Have been a little overwhelmed and haven't been able to blog very much. So here's a photo I took in Marblehead recently. It's a cove at the bottom of my mother's road.

I'm not a beach person. I prefer a cove. I've been calling this beautiful inlet "Doliber's Cove" for years. Recently, I was corrected.

"That's not Doliber's Cove. Doliber's is the next one over," my stepfather scoffed.
"Is it Grace Oliver's Cove?" I asked.
"You're thinking of Grace Oliver's Beach. That's not Gracey Oliver's beach."
"What's it called?" I asked Steve, who's been pulling lobsters out of that cove for many, many years.

"Well it's .... Brown's Island Cove,' he said. 'That's what we've always called it, anyway."

I watched a hurricane from this cove once - well we watched it as long as we could, until the waves started pounding the seawall and then thundered over onto the road. I have swum there at night in the nude. When I learned I was pregnant with our son, I walked to the cove and wondered how the water could be so still. I was full of joy and I stood in the gentle surf and felt the water clasp my ankles and then let them go, again and again and again.

In honor of the Fourth of July, I’ve decided to print an excerpt from my memoir, An Innocent, a Broad. For those who haven’t read it, (and judging by my royalty statements, that probably includes you) the book is about the time that Denis and I went to London for a weekend and stayed for six months, because I went into premature labor with our first child, Jack. We had arrived in London in March. By July 4th, Jack had been born and was out of the hospital but still wasn’t healthy enough to travel by plane so we rented a flat in Islington. Denis did stand-up in London comedy clubs at night and wrote his one-man-show, “No Cure For Cancer,” during the day. I nursed our baby every fifteen minutes, all day and all night.

We were broke. I was a new mother and I was homesick. I was SICK with homesickness. Before that trip to London I had never felt particularly patriotic. You really have to be in a situation where you can’t get here, to appreciate how heavenly it is to be here. In America, I mean. So here’s my little excerpt:

“By the time the Fourth of July rolled around, I imagined that if I ever did make it back to my beloved homeland, I would sink to my knees and kiss her hallowed earth. On that day, I was watching a documentary about Elvis Presley, and he sang a medley that began with “Dixie” and ended with “God Bless America.” Although the only southern state I’ve ever visited is Florida, when Elvis sang “Dixie,” my heart ached for the old times there, and by the time the King finished his mournful ballad, I was sobbing. Right around then, Queen Elizabeth was visiting the United States and was taken on a tour of a Philadelphia housing project. The press followed her into the home of one of the residents, who decided that the best way to greet a famous queen was to give her a big ‘ol bear hug, which sent the queen into a state of shock and was the subject of headlines in the UK for at least a week. To me, the encounter said volumes about British-American relations, and I felt very much like the affable but clueless American woman in the news.

I wanted to go home. I wanted to drink strong cups of brewed coffee and talk on the phone with my mother about nothing important. I wanted to order a sub or a slice to go and drink lemonade made from real lemons and eat fresh corn on the cob. I wanted to meander down a familiar street with my baby in a stroller and know that there was a possibility I might run into an old friend.

An older English doctor I had met at the hospital told me that she’d done one year of college in America. She reminisced about the way she had wanted to be able to walk like the American girls. “The way they ambled along, swinging their arms – I really wanted to emulate their uninhibited style, but I couldn’t.” Now I wanted, more than anything in the world, to go home and move freely and unabashedly like the American girl I used to be. My American, pre-baby self was recalled in my mind now, like a dear, departed friend. Like a dead friend, really and just as we usually retain only rosy memories of our dead friends, when I thought of my former self, it was always in glowing terms. I recalled with affection the girl who loved dogs and horses and dancing at clubs and watching old movies. I remembered how I used to walk home to Charlestown on the North End bridge and how I would smile flirtatiously back at the leering longshoremen and construction workers who shouted unprintable things at me as I passed by. I remembered how I used to wake up on Sundays and buy coffee and the paper on the corner and stop at the local bakery for fresh, hot sticky buns to take home to Denis. I remembered the summers when Denis worked comedy clubs on the Cape and how the club owners put us up in fly-infested cabins for a week and we would swim and eat fried clams and drink beer and stay up all night playing gin rummy and then making love. When I was young, I always thought of myself as worldly and wise beyond my years, but now I was a mother, and I saw my former self as I really was – hopelessly innocent and naïve and unfinished - and I desperately wanted to be that way again."

I was looking for a poem for something I'm working on this morning and came across this wonderful poem about having a book published.

