It's hard to find time to mope around about the son going off to college when I have my daughter Devin and her friend Ellen keeping me busy with their elaborate schemes. Yesterday, they came up with a plan to take our three horses to Steep Rock Land Preserve for a long trail ride. The complicated part was that I only have a two horse trailer. No problem, said the girls. I could drive two horses there, they would stay with them, then I could drive back to the barn, pick up the third and bring him to Steep Rock and we'd all go for a ride. Despite the fact that this would add up to about three hours of horse hauling for me, I agreed, as the girls and I are riding in the Bedford Hunter Pace this weekend and I wanted to see how the horses would behave trotting and cantering together in a group. Besides, how can you turn down a pair like these two?

Or, for that matter, these two:

So we eventually got all three horses transported and we rode the beautiful trails of Steep Rock, which look like this:

Trotting through the pine groves, splashing in the river and climbing the hills of Steep Rock on horseback, accompanied by two of my favorite people on earth, was such a restorative and, I hesitate to say it - it's so cliche - but really a spiritual experience. Before I disengaged the "Google Alert" on my computer, I used to be able to see every nice and nasty thing anybody said about me, anywhere, on the web. One blogger said that, in addition to other despicable things about my personality, I have a blog in which I brag about what a great life I have, which made me wonder if that's how I come across. But I do have a great life, and it wasn't always so great, and I'm prone to depression which sometimes makes it hard for me to see all the goodness around me, so it helps to write about the good stuff. There's so much.

I'm grateful. I'm .... again, sounds trite... incredibly blessed.

I was walking up to the barn this evening and it was dusk. Everything was very still, it had been such a hot day here and now it was incredibly quiet. No dogs barking in the distance or yipping of coyotes or rustling of wind or anything. A storm was coming, you could tell. Then, at the top of our hill I stepped into this shaft of light and looked up and saw that it wasn't as late as I thought. The sun was still sort of high and burning through these storm clouds and it was incredible.

Then the wind started and distant thunder. What a sky.

It's pouring now. I love a summer storm.

I have spent the past 24 hours just steeped in inspiration for my new book. So today, I awoke with the dawn and decided I would spend all morning writing. I had plans to meet my friend Dani for coffee at 2:30, so I took a shower and put on a cute outfit (which I rarely do in the country) and donned a pair of adorable Marni flats that I bought at a 75% off sale at Louis in Boston over the summer. I knew that only Dani, who is very stylish, would appreciate the cunning little flats, as, honestly, to the untrained eye, they look like a tattered pair of canvas slippers. I fed the dogs and walked them up to the barn to feed the horses. There I found my poor old Gabriel lying stretched flat out in his paddock, right outside his stall! I know some of my readers are horse people and they will understand how horrifying it is to see a horse lying, flat out, with his head on the ground, groaning. Gabriel had decided to roll next to one of the columns that supports the overhang of our barn roof. When he rolled he got his forelegs on one side of the column and his hind legs on the other side. It's hard to explain, but it's called being "cast" when a horse gets stuck lying down and it's very dangerous. In 20 years, Gabriel has never been cast, and this summer it has happened to him twice. The dogs and I encouraged him to try, once again, to get up, but he was so exhausted and he was starting to scrape his legs on the column. So, I ran and got a lunge line (long rope) and sort of lassoed his hind fetlock (horse ankle). He was thrashing so much I was afraid he'd kick me accidentally if I got too close. Then I managed to pull the top leg forward enough to clear it of the post. Once that leg was free, he was able to release the other and he leaped to his feet and though I feared he was in shock from exhaustion, the blessed horse walked quite briskly into his stall and had a nice long drink of water. I cleaned him up and fed him his breakfast and that's when I saw that my delightful little flats were caked in mud and manure. It rained last night so there was actually mud and manure inside the flats and oozing between my toes. See, this is why I never bother with nice clothes in the country.

After I sorted Gabriel out I got caught up in all sorts of other barn chores and it's now the afternoon and I haven't written a word (except this).

Tomorrow, BACK TO THE BOOK!

The other day somebody emailed me and asked why I so rarely blog about Denis. I must admit that I was a little taken aback by this. You mean, you'd rather hear about a famous actor who has a television show, who has just been nominated for an EMMY and is, this very evening, hosting Fashion Rocks, than hear about my pets? What kind of people are you?

You think this:

is more interesting than this?

I don't get it.

Well, today I am blogging about HIM because I am very proud and excited for him. As you may or may not know, Denis has written a book.

It's a very, very funny book, which comes out in November, and today I read an advance review from a very prestigious publishing journal which was a rave! I can't say the name of the publication because the issue doesn't come out for another week or two. My friend who works there emailed it to me!

So, tonight they tape Fashion Rocks, which will air next week sometime. Dev and her friends are going and they're all excited and trying on clothes. I get to stay on the farm (bliss).

