Chapter One of She, Myself & I is up! Read it here.

Me: [showing George the test swatch of paint on the bedroom wall] Maybe this isn’t the right shade of green. What do you think?
George: I hate it.
Me: What do you hate about it?
George: It makes me want to stick a fork in my eye.
Me: That’s very descriptive. But what I meant was, what exactly about this shade of green do you not like? Is it too bright?

George: Yes, it’s too bright! It manages to be garish, and revolting, and pukey all at the same time. And it’s not just pukey, it’s an organic form of pukey. It’s awful. I hate it. There aren’t enough words to convey just how much I hate it.
Me: [studying the paint swatch] Hmmm. Maybe it’ll look better once it’s up on the entire wall.

Yesterday, I had a sinus infection and a cranky toddler. Today, I had a sinus infection, a cranky toddler and a dentist appointment.
Perhaps tomorrow the IRS will come calling.

Terry McMillan is divorcing her much younger husband, Jonathan Plummer — a relationship that was the inspiration for her best-selling novel, How Stella Got Her Groove Back — because it turns out he doesn’t really dig older chicks after all.
In fact, he doesn’t dig chicks period.
Once McMillan’s husband came out of the closet, things quickly got ugly between to the two:

In a Jan. 14 letter written by McMillan and filed with the court, the author told Plummer, “The reason you’re going to make a great fag is that most of you guys are just like dogs anyway. … You do whatever with whomever pleases you and don’t seem to care about the consequences.”

Plummer also says McMillan came into the dog-grooming shop and left him a bottle of Jamaican hot pepper sauce on which she wrote, “Fag Juice Burn Baby Burn,” and that she also scrawled “Jonathan’s Fag boyfriend Fag” on a photo of a friend.

Ron Hogan over at Beatrice.com (my favorite literary website) isn’t buying McMillan’s protests that she really isn’t a homophobe.
I’m not so sure I agree with him. Yes, her remarks weren’t pleasant, but then again . . . if I’d been married to someone for six years, and our romance was held up as a triumphant anthem for divorcees everywhere, I’d be pretty hacked off to discover that my paramour was just using me for a green card and access to my bank accounts. I’d probably wing a few ceramic objects at his head, too, and I definitely wouldn’t want anything I said while I was throwing said ceramic objects to be printed up in the San Francisco Chronicle.
So maybe we should cut McMillan some slack. I don’t know if there’s really proof that she hates gay men everywhere . . . more likely it’s just the one that she’s now stuck doling out $2000 a month in spousal support to.
This reminds me of what David Letterman said after seeing the movie adaptation of Stella: “So Stella got her groove back . . . now give me my ten dollars back.”
Lame joke, but it makes me laugh whenever I think of it.

The last time I went to a Japanese steakhouse was before my high school junior prom. I was wearing a fetching strapless tea length gown, with a bow across the chest. And although I was overdressed — as were my friends in their prom gowns and rental tuxes — I remember the restaurant as being quite nice: Filet Mignon on the menu. Classy decor. The kind of place you dress up for.
So carrying this image in my mind, I was in for a shock when we went to Benihana last night. And then left without eating.
“I really don’t think you should get the sushi here,” I whispered to George, taking in the grungy dining room. Everything looked dirty and rundown, from the sticky tables to the soiled floor.
I waitressed my way through college, and know first hand that the public areas at a restaurant are always cleaner than the kitchen. If the dining room is grotty, chances are the chefs are keeping company with cockroaches and rats in the back.
When I was kid, it used to drive me crazy when my mom would fret about how clean the kitchen of a restaurant was. She would ask random people if they knew how hygenic the kitchen staff was, while I’d roll my eyes and say, “Moooooom, stop asking people that.”
I haven’t gotten to the point where I’ll poll strangers, but I will walk out of a restaurant that doesn’t meet my cleanliness standards. Which is what we did last night.
“Do you want to stay?” George whispered.
“God, no,” I said, and we got up and headed for the door.
On our way out, we passed a group of twentysomething patrons heading in. One of the girls in the party was wearing a string bikini. That’s it. Just the bikini. No cover up, no tank top. She was eating dinner in four triangles of nylon, held together by a few pieces of string.
George immediately dubbed the restaurant “Hoochiehana.”
We’re living in a world where a supposedly sophisticated woman like Barbara Walters is outraged to have a woman breastfeeding in her presence (“There’s a NIPPLE somewhere near by . . . maybe I can’t see it, but I know it’s there, and I DON’T LIKE IT!”), but it’s perfectly acceptable to go out to eat when you’re mostly naked. It was bad enough when the hippy chicks were wearing jeans so low you could see ass cracks and thong straps, but now they’ve decided to dispense with clothing altogether. Apparently these days boobs are only acceptable when they’re on display — preferably after they’ve been stuffed with silicone — but if you dare to use them for their intended purpose in public, well that’s crossing the line.

George and I spent the past few days in Key West, although we headed home early, because:
(1) It was really, really hot,
(2) The town was swarming with vampiric mosquitos,
(3) We missed the Blonde Tornado, and
(4) We were sort of bored.
If you don’t scuba (which we don’t), or fish (which we don’t), or drink heavily (again, don’t), there isn’t a whole hell of a lot to do in Key West.
We did go to a shipwrecked treasure museum, but it was so awful — and so overpriced — that we renamed it, “The Craptastic Crapitorium.”

Howard Jones was freakin’ robbed.

When the South Florida summer heat drives us inside for three straight months, there’s nothing new to watch on television. It’s never new to me, because I taped everything I wanted to watch the first time it was aired.
I’m thinking about taking up Grey’s Anatomy, which I’ve heard is good. I don’t think I can spend the next three months watching Law & Order: SVU reruns on cable every night.

Sam’s been screaming for forty minutes straight.
I think the original complaint had something to do with the deodorant stick that he wanted to play with, and which I — Mean Mommy — took away from him. But it’s largely conjecture at this point, and in any event, his grievances have escalated since then.
The parenting books tell you to ignore tantrums. A good idea in theory. But the Blonde Tornado can be very persistent.
As I frequently point out to George, 21-month old toddlers are like bowling balls with legs attached for mobility.

Because:
(1) It’s really freaking hot out.
(2) My baby’s new hair style looks frighteningly like the one Jim Carrey sported in “Dumb and Dumber,” complete with the too-short and too-straight bangs. I’m thinking about just buzzing it all off before the other toddlers at playgroup start to ostracize him.
(3) The Bloomingdales sale was not as fabulous as advertised, especially since the only Lilly Pulitzer items on the sales rack were in the every-popular size 0 – 6 range. Which, as I pointed out to my ever-optimistic mother, I couldn’t fit into, even with the aid of a shoehorn and a bottle of canola oil.
(4) Because of said trip to Bloomies, I didn’t get any work done today on the revisions to my new book. Not working makes me itchy and restless.
(5) I have a weird skin allergy to rings. If I wear my wedding band for more than a few hours at a time, as I did today, it gives me a rash.
(6) I’ve vacuumed the living room rug three times in the past three days, and even so, it’s yet again covered with dog hair, cracker crumbs and general grunge.
(7) The grocery store has started charging the usurious price of $9.59 for one 3/4 of a pound of Starbucks coffee. Which isn’t even that good to begin with, but better than anything else one can get locally and easily.
Screw it, I’m going to bed.