“The story of two women separated by oceans, generations and war, but connected by something much greater--the gift of wings.”

All feels right with the world.  I am excited to begin edits on my next book.  It has been a good while in the making.  Looking back at journal entries, I realize that I started the book toward the end of 2010/the beginning of 2011--after finishing PERFECT BIRDS, my second novel.  It sounds a little confusing, but basically, I've written two novels since THE HANDBOOK FOR LIGHTNING STRIKE SURVIVORS, and the third one will be the next one to be published; it will be my first novel published by Simon and Schuster.  (The Handbook... was published by a branch of Random House.)

Over the past two years, there were times when I thought that I

would never be able to render this story the justice it deserved.  It is an epic novel spanning oceans, wars and generations, but it is also an intimate novel, a story of one family, splintered, but connected by the power of two girls borns with wings.  I had trouble finding that intimate fully-formed narrative amidst the larger world view of a country ravaged by war and occupied for fifty years.  But I did it.  Insert weird cheer dance here.   

All is right with the world.  The seeds have sprouted.  It's the growing season.   

But, you might ask:

Q. When will it be published?

And, I'd tell you in my long-winded way:

A.  I don't know, not yet, but I'm all right with that.  Maybe next year, I think, but again, I'm not sure, and again, I'm really good with that.  You see, when it is published, it will be the book that I always hoped it would be.  It will be a novel that you'll want to read.  It will be one of those books that you won't want to put down, but near the end, you'll only read a page at a time because you won't want it to be over.  Every novelist wants to write a book like that.  I think maybe hopefully that I've succeeded at this.  We'll see.  Fingers crossed.  

It feels good to be over the rainbow.  There really is a pot of gold down there.  

Book Giveaway Coming Soon on Goodreads!

Sunset

Hi peeps.  It's been too long since I've posted any New News, but here goes:

1.  Got a great book giveaway coming @Goodreads within the next couple days.  (Two signed first edition hardback copies of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors.)

2.  Took a hiatus from my new book, but now back at work, feeling positive and excited!!

3.  My sweet boy is getting all kinds of accolades in school.  I am very proud of him.

4.  As always, my husband is awesome and supportive.  We are enjoying our new digs.  

5.  Thanks for hanging with me and waiting patiently for the next book.  If you want to check out some of my artwork and other shenanigans, peek at my new photo page on FlickR. Oh, yeah, and I dig Pinterest too!  

p. s. My web hosting company has vanished.  So when you go to www.micheleyoungstone.com, there is currently NADA there.  My apologies.  I will have this fixed in no time.  (My web address is on every copy of every book printed.  Ugh!)

Christmas on the Water, 2012

People are still reading The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  My debut novel, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, is the little book that could.

Rescued from the slush pile by my agent, Michelle Brower, refined and brought to fruition and to publication by my incomparable genius editor, Sarah Knight, this book about Becca Burke and Buckley Pitank is still shining a little light out there in independent bookstores and among the finest book bloggers and reviewers.

Thank you to A. B. Riddle for choosing The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors as one of her TOP PICKS, one of her favorite books.  Read more here!

"We've read some great books here at Underground Book Reviews. Our Top Picks are the ones that stood out above the rest. If you're looking for a book to read, you might want to check some of these titles out. Here's the books we loved, and why:"

And thank you to everyone who has read and loved the book and spread the good word.  Thank you Underground Book Reviews!    And thank you to everyone else for the love!

If you know somebody who hasn't read the book yet, loan them your copy or ask them to order a copy from their local bookseller.

I am hard at work on my next novel, tentatively titled FLIGHT, and due out To Be Determined.  This "little" book is not so little anymore.  It's growing, spreading wings, "taking off" really.  

Book Review: In One Person by John Irving

I'm in the business of writing books, not reviewing them, BUT...  In One Person is written with gusto and heart.  Admittedly and brilliantly heavy-handed, the book does what it sets out to do, and exemplifies the narrator's last spoken word:  "'My dear boy, please don't put a label on me--don't make me a category before you get to know me!'"

I am reminded of a few book clubs where readers told me they were "uncomfortable" at the sex in my debut novel.  "How do you decide what to include and how much to include-sexually speaking?"  "Does it have to be there?"  "Can't you just allude to it?"  One of my best friends, a fellow writer used to tell me, "Don't leave the audience without the payoff."  Well, rest-assured, John Irving does not leave you without payoff in In One Person.  

Although, like everyone else, man or woman, I am pining for the young, cruel Jacques Kittredge, aside from Jacques, there's not too much pining in this novel.  

