Julie Anne Long

You’ll never believe what I’ll be doing on New Year’s Eve

I’ll be slow dancing (we’re talking very slow) with Hugh Laurie on the veranda of a villa high above the city. The only sound will be a single saxophone in the far, far distance, so faint we can only just make out the melody of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” The sky will be thick with stars and a sliver of bright moon is hanging up there, too, but there’s only just enough light for me to see how very soulful and blue Hugh’s eyes are, which is quite enough light, indeed. And in this particular fantasy, Hugh is both quite unmarried and smells really good (like…clean laundry and maybe a hint of something citrusy-spicy, but just a tiny hint—you know, that delicious clean warm man smell), and every now and then he'll purr a wry British witticism into my ear, but not too often, because he’s so overcome by my nearness that he’s gone a bit shy. And then, when the chime of a clock (also in the distance) tells us it's midnight, we'll stop dancing, and slowly, slowly move in for—

         OK, are you guffawing yet? (Man, I just had a wonderful time writing that. I need a moment to collect myself.)

           Anyhow, New Year’s Eve is upon us, and frankly, I really don't know how I’ll spend it, but obviously, I can think of how I’d like to spend it (see the first paragraph). I’ve experienced quite a few New Year’s eves so far in my life, and I’ve spent them in a delightful variety of ways: playing loud, drunken, dirty-word Pictionary with a group of friends; groomed elegantly within an inch of my life milling about with other people groomed within an inch of their lives, the only sounds the murmur of polite conversation and the genteel ting of crystal champagne glasses touching at midnight; playing guitar at a party with my band while drunken frat boys (is there another kind of frat boy? Forgive me, but I mean, really) chucked beer bottles at us; fending off drunken sloppy kisses at parties at midnight; deliberately moving in for a really good kiss in a quiet living room at midnight; feverishly writing twenty pages (that was last year); wearily crawling into the sack before the clock strikes 12 after watching fireworks on TV; or making a few fireworks of my own, if you get my less-than-subtle drift.  (See first paragraph, if you don’t. It's along those lines.) I’ve seen any number of great bands on New Year’s Eve. I’ve lost my wallet. I've gotten a gnarly case of the flu. I’ve driven around literally for three hours looking for a place to park after a night out, when I lived in the Russian Hill neighborhood. And I've done many, many other things either much too mundane or too scandalous to mention.

New Year’s Eve is a pressure-filled holiday, especially if you live in San Francisco, because everyone who doesn’t live in San Francisco throngs to the city for the party at the Embarcadero (I used to do that, too). It’s nearly impossible to get around the city on New Year’s Eve—masses and masses of people fill the trains and buses, and it’s next to impossible to get a cab—and events are wildly expensive, for no reason except that it’s New Year’s Eve.  I have to be in just the right mood to enjoy drunken throngs, and I don’t really feel that mood coming on this year (or this decade, really). So I’m at a loss. I might join some friends at a local bar for darts. I might write ten pages.

As for resolutions…oh, I have a slew of them. But I like to stagger the rollout of them throughout the year. LOL. I like to make sure I’m never without a “project” (and God knows, I'm nothing if not an ongoing project). One of my resolutions is to write a book so brilliantly entertaining that my agent, and then my editor, and then all my readers (in that order) pass out from the sheer wonderfulness of it after they read it. Because everyone needs a goal, right? (hee!) That one ought to keep me busy for a good portion of the year. :) Wish me luck with that.

Whatever you do, kittens, here's to a hope-filled, love-filled, laughter-filled, peace-filled, prosperity-filled, cream-filled (because hey, why not) 2007. What are you doing on New Year's Eve—any plans? What should I be doing? Do you have any resolutions?

I got a brand new robe, Pa rum pum pum pum...(and we have a winner!!)

Well, happy day-after-Christmas, kittens! I hope you're all laying around in a satisfied stupor, watching bad daytime TV or playing with the kids or grandkids, wearing your new sweaters and slippers and socks. Or perhaps you're among the bold and thrifty who ventured out to take advantage of the sales today. And if you're at work, well, just let me say that I'm honored that you've chosen to spend precious goof-off moments reading this blog.  Truthfully, I'm doing a combination of pretty much all of the above today—wearing new socks, working, goofing off.  But for me, Christmas isn't quite over until I've given out my last gift, and I'm about to do it now. And let's do it with a little fanfare, eh? Everyone get a sort of drum roll started, if you would—fingers on the desk, hands on your thighs, something like that ought to do the trick.  Good, good. Are you ready?

And the winner of our signed ARC of WAYS TO BE WICKED is...

Barbara Elness!!

