I can hardly wait!

Had a great time with Mom. She spent three nights here, and we did a lot together, including a drive through the redwoods, a walk along the beach, the farmers' market, and a matinee of Sex and the City.

On our way to the movie, we told Mom it would probably be kind of "nasty." She said, "I can hardly wait!"

Mom and Annie enjoyed the movie. For me, though, the movie had gotten such great reviews that I was expecting more. It was just okay for me (to quote Randy Jackson). If I had never seen the TV show, I don't think I would have liked it at all. The most pleasure I got out of the movie was the nostalgia of seeing all the women together again. I was drawing on the complexities of their characters from the TV show to fill in the blanks of the movie. The movie somehow felt less edgy and more surfacy than the TV show, with more focus on fashion. Even when the TV show highlighted fashion, those scenes were imbued with more ironic meaning.

This week I plan to plow forward on the novel. I feel like the research has been building up inside of me, and I'm ready to explore some living time with my characters.

In the back of my mind are the fact that an agent is looking at my memoir, a small press is considering one of my novels, and another small press is considering another one of my novels. ("I can hardly wait!" to hear . . . ) But I want to put all of this out of my mind as much as possible and focus on my art. It's too easy to let the business side derail me. The business side is ephemeral. The art is forever.