When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.Dearest darling readers of this blog:
I can’t thank you enough for all the words of encouragement, how every night I let loose a gerbil up my asshole and we see where it goes. This is a gift, if not from god, then from Richard Gere. Friends, it’s the old story, will they buy the cow if they can get the cud for free? Have I made a dollar I can tape to my wall and proudly say: why is that dollar taped on my wall? Will it be next to a picture of Jerry Orbach wishing me the best and thanking me for years of quality dry cleaning? I think not.
Friends, there’s no money in this potato no matter how you fry it. Has it sold any more copies of my lovingly revised book the Forest for the Whores? Let’s ask my publisher: how are we doing?? Okay, you know me, focus on the positive: what good has come out of this:
–friends, friends, friends with no dinner invitations. praise the lord.
–invitation to write YA novel and working on update of The Good Earth as you know, set in 90210.
–invitation from NBC to write pilot for update of the Brady Bunch where everyone is gay except Alice.
–three marriage proposals (Sadly, not from August. And you ladies can GET IN LINE.)
–increased self-esteem
So, thank you haters, lovers, lurkers, industry friends, thank you India, thank you providence, thank you silence. Thank you for these gorgeous tits. What are you grateful for? Vince?
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Betsy Lerner 
wait…is this a goodbye post? did i miss something? cause if it’s goodbye then i’m not commenting. fuck stats. what am i going to wait for every night sunday through thursday? what will i check obsessively the next day? where will i packet my (only i think) witty three-liners from now on?
did you just break up with us?
is it my hair?
am i too fat?
not easy enough?
too easy?
i promise i’ll give it up (or go down) more. promise. i swear this time.
what? tell me! (or i may have to start commenting at all hours of the day and then hang up as soon as you answer.)
Damn it Betsy, are you trying to take back your Varsity jacket with the faux leather sleeves? I just ate a whole bowl of pasta with white sauce and this is gonna drive me straight to the leftover lemon cake.
And the ring, you don’t get to take back the ring.
Tell us it’s the Oxy talking.
V good.
I’m grateful that I’m so excited about this book I’m writing, all I do is wake up every day and write. And that I’m alive and healthy enough to do it, to be immersed.
I was gonna be thankful but then you put Alanis Morissette in my head.
I actually bought both your books after reading the blog, so go on and tack that dollar to the computer screen.
Damn spotlight is too bright. Me too, KR. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to lurkdom.
Borrowed both books from the library after reading your blog, THEN bought the revised FFTW – I didn’t notice the title change -guess I was too keen to start re-reading.
And BTW Betsy, if I recall correctly from my obsessive reading of your archived posts you started this blog to try to convince the publisher that FFTT needed an update (and I guess new title) – so every new copy of FFTT sold is gravy to go with that potato. So eat up, chew that cud and tack a pound (£££) onto that computer screen.
Yep. Me too.
for you
lazy day pot roast.
Oh, too bad. If I decided to score a wife instead of a husband Alice would be my pick. A cook and a housekeeper… what a turn on.
Hope the back is letting up, Betsy.
Screw the stats and cash. If you give up the oxy, I’ll fry you up the best potatoes you’ve ever had. Deal?
LOL.
“the Forest for the Whores”
I just laughed so hard alone in my kitchen.
I’m grateful for this place, this space.
Cats. Fresh-baked bread. Potty-training. That people like John Barrowman exist. Almost burned bacon. That my husband loves me enough to put up with my crap – and vice versa. That I’m a librarian. Secret days off to write at the coffee shop. Diet Pepsi. That my kids know all the verses to Three Dog Night’s Joy to the World and sing them in church during the sermon. Peanut butter cup pie. Comfy pants. That my imagination and my language center are both directly plugged into my pleasure center. MP3 players. That Sylvester Stallone is 65 and can still make me go hmmm. The Rat Pack. Words, words, words.
And, right now, Apocolyptica. There’s just something about heavy metal cellos. . .
That there is a place to go where I can read things like this.
That there are people who make comments like this about things like this.