Okay, so once again I urge you to not miss today's episode of IN HOUSE Radio. You can hear it if you live in northwestern CT on WHDD 91.9FM. Or go to www.robinhoodradio.com to listen to it as it's broadcast. Or, click here later, if you missed it and it should be downloaded onto my website.

I interviewed Carole Peck for today's show. She owns the very popular Good News Cafe here in Woodbury, CT and she has authored several great cookbooks. She also has these wonderful French culinary tours that she conducts, with her charming French husband Bernard Jarrier at their villa in France.

Carole's a collector. I don't usually do photos for my show but Carole was kind enough to allow me to take some pictures. There's no way to describe Carole's treasures with words alone. In her house you will find fine French tableware and antique silver:

You will also find body parts:

Taxidermy:

Antique toys, Bernard's beautiful artwork, rocking horses, religious relics and a very gassy French Bulldog named Tattoo.

Here's Carole's kitchen:

She does all her cooking on this stove:

It's just a really fun interview. The interview is actually interrupted at one point by the outrageous flatulence of the cheerful and unabashed Tattoo, so I mean, this is as close to Howard Stern as you're going to get on public radio. Tune in!

Well, although I didn't go to Fashion Rocks last night, I got to hear all sorts of backstage gossip from Denis and Devin and then I went online to see some photos and I'm going to try to see if I can put them here without having to pay some kind of licensing fee.

Wow, it works. Okay, I know he's my husband, and I'm biased, but the man cleans up good. I love the way he looks in a suit. I guess he had to change suits every time he came onstage. Here he is backstage with Mary J. Blige:

Look at the person in the upper right corner of the photo who is getting an eyeful of either my husband's or Ms. Blige's bum.

And here is something so disturbing that I'm going to hide it from view for those of you who have just finished eating or have a heart condition of some sort. Seriously, viewer discretion is advised. If you think you can take it, click below.

View image

You'll have to watch the show to find out why he's wearing that. It's on September 9th, at 9:00 on CBS.

Didn't have time to blog yesterday because it was too beautiful out and I am engrossed in a great book - Edna Ferber's So Big.

Edna Ferber wrote Giant, which I read as a kid ( I saw the movie on television, read the book and was launched into my decades-long fantasy of marrying a cattleman), as well as several other great novels and plays. She actually wrote the novel, Show Boat, which was later turned into the musical. She was one of the most popular American writers of the earlier part of the last century and was part of the whole Algonquin Round Table gang. So Big earned her the Pulitzer Prize.

Anyway, if you're looking for a great book, go to your local independent bookseller
like this one:

and get So Big.

Yesterday I had a wonderful interview with playwright A.R. “Pete” Gurney for my radio show, IN HOUSE.

I have to admit, I’m getting better at interviewing people. For one thing, I didn’t stop taping once. Usually a phone goes off, or I forget what we were talking about and we have to stop and start again. It just makes the editing so much easier if you do it all in one shot. Also, I was careful to limit my use of the word wow to once every five minutes or so. If you listen to the Milos Forman interview, I use the word as a constant refrain. “Wow,” I say after Milos describes his childhood home. A minute later I follow up another short recollection with “WOW!” then offer the rejoinder “WOW!” to something wildly entertaining he says a moment later, and follow it up with, “wow! Wow!” I’m like some kind of sickly alley cat yowling in response to everything the poor man says. You’d think I’d come up with some other kind of exclamation. Maybe, “Yowza!” Or “Getouttahere!” Or something! Of course, a real journalist/interviewer would have an intelligent follow-up question tucked up her sleeve, or have a snippet of insight to offer the conversation. Wow.

But, like I said, I think I’m improving, and doing my own editing really helps. I have been known to do and say embarrassingly inappropriate things – such as the time I tried to help Moby with his music career – so it’s quite wonderful that in radio land, you can edit out all your own gaffes.

But I think the real reason yesterday’s interview was so easy is because Pete Gurney is so fascinating, and smart and entertaining and charming. It was just a delightful conversation about writing and the theater and actors and directors and children and dogs. There was really nothing to edit at all! Log on here next Saturday and I’ll detail, once again, how you can listen to WHDD 91.9FM anywhere in the world.

Also, don't forget to watch my dear husband:

tonight on Fashion Rocks.

Last night we attended the first annual "Notes of Hope" benefit dinner, to raise funds and awareness about the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Jane Rosenthal, Craig Hatkoff, Robert De Niro and others who have been instrumental in the revitalization of downtown Manhattan since 9/11 were honored. Denis hosted the event, introducing Billy Crystal, Peggy Noonan, and the other speakers.