Everyone stand and do the wave for Barbara!! I'll get it in the mail to you this week, Barbara, if you send me your address. I really wish I could give one to everyone who commented! Tell you what—if you commented, send me an email with the subject line "Holiday bookmark" along with your address, I'll send a signed bookmark or two to you if you're interested. It may take a week or so to get them in the mail (one of my holiday wishes was staff, as you may recall—handsome, biddable staff)—but you'll have them in early 2007 for sure. :)

So, my kittens, thanks so much for stopping by to share a little holiday warmth and good humor along with your own wishes. One of mine came true: I unwrapped a new robe!! A big pink (very pink, as a matter of fact), soft (made of genuine muppet pelts! Ok, kidding. But it is soft), warm robe, which happens to match my new socks.  In short, life is grand. :)  How about you guys? Did your practical dreams come true this year? How about the grander ones? Did you all survive the holiday?? :)

(And a little postscript from Tuesday evening: it's a total crying shame I didn't see this until after Christmas, but I had to share it with you, if you haven't seen this yet. It's hilarious—It's your chance to Elf Yourself, everybody!! To see what I mean, go here to see me dance. And if you make an Elf of yourself, share the link here in a comment!)

Win an ARC, Pa rum pum pum pum...

Well kittens...no matter how (or if) you celebrate the holidays this time of year, I hope you spend the weekend feeling warm and loved and appreciated and sugar-filled. To prove how very much I appreciate you, I'll give away a very rare, signed ARC of WAYS TO BE WICKED, slept on by my cat only once, to someone who comments between now and the end of Christmas Day. Just say hello and happy holidays down below, and I'll choose a winner at random by the afternoon of December 26th. But just for fun, let's play a fantasy vs. practicality game in the comments, too...Tell me one practical thing on your wish list this year, and one impractical thing. For instance, I could use a new robe. I have this big, velvety, emerald green robe that's...well, it's probably significantly more than a decade old, and it's finally beginning to sort of give way in various places. It's served me valiantly and well, and if that robe could TALK!  My goodness. (Well, actually, a talking robe would sort of freak me out, so let's not think about that.) Anyway, I can probably use a new robe. I would also like....oh, an original Erte lithograph, because I'm a bit of an Art Deco nut, and would be delighted if my whole apartment looked like the set of Jeeves & Wooster or My Man Godfrey. I'm exaggerating a bit (as usual), but still.  I'll be delighted if a new robe appears. The Erte, on the other hand, is probably a half dozen books and a few NYT list appearances down the road. :)  What about you?

And down below, in case you're wondering, is a holiday classic beloved of those of a certain generation. :) Peace on earth, and Pa rum pum pum pum, kittens!!  (And thanks, Kathy K., for finding the video!!) And does DB really say something about "Agents sliding down chimneys??" 

I bring you glad tidings of Mrs. Giggles, Haven's cats, and Christmas songs

So it all began with an email from a reader who told me, “you’ll never believe what Mrs. Giggles wrote on her blog!” She included a link. And I looked, and she was right: I couldn’t believe it. Because, frankly, it’s heady stuff indeed when Mrs. Giggles says she has “a new favorite author” and she’s “in heaven” and it turns out she’s talking about...me. Right after this I had an email from another reader who alerted me to reviews posted a few days ago.  And… well, talk about nice little Christmas present. I love Mrs. Giggles—if you’re familiar with her, you know she’s hilarious, cranky, fearless, inimitable, opinionated, articulate, and very, very particular. And I’m not deluded enough to think she’s going to enjoy everything I write, but it’s a pleasure to please someone like her, because she obviously cares enough about romance to keep reading and reading and reading it, hoping to uncover that next little gem. I really hope she finds a few more keepers in my body of work over the years. Happy holidays, Mrs. G! I’m lifting a glass of nog to you, and thanks to those reviews you just posted, I won’t even need to add that dollop of brandy to warm my cockles.

        Speaking of warming cockles, today's blog illustration is courtesy of Haven. Those are her cat babies when they were little. I love how baby animals sleep all piled together. Of course, a lot of baby animals are all covered with fur, so it's probably a pretty darn comfy way to sleep.

            So how are you doing on your holiday preparations, kittens? Shopping done?? Gifts wrapped and sent? Baking done?? Decorations up?? Are you bloody sick of talking about and thinking about Christmas yet?? LOL. An interesting side effect of baking my little brains out over the past few days is that now, by the time I pull things out of the oven, I really, really don’t want to eat any of it. But this effect, mind you, took a few days to kick in. I mean, first I needed to test the cookies and brownies I intended to foist upon my dear ones, right? For quality control purposes? So I baked, I tested, I foisted. And now I could swear my jeans are tighter. I tell you. The sacrifices I make for loved ones. I just ran myself silly on my mini-trampoline by way of damage control, and though I fully intended to write a profound blog for you (ha!), as a result of all that running I feel kinda punchy instead. Ho ho ho! I think I'll just yammer on about...about....

