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.

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 thought that the folks at Random House weren't selling enough books, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and help them move things along. Here I am pushing a cartload of my novel Outtakes From A Marriage from the warehouse.

I'm planning to push the cart up and down Canal Street and sell the books to tourists.

Just kidding! That's actually the load of books that arrived at The View today. Each and every audience member received a copy. I pushed the cart there from my house. I ordered all these books from Amazon to lower my sales ranking and then I had to do something with them.

Kidding.

But we did go on The View today. I was UNBELIEVABLY nervous. Had a little panic attack in the Green Room, Denis later told me that he didn't think I'd be able to walk to the stage. I was freaking out. Right before we went on, I ran to the bathroom and forgot that the sound guy had attached a microphone to my bosom which was attached to a wire that ran down my top which was attached to a square receiver thing that was clipped to the waistband of my pants. SO, when I unzipped my pants, guess where the receiver thing almost ended up? But I am deft of hand and snatched it up just before it splashed into The View's toilet. The sound guy rigged me back up and told me that the thing has fallen into the toilet many times. Great.

It was a blast. I love The View. Everybody was so unbelievably nice. They really chat you up in the Green Room to try to make you feel relaxed. When we were finished with the segment, Whoopi pulled me aside and said that she had read the book and that she had loved it and and was now desperate to read my first book! I can't tell you what it feels like to have Whoopi Goldberg gazing into your eyes and softly purring those words in that quiet, sexy voice that she has. It was heaven. I was dying.

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.

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.

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?

It’s that time of year again. I must find myself a dress to wear to an awards show. An awards show with a red carpet. A show with a red carpet along which flocks of beautiful young starlets, models and actresses will daintily tiptoe in their Manolos and their Jimmy Choos, their perfect bodies draped in custom-designed finery, adorned with diamonds and carrying gem-encrusted clutches. Their lithe muscles will be toned to within an inch of perfection. Long of lash and leg., they will smile and wave; their hair swept up into elaborately glamorous cascades of lusciousness, their skin glowing with youth.

I, on the other hand, dear internet, have just had another birthday. It’s the birthday that first makes you closer to fifty than forty. And, I confess that I’ve let myself go a little bit since my book publicity tour. When people stopped taking my picture, I stopped running on that stupid treadmill. And then the summer came with its pies and fried clams and corn on the cob and ice cream and lots of sitting around. So I gained a few. I’m in radio now, I told myself, as I shoveled in the potato salad. I’m a writer who lives in the country, where it’s normal to look robust and healthy, I promised myself as I watched the butter melt into all those delightful nooks and crannys on my Thomas’s.

So today I must go shop for a dress that will somehow lead the eye away from my drooping eyelids, from my flabby upper arms and fleshy midsection. It must lead the eye directly to my legs, which it's true, are the last to go. My legs look pretty good, I have to say. So I'm thinking of wearing a knee length dress instead of a gown to the Emmys. Why should I wear a gown, I'm not nominated for anything. I mean, who do I think I am, Cate Blanchette? A dress is what I'm thinking.

Also, had this brilliant idea of secretly bringing my recording equipment and interviewing the celebs while we're waiting Denis's turn to be interviewed. Then I'll work out some sort of live-feed setup with my blog. So, while I'm standing next to Julia-Louise Dreyfuss, waiting for Ryan Seacrest to interview her and then my husband, I'll chat her up about her dress and stuff and you'll all be able to hear it here first! Denis, unfortunately, has forbade me to do this. "If you get kicked out of the Emmy's," he said, "you're on your own." I am allowed to take pictures, though.

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.

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.

To finish off this week of celebration, I have chosen to broadcast Jimi Hendrix, playing The Star Spangled Banner on his guitar. I have watched this youtube video several times, as I am quite fascinated by him. I hear a movie "bio-bic" is in the works about his short life. Anyway, about the video. A few moments in, you'll see Jimi playing the guitar with what appears to be his..his..tongue. Also, I would KILL for that outfit. I love the fringe poncho, and the flared pants. Are they velvet? Not so wild about the Earth Shoes. I don't see that look every coming back. Well, here it is. I love the "rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air" sound effects. Then the little rendition of "taps". So cool. Enjoy. But don't watch it too many times. You'll feel a little stoned.

Many months ago, I was interviewed by Terry Gross for her NPR program, Fresh AIr. This was very exciting to me. This was extremely exciting to me. This was, in my mind, one of the most exciting things that had ever happened to me! I love Terry Gross. It turned out that Terry Gross's producer was a big fan of both my books!

I had done all this other press for my book, Outtakes From a Marriage. I had done The View and the Today Show and while I was a little nervous, I was with Denis so I was fine. I had done other radio and TV stuff alone and I had also been fine. Somehow, because I'm such a big Terry Gross fan, I got myself worked up into such a jittering, teeth-grinding state of anxiety that I was rendered partially mute during my interview with Terrry Gross. Mute isn't the ideal state for an interview. My daughter was with me in the studio and when it was over, I had to ask her what I had even said. I knew it had been awful. Of course, sweet Dev kept saying, "No,Mom, you were fine."

The Fresh AIr folks were going to tell us when the show was going to air. It didn't air in June (when it was taped). It didn't air in July, August, September or October either. Clearly, the interview was not fit for the airwaves and in order to go on, I've had to kind of pretend to myself that I never did an interview for Fresh Air at all.

Well, last night, I received an email from my dear book publicist Beau Benton, stating that my Fresh Air interview will air today! They've finally "found a spot for it." The producer was very sweet about how the election and all sorts of other stuff has been a priority these past months. I don't think I'll be able to listen, today, as I'll be driving at the time it airs and I think cringing behind the wheel can cause accidents.

I tried to stay up for the Daily Show> to watch Denis last night but fell asleep. Will see if I can watch it online.