Jane, Craig and Robert DeNiro, (Jane and Craig are our friends, and though I've met De Niro quite a few times, I can't do that Hollywood thing of referring to him by his first name, because he really has no idea who I am every time we meet.) Anyway, I adore (worship) him as an actor and am in awe of his quiet, gentle public manner and the way that he very privately works wonders for the city he loves so much. He and producer Jane Rosenthal (They co-founded Tribeca Productions, his film company) started the Tribeca Film Festival after 9/11 in an effort to help that neighborhood recover. Millions attend the festival each year, bringing huge amounts of revenue to the downtown area.

Anyway, the event was a great success. I got to meet and chat with Peggy Noonan at length, as well as Mayor Bloomberg, who really should be running for President, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat (I had a dream once that I lived in his house and he was my father, but I decided not to share that with him.) I met Governor Paterson, who is blind and has a great sense of humor and cracked jokes while we were posing for pictures with him. Well, it was a great night during this sad week leading up to the anniversary of the attacks on America. The Christian Cultural Choir sang a very soulful rendition of America the Beautiful. It was just really moving to be in a large crowd where the entire purpose of the evening was to honor the victims and the heros and work on something positive in their memory. Not one person put forth their own political agenda on the thing. Nobody tried to capitalize on the anguish and turn it into fear and propaganda. It was a nice night in New York.

Last night I attended a meeting of a book group that meets at the Book Nook, a lovely bookstore in New Milford, Connecticut.

As I approached the shop I saw this sign on the sidewalk in front of it:

I asked Janet Ryan, the very charming owner of the Book Nook if they put my book, Outtakes From a Marriage at the top just because I was coming and she said that it had been at the top for some time because they had sold so many!

So the members of the Book Nook book club arrived and we had such a great conversation, not only about my book, but also about motherhood, work, marriage, loneliness, happiness, celebrity, hair, kids. Because these women are so smart, the conversation eventually evolved into politics, but because they are also so wonderfully civil and sensible, nobody got upset or charged up, but instead we just talked about what an exciting time it is for our country with such fascinating candidates on both sides.

Thank you Janet and the rest of the Book Nook book club, for a wonderful evening!

For twelve years now, I have been driving past the house belonging to choreographers Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn. It's a rather aged white Victorian set slightly back from the road. Across the street is an old carriage barn. I've known that Moses and Cynthia use the property as the headquarters for MOMIX, his world-famous dance company, but when you drive by, it just looks like any great old New England house that hasn't been "done." There are usually a few cars parked in the driveway. There's a bit of lawn out front. Yesterday, I entered the Pendleton house, because I had scheduled an interview with Moses for my NPR show, IN HOUSE, and I don't think I'll ever be quite the same again.

Entering the home of Moses Pendleton is like entering another dimension. I walked into that house under the delusion that I'm a rather creative free-spirit, but when I walked out, four hours later, I felt like a prim school marm with a dull mind, an austere sense of style and a death-grip adherence to social norms. Moses's house is filled with beauty and decay, He gives shabby chic a whole new meaning. In the living room, decades-old wallpaper is peeling from the walls, but the color of the paper has aged and now it looks like the whole room is draped in a sort of heavenly gauze. Dried sunflower stalks ten feet tall hang above the beautiful winding staircase and now, drained of color, they look like they could be made of porcelain. Sunflowers, fresh and in varying states of decay, are everywhere because Moses is a gardener, an avid lover of nature and plants - especially flowers. And most especially sunflowers. This is their dining room:

I wish I had taken photos of every inch of that house but I wasn't sure if it was okay, and it was so dreamlike, I wasn't sure I could even capture the feeling of the place with my camera.

Moses is currently choreographing a show called "Botanica" which is about ....well, I have four hours of audio tape of what it's about, but basically it's about what Moses calls his "garden of earthly delights." The dancers were all rehearsing in the barn and I got to see a few of the pieces, and they were astonishingly beautiful. The dancers were trees, and pods and blossoming plants and through their movements, the whole barn seemed actually to be alive with the elements of wind and light and sexual energy and birth. And I got a tour of Moses's garden, which is his inspiration. The centerpiece of the garden is a giant sunburst of Marigolds - "Mary's Gold" - as Moses described them. Here you can catch a glimpse through the arbor of Morning Glories:

My photo doesn't do it justice. Moses is also a photographer, so maybe he will let me put some of his photos of his garden on my blog. Moses sees hues of yellow and gold and amber as energizing sources of life. He loves the ritual of the New England garden with it's cycles of fertility and growth and decline and eventually decay and then rebirth. We watched the sun lower over the marigolds and then it was time to go and when I left the Pendleton-Quinn house, it felt like I was going indoors after being out on a bright lake or on a snowy, sunlit mountainside. Everything seemed dull and dark. It was like being snowblind, but I was flowerblind - completely dazzled by the brilliant energy of Moses Pendleton.

I just received an email from Phil Holland, who went to Bennington with me, though somehow I didn't know him. Phil is a good friend of Moses Pendleton. He saw my previous post and sent me the photo above, The photo was taken from the roof of the house. Those are large Adirondack chairs in the center of the circle so that will give you an idea of the scale of the garden. The sunflowers are in the foreground. From this perspective it looks like something from Chariots of the Gods.