As with all of Irving's books, there's a broad spectrum of nuanced characters, a scenic Vermont, bears or beers, Venice, Switzerland, WrEsTlinG, lust and love, with everything tying back and forward and back again to the characters' motivations.  No one is all bad, not even Jacques Kittredge's mother.  "What's a mom to do under the circumstance?" (Can't give it away...)

Irving captures the brutality of the AIDS epidemic in a manner that is not over-done.  It's just enough.  He trusts his reader to know WHAT happened and how it happened and how most of America distanced themselves, remaining "uninvolved", from the horror of what was happening.

This book, like nearly all of John Irving's novels, will replay and resonate with me for a long time.  And I hope that, as when Maya Angelou reminded me, 'If someone calls someone a nigger, you're guilty if you don't speak up and protest the racism,' I hope that this book helps to reinforce that we should not stand by and let people, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Question Mark, be called "fag" or "lesbo" or any other derogatory term.  Nor should we stand by and let our laws discriminate against anyone based on sexual identity.  

John Irving's book is an apt and timely work of fiction, relevant to today's decisive, often discriminatory atmosphere.  "We already are who we are, aren't we?"  

Aren't we?    

  

Where I am born... part 3

Bloody,

maligned,

rooted to Eve,

Madame Bovary

and Lady MacBeth.

Conniving,

manipulative,

saucy,

censored and selfish.

Birthing babies, books, and birds.

Belly up on the tide.

"Who do you think you are?"

...

"I don't know."

"What do you want?"

...

"The whole world.  All of it.  I'm selfish like that."

Where I am born, part 2

Painting pelicans last night and a red ibis today.  Jumping in the canal, swimming with blue crabs and fish and forgetting that I'm a grown up.  Because it's never too late to be born again, baptized in brackish water.

Mom called this morning to tell me that there are pots and pans on QVC.  She is worried because I only have one pot and nothing matches.  I steam vegetables in a colander, and my cookie sheets double as pot lids.  

I don't want non-stick pans.  I like things sticky, or at least I like Revere ware.  Gotta get to the thrift store, buy a pot and a pink dress.  Gotta get used to my new digs.  Gotta keep writing and painting.

When I was seven, born again in Chester, Virginia, I went house to house looking for friends.  I found some.

When I was 34 and my son was born, I was born again, looking for other mothers, trying to figure out how I would protect my darling boy.  Again, I went door to door, mommy group to mommy group, in search of friends.  And again, I found them.

So "here I am again on my own, going down the only road I've ever known," (How many times am I going to quote that song?  God help me!) seeking out friendships, but this time it's not for me.  This time, it's for my little boy, who is sitting with his own notebook, writing his own stories, reminding me that alone time is often a good thing.  A good time to work things out, to be creative, to find our inner selves.  I'm not really "alone" and neither is he.  But I'm still going to help him make friends.  Here he comes with "Fun Dip."  Good times.  Fun times.  

Where I am Born

1978

My birth certificate says Norfolk General Hospital but that ain't it, not in the sense of where my story begins.

I was born in a dank den, sitting at a stained writing desk, a pipe tobacco in the left drawer, red shag carpet underfoot.  It was 1978 and I was alone.  My parents were at work and my older sister had made friends.  I was born buck-toothed and fat with frizzy hair, wearing a T-Shirt that said "Bug Off."  Of course, there was a lady bug on the shirt.

I was born writing, imagining, rhyming, making up friends and other worlds to inhabit.  I was born without parental supervision.  Everybody had to work.  I was born baking brownies, measuring sugar, cracking eggs.  I didn't know anybody.  There was a willow tree in the front yard where I liked to hide and make up adventures.  There was a steep hill where I tended to fall down.

I didn't like being alone.

...to be continued    

Woman Seeking New Adventures

Are you STATIC or Are you Woman Seeking New Adventures?

I just had another birthday, and I am so grateful!  I quote Dylan Thomas far too often, but here I go again "on my own, going down the only road I've ever known..."  Oops!  That's White Snake!  Here we go:  "Do not go gentle into that good night/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Rage, I say.  RAge and RaGe and RAGE because with old age, you can think less about what others think of you.  YOU KNOW YOU.  You know what's good for you and what isn't.  You know WHO is good for you and who isn't.  

Oh, don't go gently into that good night.  Blaze and Dance.  Burn, baby, burn!  

Say "Fuck it!" more often... (Just not around small children.)  

