbit. Denis loved him so much that he rubbed his little nose, mouth and ears off! Denis's mother embroidered his name on him and embroidered him a new mouth! Yes, the new mouth has an expression of horror, but still... it was an act of love! I don't think this photo does him justice. I'm going to devote a future blog to Tim.

I feel that my blog needs some beauty today, so I'm posting a painting by my very dear friend Lindsey Brown. Lindsey is an artist and curator based in Brooklyn and Dutchess County, NY. Her work is in the permanent collection of The Portland Art Museum, is exhibited regularly in various New York galleries, and is hanging all over our house.

Lindsey is my oldest friend. We're from the same town, went to the same boarding school, and then we went to the same college. We both lived in Boston for awhile, and then we both lived in New York. She's one of those friends that you can lose contact with for months, but when you finally hook up with each other, you pick up right where you left off. If I feel like making her spit out her coffee, or collapse to the floor like a rag doll, gasping with laughter (Lindsey does that - she will actually end up on a heap on the floor if you're not careful), I only have to say one or two words that instantly conjure some past humiliation or gaffe that we experienced/committed together. She can just say a name and I fully understand her sorrow or joy, because I know all about this name. And vice versa. It's impossible for me to hear a Joni Mitchell song without thinking of Lindsey. Like Joni (whose music we listened to all the time, for years, in our bedrooms, in dorm rooms, in cars, bars), Lindsey is an artist with a poetic sensibility and a love of nature and color and beauty and light. Denis isn't wild about Joni Mitchell music, and my kids have threatened to throw themselves out of the car when she's playing, so I can only listen to her when I'm in the car by myself and I always recall my times with Lindsey, and all our dreams and schemes, especially when I hear the words, "I am a lonely painter, I live in a box of paints...." Because Lindsey and I really thought of ourselves as these lonely, tortured artists, though we were never really alone, ever.

Had some very exciting news yesterday about my book Outtakes From a Marriage. Although it doesn't come out until June 3rd, it is already going into a second printing! And, in addition to appearing on The View that week, I'll also be on Today and an ABC News morning show called What's the Buzz?

I'll post times and dates on my "News" page. Now what to wear? And I wonder what plastic surgery options are available that have a one-week recovery time? Would love to get the old eyelids done, but I guess there's not enough time. If you see me on one of those shows, promise not to look at my eyelids. Or my man-hands. Look at my shins - I have very nice shins.

Recently, I attended a book reading and signing at our local independent bookseller, The Hickory Stick Bookshop.

Honor Moore was signing copies of her new book. The Bishop's Daughter. If you haven't read it yet, go buy it - it's my favorite memoir in years. Honor is a poet and the memoir is about her father, a famous Episcopal Bishop who had a secret life. It's beautiful and loving and riveting as all good memoirs should be. You might have read excerpt that ran in the The New Yorker a few months ago. Anyway, I can't recommend this book highly enough, so go buy it - but if you can, buy it at in independent bookseller, and here's why -

Before the reading, a bunch of us stood around mumbling about the Washington Pharmacy, which used to be across the street from the Hickory Stick, and which had suddenly closed its doors two days before, with no warning. The pharmacy had been there, under one ownership or another, for over a hundred years. It looked like this:

The pharmacist knew all of his customers by their first names. Once I needed some antibiotics but couldn't make it to the store before they closed and he left them in the mailbox for me. Now, all our prescriptions will have to be filled here:

So we were all talking sadly before Honor's reading about how a town slowly loses its character when small shops are forced out of business by the giant chain stores. And we all vowed to order our books from the Hickory Stick, where lovely Fran Keilty knows most of her customers by name. Fran keeps her charming shop stocked with all the latest great books and has wonderful author events. Everybody from Frank McCourt to Henry Kissinger to ... well...me has signed books there. Fran pointed out that it's better for towns, better for the economy and better for the environment if we all remember to support local businesses.

So, to order Honor's book - or any book - at the Hickory Stick, call: 860-868-0525.