Yesterday Moses read me a poem written by Mr. Holland about a storm on September 11, 2002. I recalled the storm vividly when Moses read it. It was a beautiful, clear day, the first anniversary of the attacks, and in the middle of the memorial service in NY, this storm blew in out of nowhere. Up here in CT, the wind was so intense that trees were uprooted. Anyway, Moses said he told Phil Holland about the storm and then Phil whipped up this poem, but the poem was so beautiful and the imagery was so detailed and evocative that I actually suspected that perhaps Moses had written it himself and that he used the name Phil Holland when he wrote stuff! So now I know that Phil Holland lives! He lives in Greece, not in Moses's mind!

If you're in or near the Sharon, CT area, this afternoon at 2:00, tune into 91.9FM, WHDD, to listen to my IN HOUSE interview with Playwright A.R. Gurney. If you don't live in the area, you may still hear it as it's broadcast, by going to robinhoodradio.com, and clicking on the "Listen Live" link. If you miss it, I'll have it downloaded here on my site, sometime later today.

A.R “Pete” Gurney has written the critically acclaimed plays, Scenes From American Life, Children, The Middle Ages, The Dining Room, Love Letters, Sylvia, and many others. His most recent play, Buffalo Gal has just completed its very successful Off-Broadway run, and I saw the show and loved it and recently had the wonderful opportunity to interview Pete in the place he wrote it—his Roxbury, Connecticut home.

Pete Gurney is not a tortured playwright. He is one of the most gracious, charming, cheerful and intelligent men I have ever met. It's hard to be in his presence without smiling. He smiles all the time. We discussed his years at the Yale Drama School, the shows he wrote and produced while he was a Naval Officer during the Korean war (his audience was literally captive – they were on an aircraft carrier), and why he has always preferered to work at home, with his dog and family around him, when he writes. Tune in to hear one of our great American playwrights discuss what is happening to the theater in the electronic age; and the huge sacrifices actors, directors and writers often make to be able to do live theater.

As many of you know, our beloved Pongo died last month. Yesterday my friend Leah picked up his ashes from the vet where we had him put to sleep. The ashes came in a small tin canister. The canister was in a bag from the pet cemetery that cremated Pongo and our other pets who have grown old and died. They always include a plaster imprint of the dog's paw, with the dog's name stamped in it, along with a small heart.

This pet cemetery was brought up on fraud charges years ago because they were cremating all the pets together and just filling the little canisters with anyone's ashes. This upset many people, but I don't really see the crime in it. We have our pets cremated because we are usually so sad and bereft, we don't really know what else to do. Plus, we have dogs at home and I'm always afraid that no matter how deep we bury their packmate, they might dig him back up. But I never really know what to do with the ashes, so they get put up on a shelf, or in a drawer and years later, I open what looks like a cookie tin, and find the fine ash of an old friend (or at least somebody's old friend.

But this time, included in the bag with the ashes and the paw print, there was a "Certificate of Cremation" This was a very official looking certificate, printed out on some kind of antique-looking parchment paper. On the certificate was an ominous poem that began with these lines:

"Farewell, Master, yet not farewell
Where I go, ye too shall dwell."

I read this aloud to Denis and we wondered if it was possible that Pongo was issuing some sort of threat from beyond. The next lines were even more puzzling:

"I am gone, before your face,
A moment's time, a little space."

Could it be possible that Pongo's intelligence would be so diminished by death that he would come up with that lame face/space rhyme? This was a dog who would hide food all over the house so that he could snack whenever he pleased. He was a SMART dog. He was a terrier!

It concluded with:
"when ye come where I have stepped
ye will wonder why ye wept."

The poem left us a little spooked and we hastily stashed the ashes in a cupboard and tried not to think of that creepy pet cemetary.

Ironically, on the same day, I viewed a very moving reading of a memorial poem about a cat on youtube. The poet is my new virtual friend Phil Holland. I have, amazingly, figured out how to load a video onto my blog. So, I introduce Phil Holland:

Tonight, after having risen before dawn to trailer my daughter and her friend to a horse show, (where, upon arriving the brakes on my truck failed, but there were no casualties, thank God), I am tired. So I have taken to my bed with the Sunday paper and my laptop.

I can't stop looking at Phil Holland's YouTube poems. The man has written a series of "cantos" called "The Dancer's Craft." Basically, he has set to verse, the everyday comings and goings of the dancer/choreographer Moses Pendleton and has been doing this since the early 1980s. Read a few, you'll want to read them all, they're great. But reading them made me realize that YouTube isn't just for watching funny bits from "Family Guy" or "The Daily Show." People are actually reciting poetry on YouTube.

