jennsylvania

Revenge of the Jens (And Possibly a Winklevoss or Two)

Here's a quick reminder of what's coming up next week!

Wednesday, June 6th from 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM

Bryant Park Reading Room, 42nd St., between 5th and 6th Ave, where you will find...

JEN AND JEN, TOGETHER AGAIN!

Please join New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Weiner and me at this event!  We'll be discussing our new books, chatting with one another, and taking questions from the audience before we autograph books.  Having done an event together before, I can assure you that hilarity will ensue. 

The event is outdoors, but in case of drizzle, there will be a tent. (I imagine it will be a large tent.)

In case it's raining toads/cats/dogs, the venue will change to The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen at 20 West 44th Street (between 5th & 6th Avenues.)

No tickets/purchases are required and the space will accommodate a crowd.  That being said, come early for prime viewing position or in case we need to move indoors.

See you then, I hope!

* * *

In the interim, I shall be busy obsessing about Mark Zuckerberg.

No, not about the Facebook IPO or any of the resulting fall-out.  If you're an institutional investor and you lost your shirt here, I'm really sorry, but seriously, did you learn NOTHING from the Infospace.com debacle twelve years ago?  Remember, this is back when their shares were listed at hundreds and hundreds of dollars each?  And Fletch and I were all, "Isn't that basically an internet yellow pages and, thus, doomed to fail?"  And all the arrogant little pricks I worked with tried to tell me that I was a dumbass for wasting my disposable income on a pair of Joan & David loafers instead of investments? 

Um, boys?  I wore those loafers long after Infospace's share price dropped to $2.67.  Still have them now, in fact.

Ironically, when the dot com market crashed, all these junior masters of the universe scurried off to grad school before becoming i-bankers. (Which neatly explains the Wall Street mess.)

Regardless, that's not what's currently stuck in my craw.

I'm obsessed with the notion of Zuckerberg stiffing waiters while he's on his Italian honeymoon.  Thus far, it's happened twice and the national media has been all over the story.

To backtrack, I understand that Italian serving professionals are reasonably compensated.  They don't depend on tips to make their living.  Tipping is not the social norm, at least not with Europeans.  If the service is particularly attentive or the waiter goes out of his/her way to accommodate the diner, occasionally they will receive something extra. 

I get all of that.

Zuckerberg wasn't required to leave a tip.

And yet I can't get past the notion of a man with a current net worth of FOURTEEN BILLION dollars not parting with, say, five of them, if for no reason other than to keep the press off his increasingly beleaguered ass.  I realize the rich don't stay rich by throwing their money around, but seriously, FIVE DOLLARS IS NOT GOING TO BREAK THE BANK.

Maybe I'm bothered because it's my notion to tip everyone, to the point that I embarrass myself by doing stuff like trying to slip the dental hygienist a little something extra for keeping my teeth so white.  But I've worked in tip-dependant jobs and that changed my entire worldview.  I try to always err on the side of tipping if there's ever a question. 

Plus?  There's the whole karma factor.  For example, when I'm on book tour, I'm very lucky to have my publisher cover expenses, including tips for the guys who drive me.  Without fail, I give the guys something extra because, A) it's my nature to be generous because I've had the incredible good fortune to make a living doing what I love, B), I feel happy doing so, and, C) drivers gossip. 

I know, because I gossip with them. 

So I guess my problem is this - at a time when Zuckerberg's under so much scrutiny, I can't imagine why he wouldn't give the waiter a little something for the effort.  I'm not saying he should have tipped him a Toyota Camry, but seriously?  He couldn't part with five bucks?

What Zuckerberg fails to understand - and what I believe will be his eventual downfall - is that he's now part of a public company.  He reports to a board who are reponsible to shareholders.  Facebook isn't his personal fiefdom anymore.  Regardless of how brilliant or talented he is, he's no longer Lord God Supreme of Farmville, Mafia Wars, hackathons, timeline, et al.

His actions have consequences now. 

He's accountable in a way that he never was before.

And I guarantee the newly formed Facebook board of directors is none to happy with Zuckerberg creating additional bad press on top of the massive IPO clusterfuckery, which all started on a sour note with him not even bothering to show up in New York to ring the opening bell in person.  Dude.  Not cool.

Now, Facebook, Inc. is likely going to have to employ PR professionals to quash chatter on something that could have been entirely preventable if the man had simply been willing to part with five freaking dollars.

Even though he didn't have to.

Seriously.  Five freaking dollars.  Out of fourteen billion.

I hope that somewhere the Winklevoss brothers are sitting on the sidelines with a bucket of popcorn, enjoying the show.

