Finally has a title!
TESTING KATE
Thanks for all of the great title ideas you emailed me!

Check out my latest blog entry at Literary Chicks, in which I explain why exactly I spent yesterday afternoon baking a pie instead of working on my new book.

So here’s the deal: I need a title for my fourth book. It’s about a woman going through her first year of law school — sort of an updated One-L, only funny and with lots of sex.
So, please, I’m begging you . . . throw me some suggestions for a title. And to sweeten the deal, if I use yours, I’ll send you a signed copy of She, Myself & I (which curledup.com recently called “a joy to read.”).
Email me your ideas at whitney -at- whitneygaskell.com.
Happy Thanksgiving!

My latest blog is up at Literary Chicks, in which I discuss sisters, dogs and the comfort gene.

You can tell that the Florida season has begun. All of a sudden, our little town is full of very old people driving very big cars.
V-e-r-y slowly.
My dad and step-mom were visiting in the spring, and I got behind a huge Cadillac creeping along at twenty miles under the speed limit . . . in a thirty-five mile per hour zone.
“Come on, Gramps, hurry up,” I muttered.
“Gramps?” my dad asked. “Excuse me? As a grandfather, I take offense at that.”
“Oops,” I said. “I forgot I had one on board.”

I’ve never understood why some people insist on giving all of their dogs the same name. For some reason, after their dog dies, they name their new dog after the dead one, so that they always have a cocker spaniel named Goldie in residence.
I think it’s a weird thing to do. Do these people lack the imagination necessary to think up a new name? Are they simply attached to the name? Or are they trying to fool their kids into thinking that it’s really the same dog?
“Yes, Junior, I know Muffy used to weigh forty-seven pounds and only have three legs,” the parent says, when they bring the new Jack Russell terrier puppy home. “But she was on a diet while she was away . . . and she regenerated her leg. Dogs can do that, you know. Just like starfish.”
When I was a teenager, I used to baby-sit for a horrible family. They didn’t have cable, never had any good snacks in and always let their kids have sleepovers on the nights when I watched them. They also had a forlorn looking golden retriever named Chelsey, who they’d periodically breed (and yes, when Chelsey had a litter in, I was also responsible for babysitting the puppies).
One evening, I was out in the backyard with the kids, and I stumbled upon the family’s pet cemetery, where Chelsey’s I – VIII had been laid to rest. For some reason, I found this incredibly creepy. They’d only lived in the neighborhood for four years. Were they going through dogs at that fast a clip, or had they brought the dog’s bodies with them when the moved?
Really, there’s no good answer to that question.

Because you can never have too many pictures of porcupine babies. Especially on a Wednesday.

An effective threat, I think.

My latest post at Literary Chicks is up . . . but be warned (Mom and Dad, this means you!), today’s entry has a PG-13 rating.

I was working on a scene in my new book where one of the main characters does something dumb after having had a few drinks too many, and it started me reminiscing about my own drunken exploits.
Good times.
There are the dumb moments (like when I couldn’t find my car and was convinced it had been stolen, before remembering that I hadn’t been the designated driver that night — thank God), and the embarrassing ones (like when . . . no, I don’t think I’ll share that one after all). But the most mortifying drunken exploit happened on my twenty-first birthday.
The date: February 8, 1993

The place: London, England
The beverage: Shots of something. Tequila, perhaps? Gah, I can’t even imagine doing a tequila shooter now. It would probably kill me.
The event: After my four roommates got me liquored up at our local pub, we decided for some reason that we should pay a visit to the Queen. As in, the Queen of England. We loaded ourselves into a black cab, and had the driver take us to Buckingham Palace. Once there, we stood at the gate and repeatedly — and loudly — demanded to see the Queen. And, if I remember correctly, we might also have danced a bit. And sung.
The very nice, very professional guard politely told us that (a) the Queen was asleep, and (b) if we didn’t leave he’d arrest us.
Yet further proof that youth is wasted on the young.