Then, I came across this:

This guy Jim Clark has this site called poetryanimations on YouTube and he animates old photos of great poets to recordings of them reading their work! Here's Sylvia Plath:

I warn you not to go to this site unless you have a few hours to spare.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, despite the dangerous journey there, the girls did very well at the show:

This was our morning's sunrise.

Last night we had a full moon. These late summer/fall moons always create havoc within our household because the windows are still open, and our dogs can hear our resident coyotes taking advantage of the light by loudly hunting and singing and screaming and partying. Our dogs want to join in, and bark and howl and beg to be let out until I close all the windows and turn on a fan to drown out the noise. I hate having to shut out the coyotes because they sound so primitive and they're so haunting. At times they screech like witches, at others, they take turns with thin, lilting howl solos that rise up in the night air and then stop abruptly, and when they stop, you have a sense of a desperate, lonely silence. It seems like nothing has ever been so silent before. Then another one starts its own mournful song. They make the dogs howl. They have been known to fill even our chihuahua mix, Coco, with wild delusions that she's a real canine, rather than some sort of elf, and she will trill her own version of a howl from the pillow beside my head. She's a tone-deaf soprano. Last night, I had visions of feeding her to the coyotes, so annoyed was I with her caterwauling.

We're going to the Emmys this weekend. Here's the thing: I want to conceal a small digital video recorder somewhere on my body and record the scene on the red carpet. Because you really can't get a sense of it if you're not there, walking along amidst the shoving publicists and the screaming fans. One minute somebody's stepping on your dress, and the next minute you're face to face with the most distorted and inflated pair of lips you have ever seen. And people are just grabbing attention from the air like it's money. I've said it before - I think I said it in an interview - it's like a narcissists convention, and, being slightly narcissistic myself, I am fascinated by the energy on these red carpets and want to find a way to share it with you, my blog readers. So, I just need to figure out how to carry the thing without anyone knowing. Am open to suggestions.

I just have to figure out how to do it without Denis knowing I'm doing it, because he has warned me that if get kicked out of the Emmys, I have to walk back to the hotel.

Here we are at the last three Emmys. Last year:

The year before:

And the year before that:

I always think I look a little like a transvestite when I wear all that makeup. This year, I'm less blonde. And less young.

Here's somebody I encountered at Moses Pendleton's house yesterday:

Here's Moses himself, tending to one of his sunflowers.

Denis and I got to watch MOMIX, Moses's dance company, rehearsing for their upcoming show, "Botanica," yesterday. There was a piece called Nightcrawlers in which the dancers used black ductwork tubing (stuff you would find at Home Depot) as extensions of their bodies and they became strangely erotic earthworms that pulsed and undulated and intertwined themselves with each other in a most beautiful and entrancing way. I've already ordered our tickets for the debut show of "Botanica" at the Warner Theater in January. Meanwhile, their company will be touring in London and throughout the US during October. Click here for details.

Today we're in sunny California. As we were flying in, I recalled the first time Denis and I ever came to LA. We were young. Denis was a comic, I, a waitress. Denis won a stand-up comedy contest sponsored by Budweiser, and we got to stay at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. It was winter and even though it was only about fifty degrees, we splashed around in the pool like kids and then took a city bus all the way to the beach in Santa Monica, which took all day. We were so excited! Denis was going to perform at the Improv! In LA!

This time we've flown in for the Emmys, older, wiser, but still dazzled, as we always are, by this bright city with its colorful architecture, friendly people and impossibly clean streets.

This time it's HBO, not Budweiser footing the bill, so we're staying in Santa Monica. Here's the view from our window:

There's the Santa Monica pier:

Here's Denis reading a script, poolside. I just had to say it, it's so Lucy Ricardo. "There's my dear husband, reading a motion picture script, poolside!"

As I mentioned yesterday, we're staying at this beautiful hotel right on the beach. What I chose not to tell you is that we are staying on a floor that is undergoing construction. In fact, our suite is the only one not under construction on this floor. The door to the right is our room.

The stairs and elevator are on the part of the floor that is closed off and covered with tarps and equipment. Yesterday, when the lovely hostess brought us up here, she led us through many long halls and then through a door that said "Staff Only." She asked us how our trip was and made other polite small talk, but never explained why we had passed the lobby and elevators and were now walking in a dark hall lined with towering boxes of hotel shampoo. We walked through a linen closet, through another storage area and then found the gigantic service elevator that took us to our room. The hostess finally explained about the construction and said it should all be finished by today. It clearly won't be, but we're actually glad because we have seen the inner workings, the very bowels of this hotel, and have made great friends with many of the workers here. I decided to photograph our journey out of the hotel early this morning, when Denis and I went to play tennis. We left our room and our beautifully carpeted hall, and entered this hallway:

Then we entered this room to wait for the elevator:

In order to get off on the lobby floor, we have to walk through the kitchen:

The staff is really nice, but it's a hectic place to be in the morning, so we have learned to take the elevator down one flight and then we just have to walk through this room...

up one flight, and we're back among the paying guests, who swagger around braying into their cellphones about deals. It's really much nicer in the back hallways with all the polite, friendly people who seemed to get a kick out of the fact that we were wedged in the freight elevator with them and their room service carts all day.

