If you're in the neighborhood, Happy Birthday, Nick Hornby!

Once when my family was driving through Selma, Alabama (it was the summer we lived in our car as my father had to drive all over the nation to keep young football players from changing their minds about committing to BYU--thank GOODNESS the NCAA finally instituted a National Letter of Intent Day!), we saw a marquee in front of a ratty little motel that said WELCOME, JOHN WAYNE, IF YOU'RE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

Apparently word had gotten out that Wayne was filming somewhere in the south, so hey! Why not throw up a welcome sign?

Anyway, if Nick Hornby gets google alerts (which I'm sure he doesn't), I'd like to take this opportunity to wish him Happy Birthday (thanks, Writer's Almanac, for sharing the news!). A LONG WAY DOWN is one of my favorite books ever. I love the way Hornby makes me laugh and cry both. I think he's brilliant. So does my brother Jimmy. So do my neighbors Jake and Annmarie.

So yeah. If you're in the neighborhood, Nick Hornby, Jimmy and Jake and Annmarie and I wish you a happy birthday.

May 11, 1993

So I've been thinking about this day seventeen years ago because it's my youngest boy's b-day. Happy birthday, Quinton Cannon! The whole world got sunnier the day you arrived!

Still. We had a rough go of it. Not to be melodramatic, but mother and son almost cashed in their chips. Seriously. As I lay there on the delivery bed, I had the very clear thought that yes, this is how it feels to die. How can I describe the sensation of it all? I could feel my life seep away through my fingertips. (For the record, I felt oddly calm--warm and not afraid.)

Well! Thankfully, we all rallied and here we are--to which I can only say that life tastes good today. I'm happy to be here.

And I think Quinton is too.

It must be said

For my birthday this week, my mother (the woman who wanted me to wear a blinking light thing on my head) gave me the best chocolate cake I have ever eaten ever EVER. It was chocolate with chocolate frosting, so right there we know happiness lies ahead. BUT. Rather than being a decadence-type cake, it was just a rich moist dense old-fashioned-type of cake. Probably the kind those characters ate for dessert on Sunday in that movie POLLYANNA. Anyway. She bought it at Magleby's in Provo. And people I would drive to Provo just for that cake. I would WALK to Provo for that cake. I would walk BACKWARDS to Provo for that cake. I would walk backwards WEARING A BLINKING LIGHT THING ON MY HEAD to Provo for that cake.

In other news, I think I know what's been bothering me about the book I've been working on. More than an issue of not knowing what it's about--many of you rightly suggested that often we don't know while we're writing a first draft--I had the sense that the audience (YA male) I had in mind wouldn't be interested. And I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. But it occurred to me young YA girls might be interested in the story. So I'm going to switch narrators.

Yes. I know. Clever me.

something else that's hard when you just have one hand

eating lunch at a Brazilian steakhouse.

because they feed you MEAT. which you must cut. which is like clapping with one hand. only in a much less zen kind of way. because really when you sit there looking at your beautiful meat which you CANNOT CUT you want to take your steak knife and stab someone. which, the last time i checked, is totally unzen. i am pretty sure you would not find buddhist monks stabbing each other in tucanos at the gateway.

good thing geoff was there to cut my meat. also to stand on his chair and limply shake a tambourine when the waiters brought his gratis b-day dessert and sang happy birthday to him. they made him do it. and i laughed. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

even though he cut my meat for me.