So I TUrned Myself To Face Me

Dear Friends of this blog: Remember Sherry Stanfa-Stanley? She was one of the nutters who regularly showed up  here at the mental institution. Well, it looks like ECT may be in order. SSS is embarking on a project called THe 52/52 project wherein she attempts to defy life’s all around go fuck yourselfness and, um, break free? Break down? Break out? Get a book deal? C’mon, friend her. Or at least do an intervention. How can you not love SSS? I do. By the way, she wins an eating contest? BFD, I do that every day. (Is it me or does that hot dog look 3-D?)

My name is Sherry, and I am changing my life.

As I whimpered past the age of 50, I realized I’d spent the last 30 years doing the same ordinary things. Every. Single. Day. I know many people, especially my female friends, who are in a similar rut: those who spend more than their share of evenings folding clothes in front of the TV, daydreaming about the world out there while they contemplate having that second bowl of ice cream. So, in the last three months, I sold my house, bought a condo, and lost nearly 30 pounds (with more than a few to go). And then I started pondering how I might shake up my life in a number of smaller ways. Thus was born, The 52/52 Project

As I turn 52 this year, I am embarking on a list of 52 things I’ve never before done—experiences well outside my comfort zone. They range from taking belly-dancing classes (already begun and soon-to-be ended for humane reasons) to spending the night in a haunted house (I do believe in spooks, I do, I DO), to getting a Brazilian wax (just shoot me now). Join me in jumping the curb, taking a detour from the cul-de-sac to visit personally unexplored territories.

Follow along at: https://www.facebook.com/The52at52Project

Sooner or Later It All Gets Real**

Just in case you missed it, Martin Short has signed with HarperCollins to write his memoir. The comic shared the following: “Although I’ve never read a book all the way through, I’m sure excited to write one.  Mr. Short added: “I haven’t named my book yet, but I’m toying with the title ‘If I’d Saved, I Wouldn’t Be Writing This.’ ”

Can anyone top that?

**Neil Young lyrics in honor of fellow countryman Mr. Short.

I Thought That I Heard You Sing

The other day I read a quote in the NYT that stopped me. It was from William Zinsser, who wrote the classic “On Writing Well.” He’s nearly blind at 90 and still coaches students, who read their work aloud to him. “People read with their ears, whether they know it or not,” Mr. Zinsser says. I totally get that. I mean I hear everything I read. Am I being too literal? I think it’s a profound observation about reading. And, by the way, still having the interest and stamina to help writers at 90. That’s just crazy for loco. God bless you, Mr. Zinsser.

What do you read with?

And Four White Mice Will Never Be Four White Horses

I got a nibble on my screenplay. It’s just a nibble. One of the producers has written back. Has to show it to producing partner. He said he liked it. Said it had promise. Promise!  And that was all. I’m not going to go crazy, not going to start dieting for the Oscars or put a down payment on my Porsche. A big producer took me through a summer of rewrites on my first script and then showed it to the one actor he had in mind for the lead, Kevin Kleine, who declined. Game over. Cinderella story gone in an email. I promised not to get bitter. Better to have loved and been swiftly dropped than never to have been swiftly dropped at all. I’m sober. I’m not casting the movie. There isn’t a director’s chair with my name on it, a baseball cap with the name of the movie on it, a baseball jacket with the name of the movie on the back and my name in gold thread stiched into the front. None of it. Fuck me dead.

What is your fantasy?

You May Say I’m a Dreamer

Guys, it’s been four months since I stopped taking my meds. No, just kidding. It’s been four months since I stopped doing the nasty on a daily basis and by that I mean posting here. To catch up, I finished my screenplay in February and have sent it to five producers. It’s a good thing I’m not waiting for the phone to ring. It’s a good thing I’m not jumping to the conclusion that the script is a piece of shit because not a SINGLE one has called. It’s a good thing that I can hate myself in a deep and meaningful way without the help of anyone not reading my fucking script. I know I have to send it out to like four thousand people before giving up. I’m also aware that it’s more fun to stick your hand in a blender that try to get somewhere with Hollywood. I wish I could make the fucking thing myself with sock puppets. God, that’s not a bad idea. Girl, take a note.

Anyway, do not offer any kind words of encouragement. That would just be gross at this point. Just tell me what you’re working on, and how hard you’re working. I miss you.

Love, Betsy

I Belong With You, You Belong With Me

Today, I was accused of not being a free spirit. Guilty as charged. Not only am I not a free spirit, I might even experience a fair amount of animosity when in the presence of free spirits. The first time I knew that I wasn’t a free spirit was when I was about to graduate college. My roommate was pursuing his dream of being a modern dancer. The boy I had a crush on was moving to London to be a playwright. A woman I envied was going to Provincetown to write a screenplay. Me? I had accepted a job as the corporate file coordinator at a major investment bank because, well, the idea of trying to be a poet for real was not happening, not then, not now, not ever.  And please don’t tell me about William Carlos Williams being a doctor and Wallace Stevens an insurance executive. And please don’t mistake promiscuity for being free ha ha ha ha. I am the emperor of my own damn wheelbarrow. I am a little old ugly man, cousin to Rumpelstilskin, friend to none. I am obsessive, compulsive, anal, retentive. Free spirits implode when they cross my path. Please don’t ask me to walk barefoot or wear flowers in my hair.  Free spirit? I can barely manage spontaneity.

What is a free spirit and are you one?