We rode bikes to the tennis courts. Denis made me ride the pink one:

He carried the racquets:

And he won (as usual).

These are the public courts in Santa Monica. The beach is on the other side of those palms:

It was so fragrant and beautiful this morning, there was the aroma of salt air, eucalyptus, suntan lotion. It was 70 degrees, no humidity. No wonder all the other tennis players are so good, Denis and I kept telling each other, as we stomped around the court and swatted clumsily at our balls. A gorgeous pair that looked like they could take on the Williams sisters played a fierce game on the court next to ours. We'd be great too if we lived in a place where you can play outdoors all year around, we kept assuring each other. Then we pedaled back to the hotel, toward the majestic Malibu hills, with the sand and the sea sparkling all around and beautiful people (on skates, bikes, skateboards) gliding alongside us, and we seemed to sail along in procession with them, as if we had always been a part of this graceful sidewalk regatta. Then we parked our bikes, and followed a giant towel cart up to our room.

Well, we’re on our third day of our trip to LA and the weather is still perfect. An odd thing has happened to me on this trip. I’m not homesick. Maybe I forgot to mention this, but I don’t travel well. Usually by the second morning of any vacation, I awaken with a sense of alienation and loss so complete that I feel that nothing is safe - that I am completely alone, even if my husband is beside me and my kids are in the other room. I then start to experience a sense of impending doom, especially if the kids are not in the next room, but are at home, where I long to be. I just like to be home.

This time, for some reason, I am not homesick, although today, I was just downright sick. I awoke in the middle of the night with a bit of an intestinal complaint. I’m far too delicate and polite to elaborate further. Suffice it to say that I had a case of the squirts that had me sprinting from bed to toilet every twenty minutes all night. I moaned in pain. I lost quarts of bodily fluids. I saw God. Then, with the dawn, I felt slightly better and had a bowl of oatmeal and some coffee with my husband. Ran back to the toilet, repeated the draining of fluids, moaning, meeting of maker. Then I felt better and drove to downtown LA - Koreatown, to be exact - to see my dear friend Heather King.

Heather had baked the most divine looking lemon ginger muffins and served these to me with fresh raspberries and a pot of strong coffee. I was famished. I inhaled two muffins and handfuls of berries and sucked back two cups of coffee. Then I got out my recording equipment because Heather is a very interesting author and NPR commentator and I had gone there with the intention of not only visiting, but also interviewing her for IN HOUSE.

Halfway into the interview I was forced to hold up my finger. “Do you mind if we pause?” I asked. Then I trotted briskly to Heather's bathroom. Never in my life have I so thoroughly polluted another person’s domain. Over and over again I stopped recording and scooted off to Heather’s formerly fragrant little bathroom, and each time I returned to the living room, I had lost five pounds. Poor Heather, I can't imagine what she must have been thinking about the sounds coming from the bathroom. Sure, most of the bodily sounds were probably masked by my screaming, but still...

It came out in the interview that Heather has lived in her apartment for 16 years. Why do I have a feeling that she’s packed her bags, nailed a “For Rent” sign on the door and moved on, even as I type this?

To all who have emailed me since our arrival in LA: for some reason, I can receive emails, but cannot send them. My computer tells me it has something to do with the server. So don't think I'm a jerk. I did write my replies, they're just stacking up in my outbox and will presumably be sent all at once, when I get home.

Last night we attended the 2nd Annual Dreamworks "Night Before the Emmys" party. This is a really fun party that Denis co-hosts with Jeffrey Katzenberg and some others. Let's see, who was there? Glenn Close, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgewick, Ellen Pompeo, Debra Messing, Julia Louise Dreyfuss. Many others. We spent most of the evening hanging with Jeff Garlin, Kevin Spacey, Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant. Rick and Steve are the creators of The Office and they are just hysterically funny. We laughed until we cried, Denis and I both. There were these huge, sumptuous looking buffets, Wolfgang Puck was the chef, but I was very good and just drank tons of water, due to intestinal situation, and am all better today. We're going to try to play some tennis before we get ready for the Emmys. Oh, and the construction is over, so I don't have to traipse through the kitchen in my gown!