Rage, Bitches!  Rage!

Bird Calls from The Saints of Los Vientos

An excerpt:

Los Vientos, Florida

March 28, 1989

Prue sat on the white coquina sand of Los Vientos watching the pelicans dive into the water.  She was fascinated by all manner of birds. With binoculars pressed to her face, she was still and quiet, watching for Florida’s sand hill crane, a bird much rarer than the grey osprey.  The sand hill crane’s mating song, which Prue had heard only once, was two cheetah-like female calls answered by a long cheetah-like sound from the male, the calls repeating until the birds met.  It was a love song.  With their long legs and pointed beaks, the tall cranes soared through the sky with a wingspan of six feet.  Prue had seen a flock of at least fifty birds flying together.  Dr. Neal Carl, who worked at the St. Mark’s Nature Reserve, told Prue that the sand hill crane’s cousin lived all the way in Siberia.  “It’s a rare bird.  A sight to behold.”  What kind of birds do they have in Lithuania?  She couldn’t wait to meet her grandfather.  Does he like birds?  Her father liked birds.  He was the one who’d sent the binoculars: a Christmas present.  He’d written a card.  You are always on my mind.  It was a Willie Nelson song.  Did he mean it?  She was twelve the year the binoculars arrived.  Am I always on your mind?  She still didn’t know.  

              Her mother said, “Bird watching is for old people who have nothing better to do with their time.”

 “Then I guess I’m an old people.”

Her father had also written that he’d try to see her the next Christmas.  Five Christmases had passed without him.  You were always on my mind.  If I made you feel second best, Girl I’m sorry I was blind…

Today, Prue saw the Sand Hill Crane.  She got to her feet.  There were only four of them, two males and two females, majestic with long legs, their beaks a hundred blended shades of brown.  The first one flapped its wings; its feathers appeared burnt red in the sunlight.  Its wings billowed and dropped, billowed and dropped.  The next three ascended from the marsh.  Within seconds, the four birds soared effortlessly overhead.  Prue reached back and touched her scars.  Then, adjusting the binoculars, spoke to the sky: “I want to fly.” 

#

1941, Exact Date Unknown, Speculation, Conjecture

There’s a chance that Alexandra Zilius, Frederikas’ mother, who, as you know, loved birds so much she birthed one, saw the sand hill crane’s cousin in Siberia. 

There’s a chance that after the cattle cars had stopped and the dead mothers and babies were deposited into waiting mass graves… that Alexandra, who’d once sung arias, was showered and deloused, and after a wind-and-frost burned man pointed to a Soviet sign needing no interpretation: Work is an Honor, that Alexandra, Freddie’s loony-goony grandmother, spotted or heard one of only 10,000 sand hill cranes then inhabiting eastern Siberia.  It would’ve been a bird she’d never seen, and she would’ve been in awe of its size, in its ability to traverse continents, and of course, in its song.  There’s always a chance.  And my bet is that if she wasn’t rolling “wee” down that green hillside, she must’ve seen and heard that bird.  

From the latest novel, The Saints of Los Vientos, due for publication in Spring/Summer, 2013 by Simon and Schuster.

Petras Zilius was taken at gunpoint across green fields to an area behind the slaughterhouse where a mass grave had already been dug.  The butcher was amongst the men whose hands were tied behind his back.  The soldiers went from man to man, taking their jewelry and identification.  “Get on your knees.”  Most of the Lithuanian men knew Russian, but they didn’t obey.  The soldiers prodded them with rifles.  They whacked them in the backs of their legs, making them fall to their knees.  The men faced the hole.  There were no cigarettes and no blindfolds, and it’s doubtful that, as much as Freddie Zilius would like to think his grandfather had a song in his head playing through his fingers, that Petras Zilius was thinking anything, but “My family.  Oh my God!  My family!”  Petras Zilius and eighty-three other Lithuanian men were shot in the backs of their heads and booted face first into the mass grave.  A few were still alive, but the dirt came just the same.  It covered ministers and machinists.  It dusted blacksmiths, accountants and doctors.  It fell in rich clumps over lawyers, shop clerks, poets, teachers and musicians.  It didn’t discriminate.  The rich Lithuanian soil tended by its people was being used to hide their deaths. 

            Frederikas ran from house to house in search of help.  He was not at home when his mother was carried away and forced into a cattle car.  He was not at home when his sisters were killed or when the youngest, just sixteen, ran into the forest, digging a saucer of dirt to hide.  To be a turnip or a bird.  Rooted or free.