THE AUTHOR TO HER BOOK
by Anne Bradstreet (ca. 1612-1672)

Thou ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad expos'd to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array, 'mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam.
In Critics' hands, beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known.
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none;
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door.

I know it’s boring and tedious the way I keep blogging about my ailing computer but the cursed thing isn’t working again! It just hasn’t been the same since my hard drive was fried by a lightning surge last month. Everything – all documents, letters, my journal, my music, contacts, calendar – EVERYTHING was destroyed. I was given a new hard drive and gained a new outlook once I decided that the whole thing was probably for the best. I needed to start anew. The manuscript pages for my new book that I hadn’t saved weren’t great anyway. And I was sick of all my old music. My new hard drive was supposed to be my new beginning. But now my effing keyboard doesn’t work. I need to go to the Apple Store and figure out where on the Web all my music is. It appears to be out there someplace because when I have tried to purchase songs that I can’t live without, I am told that they are already in my library. But where? I hate itunes, right now.

I can’t load photos onto this computer because …well, I just can’t. I don't think the blog looks great without photos (and nothing but my bitter words) so I'm going to post some that are already on here, like this one of the dear calf who lives down the road:

How can a creature as perfect as this live in a world where itunes exists?

The other day I was on the set of Rescue Me and took some photos of the "storyboard." The storyboard is used on days when they are shooting a lot of action shots, so the director knows exactly which angles to shoot from and it also helps him decide in what sequence he wants to shoot the scene. Here's a photo of the storyboard:

The Storyboard Artist on Rescue Me is our friend Patrick Campbell. Looking at one of his storyboards is like looking at a giant comic strip. Here's an illustration of a "two-shot," meaning a shot with Denis ("Tommy") in the foreground and John Scurti ("Lou") in the background:

This one is interesting because it shows a camera direction. The arrows on the bottow of the card are indicating that the camera should close in on John's face for a "close-up." You can see, on the bottom of the card just above it, the indication for the arrows to pull back from a close-up of a character:

And that's our Rescue Me blog for the week.

So yesterday I did an interview on WHDD Radio, our local NPR station and ...yadda, yadda, yadda ... now I have my own radio show. That's right. My own show. The producer called me a short while after my interview and said that they loved my "energy," how it was not too much energy, nor too little, but just the right amount of energy. Then she told me this idea they had for a show and asked me if I'd be interested. I told her that the subject matter of that idea is a passion of mine (it really is but I probably would have said so anyway, since having my own show happens to be one of my big plans.)

So now I have my own radio show. It will only be broadcast in a rather small area of Northwestern Connecticut and NY State, but you will be able to listen to it online and I plan to post it as a podcast right here on my blog each week. Plus, if the show is good enough, I am told, it wilI be offered up to all the NPR stations!

I was offered the show yesterday and, having a lot of what they like to call "energy," I have already come up with a name, format and many ideas for the show. Here it is:

The show will be called, "In House." It's about interesting people and their homes - or interesting homes and their people (I'm a real-estate junkie). I will visit the homes of artists, writers and other colorful characters and interview them about their habitats. So in a sense, each show will have a different host or hostess and I will be the self-invited guest. I also want to interview people who live in interesting and unusual homes and plan to ask them all sorts of interesting and unusual questions. So stay tuned. I pick up my recording equipment tomorrow! Also, let me know if you have any ideas for the show.

Yesterday I learned how to use the recording equipment for my new NPR radio show, In House.. Marshall Miles of WHDD patiently showed me how to use the digital recorder and the editing equipment. He made it all look so easy. I admit it was hard to pay attention as I kept daydreaming about all the fascinating people I was going to interview, and how quickly the word was going to spread about In House and its insightful host, Ann Leary. I thought about how I now need to fashion a radio voice and how I no longer need to worry about my hair. I was sent home with my recorder and microphones and later, I tried to interview my daughter as she drove us to dinner, but I couldn't even get the recorder to record.

Today I tried to conduct my first interview for my forthcoming NPR radio show, In House. I interviewed my friend John Favreau – not that John Favreau (he's actually a Jon). This one. I interviewed him because he’s a friend and I wanted to do a trial run. And he has a cool house. We taped half of the interview and the second half, which, of course was the best, didn’t record because I pushed the wrong button. Then I got home and managed to copy the interview onto the computer and I have to say, I’m not sure I’m ready for NPR, or rather, not sure if NPR is ready for me. People like Terry Gross and Krista Tippett and Faith Middleton all have soothing radio voices. I have the voice of a loud barnyard animal who has somehow learned to form words. I had two microphones – one for me, and one for John. When I wasn’t honking and braying inane questions into my microphone, I was breathing HEAVILY into it while John eloquently answered my dull queries into his. I’d load a snippet of it onto this blog if I knew how, just because it’s so laughable. The whole time John is speaking, you can hear this steady breathing sound – it’s like the slow steady breathing of a sex maniac in the background.
Okay, so I will remember to move the mike away from my mouth when I’m not speaking into it, and I will try to cultivate a soothing radio voice.