Gerbil up your ass, don’t lie. That gerbil wants more than that. Be honest, have you ever got one near your ass without it biting your finger, really hard. They eat their babies you know. If you touch them. Weird instinct. They leave the heads lying around, and move the nest to the other side of the cage. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I had to look up the word callow just, but sure as fuck I still don’t know what it means to be mature? I know so many people that have done so many things that make me shrink in my skin and they call it being mature, growing up, doing what you must do. I refuse to believe life is so callous. Apparently, I might be wrong. The artist’s life, what a cage fight. Still reading Forest for the Trees. I would use the phrase gift of insight, but it’s probably experience, or both. I must agree with you about the encouragement, I can’t imagine you are not a good mother. But, than again, I’m glad some people forced me to face my childish wishes and told my stuff was laughable. It hurts, but now I try harder. That might be physics — bust that nut or pet yourself all night, it’s up to you. But leave those poor Gerbils alone. : Drive-by, drive-through, I promised myself but you know how that goes. Grow-up? PLEASE, someone explain that to mein simple terms.
Today I’m grateful that my kid broke his wrist the Tuesday before Spring Break instead of the Friday before Spring Break. How’s that for CountryTime when life hands you highfructosecrapzene.
Seriously, there are yuckier ways to make a buck. My kid? On the way to Urgent Care? He had the presence of mind to inquire: what’s your dream job and what’s your worst nightmare job. All through the waiting room, physical, X-Ray I kept revising the idea of a worst nightmare job. Road crew, no, wait, porta-potty cleaner outer, no, wait, Walmart greeter, no, wait… and so on.
I’m grateful that I sit on my ass all day and pull gerbils out of it. I am! And that I make enough to pay the doctor bills when my kids break bones, but not so much that I have to fret over tax shelters.
I’m not in a grateful frame of mind. There’s too much work to be done and I’m not doing it well enough.
What am I grateful for?
¿Right now?
For subscribing to receive your blogs. When you get all cynical you are at the top of the best I’ve read.
¿It speaks well of living too long in New York City. You are about to lap yourself, that soul you see up ahead is your innocent self. Next project: A coming-of-age epic story of Betsy Lerner.
Memphis Trace
I say republish your book with it’s new title, The Forest for the Whores, and see what happens. Remember, it’s all about the hook.
I’m grateful for circles of influence.
Maybe it’s the gerbil, maybe it’s my dirty glasses, but I read that as “circles of flatulence.” I love laughing before dawn.
Ha! That would be my response for “What are you incensed about?”
Speaking of which, I have heard incense helps quell that problem. If only I could stomach the smell. You know life teeters on the brim of imbalance when you prefer gas passed to fragrant smoke.
I’m grateful that the chickens awoke in tact, saved from the weasels for one more night.
That’s not a clever euphemism for something else; the weasels, they run amok.
Good morning.
Yes, a simple, pleasant greeting. Good morning to you. Too much other stuff to take in before coffee.
I’m grateful that I don’t live in Tokyo.
Grateful…not a good word, but I am grateful. I’m not going to write why on the internet. I love the withdrawal writing, I’m grateful for that. May I please work in The Brady Bunch with you? I know every ep.
I am oh so thankful for people such as yourself that are in the industry and not afraid to post some pretty raw & real blog entries! So please keep dropping the F bomb on a daily basis, let loose the gerbils and keep your platinum balls all nice and shiny. You fucking rock Betsy!!!!
I’m grateful I quit my acting career and never ended up in that show for 20 years, caking on the ingenue makeup and playing to lost tourists until finally it closed and no-one would ever hire me again, and I ended up trying to become a writer at 43 like I am now.
Pretty tune though.
Right there with you, sister.
Have to say, “invitation from NBC to write pilot for update of the Brady Bunch where everyone is gay except Alice” is a great premise. Unless that was the premise of the original, and I missed it.
Hi!
We are pleased to inform you that GIIP is organizing an 8 weeks Executive Program on Patent Protection, Enforcement and Management from 7th February – 4th April 2011 at Bangalore.
The curriculum for the said program has been designed meticulously to train and translate knowledge gained into practical application and will be taught by accomplished trainers, IP practitioners and experts from India and abroad. The participants will be provided knowledge of the latest trends and best practices in the field of IP creation, protection, enforcement and management through case study method of teaching. The program will cover law and practice of Indian, US and European jurisdictions and create skills that can be harnessed by your Organization without any need for further training to the participants. Special sessions on personality development, writing and presentation skills will also be conducted for all participants.
The program has been designed keeping in mind the needs of the Corporate and the functions performed by their in-house IP team members. (refer to the leaflet for the program content).
On completion of the program successfully, all participants will be provided placement that matches their profile and career plan. All participants of the previous batch have been placed with one of the leading MNC, KPO and Law Firm. Over 75% of the participants, of previous batch, got placed even before the completion of the program.
We request for your participation and nomination of a few officials from your Organization for the said program.