*I'm making shrinky dink necklaces based on my characters.  "Ti-i-i-ime is on my side with you."  Have a fabulous Thanksgiving.  XO Shel

Where's Michele? At 7 o'clock, WORD Brooklyn.

Here I am! Here I am!

Hard at work on revising novel #3--The Saints of Los Vientos. I had expected to be finished by Oct. 1st. Then by Oct. 12th, and now I am shooting for Oct. 28th.

The book is written. There is a beginning, middle and end, but as my delightful agent pointed out--from reading the first chapter--"You have to remember 'clarity'. Not everyone is going to know who these people are...' Me and my weird wonky brain.

Anyhoo, I am in Brooklyn right now, in Greenpoint, and loving it. This is my first time staying in Brooklyn. Tonight, I am on a panel with the talented, NY Times Bestselling author, Heidi Durrow, and my brilliant cupcake of an agent, Michelle Brower. I also get to hang with my editor at Simon and Schuster. She's no cupcake. She's more like a conductor, a wielder of light and lightning. (And Michelle is only cupcake on the surface. She is brilliant cupcake. Tangy.)

So, here I am. Where are you? Whatcha doin'?

Ooh, ooh, ooh, and lest I forget to mention it: My sister is here in Brooklyn with me. Yay, Sis! See you back in RVA soon. And seriously: Whatcha doin?

--If you happen to be in NYC or Brooklyn tonight, come see me. 7 o'clock! Word Brooklyn. I will sign a book for you. I will even dance. More than likely. I'm going to be surrounded by my favorite people.

XXXOO

michele

ARE YOU A CRAZY SHELL?

Since my son started talking, I've picked up a new nickname, "Shel".

At birth, my dad nicknamed me Micki Moose because I was such a plump baby.

My friend Anne calls me "Shell" with two l's and got me this book, which is a pretty strange book--as I am a strange bird. Feeling woozy and wonky as I finish book three. Feeling like Micki Moose and Shel and Shell.

Because I'm a Michele with one "l", I find it difficult to be "Shell." I know that this sounds like Crazy Shell talk, but I guess that's what I'm getting at: Do most writers feel more comfortable in the worlds they write? Do most writers feel like their characters are more than figments of their imaginations? Are the characters your friends? Do your characters write you letters? Do you cry when you have no other option than to kill them off? Are we all hanging on by a thread to keep the fictional world separate from the real world, or are we ALL hanging by a thread, each and every one of us (in one way or another)?

Am I a Crazy Shell?

Are you a crazy shell? What's your nickname? What's your favorite food? Do you sleep with socks on or off? Nightlight or pitch black?

Crazy "Shel" wants to know!

Canned Chicken, Anyone?

We caught a Baltimore Orioles game last night. Today, we are on our way to Lititz, PA.

Tomorrow, July 17th at 1 pm, I'll be at Aaron's Books discussing The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors. I hope to see you there!!

p. s. I thought the canned chicken was weird, but I think I may have seen them once in the Bahamas. Any thoughts on canned chicken?

XO

Are you invincible?

I write about the young and the old in my novel, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, but I've discovered... now on my third novel... that I write about generational relationships in all of my books.

With age comes wisdom. With youth, there is fearlessness; the belief that nothing can harm us. We are just beginning and so we're invincible.

There are so many similarities between young and old. Neither is caught up in the minutia of life, the clock ticking, the rushing here and there, as is referenced in The Handbook. If we manage to grow old without becoming jaded and cynical, we are even more like the very young.

It's a shame for anyone not to be awed by sunsets, flowers and oceans; ladybugs crawling on the edge of a glass; old men telling fish stories; young girls newly smitten; it's a shame not to be awed by cliffs and green fields. It's a shame not to treasure the little things. The giggles and smiles and side glances.

Please, don't ever let me lose my wits so that I forget to revel in the little things. Please don't let me ever forget my first love or the first time I held my son.

I'm reading The Madonnas of Leningrad right now and loving it, but I'm also struck again by the fear that because I want to remember every little thing, I'll forget everything. I've been through the forgetfulness that accompanies pregnancy and childbirth and now my forgetfulness has no real explanation, and I think, if it comes to dementia or Alzheimer's, let me remember with acuteness the best things. If I'm going to lose the immediate, let me have glory days.

