Merry Christmas

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

Oh, excuse me! I didn't know you were here. I was just gazing outside at the winter wonderland that is currently Connecticut, humming Christmas carols about snowy landscapes. There are quite a few of them regardless that most of the country would disprove that claim come December 25th. And you know what else I experienced today that I've only heard of in a song before? Roasted chestnuts. Actually, I don't know if they can be considered "roasted" if they were technically baked in an oven. (Anyone got the answer to that one? Anyway...) My cousin baked some and we peeled them this afternoon and you know what? They're actually good! Who knew? There is something mega-Christmas about that. For the first time in my life, I'm actually living out a Bing Crosby special!. All I need now is a sleigh ride and some carolers to show up at the door and my Christmas will be perfect. PERFECT. So, if you're in the Hartford area and you just happen to have a one-horse open sleigh and you just happen to be out with three or four of your closest choir group friends, feel free to pop on by. I'll be waiting.

Book Junkie

I GOT IT! It just came in the mail. I feel like shouting, "I'm going to Disney World!" like the quarterbacks do after they win the Super Bowl. What is it? You ask. April & Oliver by Tess Callahan!

...

OK, so you probably haven't heard about this book, and there's really no reason why you should. (And no, it's not me by another name if there are those amongst you who thought for a brief moment that I would be able to keep my big mouth shut over a pending publication.) No, this is just a book that I saw in the "Deals" section of PW and thought it might work for the film franchise I'm employed by. I've been waiting for it to be pubbed to get it in. BUT! In the December 1, 2008 PW issue, I saw an ad saying that they would send an advanced reading copy (ARC) to the first 100 people who sent an email to such-n-such email address. I did, and I got one! HA! I feel like I just got away with something. Something big. In fact, I always feel this way when I've scored a free book. It's a sickness. They need a 12-step program for it because it's so wrong but it feels. So. Good. You might wonder how I got to this place. Well, like all addictions, it's not a pretty story.

It all started when I was a young kid and my mother would take me to the local library where I would be able to take out ten books at a pop...for free! And no, it never bothered me that I would have to give them back after two weeks because I'd already had my way with them and they bored me and now I could get MORE. If I had been older, I might have been suspicious by this philanthropic display by the government, but I was young and naive and believed that my government wanted me to be happy. When I hit my teen years, I started to make my own purchases. And once the money exchange started, I only wanted quality. And my sickness took a turn...towards autographed books. Since I grew up in a relatively small town without any attraction to touring big named authors, an autographed book was like a rare gem. The first time I ever saw a signed copy (a book by Alice Hoffman) just sitting there in the local Barnes & Noble and for no extra charge than the price of the hardcover, I grabbed at it like $50 bill just lying on the sidewalk. I got a buzzy high off the score. I didn't know it could get better. But it could. I went to work at a magazine where ARCs arrived one by one like magic. I had never seen an ARC before and was overcome by joy. The publishers gave out samples! I read these books whether they were good or bad. I didn't care. They were free and one shouldn't question ones supplier as to the grade of drug they're dealing if they're handing it to you for nothing. Just keep 'em coming. So it should be no surprise then that I slowly began migrating to the source of these books. To the one place where a book junkie can get the ultimate mainline: Publishing.

Since I'm no longer in the biz, I feel like I can divulge my ugly secret. There were times, god and David Shanks forgive me, that I would finish up my job for the night (night, being the operative word) and take the staircase to the other floors where I would steal books from the publicity departments of other imprints. That's right. I did it. That missing copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves? Me. A signed copy of Anne Lamott's Plan B? Me again. I'd secret them out of the building, stashed somewhere between my 300 page unedited Indian romance novel and the commercial non-fiction pitches about astrology and baby names guides. And if I wasn't misappropriating books, I was taking them from the give-away shelves or the Sales Department open closet where signed books were just sitting there unclaimed. I had piles of books under my desk. Classics I always meant to read, commercial fiction that got all the good buzz, titles friends had recommended, and extra copies of books that I had read and loved and kept on hand to supply to other junkies. But then, like all addictions, something happened and the landscape changed. I found myself kicked to the curb and had to kiss the high life good bye.