Meet Tim. Tim is a beloved toy from Denis’s childhood. Visitors to our home often comment on him because he's displayed prominently on a bookshelf and because he's a little spooky looking. I decided to do a blog entry about him, but then I realized that, although we have lived under the same roof for many years I don’t know very much about him. So today I asked Denis some searching questions about Tim. Here is our groundbreaking interview in its entirety:

ME: Okay, so where did you get Tim?
DENIS: My Aunt Betty made him for me.
ME: I don’t think she made him. She must have bought him for you. Maybe she repaired him and you thought she made him?
DENIS: No, she made him. Look at him. Who would buy something that looked like that?
ME: Well, I thought maybe he didn’t always look like that. I assumed that he was like the Velveteen Rabbit …
DENIS: What Velveteen Rabbit?
ME: The Velveteen Rabbit was a book about a little boy who was given this beautiful stuffed animal rabbit. And the boy loved it so much that he rubbed its eyes off from cuddling it all the time and he made its seams split. And the rabbit loved him too…
DENIS: Well Tim’s no fancy-assed Velveteen Rabbit. Never was. He always looked like that.
ANN: Okay, So Aunt Betty made him for you. Now what was the name of her husband again?
DENIS: Uncle Aeneas.
ME: (fitful giggles)
DENIS: You came up with the idea of this interview just so you could make fun of my uncle’s name, didn’t you?
ANN: Well, it’s funny. And sad too, because it’s pronounced anus, so I imagine the kids in school must have treated him horribly.
DENIS: He grew up in Ireland. It was a common name there.
ME: Right. SO, anyway, Betty made Tim for you. Do you remember how old you were when she gave him to you?
DENIS: No, I was really little. It was probably that time I had to stay at her house when my parents went to Ireland.

A little history: Denis’s parents moved here from Ireland shortly before they were married. When Denis was five years old, his parents went back to Ireland to visit their families after being in America for many years. It was too much to take all the kids, so they took the oldest, John. Denis’s little sister, Ann Marie, got to stay with her fun cousin Noreen Lucey. And Denis got to stay with his father’s widowed, childless Aunt Betty. She was Denis’s great-aunt. This story always broke my heart, because Denis’s parents were gone for a month. His aunt had no idea how kids behave and she was constantly worried about him messing up the apartment and making him be quiet. She took him to church all the time. She made a big deal about giving him a gift and the gift was a white bible. She took him to visit his sister at his cousin’s once or twice and they were goofing around with all the other kids in their fun neighborhood, then she took him back to her clean, quiet apartment and made him wash up. She wiped his bible down all the time because it was white and she worried about it being smudged. She made him tuck in his shirt and pray. I think the first time he told me this story, I wept for him.

ME: Do you remember your parents leaving for that trip?
DENIS: Yes, I remember watching them walk out to the airplane, climb up the steps…
ME: Your heart must have been breaking!
DENIS: Why?
ME: Your parents were leaving you!
DENIS: No, I was all excited then. They had told me how great it would be to get to play with my toys all the time and not have to share them, and I could watch anything I wanted on TV and not have to fight with my brother about it. It wasn’t until I was actually back at her apartment that I realized now much it was gonna suck. But I did get to watch anything I wanted on TV. And she did really like me.
ME: I remember your cousin said she always doted on you.
DENIS: She did. She was my Godmother, and she didn’t have any kids. So…she really did like me.
ME: Oh, so there was something nice about the time you spent with her. She gave you a lot of attention.
DENIS: I guess.
ME: Well, I'm a middle child too, as you know, and it was often my fantasy to be the only child, so I can see where you might have liked having all that adult attention.
DENIS: Yeah, I would have like it for a few hours. It was a long month. But then my parents came back and we moved to a house from our apartment and then Tim fell behind some stairs that were being built and it wasn’t until I was an adult and they were fixing the stairs, that somebody found him. And that’s why I still have him.
ME: Awww. Look at him. It's funny, I just always imagined that he was once this very very cute and cuddly plush panda bear and that he was just all worn out from your love. But now, you're saying that he always looked like that, and you still loved him.
DENIS: I am?
ME: Yes!
DENIS: Okay, now can I watch the game?

In an effort to create a stir about my forthcoming novel, Outtakes From a Marriage, I have spent the last 24 hours cruising around Facebook begging people to be my friends. I’ve turned Facebook inside out on this friends quest and the process has left me exhausted, humiliated, demoralized and with very few new friends.