It's 9:30 on the morning of the Emmy Awards, and already the day has been a huge success. First, it's overcast. Honestly, that clear, sunny sky grinning maniacally at you each morning gets a little tiresome. I'm a New Englander and need a little gloom to make me feel great. I felt so great that I managed to beat Denis at tennis, something I rarely am able to do any more. I didn't just beat him. I squashed him. Then we rode our bikes to Venice and back. Denis likes to ride fast, seeing everything as a potential cardio workout, but I can't because I love watching the people so much. Surfers, bikers, skaters, babies in jogging strollers, homeless people engaged in their morning grooming rituals (I've never seen more jovial and happy-looking homeless people in my life) dogs of all shapes and sizes, surfers young and old. I saw a man in a wet suit carrying a surfboard who looked like he was pushing 90. Denis stared wistfully at a street hockey game that was starting up. Then we came back to the hotel and gossiped about the people at last night's party. One very famous TV actor and his wife snuck off with Denis to smoke in a dark corner. The wife kept looking furtively over her shoulder between drags on her cigarette. She told her famous husband to lower his cigarette at one point. I asked her why and she said, "our son's in kindergarten now, and there are ... other mothers here ... if they ever saw us smoking..." she became so overwrought with anxiety that she snubbed out her cigarette and hastily stuffed her mouth with gum. Later, as we were waiting for our car, Camryn Manheim (sp?) said to us, "I'm so embarrassed for the people who have those big SUV's picking them up. I have a Prius." I said, "I know, you'd think that with everything that's going on in the world, people would be a little more sensitive about the environment ..." and just then our tank pulled up. Cadillac sponsors Rescue Me and had provided us with a GIANT black Lincoln Navigator. Thank God we had Camryn Manheim to be embarrassed for us. It's hard having all that shame to yourself.

Okay, I don't know how to download the video so you can watch it, but here's a still of me seated in the gutter outside the FX Emmy after party last night, ala Lindsay Lohan. And I don't even drink. I really don't get out much clearly. Heels, long dress, curb, paparazzi are too much for me to deal with at one time. SO embarrassing. Anyway, that's how my night ended. Here's how it began:

We got all dressed up and the makeup artist ook this photo. Within an hour all that makeup would be dripping down my face in rivulets of sweat.

When you arrive at these awards shows, the traffic is bumper to bumper. You sit in your car and say," Hey, there's so and so in the next car," and you worry about your liipstick and gobble mints and argue about what music should be playing on the radio.

When you get out of the car, you must go through security:

And then you're on the red carpet, which is a little bit crowded:

There are bleachers filled with photographers on both sides of the red carpet:

They took photos of us:

The producers of various shows like E and entertainment Tonight ask you to wait in line to be interviewed. We seemed to be following the Colberts:

Then we met up with Samantha Bee, Jason Jones and Rob Riggle from the Daily Show. I'm a HUGE fan of Samantha Bee and had never met her in person, and she was just as funny as you'd imagine she'd be.

I'm not going to show you any photos of the inside of the theater because you probably had the misfortune of watching it on TV. Was the show as unfunny at home as it was live? Denis didn't win, but RECOUNT got two Emmys, which was great.

Afterward, we went to the Governor's Ball and the HBO party and hung out with Laura Dern and Kevin Spacey. Then we decided to stop in at the FX party, which is where I decided to pitch myself at the feet of the TMZ guys. Once we got inside though, it was nice. We hung out with Rescue Me Executive Producer (and Denis's business partner) Jim Serpico and his wife Sherry:

and we chatted with Glenn Close, who just gets more gorgeous every year.

We're back in Connecticut now, thank GOD! One more day of sunshine and glamour might have done me in. Thanks to those who commented on my previous blog about my embarrassing TMZ tumble, especially the comment from Jocelyn who said that I handled my fall onto the sidewalk like a pro. Unfortunately, being a lifelong spaz, I am a pro! I can't believe that my beloved sister in law, Ann-Marie as well as Jill from Minnesota also did body slams in front of an audience this weekend. Sorry Ann, but the image of you sliding across the floor on a chicken piccatta slick had me howling with laughter.

It's a beautiful, beautiful fall New England day and I couldn't be happier to be home with my girl and dogs and horses. And, of course, our elf:

Just found this Coco photo in my iphotos. I guess I was messing around with photoshop one day and did this to her:

I have spent the entire day trying to edit my four hours of digital Moses Pendleton into a concise half-hour for my radio show, IN HOUSE.

Why, you might ask, did you interview the man for four hours, when you have a half-hour show? The answer is, because a half hour is just not enough for a man whose kitchen looks like this:

Whose office looks like this:

And whose hallway looks like this:

Moses is a little preoccupied with sunflowers and marigolds and the interview is all about how he is attempting to bring the garden into the theater in his new show, "Botanica." I have recorded a rehearsal but how do I bring the eroticism and beauty of the musical arrangements and choreography of Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn to radio?

I've decided to make it an hour long. There'll be a part I the first week, followed by Part II the second. The problem is, Moses has a lot of energy. So do I. So does his Jack Russell Terrier, Mojito, who opens and closes all the doors to the house with his paws. The three of us just got ourselves whipped into a frenzy of excitement during our conversation and often veered way off-topic, and eventually I would have to suggest we take a moment and collect ourselves, and he would respond like this:
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Anyway, it won't be this Saturday's show, but will most likely be on next Saturday. So stay tuned. This Saturday will be a surprise (to you and me).

