Why I love Maureen Dowd!!

San Francisco.

I am sorry I’ve been absent. In the last three weeks I’ve been driving up and down Texas, traveling California and as I write this I am on a plane to NY. Whew.

Here’s a story that I couldn’t wait to share with you. I was in San Fran last week promoting the book. My dear, generous, beautiful friend Jennifer Seibel Newsom and her husband, Mayor Gavin Newsom (now running for Governor) threw me a beautiful and elegant book party at their home. It was the hottest day in recent memory in the city, reaching close to 100 degrees.

While waiting at the SWA terminal at LAX, Jason, my husband, pointed out that Maureen Dowd, New York Times Op Ed Columnist was sitting on the ground with the rest of humanity waiting to board the plane. She had every newspaper that was fit to print crammed into her big leather bag, loose cash was everywhere in her purse wide open, her hair in a loose bun, jeans tucked into some really kick ass boots and she couldn’t have looked sexier. I am a big fan of hers and while she’s controversial at times, she is always hilarious and says what all of us are thinking but too afraid to say. For that I love her and read her column religiously every Wednesday and Sunday. The column she wrote in honor of her mother still resonates with me and I think of it every Mother’s Day. I felt it was a good omen and I was really impressed to be sharing the same plane with her. I wondered who she would be interviewing in SF. What she was going to write about and for a brief moment, I was jealous that I wasn’t Maureen Dowd. It passed, but I had to acknowledge it.

There are some moments in life that you are led by something greater than you. When you turn off your inner committee that could ultimately talk you out of something and listen to your soul/sole voice, your instinct. They are magic moments and I appreciate everyone that I have. I had lots of voices in side my head saying don’t approach her. Don’t bother her. Don’t be “that girl” But my soul/sole voice said otherwise. It said, “Write her a note. Be short. Be gracious. Be generous with your admiration of her. Invite her to your book party.”

So I did. An hour after arriving into SF I get a call from her assistant saying that she was on a deadline, but she was going to try and swing by the Mayor’s house and attend the soire. It was one of the greatest moments ever when she waltzed through the door. She was in a dress, some wedged high heels and her hair was down and done. Again, beautiful and sexy. She shared a story with me that when she wrote her book she had invited some notable folks to come to parties and while some did, others didn’t and it was always disappointing when they didn’t. She also was very supportive, the fellow female authorship thing and realizing how hard it can be to sell books especially in this climate and that she likes to support writers.

It was a magic moment.

Note to Self: Let the boom of your soul/sole voice drown out the cacophonous chatter of your inner committee. You’ll be surprised at what can happen.

To the right, to the right

I have a dear friend named Rogers Hartmann who has a disorder called Dystonia. She recently went on Oprah and the Today show to talk about her disorder and she blogs about what it's like to live with it.
Please check our her blog. It's full of insight, humor and the stuff that life is made of.

http://www.lifewithdystonia.com/

Monday is the new Sunday

MONDAY IS THE NEW SUNDAY. I thought it was going to be the title of my new book....but a las I shall stick to NOTE TO SELF (for now). But here it is Monday morning and my sweet, old (he's 16) Huskie, Newman is lying in the room in my house usually reserved for breakfast or painting or just clutter. But as you can see it's a luscious, cozy den with flowers!!! I had transformed it for a celebration of a friend's birthday the night before, on Sunday. It is a Monday morning when I took this photo, the day after Sunday, the day after a great party, girls gathering, a circle to celebrate all that is wonderful about being a woman.

"Monday is the new Sunday." It's an idea. A philosophy to adopt. I want to adopt it. I've always hated Mondays. So did Karen Carpenter. And that band who sang the song, Manic Monday. "I wish it was Sunday. Cause that's my fun day. I don't have to run day." I think it might be part of our DNA or a strange encoding from elementary school. It's that idea of 8 hours left in the weekend, that sacred beautiful life before the week begins again. Why does it have to be so weird and full of dread? And here's the kicker...I don't have a day job per se. I don't go to an office where I have to clock in. I don't have to be in rush hour. Actually, I don't really have to set my alarm, although I do for 7:00am everyday. But I still dread Monday morning. Who started this craziness? I often think what if I were Brooke Shields in the Blue Lagoon making bathing suits out of sea weed, sleeping under a bamboo shade structure, fishing with a spear and a piece of bamboo, (maybe I need more bamboo in my life) and hanging out with that beautiful blonde guy....would I give a shit if it were Monday? Hell No!! I would not care or know the difference.

So here it is . "Monday is the new Sunday." Where you can have a margarita at 6:00 pm, lounge in your sun room at 7:00 am with your oldest dearest dog friend and the economy isn't as bad as we perceive. Because after all Monday is just a perception. Kind of like life....an illusion full of all ways to perceive it.

Note to Self: If you don't like what you see, change your perspective.

God bless Chelsea Handler

She's real.

She rocks.

She's an activist.

She gives voice to so much that renders us speechless.