It all began when my new cyber-friend Doreen Orion told me that she had heard that fellow Authorbytes author Chris Bohjalian (stay with me now), attributed much if his latest novel’s great success to Facebook. This puzzled me. How could my 12 Facebook friends help me sell my book?, I logged onto Facebook and after a little research, I decided that I needed some new friends…fast.

My friend, author Dani Shapiro (she’s my real, very dear, flesh and blood friend), had 112 friends as of yesterday afternoon. Chris Bohjalian had 485. My teenage kids had hundreds upon hundreds of friends. I had a lot of catching up to do. I left no stone unturned. I peered into all my friends’ Facebook pages, scoured my school and community groups and when I came upon a name that even sounded slightly familiar, I clicked on their “be my friend” button.

I was surprised by the people I found on Facebook. I defy you to find a veterinarian who is not on Facebook. My horse vet was there, my dog vet was there. Every vet I’ve ever known was there. And I was equally surprised by who wasn’t there. My book publicist? Not there. Web designer? Nope. But Eddie Brill was there. I was tempted to call this blog entry “Six Degrees of Eddie Brill,” because his Facebook presence is huge. Denis and Eddie have been good friends ever since they went to Emerson College together. Eddie is a comedian who works on the David Letterman show, so he has Roseanne Barr on his list, Matt Dillon, even Deepak Chopra. Every stand-up comedian I've ever known is on Eddie's list. When I found Deepak amongst Eddie’s friends he had 4802 friends. Now he has 4803.

I still have less than 50 friends, so if you’re reading this and you’re on Facebook, come friend me. I'm here

And I still have no idea how this will help me sell books.

Remember when I was saying how much I love the country? Well, I take it all back. I want to live in a building. A building in a city with lots of other people in it. And no wild animals.

This is how my day began:

My dogs woke me up at 4:30 a.m, just as they have every morning this week, because there was a raccoon in our garbage. I decided to let Daphne chase the raccoon away. But did it run away? No, It climbed up our house and then stared at me with such pleading, terrified eyes, that I called off Daphne and was tempted to pack it a little "to-go" bag of garbage.

Now it's 11:00 at night and I’m typing this in my bed with my sweatshirt hood pulled over my head. I’ve pulled the drawstrings of the hood so tight that I’m left with nothing but a tiny hole to peer out of. Why? Because this just flew past my head:

Okay, well is was actually almost an hour ago, and it wasn't a vampire bat, but still – it was a bat, in my house, flying past my head. It flew a mission of terror through our house, provoking much hysteria and panic. It whizzed past my daughter's head and she did what anybody would do in her position - she snatched up a rug from the floor, placed it on her head, and then she screamed and ran in circles. My son, being 6'5", felt like an easy target so he assumed a squatting position and sped across the living room in a most comical crab-walk, bellowing about rabies. I chose to cling to my son, who, even squatting, is taller than me so I felt that he was a sort of human shield (I know, my maternal instincts could use some work). Finally we decided to flee the house and we sat in my car, huddled together like three terrified, twitching rabbits. I'm usually brave about wildlife but I have a history with bats so I was freaking out. We left the door to the house open and from the car we watched the bat put on a show that was clearly meant to shock and awe. First it swooped back and forth through our living room, our dogs chasing it and leaping at it. Then it landed on our floor and staggered around, dragging it's disgusting form across our rug with its winged feet. For some reason, when it did this the dogs stopped chasing it. In fact, they backed away from it and then began looking for us. Finally the bat found his way outside. But we're still worried he might have a friend or two hanging around. I mean literally hanging around (I'm afraid to look at my ceiling for fear of seeing one.)

My book, Outtakes From a Marriage, comes out a week from tomorrow so I have been running around like a maniac, trying to get my life organized. I'm disorganized, to put it mildly, and now I'm trying to get one kid ready for final exams and another kid ready to graduate, while at the same time, trying to find something to wear for interviews and appearances and trying to not succumb to nervous exhaustion. My house has no power. We were knocked out by an electrical storm hours ago. No power, no water, no phone. My dog's kidneys are failing. My horse has thrown a shoe and our barn cat hasn't been seen for days. Let's see, what else? Oh, mice in the kitchen. They come at night, like fairies, but instead of sprinkling fairy dust everywhere, they leave mouse dung.