First, I played two long hard sets of tennis with my husband. I didn't want to leave my computer, but he made me, and then he beat me. But it was a blast. It was a beautiful day here. Later, Devin and her friend Ellen got me up to the barn. I didn't want to leave my computer then, but they made me, and again, what was I thinking sitting inside our dark house on a day like today?

Here I am leading Gabriel in from a field:

Later, we gave poor Lulu a bath, because she tangled with a skunk last night:

This is Sailor, who is a fresh thing, and nosy.

Here are some flowers that Dev photographed:

A great Sunday, in every way.

Well, I have completed the first two interviews for my new radio show, In House. How were they? They sucked. The people I interviewed - writer/director Richard LaGravanese and author Dani Shapiro - were great. But I'm no Barbara Walters. My only hope now is to learn how to dub over my sputtering, childish voice with a quieter, more intelligent sounding one.

Have some great interviews lined up so hopefully I'll improve. I keep repeating the same things over and over in my head. Must listen when the subject of the interview is speaking. Must not speak over subject, nor guffaw and honk and snort while they are speaking. Must remember to turn the microphone ON, instead of allowing subject to spill her heart to dead air.

I'm the only radio show host who has a blooper reel before she has a real reel.

Last night a beautiful moon floated above our field. It was one of those immense and luminous moons that make you draw in your breath and cry out, "look at the moon," even if you're just alone with your dogs, as I was. But when I took a photograph, it was just a regular moon.

I had forgotten that you can't photograph the moon when it's so big in the early evening, because its size is an illusion. It's called "Moon Illusion."

It's not real, but we all see it. Everything is not what it seems, it seems. It's beautiful, this moon illusion. It's strange. For some reason, it makes me a little sad. Not sure why.

Denis has been nominated for an Emmy award for his outstanding work as a supporting actor in HBO's film, RECOUNT!

In addition to the RECOUNT nomination, RESCUE ME received two nominations- one for actor Charles Durning and one for the show's great Director of Photography Tom Houghton. So exciting.

Hmmmm. What to wear?

So the other night, I arrived home to find my 20 year old horse Gabriel standing in his stall on three legs. He was DRENCHED in sweat.

The leg was horribly swollen from the knee up. Gabriel has a setup where he can come and go from his stall as he pleases and he must have hobbled in from his field to his stall on the three legs. The vet and I thought he had fractured the leg.

The poor horse was in so much pain that he was sweating and trembling and when his leg was being examined and x-rayed by the vet, I thought he was going to collapse. Thankfully it was not fractured but was badly sprained. He had a few scrapes and we think he fell, perhaps while running down the hill in his field. I spent most of the night in the barn. He's much improved now.

This is a photo of Gabriel a few days before this happened. He's a big boy, as you can see, standing at 17.2 hands.

He's one of those honest, kind-hearted horses who are worth their weight in gold.

I went to Marblehead the other night to meet with my sister's book club.

Here they are, the members of the ...I forget the name of the book club but it's an abbreviation that stands for something naughty. Can you believe how tan and gorgeous and sporty-looking they all are? I felt like a sickly, pale-faced consumption victim in their midst. See if you can guess which one is my sister:

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Ooops, the photo's too big and it cut the club in half. Here are the rest of the gals:

Well, nobody guessed the right answer to yesterday's stumper.

THIS is my dear little sister, Meg Seminara:

I just love her.

Gabriel is feeling better. The swelling has gone way down and he's MUCH perkier. Here he is gazing out of his stall (still not looking terribly happy.)

Remember Lulu, who had the hip replacement last April? Well, she has totally recovered. Here's a before and after:

Really, have you ever seen a better looking dog? She was a rescue, found in Louisiana as a pup. Perfection in a dog, our Lulu. We're all completely besotted with her.

Here's a photo I took over the weekend of my daughter Dev (left) and her friend Ellen riding Mark and Snoopy up a country lane:

And here are some Lilies that I photographed just in time, because two nights ago, the deer got them, and now there is a bed of stems.

I have spent the past 24 hours in a fit of frustration and agitation that has me seriously, seriously unwound. I'm not kidding, I fear for my sanity. I have been trying to edit one single solitary interview for my forthcoming NPR show, IN HOUSE. I spent 18 hours on it yesterday.

