I might actually need 20 minutes of fame....

Because I've almost used up my first 15!!!

The book is out! The book is out!

"What book?" you ask.

Why, The Happy Hooker! By Debbie Stoller, author of the Stitch n' Bitch books.

In which, I have a pattern! It is on page 260-263.

I am so famous. Here is page 261. Go buy the book!

Thanks to Sara for lending me the book since Amazon hasn't seen fit to send me mine yet...DON'T YOU PEOPLE KNOW WHO I AM???

Anyway, I have now been published a bunch of times, (check out my essay in Young Wives' Tales) I've been interviewed for many an article. Apparently I'm just a big ol' media whore. But being said whore hasn't yet gotten the full length non-fiction book that I wrote published so I'll put it out there again.

If anyone knows a literary agent/publisher that works in non-fiction and would like to have an easy publish on a finished "self-help" type book, send 'em my way.

Kiss kiss y'all.

Thursday and the livin' is ....

I wasn't certain how I should title this post. Honestly, I wanted to say the livin' is pusy but I thought people might think I meant pussy and really, symptoms of syphilis don't involve pus anyway. They do involve chancres but chancre-y isn't a word. So anyway, the end of this post is about syphilis - but you'll get there eventually....

I really really start work on Monday. I am quite excited. And hopefully I'll have something less gross to talk about.

In even better, funner, cooler news, my lovely sister is pregnant! This is a photo of her at her bachelorette party. Which oddly enough involved anthropomorphized watermelon pranks. Someday I'll tell y'all about it. Here she is slightly drunk (which she is not currently) and not at all nauseous (which she definitely is currently).

I am freakin' excited about becoming an aunt. I think she's going to be a great mom.

Also, her husband, Joe, is pretty freakin' fantastic as well and will certainly be a great dad. Both Shannon and Joe are pretty laid back, well-adjusted as can be expected and have a great home in the Valley. Not a bad start for a kid, in my opinion.

ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOTE:

Last week at Stitch n' Bitch, I promised to put up the info about the Los Angeles County Syphilis program called "Stop the Sores" and their mascot Phil (get it? syPHILis) and the San Francisco mascot, the Healthy Penis. Anyway, here's a picture of the devilish Phil handing out the stress balls (he he) of his image in Los Angeles. Below is a photo of Phil and Healthy P. on Castro Street.

You can find more about Phil and the campaign including Phil's hilarious appearance on the Daily Show at www.stopthesores.org. Aren't their grins absolutely evil? I have been working in the social service field for many a year (15 or so) and have never thought that anything like this would make it past all the damn funders, censors, etc.

By the way, you can barely see it in this photo but Phil totally has an earring (sore-ring?). Ewww.

On that note...Have a great day y'all.

More Silly Blog Games to Fill the Time

Sara and Ellen both tagged me so I suppose this is a "must do" today.

Four jobs in your life (best to worst):
I've had quite a few jobs. Comparing them is difficult but here goes:
1. Director, UCLA AIDS Institute Vaccine Initiative (I loved this job, the autonomy the challenge. It was truly great.
2. Director, Southern California AIDS Hotline (this one had the benefit of awesome job, but the disadvantage of a really shitty boss)
3. Owner, Metro Limousine (no boss, total autonomy, no coworkers other than Michael)
4. Sunday School Teacher (not a bad job, kids are great but not nearly as fulfilling as the above jobs)

Four movies you could watch over and over:
1. All About Eve
2. The Women
3. The Breakfast Club
4. Mata Hari

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
2. Law and Order (SVU, Criminal Intent, the Original)
3. Project Runway
4. Made in America (who knew I was so dorky - I love John Ratzenberger!)

Four places you have lived:
1. Northridge, CA (17 years)
2. Kibbutz Tzora, Israel (one very long and wonderful year of my life)
3. Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA (three very odd years)
4. West Hollywood (since 1995)

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Paris, France (with my sister - so much fun)
2. New York, NY (with my lovely friend Drew who lives in Chelsea)
3. Grand Canyon, AZ (All by myself and loved every single minute)
4. Dahab, Egypt (with friends - did you know you can trade vodka for hash?)

