Pretty Please

I like to imagine that there has been a great deal of begging and pleading and tears and bribes and back rubs to get me to update more frequently.  I like to imagine it, because it is So.  Not.  true.  Is it wrong that I like to picture someone waking up in the morning, logging onto their computer, and salivating as they wait for my blog to load, only to have their day ruined by the fact that I haven't written a word in ages?  What's that?  That's arrogant?  Oh.  Right.  So you're saying it's not wrong?

Truthfully, the past month has been a blur.  As some of you know, I am getting my own place, for the very first time in my ramen-noodle-plagued life.  I cannot tell you how excited I am.  No more fighting for the couch, the remote, or the shower.  No more having to clean up other people's shit or try to dust around their clutter.  I am SUCH an only child, and this promotion has only caused my space issues to break through my thick skull and clamor for my attention. 

Apples to Apples has expressed her concern that living on my own will turn me into a shut-in.  To which I replied, Who cares?  Is there ever anything happening in the world that beats a good episode of Law & Order?  Okay, yes, maybe, but only, like, once every three months, and when that thing happens, whatever it is, I will be there to witness it.  But I will spend the remaining twelve weeks sleeping on the sofa to the gentle lilt of syndicated USA.

In other news, I went home for my mom's birthday two weekends ago.  I have a love/hate relationship with home.  I love my parents, love spending time with them, but there's something stifling about my hometown.  If I'm there more than ten days, I start to go batshit crazy.  I have no idea what that's about - maybe the fear that I will have to move back there one day.  Then I remember I don't have to do anything, because I am a spoiled, entitled child who has had a relatively easy time of it.

One annoying thing did happen.  I sent out an email two weeks before my visit to all my friends from home, telling them I would be in for the weekend and would love to see them, and letting them know I was promoted, because I thought they'd be happy for me.  How many emails did I get in return?  Zero.  Fine.  I don't expect a party or a ticker tape parade.  What I don't like, though, is the accusation that I think I'm too good for them, which I occasionally get when I go back there.  How can I be the snob, when they are the ones who won't respond to an email?  I talked to another one of our writers about this.  She's from a small town in Texas, and she said her friends were happy to talk to her and hear all her LA stories when she was struggling, but as soon as she got her break, they wanted nothing to do with her.  I think that's sad, but I guess I understand it.  I don't think for one second that any of my friends are that insecure.  They are probably just busy with their own lives, which, good for them.  But if I said my feelings weren't hurt, I'd be lying.  And snobs don't lie.

Anyway, I have nothing else to complain about, and that in itself is worth celebrating.  PLUS, I got to meet the lovely and talented author of Dating Is Hell (www.dating-is-hell.blogspot.com), the novelist herself (www.katiemorton.com).  She has long been one of my very favorite bloggers, and we are both working on novels, so when she emailed me to say she was coming to LA, I was thrilled!  I find her ambition and energy very motivating, so we are going to start "answering to" each other for our prose.  I mean, I haven't talked to Cliffhanger about this, and I should, because she's the only person I've let read any of that crappy monstrosity of run-on sentences.  She will most certainly object, because she objects to most ideas I have.  And I haven't told my agents I'm even writing a novel, because they will run screaming in the general direction of the poorhouse.  I would get the same response from them if I told them I were writing a play, a short story, or crafting a diorama.  As I like to say, you don't move to Hollywood for artistic integrity.  Oh, wait.  I don't like to say that.  In fact, no one I know says that.  In fact, when someone asks us what we do for a living, we say, "We make the stories that come between the tampon ads."