Hi. I'm home from my book tour. I have a two foot pile of mail and 1,398 unread emails. I hate when that happens.
Because I really do try to keep up with my correspondence. But it's hard to find the time when you're on the road. Because you're so busy rushing around at seven thirty in the morning trying to get through security in the airport without flashing everyone your underarm hair and all.
So I have this like ten foot long To Do list that I keep on a Sticky on my Mac. Here is what's on it right now:
*Answer reader mail
*Pay bills
*Med6 revision—due Feb 1 (MY BIRTHDAY)
*PD6 revision—due Feb 1 (MY BIRTHDAY)
*White House Project short story–due Feb 1 (THANKS FOR MAKING SO MANY
THINGS DUE ON MY BIRTHDAY)
*Lisa Library story of friendship–due Mar 1
*Every Boy's Got One—due March 15 (This WAS due on my birthday, but I
asked for an extension)
In case you didn't know, EVERY BOY'S GOT ONE is the sequel I'm doing to my new book, BOY MEETS GIRL. It's due March 15. And I haven't started it yet. Don't tell my editor.
But you know what? It's all cool. I realize I have three things due February 1 (MY BIRTHDAY), and that's in one week. But I'm feeling much better with the lyme thing now that I've taken my antibiotics. I feel like a different person, in fact. I even EXERCISED the other day. I am more convinced than ever that I have had lyme for at least the past three years. Because that's how long it's been since I felt like exercising.
Of course it could be that laying around eating cookies all day contributed to my lack of desire for physical exertion. And now that I've had to stop eating cookies, I am getting energy from all the chicken and broccoli I am forcing myself to choke down. But I find that hard to believe.
Anyway, so I have all this stuff due on my birthday. But that's okay, you don't have to buy me anything. There's nothing I really want anyway. Well, OK, there is, but you can't get it for me. Here is a list of things I want for my birthday:
1) My two foot pile of mail gone through and answered.
2) The 1,398 emails in my inbox read and answered.
3) The OC to stop sucking. I'm serious about this. I watched the episodes I missed while I was on tour, and all I have to say is: This show needs to get some female writers. Because no woman—and I mean NO WOMAN—would EVER go to bed wearing as much eye makeup as Anna was wearing when she and Seth were in Oliver's Palm Springs house. Did you SEE that? She said good night and rolled over and closed her eyes and they were SLATHERED with that icky blue crap she wears all over her eyelids. That stuff is going to get ALL OVER the pillowcase. Who is going to wash it off? Oliver's mom? That is so RUDE.
Also, didn't Anna's mother ever tell her it is HORRIBLE for your skin to wear makeup to bed? I know when I was twelve my mother handed me a bottle Phisoderm (whatever, she had never heard of Cetaphil) and said, “Wash your face with this every night before you go to bed and then again when you wake up, and don't pick at those pimples.”
There is one thing I have never done in my adult life and in all likelihood never will do, no matter how drunk I might be, and that is: Go to bed with my makeup still on and my face unwashed.
Once in college this guy gave me some “punch” at a frat party that he told me was alcohol free, so I drank a whole bunch of it because I was really thirsty, and it didn't taste like alcohol or anything.
But it turned out that that punch contained Everclear, a beverage which I strongly recommend you all avoid and which is like 100% proof alcohol, and which I believe frat boys used as Roofies before there were Roofies, and which is why you shouldn't go to frat parties. I was so drunk that night, my friends had to carry me home.
But even that night, I still remembered to wash my face before I went to bed.
I know what you're saying. You're saying, “Meg, it's just a TV show. Maybe the actress didn't want to show her face scrubbed free of makeup on air. And besides, The OC has way bigger problems than Anna's not washing her face before bed. What about Oliver? Anytime a TV series introduces a character named Oliver, that's a sign the show is in big trouble.”
And you would be right. But I don't find any of that as disturbing as Anna's blatant disregard for Oliver's guest sheets. Or the fact that Seth actually brought a humidifier to what I'm sure he presumed would be his first sexual encounter. But let's not go there. Back to the birthday list:
4) World Peace. Ha, just kidding. I saw that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa wished for World Peace and then aliens invaded the planet and enslaved us all because we were too pacifistic to fight back. I'm no dope. I'd settle for an end to world hunger.
5) The shoemaker's elves to come in the middle of the night and finish all my work for me so I can watch all the other shows I TiVoed while I was gone, such as the Joan of Arcadia with the KISS and The Newlyweds new season and the True Life with the twins and all those 1-800-Missings.
But the truth is, beyond those five things, there's nothing I want for my birthday, since I pretty much have everything I could ever want. And really, three of the five things on my list I could actually accomplish if I just work at it. And the world hunger thing I can at least help a little by sending a check to the Salvation Army or whatever.
But The OC? There is nothing I can do about how much it is starting to suck. Maybe one of you know the writers of that show and you can send them this with a note that says, “Please give Meg what she wants for her birthday, and make your show back the way it was before it got all self-aware and started sucking. Make Summer start dating Orlando Bloom so Seth can SUFFER for not choosing her over Anna, who has such disregard for other people's linens and proper skincare technique.”
That would be a totally cool birthday present.
Anyway, now that I'm home again, I better get to work on the wishes I CAN do something about. Thanks for reading.
Much Love,
Meg