Four Blondes

Dave was kind enough to mention today that he thinks I'm a good writer -- thanks, man. And that I should be writing a book ... shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... don't tell anybody, but I am ... but I'm also a good reader and have been reading a lot lately and enjoying it so much. I don't think there's any better pleasure than summer reading, at the beach, in a hammock on someone's grassy lawn as everyone around you is doing something else. Kids playing, ants attending picnics uninvited, croquet balls whacking other balls, whatever ...

I've been reading Four Blondes by Candace Bushnell (author of Sex And The City) and it's so great and funny. I can't get enough. It's also a great summer book as it starts with a model who makes a habit of dating rich guys with nice houses in the Hamptons from Memorial Day through Labor Day, then dumping them (or getting dumped) and we watch her age summer-by-summer, lover-by-lover, one more eccentric than the last. Bushnell writes great characters.

A friend suggested I read Sex And The City (despite my protestations that I didn't really like the TV series) but I couldn't find a copy of it, so got Four Blondes instead. There are four novellas (or long short stories if you will) in the book and the second one is about a very unadventuresome man and wife (both writers) who have a totally dead marriage and they both are voraciously unfaithful to one another on the same crazy day, after years and years of faithfulness. In fact, the wife literally tells the husband that evening that she spent the whole afternoon fucking this movie star in his hotel room -- WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT SHE DID DO -- but the husband figures she's got to be joking, that she would never do that. Besides, he's such a mess of dirty clothes, come, lipstick and booze, he's too undone to even listen to her and heads for the shower. This has a back story -- get ready for this -- the husband's doing an article for his magazine on ALPHA MALES!

The friend who recommended I read Bushnell's work had not read this particular book, only figured I'd find it useful since I write fiction about sex -- and I have a similar style in some ways. He had no idea that it would hit SO close to home. Life is strange.

Meanwhile, I have a story being published in Penthouse in October -- on newsstands next month. If you get a second, check out the cover of this month's Penthouse. It's got a picture of a woman's face -- a lovely blond with pink barrettes in her hair. That's all -- no boobs, no everything else. Jeez -- wish the issue with my story in it had THAT cover -- a rare cover to be sure with the only cheeks showing being the ones on the pretty woman's face! It would be so much easier to show off my story to the neighbors with a cover like that! With my luck, I figure the next issue will have ... well, you can imagine.