Thanking you.Yours Sincerely,
for Global Institute of Intellectual Property
Sameer GuglaniManager (Corporate Programs)Global Institute of Intellectual PropertyHandphone: + 91- 93102 55573Landline: 011 – 30884233 (Direct) 011 – 30884000 (Board line)Fax: 011 – 30884034
well, there you go.
see, b, if this agent/writer/publishing thing doesn’t work out for you, you still have options.
WTF??
After reading this, I’ve amended my Grateful List: I’m grateful not to have this guy’s job, not to have to rely on this guy for income and not have his view on the value of such training.
And for fun, I’m going to check on some other sites to see if they kept this audacity on their blogs!
“Special sessions on personality development, writing and presentation skills will also be conducted for all participants.”
Sameer has done such a lovely job of doing this here, I’m thinking that this course must be worth whatever they’re charging.
Jesus Cristo, but you reminded me of that night my fiance broke up with me to go back to her ex.–it was all good, she told me with tears in her eyes, what we had, but . . .–it’s those damn ‘buts’ that kill you. Here’s hoping you get over this bump in the road and get on a nice straightaway.
Don’t get over no bumps in the road or any other weary cliche for your 3am of the soul. The bumps are the good part(s).
You mention gorgeous tits and then ask what I’m grateful for? What’s the first thing I think of? So I’m grateful for those, yes.
I’m grateful not to have been crushed. I’m grateful for almost every single time I managed to get laid, over these 35 years — thank you Jesus. Or whomever You put in charge of this. I’m grateful I finally found a good — a superb — shrink, who has never once suggested I am supposed to be grateful for anything. I’m grateful for this:
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always-
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.
Your blog was responsible for the sale of one copy of your exquisite pr0n manual, “The Foray into the Whores”, to me or my cat, for a nominal amount in US dollars, which are still legal tender in places rubbed raw. So there.
Me! I bought your book because of this blog AND spent the cash at an independent book store to boot. I’m clearly going to heaven.
I dreamt last night that I was entering a huge library, along with a slew of other people. On our way in, we were asked to choose a book from the bookshelves, and then present our argument to the librarians of why or why not they should purchase the book.
Thing is, besides being a library, it was also a hospital. The librarians were also doctors.
To me, this is saying that our writing, our books, are a source of healing. Betsy, think of what you do here as your gift. Just that. You, or we, may not be able to rush off to Japan and do a fucking thing to help people, but we are still full of gifts which we’re giving every day.
Maybe libraries are a place of healing, and maybe books are, too. And maybe we should just be grateful for books, blogs, …. WRITING.
I’m going to try and dance with it. After all, I dreamed it.
But Josephine, what book did you choose?
@Lyra,
Well, here’s the snarky part: I remember being ANNOYED by having to choose and sort of flying by. Vat a jerk I am!
Have you even narrowed down the cake choices yet, Betsy? Or maybe you would prefer a tart? Oh ha. Such a tease!
Grateful for luminous toothpaste, for one thing. There are others, but I’ve got to work now (for which I am grateful).
Whoa. You can’t retire until we’ve had our Betsypalooza where we all get together and do all the things to each other that we now can only dream of regretting.
And by that I mean August.
I’m sensing a long good bye here, just when I started really reading. It’s sort of been happening for weeks. That’s okay, it seems to fit because I never watched Friends, Seinfeld, Mash etc, until they were in reruns. Hope it ain’t so, though. You’re that good–but I guess you can’t last forever. Nothing is permanent like the Buddha says. I’m grateful for the tidbits of truth and inspiration I read here. ps sorry to be so maudlin and serious. Most of all, I’m grateful for lol humor …
I’m grateful I have a book out in the world . I’m grateful that there is a brand new cupcake store down the street. I’m grateful for my friend who when my beloved dog died knew that actions spoke louder than words and gave me a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka and her shoulder to cry on. .
This “build a social networking platform” thing is the snake oil of 2011.
I’ve worked in the internet business back when everyone shouted this mantra: “Make it INTERACTIVE! A good web site has to be interactive. With games and stuff!”
Does anyone say interactive any more? Nope.
Remember when everything internet was going to be supported by MICROPAYMENTS. It’s ten years later … how’s that working out, huh?
Remember when all the television ads ran the “we have a web site!” text at the end of their spots? You don’t see them wasting five seconds on that any more.
I’m not saying twitter/blogging has no value. We all need to keep it in perspective.
The Internet is like a narcissistic best friend—she wants all our energy, our blind devotion, and half our french fries.