Lately, I've been hanging out with "Grannie Annie" and she often tells me the same story over and over, but in each telling, I learn some small tidbit, that is so unique that I'm glad I got to hear the story again. She is smart and witty. She says, "I'm glad I moved here into this smaller house because this way I'm closer to my treasurer (her son)" and she laughs. She's no slouch. She's proud and quick, and I realize that even though she's no blood relation to me, I want to know her better. I want to hold her stories and retell them. Pass them along in fiction and in my own stories, and maybe when I'm very old, I'll imagine her tales as my own. Who knows? The mind is a funny place with nooks and crannies and wonderment. Let's never forget to love those softer places that are less immediate because they are history. They are who WE are, and they are no less worthy of attention.

Do you know someone who is old and who has the world to offer? Do tell!!!!

What does the D word mean?

Welcoming, Robin Antalek, the very talented and successful author of The Summer We Fell Apart.

When I wrote The Summer We Fell Apart I was not thinking about family dysfunction. I was not thinking about the D word at all. I wrote about this big messy family of artists and writers living in a large broken down house and all that longing that comes with the headspace of creative people living together. I saw the four children of Richard and Marilyn Haas as the very real end-product of a pair of dreamers, their lives and love and needs at cross purposes with the reality of raising a big family. I didn’t see these characters, which sprung fully formed from the writing gods, as victims or saviors. I just knew that I wanted to tell the story of what it was like to grow up in a large group, of how siblings often split off into smaller factions. Specifically I wanted to tell the story of the bond between the youngest Haas child Amy and her brother George, and it wasn’t until I started talking to readers that I realized I had written so much more.

What does it say about me that I didn’t identify what happened in the Haas family as dysfunction? The first early review, a rave from Publishers Weekly no less, said (among other very nice things) that The Summer We Fell Apart was… “A testament to the resilience of the human spirit” and “an easy-to-relate to dysfunctional family drama.”

What dysfunction?

My agent and editor and publishing house were thrilled at the positive buzz. Soon, more

reviews came in and most all of them used that word. Target picked up the book for nationwide distribution as a “break-out” pick. Book groups started calling and I spoke with some really lovely people, over seventy groups in all, and all of whom wanted to know if I too had grown up with this level of dysfunction.

What dysfunction?

Naturally, not wanting to sound as if I needed immediate counseling by denial, I danced around the “D” word. Since the novel spanned fifteen years in the family, I stammered through

explanations about different parenting styles, less hands-on, less hovering. Readers dissected the flawed lives of the characters as evidence of their dysfunctional upbringing. They quoted passages, referred to episodes in their own lives, and shared stories of heartbreak and disappointments and triumphs.

Very soon I realized that what I described in the book was not so easy to explain away. The father was manipulative and often cruel, disappointed by the failure of his own dreams he drank and had affairs and did nothing to shield his wife or family from the drama. His wife, reacting to the failure of her marriage retreated to her room and allowed her children to do what they wished. They floundered amid the chaos with moments of tremendous stupidity and grace. Just like we do in real life.

Finally, I ventured to ask my parents if they thought what I had created in the book was the ultimate dysfunctional family. My father, at 81, looked amused by my question. He touched the cover. “This is life,” he said. “Just life.” He paused. His own mother had died when he was three. His father, a jazz musician, unsure of what to do with a small child and his own grief, passed off my father to his dead wife’s six sisters, all, it is safe to say, at vastly different stages of their lives, all of them unprepared for a small

mother-less boy. My father’s upbringing was a patchwork of homes based upon adult availability; often he slept head-to-toe with cousins, my great-grandfather popping in from time to time between gigs. My father never felt he had a place to call his own until he bought his first house, and even then, we knew, it was hard for him to shake the shadows of the past.

“What is the urge to label everything?” My father asked. “We do what we have to do to survive, we have faith, and in the midst of it all we have each other.”

And that, I realized, is all any of us can do, in life or in fiction.

ABOUT ROBIN:

ROBIN ANTALEK is the author of The Summer We Fell Apart (HarperCollins 2010) chosen as a Target Breakout Book and soon to be published in Turkey by Artemis Yayinlari. A frequent contributor to The Nervous Breakdown (thenervousbreakdown.com), her short fiction has appeared in 52 Stories, Five Chapters, Sun Dog, The Southeast Review and Literary Mama among others. You can visit her site @ www.robinantalek.com or if brave enough, publicly admit to liking her on Facebook

My friend's son pointing to my book in Target! He's so cute!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day

For Dad:

everything I write

is about forgiveness and light;

we come from dark places, enclosed spaces

snug and warm, from our mother’s womb

to a marble tomb

and in between is one shot

one light

one poem, one passionate night

one father, one mother

one daughter and another.

