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.”

Not long ago, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Michael Pollan and his lovely wife Judith at a dinner party. Michael is the author of the best-selling books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and he is as gracious and engaging a dinner companion as he is a writer. It was one of those affairs in which you are given a choice of a meat or a fish entree – in this instance the choice was Sea Bass or Filet Mignon. I gave the waiter my selection of the Sea Bass but in mid-sentence I cringed at the thought that Michael might think me wildly self-serving by ordering the reportedly endangered Sea Bass instead of the beef. But hadn’t he written that brilliant piece in the New York Times Magazine about what happens to beef from the moment the calf is born until it arrives on our plates? That article put me off beef for some time. After I ordered, it was Michael’s turn and I realized that I was about to witness the author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma faced with the very dilemma itself. The Sea Bass? Or the Beef? Support the fish by ordering the cruelly raised beef? Or reduce the demand for mass-produced beef by ordering the fish? Michael, I hope, will forgive me for reporting that he ordered the Sea Bass. When I asked him about his choice, he said, “I really don’t like to order beef unless I know where it comes from.”

Now, neither do I.

The very next day, I received a call from Libby Fitzgerald inviting me to visit some new calves. Libby, her husband Terry and their three sons own Greyledge Farm here in Bridgewater, CT, and they raise natural, grass-fed beef cattle. It was calving time and Libby said that I might get to see a calf being born that day. When I arrived in her barn, there were no births in progress but there were several sweet, long-lashed newborns lying beside their doting mothers. The Fitzgerald’s barn is so pristine and the cows are such amiable, welcoming gals that I was almost overcome with the urge to nestle down in the straw with them to swap birth stories. I waited until I was out of earshot to place my beef order with the farm manager. Denis is a lover of red meat, and the first time I cooked him a Greyledge Farm steak, I'm not kidding, he nearly wept with joy. Natural beef really tastes better than the mass-produced, hormone-pumped stuff. Now when we drive by the Fitgerald's farm, Denis and the dogs stare out the car window at the grazing cattle and they all drool and whine.

Our dog Lulu had hip surgery on Thursday. Lulu is young but has terrible hip dysplasia and had a total hip replacement at the Veterinary Referral and Emergency Center in Norwalk, CT. Less than 24 hours after the surgery, Lulu came home. She walked out of the hospital barely limping – which is far better than how she walked in. Dr. Matthew Palmisano, her surgeon, is a great vet and we thank all the kind staff at VREC.

I love Lulu, but it's a one-sided love because she's just not that into me. I’ve never had to say that about any dog I’ve shared a home with before. All our dogs have always been totally into me, but not Lulu. I mean, she’s cordial and everything but she doesn't really care what I do, as long as I don't keep Denis away from her. She's Denis's dog - she's completely besotted with him.

Denis has spent the winter finishing a book he's writing called WHY WE SUCK, by Dr. Denis Leary (he has an honorary PhD. Really!) It's very funny. He has a deadline and he works all day in a barn that has been converted into his office. Lulu spends her days watching Denis play hockey or watching Denis write. When I brought her home from the hospital yesterday, she refused to come into the house, but stared, whining at Denis’s barn. We very carefully walked up to the barn and she was reunited with her master and I managed to photograph her smile.

Yesterday, somebody told me that it looks like I’m trying to look like the Dog Whisperer on my website’s homepage. This I took as a compliment because, in fact, I am always trying to be like Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. I wish to emulate him in the same way that some people wish to emulate the Dalai Lama. Anybody who’s a fan of The Dog Whisperer show will understand why. Cesar Millan is a mastermind of canine and human psychological and spiritual healing and I have often thought that he should sell bumper stickers that read WWCD (What Would Cesar Do?)

I think in WWCD terms all the time. Recently I was confronted by a very aggressive man at Stew Leonard’s (it’s a Connecticut grocery store/theme park) who believed that my leaving my shopping cart parked in front of the bagels for two minutes violated all laws of decency.
“Move your f____ing cart,” he barked at me when I wandered back from the cold cuts, and then he actually shoved my cart at me. The man was in what Cesar would call an aggressive/dominant state. In the past I would probably have either joined him in the red zone by cursing angrily back at him, or I would have slunk off with a whining apology and my tail between my legs. But I didn’t do either this time. I did what Cesar Millan would have done. I stood my ground, maintaining calm, assertive energy. I placed my salami in the cart and when the man snapped at me again, I said, suddenly (but still calmly and assertively) “HEY! in a clipped tone – the human version of the “tchhhhh” noise Cesar uses on dogs and the man clammed up and wandered off! If you haven’t seen the show, Netflix an entire season. You really don’t have to be a dog owner to benefit from the teachings of Cesar Millan.