Four websites you visit daily:
1. CNN.com (obsessed with the news)
2. Craigslist
3. Crazy Aunt Purl (no explanation necessary)
4. Amazon

Four of your favorite foods:
1. Challah (mmm....challah...)
2. Marshmallows (is that a food?)
3. Ben & Jerrys frozen yogurt
4. A really well-made, home grilled cheeseburger

Four places you'd rather be right now:
1. On a cruise to Alaska
2. At the Grand Canyon
3. In Torino (I don't know what it is about the olympics, I'm not a really sporty girl but I love the coming together of nations, the party atmosphere, the cheering...)
4. At work (oddly enough - this is true)

Four favorite types of yarn:
1. Unikat by Skakel
2. Misti Alpaca, worsted
3. Chelsea Silk by Takhi
4. Bernat Boucle (so incredibly useful)

Four bloggers I'm tagging:
1. TK
2. Regina
3. WineGrrl
4. Allison

My job for the rest of the day is to come up with a ten word description of what I'll be doing at UCLA so Michael can describe my job to his friends and coworkers. Wish me luck.

2nd day in a row!!! What will you do?

Anyway, so as I was saying, I supposedly have this new job, which I clearly haven't started yet. My title is Sr. Public Administrative Analyst, which was actually my title when I left UCLA last time and I had a completely different job in a completely different area. It still doesn't tell you what I do. Even after three years of "sabbatical" from UCLA, it still doesn't tell you what I do.

Really, what I do is (hopefully!) going to be fun and mind-numbingly challenging all at the same time. I will be located at the UCLA Center for AIDS Research and Education (CARE) which is off-campus. It is actually across the street from the Museum of Tolerance. Essentially in the original Kosher Canyon, on Pico near Doheny. So there's lots of nice Jewish delis in the 'hood.

I'm (supposedly) going to be working with investigators who are doing clinical trials and need institutional review board (IRB) approval. I am supposed to, as I understand it, streamline the IRB process for HIV researchers because the word "streamlined" cannot currently be used in a sentence about the IRB.

I'm (supposedly) working with some really great people including a bunch of researchers that I have a great deal of respect for (I'm consistently going to end sentences prepositions with).

The Sr. Public Administrative Analyst position is actually just a job category at UCLA. There's about a billion SPAAs. There's also the Public Administrative Analyst, the Principal Public Administrative Analyst and the Assistant Public Administrative Analyst. I have no freakin' idea what the differences are.

My return to academia, though delayed, is much anticipated. Anyway, while patiently waiting for news, from UCLA I am enjoying my last days of unencumbered slackernesshood!

Work, not work, work

Today was supposed to be my first day back to work. I'm going back to UCLA and I'm really excited about it. Really. However, today I am not going back to work. No drama, no story, just a delay in bureaucracy so maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.

In other, far more interesting news, I have just finished "The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression" by Andrew Solomon and I have a lot to say about it - and, in the end, it does have to do with going back to work.

I have never read a more accurate or more poetic account of depression than "The Noonday Demon". Nothing about depression is poetic in itself and yet, Solomon has, like Styron, made the experience of major depression not glamourous (because it is not in any way) but real. Almost accessible to those outside.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how I would have interpreted this book had I not been through it, but I can imagine and hope that it reaches out to those who have not experienced depression firsthand.

In depression, especially when you don't know that you are in the throes of it, you cannot communicate what you are feeling. At least I couldn't. I could not communicate during my aforementioned "year in bed" the insignificance I felt, the flatness, the physical pain coming from nowhere. I could not wrap my mind around any feeling. There was a great absence of anything good, anything bad. I did not know why I could not return phone calls, only that I could not. Not "would not" rather, could not.

The pressure to keep up appearances was utterly exhausting. I would go out for a few hours at a time to a Stitch n' Bitch (my lifeline) or a meeting of travel agents (for work) and I would come home and lay in bed, as though I had just run a marathon without benefit of endorphins or the side effect of health that exercise brings.

I feel like everyone who has ever known anyone with depression should read at least the first two chapters of this book (Depression and Breakdowns) if not the entire 443 pages of it. Andrew Solomon is a great writer and tells an incredibly compelling story about his own and others depression, the history, politics, evolution and treatments. He writes poetically about something that is so incredibly stigmatized. I even imagine, perhaps incorrectly, but I imagine that some people reading this are asking, "why?" Why does she keep talking about depression, why does she want anyone to know?

Back then, I could not have conceived of getting up in the morning and going to work. Truly, today, I am looking forward to it. I look forward to the intellectual challenge! I look forward to seeing coworkers every day. I look forward to adding to my growing pension! I look forward, even, to the commute....shocking! I know!

By the way, Michael made me go to a therapist. If he hadn't, perhaps I'd still be in bed. So, when I return your calls, you can thank him.

Now I am going to go take a shower (which used to seem like a nearly impossible task), go to the post office and then get a mani/pedi provided to me as a 6th anniversary/back to work gift from my lovely and thoughtful husband. Now if I only didn't have those body image issues.....

Tomorrow (seriously!), more on my new job!