Got Me Lookin So Crazy Right Now

This is for the French editor who came by the office this week and said she had started her day every morning reading my blog. Well, my blog and a Galoise. God, that’s a dreamy combo. She just started a new job after twenty years with one publisher. She has read everything and has a wonderful way of talking about writers and their books. More, she had a quiet confidence, clear about what she would publish and how. Honestly, it’s a such a pleasure working in publishing when you get to talk books with a sexy, French editor. Yes, my life is this train and these are the sub-titles:  Books float like rafts in a calm sea. Everything eats. This is the French cream you brought me, made from green tea. Do you have a light, my love?

Anybody out there?

I’ll Love You With All the Madness in My Soul

“VOW is brilliant from both a literary and a psychological perspective. It certainly takes emotional honesty to write with such candor about the drama and allure of one’s personal adulterous experiences, but this book is more than simply honest; it is also searingly well told. A tremendous achievement.” – ELIZABETH GILBERT, Eat Pray Love   Vow is so tender and sharp, so suffused with our common humanity, and so precise. Plump is also unfailingly honest about what affairs give us and what they take away. This book is a real gift.                                                                             Elizabeth Weil. No Cheating, No Dying “Metaphors and similes and original descriptions can’t defend the reader against the sheer pain of broken vows. Wendy Plump creates a beautifully wrought word painting from which, I, for one, came away with a new slant on ‘marital vows.’ Couples should read this book.” – Carly Simon

Congratulations to Wendy Plump. Her first book, the memoir VOW,  is publishing today. It was the first memoir I took on in ages and the reason is the writing. In telling the story of her infidelity and her husband’s subsequent  infidelity, Plump goes far beyond the cliches associated with cheating and cracks it wide open. What begins as a voyeuristic look at a marriage coming apart ends as a deep portrait of betrayal and loss written with elegance, measure, and poise. 

What most interests you in memoirs: the prose, the story, the intimacy? 

REDBOOK Reads: Vow Wendy Plump’s heartbreaking memoir of marital infidelity is a disarmingly honest, beautifully insightful, and disturbingly real portrayal of the dissolution of a relationship — and a family. By Hannah Hickok Crack open Vow and prepare to be quickly carried away by Plump’s vivid prose, so-close-you-can-hear-it voice, and suspenseful storytelling skills. You’ll find yourself sneaking a page or two in the elevator, during a walk from point A to B, and trying to avoid drifting off to sleep so you can turn one more page The super-hot topic — cheating — combined with descriptive, at times poetic writing makes Vow a thought-provoking, compelling read. The events, which Plump describes with amazing clarity and detail, are by turns gut-wrenching and addictive. It feels like reading your favorite TV soap opera, except this time it’s happening to real people — and you’re hearing the saga from a close friend over coffee. Plump welcomes us to her world with impressive openness and honesty, cataloguing the start of her relationship with her husband, Bill, which begins in college and lasts over 20 years, ending with an explosive discovery that shatters their relationship and changes both their lives forever. She chronicles her affairs in the early years of their marriage, before their two sons were born, with a handful of dreamy, very different men — all of whom brought lust, passion, and excitement into her life. Plump reflects on these decisions in a matter-of-fact yet emotionally lucid way that is nothing short of fascinating. But the real kicker comes — and we’re not spoiling anything here as it’s advertised on the back of the book — when Plump finds out about her husband’s affair. She discovers that Bill has a second family just a few short blocks away from their suburban home, and his mistress of a decade is now the mother of Bill’s third, youngest child. Needless to say, Plump’s life — as well as her kids’ and their extended family and friends’ — are thrown into unimaginable turmoil, and Plump comes face-to-face with a decision she never thought she’d have to make, despite her own infidelity: the end of her marriage. The fact that such events are “unimaginable” is one reason that I think every woman should read this memoir. Does merely thinking about this sort of thing send chills down your spine, as it does mine? Although Plump never imagined this happening either, she has the guts to tell her story in a way that’s real, relatable, and will make you think hard about your own temptations. Read Wendy’s story without judgment, as a study in relationships and the ways we can, if we’re not very careful, hurt the people we love the most. Read the Modern Love piece on which the book is based:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/fashion/12Modern.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The SUn Is Up The Sky Is Blue It’s Beautiful and So Are You

There is a reason they don’t let me out much. What was it? The beauty of the buildings, slate the color of pigeons, the girl with striped tights, purple water bottle swinging astride.  I sat alone in a church and listened to an organist sigh between pieces.I dined with bright minds and tried a new food. I bought a notebook that always spells hope. Flimsy, gorgeous new ideas that blossom and die in a moment. I am at Kenyon College and tomorrow I will talk about the writer’s life. You know that lonely clacking train, that aggravated assault, that self mutilation, that particular hope, that elegant insistence, that awkward moment, that drone in your head, that never ending conversation.

The writer’s life. How would you describe it?

I’m So Tired Of Being Alone

Remember when I asked everyone to get in touch with good news?Well, Jess Lahey has hit one out of the ball park. Go Jess! And no hard feelings Jess. If you ever break up with your agent, I’m here. But from all of us here at The Lerner Home for Wayward Children:  Congratulations! http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/why-parents-need-to-let-their-children-fail/272603/ http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-friends-weekend/index.html#/v/2138651149001/let-your-child-fail/?playlist_id=163197 http://comingofageinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2013/02/why-parents-need-to-let-their-children.html