Friday Update 3/5

A few odds and ends for today ...

• Now that I've accepted an offer on FAREWELL, DOROTHY PARKER, I'm hard at work on it. I'm not laying down new chapters yet, but trying to work out the storyline. I had lunch with Susan Henderson this week, and when I told her I planned to structure the book by breaking the story into three acts, she sent me to this blog, from writer Alexandra Sokoloff. Very useful!

• Speaking of Susan Henderson, she not only got a kickass cover for her forthcoming debut novel, UP FROM THE BLUE, but is reeling in some astounding (and well-deserved) blurbs. Check out what Jamie Ford, author of HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET had to say:

“Susan Henderson’s UP FROM THE BLUE deftly portrays a family with contradictions we can all relate to—it’s beautiful and maddening, hopeful and condemning, simple, yet like a knot that takes a lifetime to untangle. This is a book that you will love completely, even as it hurts you. It is a heartbreaking, rewarding story that still haunts me. I absolutely loved this book…gushingly, unequivocally, loved it.”

Trust me, this is not empty praise. Sue is really THAT GOOD. No joke.

• Bad news this week? My netbook died. Urlg. Will call Samsung tech support today and PRAY I get someone whose English I can understand.

• I recently complained to a male friend about about how hard I'm working at losing weight. He responded by saying he lost 15 pounds last month by eliminating fast food, as if this advice would help me. As if fast food has ever been part of my diet. As if I might even consider eating at McDonald's. As if the golden arches would tempt me even if I was starving to death after crawling through the desert for 40 days. (Okay, I might pop in for a Diet Coke. But then I'd crawl another 40 days looking for a diner.)

Men. Sheesh.

I go to the gym every day, exist on spinach, air and the occasional orange, and am lucky if I lose one pound a week.

Of course, I blame myself for being in the situation where I actually need to shed pounds. Even after all these decades on the planet I have never learned how to maintain my weight. I am always either gaining or losing.

But of course, I come from a family of weight-obsessed lunatics. My mother has been on a diet since 1965. I don't know what her goal weight is or when she plans to meet it, but the last time she was here we lost her for a whole afternoon when she slipped between the seat cushions on the sofa.

Now we make her wear bells.

• No careers news update on my husband just yet, I'm afraid. Soon, I hope ...

• Also still waiting for a pub date for THE OTHER LIFE.

• Check out this flyer for the BOOK AND AUTHOR TEA on Sunday, April 18 at the Hofstra University Club. To register online, click here. To R.S.V.P. via Facebook, click here.

• Don't forget, the wonderful new NBC show, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? (produced by my cousin, Lisa Kudrow) premieres tonight with Sarah Jessica Parker's episode.

• Have a great weekend. I'm off to the gym ...