Dylan Thomas said “Do not go gentle into that good night,

…Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” and

you and I take it to heart.

From you, I got rage. From you, my mad zest

my unapologetic opinions and voice

The truth that there is beauty in drama and noise.

Discordant. Mad. Cacophonic.

The sound of the five am dumpster.

The click-clack of spoon against #1 Dad

The Cremation of Sam McGee

long division at the dining room table

getting in front of that ball, getting down on one knee.

In On the Road, Jack Kerouac wrote, “The only people for me are the mad ones,

the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”

That’s you, “centerlight pop,” Awwwwwwwwwww,

and that’s me,

I am desirous, eccentric and grateful for everything.

Every second the sun lights up your face

Every time I hear you laugh.

I love you, dAd!!!!!

micki-moose, Father’s Day, 2011

My BFF is awesome. Tell me about yours.

My BFF lives in London, England, and I haven't seen her since she had her baby, Noah!

Mind you, when I had my son, over six years ago, she was my go-to gal. She did everything for me. She even had beer in the refrigerator the day I came home from the hospital. She and her then boyfriend, now husband, took care of our sweet dog, Emma Peel, while I was in the hospital. ...Oh, and lest I forget, after my "Mum" and my husband, she was the first person I told that I was pregnant. When she told me about her own pregnancy, it was via Skype, and I burst into tears. She'd done the same for me--but in person.

There's nothing like having that BFF, that girl who understands everything, and knows just what to say to make it all better.

Gemma is coming to the states this summer, and we're taking a holiday at the beach. I haven't seen her in so long, but I know that when I do see her, it will be like no time has passed (except for the baby...) Hee hee.

When I was preggers, Gemma also threw me the most terrific baby shower with handmade invitations, wonderful food, games and guests. ...And not too many games because you don't want to drive people crazy... and a select few "mates" were invited as well.

I remember that when we first met, she said, "My name's Gemma," in her delightful British accent, and I said, "My dog's name is Emma, which is like your name, except with a 'G'." Now, some people (not Gemma) might think, 'You just compared me to your dog.' Rather, she said, "I like dogs." She's the best egg so she likes animals in general.

Here's to all our BFFs. Whether near or far, there's nothing like knowing that you have that kindred spirit in the world. Maybe call yours up today. XO

"Listen, I know what you are..."

Family and Dysfunction: You got a good story to share? Tell me!!!!!!!!

When I was a teenager and I had a date, my dad would answer the door in his underwear. He would then have the unsuspecting boy sit on the couch and explain to him: "Listen, I know what you are... You're a hard-dick son-of-a-bitch, and you better not lay a finger on my daughter. I'll break your finger. I'll do more than that."

Eventually, word got around high school that anyone who wanted to take Michele on a date, should arrange to meet her outside her house, preferably six to seven houses or six to seven miles away from her dad.

Mind you, this is great fodder for being a novelist, and I love my crazy SOB DAD. He'd still break your finger if you tried to mess with me.

Why I love the ultimate boyfriend Ken!

I love New York. Today, while I was trying to buy some postcards or something, I got sandwiched by some big dudes, like Chris Kattan, Will Ferrell and Jim Carrey (on SNL) on the corner of 7th and 49th, and they said, "We like your tattoo!" "Are you a Pisces?" "The best sex I ever had was with a Pisces."

I said, "That doesn't surprise me!" Sassy girl. Me.

Then, the one guy says, "I'm serious."

I said, "So am I?"

"Are you married?"

"Better believe it."

"I'm not surprised."

"Hey," one of the guys shouts to Mickey Mouse, or the man in the Mickey Mouse costume, "It's okay. You can smack her ass. I think she'll like it." Now, I have no idea what Mickey Mouse was doing behind me. I can only imagine.

Fortunately for me (or unfortunately... if you are one of those people who has a fetish for big stuffed animals), Mickey didn't smack my ass.

#

Earlier today, an Egyptian taxi driver, 46, with 4 kids and 4 grandkids, lectured me on the evils of adoption, and told me that I needed to have more babies. Not only that, but if necessary, he would father them. People really like me!

I am grateful for all the strange mysogynistic and humorous men in New York. It's important to have a sense of humor!

If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have gone to the Barbie land of Toys R Us and bought a Ken doll who says whatever I tell him to say! Le Petit ami ideal; der perfeckte freund

"Oh Shel," he says. "You're so beautiful. I can't imagine my life without you."

"Gee... Thanks, Ken." If only you had a penis...