And, perhaps if the Winklevosses are free on Wednesday, they'll come enjoy an afternoon with the Jens in Bryant Park.

I realize that was truly the worst segue ever, but it was all I had. 

We two Jens hope to see you next week!

It's A Good Thing (He Married An Optimist!)

Fletch:  "What are you doing?"

Me:  "What does it look like I'm doing?"

Fletch:  "You appear to be washing your foot in the kitchen sink."

Me:  "Bingo."

Fletch:  "I don't want to know why, do I?"

Me:  "Someone had an accident in the dining room and I stepped in it.  Didn't you hear me screaming five minutes ago?"

Fletch: (shudders) "This is why I always wear shoes in the house.  Always."

Me:  "Oh, please.  It's fine.  I cleaned it up.  And now I'm washing my foot."

Fletch:  "Aren't there more appropriate places to do that?"

Me:  "Well, I rinsed my foot under the hose, and then I dunked it in the pool, and now I'm washing it in the sink.  What's the problem?"

Fletch:  "This is why your Martha Stewart project is doomed."

Me:  "Why?  I'm using antibacterial soap!"

Fletch: (walking away) "DOOMED."

My project is totally not doomed.

But I may finally reconsider my stance on being barefoot in the house.

 

Best Prize Ever? (Yes!)

Hope everyone had a fab Memorial Day weekend!

We spent ours getting the house ready for a summer of entertaining Martha-style, which included hauling plants out of the car in ninety-million degree temps and assembling inexpensive teak furniture. 

Fletch says when you buy cheap you buy twice. 

It should go without saying we almost always buy twice.  

Previously, he'd suggested I look at the Restoration Hardware outdoor catalog before I went with the cute cushioned benches from World Market.  So I humored him.  And then I laughed my ass off at the prices.  This piece, likely made somewhere in Southeast Asia, is easily ten times more than what I'd consider expensive.  You know I'm not one to go all OccupyRestorationHardware, but in my opinion, outdoor furniture should cost less than indoor furniture. 

Or a used car.

World Market it was. 

The highlight (?) of the weekend was when in the middle of dinner, Fletch said, "I dropped two of the hot dogs and one of the burgers on the ground before I cooked them.  Try to guess which ones."

It's probably best that we didn't have friends up here this weekend. 

I think we need another practice run or two before we involve guests in our summer festivities.

Anyway, while we were planting and sweating and eating hot dogs of a dubious nature, my friend Stacey was busy crafting an excellent contest that coincides with the launch of her new book Off the Menu! 

Isn't this the best cover?

I'm not sponsoring this contest, but I'm delighted to be a portion of the prize!  So, if you want to win an afternoon with Stacey and me, check out all the details for The Stennifer Lunch Tour here!  (Please note that I'm not managing any part of the contest administration so do not send me your entry.)

Please also note that Fletch will not be cooking the winner's lunch.

So there's that.

Good luck!

This Is A Really Good Post If You Like Flowers Or Amateur Photography

The top request I heard on tour was to blog daily.  So I'm pledging to try. 

Sometimes the posts will be photo-heavy. 

Like today.

I was bummed when we didn't have a white Christmas this year.  Yet the mild winter temps did wonders for my garden and it's been exploding with color for more than a month.  We already had crocuses, daffodils, tulips, irises, lilacs, lilies of the valley, and some serious fruit tree blossom action.

Well played, hateful crab apple.  You may live to see another year.

I think these are my Betty White floribunda.  (Don't quote me on that.)  I got them last year and they bloomed late and when they finally did, I was charmed.  Then, suddenly she was freaking EVERYWHERE, like to the point of taking over their whole corner of the garden, muscling all the other roses out of her sunlight, spewing frowzy, floppy petals in her wake, so much so that I began to wish that Betty White would just go away.

The solid, respectable, upstanding red roses in the center are Mr. Lincoln.  He forms huge, perfect, velvet blossoms that are so heavy with fragrance that I can't help but cut him down in his prime and bring him inside.

I don't know what variety these yellow roses are but they're already out in full force, far ahead of the rest of the pack.  They've got a real Texas vibe, though, don't they?

Not sure what this one is either, but I love the gradient color and that it smells as gorgeous as it looks.

Technically, not roses, but I like these peonies just as much, maybe even more so because they're fleeting.  And they're not yet swarming with ants, which is a huge bonus.   Also, because I take shit photographs with no true sense of perspective, you can't tell that this bush is the approximate size of a 1952 DeSoto.

And last - here's everything I've cut in the past two days.  The kitchen smells like a funeral home, and I mean that in the best possible way.  I'm one of those people who always has flowers in the house and I love May - October when it all comes from my yard. 