I am grateful to her for mentioning Note To Self.

Her fans listened.

Thank you, Chelsea

xo

Andrea

Mariska Hargitay Blog

Okay. Okay. I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks. And I feel guilty. Ugh. I hate that.

So rather than feeling guilty to the point of paralysis, I was asked to blog by my friend Mariska Hargitay on her website. I wanted to share that here.

Please check it out.

www.mariska.com/blog

And Please if you have any note to self you want to share with me, please email or post a comment on my blog.

apb.

fear and worry. no thanks.

I was so looking forward to today.  All weekend long the forecasters in southern california prepared us for the storm of the century, or at least the year.   A day in Los Angeles where the weather impedes your life, doesn't happen very often.  And what a better day to have that happen. Presidents day.  A day off.  50 degrees. Raining. A roaring fire.  What could be better? 

I watched people on the news sandbag their store fronts on Ventura boulevard fearing the worst. I watched newscasters who stretched from the beaches of Ventura to the mountains of San Bernadino broadcasting what might happen. rain. snow.  flooding.  the worst.   I watched an overly tan weather man tell me how bad things were going to be and to expect no less than four inches of rain in twenty four to forty eight hours.  I watched and prepared and anticipated the worst.  I was so caught up in the weather that my husband and I went to the grocery store to load up on groceries in case we couldn't make it out of our house for two days.  We bought into it.  The fear.  The worry.  The what ifs.  I was morbidly into it.  Excited by the challenge of bad weather, of weather at all.   

And while it did rain through most of the night and a little drizzle in the morning, by 1:00 in the afternoon the sun was muscling its way through the gray sky and blue sky won.  And by 4:00 there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  

How does that happen?  Two things come to mind. weather men are not supposed to be good at their jobs.  There is no other job in the world where you can be wrong time and time again, put people through hell, because of what you are telling them and be asked back to work the next day to possibly do it all over again.  I understand we live in Los Angeles and weather is hard to come by here, but for god's sake, how do you predict the storm of the century and the sun shines for half the day.  

Then it dawned on me.  We put a lot of faith in our news people, and what they are telling us, for the most part,  is be afraid. Be very afraid.  I don't think that they are blowing smoke up our ass about the economy, however, I do think there has been a fear mongering technique that has been happening for quite some time.  I for one am very afraid.  And I am turning it off tomorrow. No more news.  

Fear and worry. No thanks.  whether it's the weather or how the economic system as we know it, is crumbling into a million little pieces,  i am not buying into it. rather I will tune my radio into a different frequency one with a larger bandwidth that has room for all of life's cumulus clouds, lightning strikes and sunny days, but like the weather man's prediction, there's no way to predict.  You just prepare for whatever may come the best you can.  

Perspective.

I have a lot on my mind tonight. As usual. But instead of festering I am going to blog, which I haven't made the time to do in the last few days. And feel not good about it.
First of all, Wiley, my sweet husky who I took in to get fixed, is doing great. He is the best and in one day and many treats I taught him how to sit, shake and lie down. Tomorrow we will learn how to make mac and cheese.

I could talk about my dog and the parties I went to over the weekend or the amazing party that was in honor of my book, NOTE TO SELF in LA on Thursday and the 120 people that showed up to Me and Ro on Melrose Place to buy a book and jewelry, or both, or the fact that I got into my first facebook fight with a guy I went to 6th grade with, BUT I am not going to talk about that.

I just watched Obama give his first press conference and talk to us about what in the world are we going to do in this country to get us back on track and not fall into the great abyss of the great depression. Scary shit. I have faith and I continually try and focus on all that we have instead of what we don't have. But this is unsettling and these are troubling times. How did we get here??? So many reasons!!

For Perspecitve I pick up a photo album that I made from our trip to AFrica this past summer. That's is perspective in a way that can only be found by opening your eyes and your heart to the world around you. There is great suffering all around us. But in that suffering you can find a way to relieve it if you remain open and in action.

I also watched The View today. Among other things. Yes. I did. I tivo it and love to see the ladies bicker when I have a free moment. Diane Sawyer was on to talk about her special on Friday night, 2/13/09. She's so beautiful and eloquent. I was on Good Morning America three weeks ago talking about my book, NOTE TO SELF. Which when I see what other work she is doing, it only makes me appreicate her more, and feel so much gratitude for the opportunity to go on her show. What I saw made me weep. The poverty in the Mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee is that of Africa, only the people are speaking our language. They are young girls and boys, men and women of this country who have been forgotten and are hidden behind poverty and mountain dew mouth. As Diane said "their Horizon is their front yard." While so many of us have an endless horizon theirs is filled with garbage and despair.

When I watched Obama speak tonight I thought about those people in the Appalachian Mountains and closed my eyes to send them a prayer. To them, this recession is nothing new or different, but they won't be immuned to its effects. And their nothing will become less than that. Where that leaves them, nobody knows.

I want to do something about this.
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/diane-sawyers-view-on-poverty/288230380814016827