I'm not cut out for this type of work. This is the work of patient people who are meticulous and painstaking; people with sensitive ears and delicate fingers, not people who pound at keyboards with oversized digits (I have man hands - there now you know) and grind their teeth and curse and wince at the sound of their own voice.

There is steam coming out of my ears right now. It only has to be perfect - why is that so hard?

How have my friends been able to bear the preposterous sounds blasting from my flapping piehole all these years? I have the most affected, pretentious, aggravating voice... how could I not have known? Now I have to listen to it over and over and over again. I was in the WHDD studio today and Marshall Miles and Jill Goodman were kindly trying to help. At one point Marshall tried to edit this part where my voice modulated and trilled over a series of stammers.

"I'm not sure what that is, a stammer or a stutter," Marshall said, "and I'm not sure I can fix it."

His words about fixing my voice made me recall, with mounting panic, the speech therapy classes I was required to take as a small child. I'm speech impaired! Somehow, I forgot to mention this when Jill offered me my own radio show, so dazzled was I at my own fantastical ideas about cleaning out Terry Gross's old desk and sending her on her way.

Must relax. It's just a show. Just a radio show. Just my own radio show.

So, I've been a little busy, these past 24 hours. Yesterday I had three interviews - two in which I was the interviewer for my new radio show, IN HOUSE, and one in which I was being interviewed about my book, Outtakes from a Marriage. I've gotten so caught up in this radio thing that I was a little confused when the other radio hosts asked me questions about my book.

"What's that you say?" I wanted to ask, "Am I to understand that I have written some sort of ...book?"

My first IN HOUSE interview of the day was with dynamic accessories design duo Richard Lambertson and John Truex who described the way they started their business in their Chelsea loft, with animal skins and patterns and orders strewn everywhere. Then I visited the home of the great film director Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus) who described the way he watched the Nazis remove his parents from his childhood Bohemian home and how he ended up in his beloved country home in Connecticut.

The day before, I visited the home of bestselling (mega-selling) author Jane Green. Jane's charming book, The Beach House, is about a Nantucket house that brings people together, and in real life, it was actually a beach house that united Jane with her partner Ian Warburg.

So when will you be able to listen to IN HOUSE? Possibly later today! We are working out a few last-minute glitches but you should be able to hear my interview with Richard LaGravanese later today. I will post a link so you can hear the whole broadcast here on my website!

In my first IN HOUSE episode, screenwriter/director Richard LaGravanese (The Fisher King, Bridges of Madison Country, Freedom Writers) discusses the way the offbeat zaniness of his home’s previous owners added to its appeal for him. “They were going through a divorce,” Richard recalls, “and they would mix up a pitcher of martinis and decide to paint a room, but would only paint parts of the room. They’d paint around the sofa….they painted the fireplace purple…”
Richard’s charming antique Connecticut home – the first he’s ever owned – is a far cry from the series of drafty apartments he inhabited as a child in Brooklyn and he discusses the important role the home workspace plays in the life of a writer.

So tune in! I'm going to send updates to my mailing list so if you haven't added your name, just go to my home page and click on "Mailing List" and sign up to hear about future broadcasts!

Well, dear World Wide Web, the day has finally arrived. You may listen to my new radio program IN HOUSE now! Just click on this link to hear it. Okay, well you click on that link and you're brought to a page that tells you all about how great the show is, and then you click on a link called "listen". Then, alas, you must click on an arrow next to my name and then an arrow in the top left hand corner AND THEN you may listen to my show. Trust me, it's easier than it sounds, all the clicking takes about a nanosecond. Hopefully, the radio webpage will be simplified soon.

But please give me your honest feedback. I'm editing future shows and would love to hear what you like or don't like about the first show. Thanks!

My daughter passed her driving test today. She got her license. Here she is driving off down our driveway – without me.

I thought about her driving off down the road alone. Then I thought about the first nurse, the one who delivered her, who plopped her onto a table and tossed her little limbs from side to side as she rubbed her – helping her breathe. Not so rough, I thought, then, but said nothing. One must breathe. Tenderly, is what I kept thinking at that nurse, the tears running down my face. Tenderly.

Off she drove today with her music and her mother’s car, her thoughts on horses and her friends – mine on the hardscrabble roads, the screeching of tires, the twisting of iron and the crushing of steel. It crushed like an accordian, they always say – crushed. The odds are against it, I know. She will be carried along our country roads, though tunnels, over bridges and into great cities. She will be carried along crowded highways into her own great life, tenderly, I hope, tenderly, tenderly.