But I got another nice review today. This time from the Library Journal. It said, in short: "Verdict: Leary, wife of actor Denis Leary, follows up on her critically acclaimed memoir, An Innocent, a Broad, with this fun yet not too fluffy debut novel. This glimpse of Hollywood glitz and glamour, coupled with a dose of reality, is an addictive and delightful read."

Well, gosh that was nice, thanks Library Journal!

This is my 50th blog entry! To celebrate my sticktoitiveness (don't know why spellcheck is underlining that - it must be a word, I use it all the time) I am not going to write a new entry, but instead, will bask in the sun in my insular Tahiti, while rerunning my very first blog, which was all about how I was not likely to keep up with the blogging.

Here it is:

APRIL 1, 2008

Big Plans

I’m a famous quitter. Ask my family. They’ll tell you about all my big plans. If I had done half the things I planned to do, just in the last five years alone, I’d be a goat farmer, a maker of organic goat cheese, an organic poultry farmer, a volunteer EMT, an importer of Irish Sport Horses, a best-selling novelist, a campaigner for immigrant rights, a Labradoodle breeder, a teacher of English as a second language, a daily trampoline jumper, daily tread-mill jogger and the host of my own talk show. Each of these grand plans was presented to my husband, children, and whoever else would listen, with the same degree of gushing exhilaration as the next, and there was a time when they, too, would get whipped into a lather of excitement over each idea. But no longer. Over the years, my family has learned that there’s no point in preparing the backyard for goats or fantasizing over puppies and sport horses because once I begin to process the actual details of each thing, it always seems easier to just hold-off.

“Really?” my daughter now yawns, “An EMT? Good luck with that.”

“Sure,” my husband will mumble vacantly, staring at the TV, “goats are nice. Why don’t you get started on that?” There’s no need to go into it further with me because they know that as soon as I begin to uncover the minutiae about goat stink, or nightly EMT training sessions, the whole thing will be pushed to the back burner.

So, when I told them that I was starting a blog to go on my new website, a website created to help promote my forthcoming novel, Outtakes from a Marriage, they had a good laugh at my expense. Even a friend with her own blog urged me to be realistic about it. “Everyone plans to blog daily, but sometimes it’s hard to keep up. You really have to commit to it,” she said.

“I’m committed!” I declared, and who wouldn’t be committed to the rosy future I envisioned for my fledgling blog. When I thought about my blog, I could see it, fully formed, a computer screen filled with thousands upon thousands of my very own witty observations and poignant reminiscences. I imagined people quoting my blog, stealing all my funny material from my blog, gathering around the office water cooler to talk about my latest blog. There would be controversies over my blog. When my audience grew, there would be advertisers, book deals. And of course, my own talk show...

That was a month ago. Every day since then I have not started my blog. Because, again, when I took a good hard look at the details – the logistics of blogging, I started to become a little more realistic about the whole thing, and honestly, my prospects as a successful blogger look bleak. First of all, in order to have a blog entry each day, one must write each day. Although I think constantly about writing, the truth is that I often don’t write at all, for days on end. Now, not only will I not be writing my new novel while I’m parked at Marty’s the local coffee shop, swilling coffee and gossiping with my neighbors, but I’ll also not be writing in my blog. Well, I’m going to give it a shot anyway. I will write in my blog each day, even if it’s just a sentence. Then, when people ask that intensely annoying question – “Have you been writing?” I can, for once, say yes without lying.

I’m trying to figure out a way to mention in my blog that I just got a very nice review from People Magazine, without sounding braggy. Well, it was People Magazine – they tend to be nice to authors. And it’s not like it was a 4 star review. I only got 3 ½ (out of 4) stars for my “sparkling debut novel…a bittersweet tale about love, marriage and the perils of fame.”

Well, the truth is it was a very nice review, even though I look like a tranny in the photograph they used, so thanks PEOPLE.

THE ANN INDEX
Days until Outtakes From a Marriage appears in bookstores: 3
Times I have opened my laptop this morning (It's 7:30AM): 14
Amazon ranking: 7,548
Number of Facebook Friends: 81
Number of real friends: 2
Number of suspicious moles on my back alone: 9
Days in my cycle: 28
Current day: 26
Days since we last saw our cat Sneakers: 7
Feelings for Sneakers when he was around (1=hate,10=love): 4
Feelings for Sneakers now when I see his untouched food each morning: 11 (I miss him so)