Last year, Denis’s publicist said the Dog Whisperer people were interested in having Denis and our dogs on the show, as they sometimes do segments on celebrity dog owners. Denis loves The Dog Whisper and his first response was “great, I'll get to meet Cesar Millan,” but I wasn’t so sure he should do it, and this is why: Cesar has a tendency to make men cry about their dogs on his show. Especially men with tough exteriors. I’ve seen it more than once. One minute, a man is chopping wood and talking about his years as a combat Marine, the next minute he’s weeping into the fur of his beloved Cock-a-poo. “I just l-l-ove her soooo much, and I wa-wa-ant her to he happy,” he sobs, and Cesar, in a calm, listening state, nods. He understands. He understands everything. One recent weekend while Denis and I were watching a Dog Whisperer marathon, I heard a strange croaking sound coming from Denis’s end of the couch. I think it was during the episode about the Yorkie who goes berserk when the vacuum cleaner is turned on. When Cesar told the owner that she was letting the dog down by treating her with “human psychology not dog psychology,” Denis began making these choking, gurgling noises.

“Are you …okay?” I asked.

“What? Yeah, I just have something stuck in my throat,” Denis said, blinking madly. Then after a moment, he whispered, “Life is sometimes just so …unfair,” and he sprang from the couch and ran to the bathroom where he remained for some time.

Today I received a review of my book, Outtakes From a Marriage from Publisher’s Weekly, which said that I have “an eye for the comedy of manners of the rich and idle.” Well, thank you very much, PW. Now I’ll turn my eye on some of the less idle, like the participants in this past weekend’s Celebration of Young Writers in Washington, Connecticut. It’s an annual event in which famous actors and writers read the works of students ages 5-18. The readers have included Denis, Frank McCourt, Rose Styron, Mia Farrow, Peter Gallagher, Christine Baranski and many others. The event is a fundraiser for the After School Arts Program. Denis hosts the reading every year.

Here he is chatting with the lovely Rose Styron before the event:

We saw Rose again the following evening at the opening night performance of The Country Girl, starring Peter Gallagher, Morgan Freeman and Frances McDormand, and directed by Mike Nichols. Such an amazing performance by Peter, and everyone. There was a press line as we entered.

And afterwards, a party at Tavern on The Green. Here's Denis with Peter Gallagher:

Denis is a little partial to that particular jacket, and that particular shirt, as you can see. If you saw us leaving for the play last night you would have thought I was going to the Oscars (I overdressed as usual, rube that I am) and he was going to a hockey game. I could blog all day about all the wrong outfits I've worn to events. Fortunately, I'm usually cut out of the photographs when they appear in print.

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

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.

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.

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!

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?

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?

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.

Denis and I were on MSNBC this morning, talking about... one guess.

Before you click on the link, beware. It's long. The producer had told me that a member of Joe Scarborough's family had just had a premature baby so just before we went live, I told Joe about my book, An Innocent, A Broad,, which was about our premature baby and he thought I wanted to talk about that, because he's such a nice guy, and so Denis, mercifully managed to steer the whole thing back to Outtakes From a Marriage. You'll see. I'm a spaz. My hands go flying all over the place and my hair's a mess. You don't even need to watch it. You've seen enough, trust me.

I just found this video of us on Today in which I have much better hair than the one below. So just watch this and skip the other.

Kathy Lee and Hoda are funny. Before they started shooting, Kathy Lee made a very funny Mister T joke. I laughed too loud, for too long, my foot jiggling madly. I was a nervous wreck. You can't believe how nice the people who work on these shows are though, seriously. When you arrive they make a HUGE deal. We love you, we love your book. Here's our segment producer who loves you. Here's the sound technician who loves you. There's the crowd on the sidewalk! They love you! So by the time the camera is rolling you've completely bought the whole "you're the most loveable thing that's ever walked into this studio" trip and it really helps make you feel less awkward.

Wondering why I keep looking off to the side? That's where the monitor is and I was mesmerized by my own image on television, being the media-savvy gal that I am.

Every year I hang flowering baskets on our front porch.

And every year, a sparrow builds a tiny nest amidst the blooms in one of the hanging baskets, and there she lays her eggs.

It's always the basket that hangs from the same spot on our porch - right near the corner. We're not sure if it's the same spot because it's the same sparrow family each year, or if it just happens to be an ideal location because of the way the porch shades it or something. Anyway, because of the nest, we are unable to water the basket and as the little family hatches and grows, the flowers dry up and die, which seems somehow wonderfully symbiotic to me. I'm not sure if symbiosis is the right word, since only the birds benefit from the relationship. I'll have to ask one of my kids. They go to school. But it's the whole a time to be born, a time to die thing. When the fledgelings are old enough to leave the nest we replace the basket.

WARNING: VERY SAD STORY AHEAD

Denis drinks his coffee on this porch every morning, and - brace yourself, be prepared to report him to PETA, the National Audubon Society, etc - he has a morning cigarette. Relax. He doesn't sit in the chair closest to the nest and there's no proof that second-hand smoke harms bird eggs. Anyway, one morning last week, he was enjoying his coffee and smoke when he heard a little splat. More like a little pat sound, he said. You almost couldn't hear it at all. But he looked over and there was a tiny egg smashed on the porch. It had fallen from the nest. We think the mother must have laid it too close to the side of the basket. As Denis watched (in horror), the mother bird flew down to where the egg had smashed and stared at it. Then she fluttered up to the nest for a moment, then flew back down to the smashed egg. Denis said it looked like any egg that you might break - the baby hadn't even begun to form. The mother tilted her head and stared at the egg with one eye. Then she tilted her head and stared at the egg with the other! Flew back up to the nest and then back down to have another look. It was like she was trying to make sense of the whole thing. It appeared to me that Denis was trying not to cry when he told me about this later. Denis cannot go to zoos, HATES circuses and can't be in the room when Animal Planet is on TV because he can't bear to see any kind of animal cruelty, and even the cruel laws of nature are sometimes too much for him (me too). People are often surprised to learn this about Denis for some reason.