Of course, half of these displays have already been knocked over because the stupid Thundercats prefer to take their water from the vase, rather than from their bowl.

"Pfft.  Take a picture, asshole.  It'll last longer."

 

The Summer (Reading Guide) of Other

Tour is over, I’m back, and I’m ready to talk about reading!

But not to talk about reading my books because, frankly, I’ve had enough of that to last me until next year. 

At some point during the tour and all the rounds of media, even the biggest narcissist in the world gets all, “No, please, let's talk about you.” 

(Caveat - I do need to say thank you times a million to all of you for coming to my events because you guys are the whole point of what I do.  You rock, for seven years running!)

Anyway, I’ve pledged to spend the summer reading books that aren’t on the front table at the bookstore or filling a top ten position on the NYT list.  Times are tough for authors out there, particularly the new ones, and I want to do what I can to help. 

Through Facebook suggestions, I filled four pages of paper with authors and titles… none of which I had with me when I stopped in the airport bookstore on the way to my first tour stop.  Typical.

So I bought the book My Lucky Star by Joe Keenan, largely because I wasn’t familiar with it.  But as an Emmy award-winning writer for Frasier and with comparisons to P.G. Wodehouse, the author’s credentials were impeccable.  I knew it had to be funny. 

Also, because this is me we’re talking about, the cover was pretty.

See?

Until I looked up this book, I didn’t know MLS was a continuation to a series Keenan had written years ago.  Again, I credit the author for crafting such a solid story that I didn’t need to have read his earlier work to enjoy it.

Keenan hooked me from the first page.  His turns of phrase are nothing short of genius and the whole novel has a real gilded-age-of-Hollywood vibe to it and it’s so rife with hilarious conflict and complication that I found it almost impossible to put down.

(Caveat again - I didn’t realize until halfway through that this book is categorized as gay and lesbian fiction and there’s a graphic sex scene in the middle of it.  And yet, every bit of action that happens afterward hinges on this, so it’s not salacious so much as it is hysterical, as well as being very, very timely with all the Travolta business lately.) 

(Third caveat - you guys are well aware that I would die rather than to write anything even vaguely dirty - so much spelling - but when scenes like this are included to advance the action or better define the characters, then I’m absolutely fine with them.  Ultimately, I want to read a good story, you know?)

My point is, I didn’t find the book hard to put down so much as I found it hard to hold up because my laziness knows no bounds.  I’ve become very spoiled with the advent of the e-reader.  At one point during my paperback read, I thought, “Here I am, propping this book up with two hands like a sucker.  If I had this on Kindle, then I could use NO hands, save for the occasional page flip.”

So I downloaded it and spent the next week toggling back and forth between print and electronic copies.  I’d read my Kindle until the plane took off, then I’d pick right up in paperback until the captain turned off the seatbelt sign and we reached our cruising altitude, only going back to paper upon our descent.

Now, I’ve had books that I’ve concurrently read in paper and electronic form before, but have never swapped them in and out so intermittently.  And maybe I’m the last horse to cross the finish line here, but I’ve discovered there’s a tremendous difference, even though the words are exactly the same.

The print edition of My Lucky Star has a stylized font that harkens to an earlier time and reinforces the whole theme of the book.  Yet the print on the Kindle looks exactly like every other book that I’ve read.  As I went back and forth, I found myself having to re-read portions of what I’d seen electronically because I missed the nuances of an actual book. 

I guess the medium really is the message.

I’m not sure where this leaves me as a reader because I love the ease and convenience and pricing of my Kindle reads, but I also care about the subtle but appreciable differences in a real book. 

Most likely, I’ll choose on a case by case basis going forward.

So, next up in my Summer of Other Reading Series – Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman. 

I’m about ten percent into it and am already madly, deeply in love with what I’ve read.  Now I'm so mad at myself for not having the chance to meet the author at the Gaithersburg book festival.   Domestic Violets is funny and poignant and the author's voice is so clear it feels like he's telling the story directly to me.

After that, I’m on to Jane Devin’s Elephant Girl, which the author herself was kind enough to send me.

I’m not sure what’s on the list after that but I'll be sure to share when I do choose.  And I'm seriously thrilled to have the rest of the summer to figure it all out.

(Yet another caveat - if you’re still busy reading Jeneration X, that’s okay, too.)

(Final caveat - files with embedded footnotes for Jen X have now been sent to all the ebook sellers, but they upload them to their servers on their own schedule.  So, the fix is in but it may take a day or two to be in effect.  If you've already purchased, contact the bookseller for a free updated copy.  Thanks!)