That's not the end of my story though, and if you think I've hit bottom and am now recovering, you're wrong, wrong, wrong. I've got friends in high places that will pass me a book under the table from time to time. "The new Tana French? Yeah, I got that for you." And I've scored another job that supplies the love. Every year, my bosses send me to the Columbia of book pushing: Book Expo America where publishing displays their wares like whores in the Red Light district. It's only primo quality at BEA, baby. A little Toni Morrison, a little Philip Roth, and, psst, John Updike has a new Witches of Eastwick title if you liked the first taste. You wanna it? We got. And you can have it months before anyone else. All for free. Ahhh. Just the way I like it.

I don't know if I'll ever beat the need. But like all unapologetic junkies, I don't want it to over. I'm going ride it to the end of the line. And if, one day, you hear that they've found my body in some back alley in a shack made out of Signet Classic paperbacks, my rigid fingers curled around the newest Mary Roach, just know that I went happy. In the meantime, I'm in the market for a little something-something to get me through the holidays. You know my number. Hook me up, yo.

Single By Accident

I recently read two articles, both through Salon.com, about being single and celibate. The first one, was written by a woman who is now in her 50s and has been celibate for fifteen years. She's OK with it, but after reading this article, I wasn't. The second article was obviously a plug for a blog-turned-book which I would name here except I don't want to seem like I condone her message which seems to be in-your-face-sexlessness. The Rules with thug-like chastity shrouded in moral superiority. Both made me quirk an eyebrow and scurry off to talk to all my single and celibate friends. To which we all had the same reaction: Umm, this isn't something to be rah-rah'ing about. It's depressing, and lonely, and really, really hard. And it's not really a choice for a lot of us.

Let me start off by saying that I'm pretty old fashioned. I'm single therefore I am celibate. I know, I know. I could out tonight and get some. Blahblahblah. But I can't. It's just not in me. I'm uptight and I'm thinking that I emit prudery at a high decibel level, and men can hear it. Whatever the reason, I'm not getting dates and therefore I'm not getting anything else either. Now, there are people that I know who believe that I am single by design. And my therapist would make the argument that they are right thought only on a subconscious level. But I'd like to state with full consciousness that I would prefer not to be single. My status as a Miss is an accident and not a very happy one at that. I would like to state for the record that...

...I started off this way; I didn't opt in.
...I never had that movie moment where I had to decide between staying in Connecticut with that good-hearted, small-town guy or moving to the big city to chase my dream.
...I never had that not-good-enough boyfriend that I held onto out of fear of loneliness, but put the breaks on before he popped the question.

In fact, my dating life is pretty pathetic. I'd get into it, but why bother. Most of you know that I've been single -- like really single -- for the majority of my adult life. And with every passing year, it feels harder and harder to get out of the habit of being this way. Not that I don't think about it constantly.

My single gal pals and I are always talking about not dating and not having sex and how we could get to do both. It doesn't help that I know my biological clock is now ticking down, and while my married friends keep telling me I have time, they're kinda lying. I don't. Unlike all those other things in life that I eventually got around to doing much later, after-the-fact, procreating actually has an expiration date (and, to be clear, I'm not as blase about it as I might appear). Do I want my married friends to agree with me and start counting down my good breeding years with me? No. Do I want my sister to offer me her womb (again)? No. My point is, it's difficult to be in this position and to take full responsibility for the fact that I might not get married and I might not have kids and it's my own damn fault. Do I regret choices I have made? Sure. I look back at pictures of me as a teenager or in my 20s, or even three years ago and think, "Why did I think I was fat? Why didn't I think I was pretty enough? Why didn't I USE that?" (And as a friend said to me recently, "You're going to hit 40 and look at pictures of yourself now and wonder the same thing...", but I digress.) I think about the guys I really did have a chance with, but talked myself out of. It's all disappointing and humbling. And kind of stupid. I want to shake the shoulders of my younger self and say, "Cut it out, and get out there. You can do this! You have so much more than you think you do." But I can't. And I have a hard time looking in the mirror and doing it now. I am who I am and sometimes it's hard getting over myself.