Anyway, the mother seems to have sorted it all out for herself and the remaining eggs are safe and secure. I'll post a photo of her babes when they hatch.

Okay, I've been in a funk all day. Filled with sorrow. I couldn't figure out why and then finally I was able to put my finger on it. I am having a "Too Much Birthday" experience. "Too Much Birthday" is a Berenstain Bears story that I used to read to my kids. It's a complex narrative but I'll summarize: One of the little Berenstain Bears is having a birthday. He has a party. All his friends come to the party. They give him presents. They pay lots of attention to him. He is given a cake and is sung to. Then, he has a complete meltdown and cries hysterically, puzzling his friends and family. This is because the Berenstain Bear is very, very young and has not yet learned to regulate his emotions. His heightened excitement reaches a fever-pitch and then he can't cope.

Well, EXACTLY the same thing happened to me last night. I had a reading at the Tribeca Barnes & Noble. All my friends came. I went to a dinner party afterward. The people at the party paid tons of attention to me. Halfway through the party I realized that I was filled with despair. This was me:

Well, okay, I didn't cry. And fortunately there wasn't a "Search Inside" flag pointing at me (but there might as well be, with the amount of shrink hours I've logged over the years). But I whined at the dinner. I whined to my nice friends. Then I fretted when I got home - fretted and worried aloud to my nice husband and children. Because, I realize today, I am very, very emotionally immature and what is regular excitement for most adults, is just too much for me. So I had some quiet time today. Quiet time and soothing words from my friends, and now I feel better.

I started an Ann Index last week but keep forgetting to update it. Here's today's index.

THE ANN INDEX
Days since Outtakes From a Marriage arrived in bookstores: 7
Amazon Ranking: 1013
Number of Facebook Friends: 101
Number of real friends: more than I deserve (sob)
Days since we last saw our cat Sneakers: 10
Current shame level (1=total self-love, 10=total self-loathing): 8
Total number of amusing anecdotes accrued in my lifetime: 5
Number left untold after last week's interviews: 0
Times this week that I have told my funny story about the time that Denis and I drove our own black Town Car to a red-carpet event: 39
Times anybody but me thought this was funny: 1

Residents of Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood left their apartments yesterday and found that Jay Street had been hit by a bomb. There was debris strewn all over the street and sidewalk, ash and soot covered everything. A fire escape had fallen onto a car.

Being New Yorkers, most people just looked up and down the street for the familiar film crews and catering wagons, and then they trudged through the "ash" and "debris" and went about their day. Because it wasn't the site of a terrorist attack, it was a Rescue Me location.

I don't often visit the set but Denis told me that it was going to be a very exciting day with stunts and special-effects and car chases and buildings exploding and, indeed, there was lots to see. Here's the beginning of a police chase scene:

There were dummies lying around on the ground. This one spent the lunch break leaning against Ladder 62 truck:

And there were handsome actors all over the place. This one spent his lunch break chatting with his wife and daughter:

I don't want to give anything away but Rescue Me's fifth season will be explosive, to say the least.

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."

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.

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?

I am terribly sorry that you've been unable to hear my IN HOUSE radio interview
with author Dani Shapiro, as there has been a problem with the link to the radio site. Problem should be resolved today. If you live in Northwestern CT, you might have heard it as it was broadcast on Saturday, but otherwise you should be able to hear it here soon.

In the meantime, we have arrived at our vacation home. It's not really our home. We rent it. But I LOVE it here and have spent the past 24 hours trying to think of ways that we could live here. It's just my favorite house in the world. It's been owned by the same family, I think, since they stepped off the Mayflower and paddled out to this lovely island (they seem like sturdy stock, these owners, if they bear any resemblance to their cousins who live next door.) We could never afford to buy this house, but nonetheless, I have been fantasizing about all sorts of way that I could come to own it. I could seduce the owner, I suppose, and marry into the property, but then I'd have to give up him:

He looks so nice with a tan, maybe the owner would marry both of us. I think that's legal in Massachusetts.

Here are the girls rowing around the harbor, right in front of the house.

Here's the view from my window this morning:

Oh please, dear landlord sir, please let us spend the rest of our days here. What could you possibly want with this haunted old place. Only we love it enough to be its rightful heirs. We will devote our lives to its upkeep. We will take in orphans and raise them here. We will commit ourselves to the preservation of the house, its beach, its clams and crabs. We will carefully separate our recyclables! PLEASE!!!!!!!

"All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of a ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart."

W.B. Yeats

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).

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.

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