Okay, I haven’t blogged in a few days because I’ve been trying to get organized. I’m having surgery on Monday. I hesitate to tell the world wide web the nature of my surgery, because it’s: a)gynecological, b) an old lady’s operation and c) who cares? But I worry that if I don’t reveal the exact nature of the surgery, people will suspect I’m having a facelift or something. SO I’m having a hysterectomy.

I found this lovely image while doing my endless research on the web. Really, don't click on this if you're not into gross stuff. I love gross stuff myself:

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Congratulations! It's a tumor!

Everyone asks the same questions when you tell them you’re having a hysterectomy so I’ll answer those questions right off the bat. Fibroids, abdominal incision, no driving for three weeks, no tennis for 6-8. Please don’t send me {{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}. I’m from New England and that kind of thing creeps me out a little. Just pretend I didn’t tell you.

The reason I decided to announce it is because while I’m in the hospital, I’m going to run some of my favorite old blogs. And I am also going to try to convince my husband to be a “Guest Blogger” for a few days. So, I will miss blogging for a few days but I’m sure I will come away with some amusing stories from the recovery ward. My entire first book, An Innocent, A Broad was set in a hospital so I’m used to writing about all the goings on there.

My sister Meg came to visit this weekend and we decided to see the movie Ghost Town. If you haven't seen this movie yet, drop everything you're doing and go see it. Now! Hurry! I'm not just saying this because I'm a longtime Ricky Gervais fan and consider him my new bff (based on one evening at a party where I chatted him up and giggled and snorted and batted my eyelashes and otherwise fawned over him), it's just one of the most enjoyable "mainstream" films I've seen in a long time. Take your kids, take a date. It's a very sweet romantic comedy that is actually funny.

I'm always trying to turn this blog into a multimedia extravaganza, so I've attempted to download the trailer. Not sure if it'll work.

Okay, it didn't.

Just wanted to say thanks to all the well-wishers who posted comments and emailed me privately about tomorrow. Sorry I haven't been able to respond personally but thank you all for your nice words. xxoo Ann

This is my very first blog, which was posted last April. I really didn't think I'd ever keep up with the blog. I just thought of it as a way to promote my book, OUTTAKES FROM A MARRIAGE. I ended up loving blogging and actually had to be reminded by my publicist to sometimes mention the book in my blog. SO here is it.

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.

So, welcome to my blog, which I have decided to call, “Wicked Good Life.”

I posted this while I was doing my book tour last June.

Today I did a radio tour. I sat in a studio in Times Square and was interviewed by DJs and talk show hosts in radio stations all over the country.

Most of the interviewers were nice. The most interesting question? What's it like having Dennis Miller mouthing off around the house all the time. I said that I imagined it would be a living hell. Then I said that of course, I could only venture a guess, as I've never met Dennis Miller. The poor man had just spent ten minutes thinking he was interviewing Dennis Miller's wife. He began stammering his apologies and it became clear that he had no idea whose wife it was that he was interviewing and I felt so sorry for him that I ended up repeatedly apologizing to him for not being Dennis Miller's wife.

When I got home I told Denis - my Denis - Denis Leary about it and he insisted that I have met Dennis Miller and I said that wasn't Dennis Miller, it was Jay Mohr and Denis became very annoyed because I really never have any idea who anyone is. Once, I was seated next to Moby at a dinner party. This was years ago and I had spent the summer listening to a Moby CD that Denis had made me, but I had no idea what Moby looked like. So, like I said, at this dinner party, I was seated next to a very sweet, slightly nebbishy-looking guy who seemed a little out of his element. Meg Ryan was there, Jon Stewart, Nora Ephron. I think the party was for Barry Levinson. Anyway, my sweet dinner companion was concerned that there wouldn't be anything for him to eat as he was a vegan. He was just so quiet and unassuming that I realized he was probably quite overwhelmed by the dazzling luminaries in the room and I decided to take him under my wing. I asked one of the wait staff to prepare him a salad and then I explained to him who all the important people were. At one point I asked him what he did for work. He told me that he was a musician. "How nice," I said, imagining him in an orchestra pit, his upper lip quivering above a flute, or perhaps on a subway platform strumming on a mandolin. When we left the party, Denis and I shared a ride with Jon Stewart and his wife Tracey.

"What was Moby like," Tracey asked.
"Moby was there?" I asked, in all my innocence.

Yes, it was Moby whom I had lectured on the ins and outs of fame. And it was Moby whom I had urged to send Denis a "demo CD" of his music, as there was always the chance DENIS MIGHT LIKE IT AND USE IT ON HIS SHOW! Uggggg, I'm blushing bright red just typing this now.