When I read articles like these, I don't believe that the authors are affirmed or as confident in their deliberate decisions as they come off. I wonder what the underlying subtext really is. Low libido? Indifference? Scarred by abuse or suffering from father abandonment issues? Because as far as I know, most people don't choose to be in bed alone. Humans, by design, are pack animals. We all want to be love and cared for. And sex on a regular basis is highly desirable, thank-you-very-much. (I mean, there's a reason why people with sex lives live longer than people without them.) I don't believe that you can substitute the love of your family and friends for the love -- emotional and physical -- of a lover. I think, for most of us singletons, we're single by accident and we'd really like these writers to stop feeding into this belief that its a choice.

Introduction

I was at a job function last night. While I love the social context of a screening, one of the things that I hate most is meeting people. I hate introductions. First, I don't know how to insert myself into a situation. It embarrasses me. For instance, say I see my boss standing in a small group of people and they seem to be smiling and nodding at each other in congenial conversation. I have two options: Continue to stand there like a bump on the log hoping that someone will seek me out or go over to the group. As I've spent years doing the former -- usually to no avail regardless of how mysterious I try to look or aloof I try to act -- I now tend to walk right up to the gathering. Once there, I stand there for a moment for her to recognize me and either invite me into the inner sanctum or give me the cut direct. (For those of you who don't read literature based in 1800s England that means to viciously ignore me.) Usually, however, I'm welcomed in. At this point, one of two things happen: I'm either brought fully into the conversation without an introduction -- so I'm a No Name cracking wise -- or I get a quick, "This is Jessica; she works with us in Development." While this is true and succinct and probably an appropriate introduction in a friendly/casual gathering, it kinda undermines me at a business do. What I mean is, if this is a business contact then shouldn't I have a more formal greeting? Which brings me to my second point, the friendly introduction versus the formal introduction. I feel I have finally come to the place in my life where I should be introduced with both my first and last name no matter the circumstances. No more believing that some guy is going to stalk me if he's got my last name. No more thinking that everything is just casz and I don't care because I'm never gonna see this schmo again. Because, you know, it's not and I may and even if I don't, it's always nice to be respectable. I'm an adult now. Let's respect each other. It would be nice to be known as Jessica Callah@n versus Beck's-friend-Jessica or that-blonde-girl-that-works-with-DD. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to be smooth about this. Last night, when I did introduce myself to people as Jessica-with-no-last-name, they looked askance at me. But when I introduced myself with my last name, they looked at me like I thought they should recognize the me. At which point I would try to add my title, but this didn't settle matters as no one knows what a Development exec does. And what's more uncomfortable than that? Having to reintroduce yourself to someone you've met before...a couple of times. It's awful. It's all awful. I have no aplomb for such things. And no matter how good I feel about myself going into the situation, I end up feeling like I'm tottering around in my mother's heels, taking up too much space, play acting at being an adult. Do we ever get over feeling like we're 14? What's the answer? Stop going out. It's the only thing for it. Call me if you know me. I'll be in my apartment.

Employment Plug

So, we have a movie airing this Sunday on CBS, and I feel I must let all of you know as we are in a declining economy and it would be great if we scored high numbers on this movie so I can stay employed past summer 2009. So, if you love me, you'll tune in or at the very least TiVo the sucker. And make sure to tell all your teacher friends that there is a teacher movie on and your grandmother that there is a Hallmark movie on that's not on the Hallmark Channel but on real TV so can she please tune in to the "old channel 3." If she's like my grandmother, she'll know what you mean.

The movie is called FRONT OF THE CLASS. It'll be on CBS at either 8PM or 9PM depending on your location in this great nation of ours. And considering that True Blood and Entourage are over, there should be no conflict of interest. No excuses, people. I will accept no excuses...