        Well, how about Christmas songs? My favorite Christmas song: “Oh Holy Night.” Hands down.  It’s such a perfect, beautiful song. I always want to fall on my knees during the “fall on your knees” part and fling my arms wide and throw my head back and sort of belt it. You'll be happy to hear that I don't typically do this, however. I usually let Johnny Mathis do the belting. I also love, love, love Vince Guaraldi (who, coincidentally, was born in San Francisco and spent much of life gigging and recording here), particularly...

Christmastime Is Here [Instrumental]

But every bit of his "A Charlie Brown Christmas" makes me very happy. It's all so...lovely and tender and playful and relentlessly bittersweet. And Vince G. really jams on "Linus & Lucy." LOL. I've loved that piece my entire life, seems like:

Linus & Lucy

          So do you have a favorite Christmas song? Is there one you hate? What Christmas records did you grow up listening to, if you did? Did you do any baking this year? What else spells Christmas to you? And I swear I won't ask any more Christmas questions, but feel free to volunteer any info. LOL. Hope you're all quite warm and comfy, finished with shopping, done with wrapping, and leisurely sipping something hot while you're reading this. :) (It's a nice dream, isn't it?) And Haven, if you're around, tell us who's who in that basket up there. :)

(P.S. If all goes according to plan, I'll be having a quickie contest here on the blog on Friday and Saturday, so stay tuned. Who knows? All may not go according to plan. LOL.)

On typing one dirty word after another

So yesterday, as I was typing the word "schlong" into the spam filtering function of my email program, it occurred to me that a big part of winning—or even gaining a foothold—in the war against spam involves the willingness to cast one's dignity to the wind.  And cast I did yesterday as I spent a couple of hours methodically typing one filthy little word after another into my filter. I then moved on to the coy and juvenile little words ("weenie," anyone?), and concluded with quite a few of those non-sequiturs and stock phrases ("investor alert!") so beloved of spammers. My filter now knows I don't want to see any mail which includes these words, and now it's whisking about 95% of offending emails into my spam folder before my delicate sensibilities can be offended. It's tremendously satisfying...even if I do feel a little dirty now.

Over the past couple of years (and again, over the past couple of days) I've tried a few of the more popular commercial spam filtering programs, but most of them refuse to play nice with my firewall software (which I love and won't relinquish), and others really dragged down my system functionality, which was a gigantic pain. So I returned to the filters built into my email program in an attempt to maximize their effectiveness, and actually, after the attention I lavished on them yesterday (meaning: typing all those dirty words), they're doing a pretty good job.

Spam is...bizarre. I mean, though much of it purports to sell a product, given the sheer volume, it primarily seems to exist purely for purposes of harrassment or even vandalism (spreading viruses, downloading Trojans—and not the fun kind of Trojans, wink wink, nudge nudge) these days. I truly have to wonder if any spam is effective in selling a product. Pretty much anyone collecting statistics on email responses or sales resulting from sent spam would probably be some sort of outlaw (as they're typically stealing bandwidth, hijacking domains and spoofing email addresses in order to send spam), and possibly not eager to speak up even to brag about sales results, so I suppose we'll never know for certain. There's a part of me that admires, or at least enjoys observing, the perverse sort of ingenuity required to dodge spam filters, and the weird poety of some of the subject lines that come through. Another part of me—and I'm thinking this is the much larger part—erupts in silent but deep visceral loathing at the sight of spam. The part of me that objects to theft and vandalism and pointlessness and time wasting, etc. You know, on principle.

The last straw, I think, was when I was sent an email from myself offering me a penile implant. Someone had spoofed my email address to send the spam. Now, I'll admit to having a diverse resume, but  penile implants are not now, nor have they ever been, nor will they likely ever be, my area of expertise, so if you received an email like that from "me," just keep that in mind. But thus began my very earnest spam vanquishing campaign. Entering all those dirty words was just the beginning, though. Somehow my anti-spam campaign snowballed into a thorough cleanout and a tune-up for my maddeningly sluggish computer. I de-fragged the hard drive (which took about three, four hours), uninstalled unused software, installed more Spyware and Adware finders, deleted lots of old files, organized others. Once I got started on the whole project it was really hard to stop, but now my old computer (old? ha! It's two years old) has a spring in its step and is running much more briskly. I might add that giving your computer a tuneup is also a marvelous way to avoid writing.  Just in case you were wondering. :) But I can write much better now that my computer is clean. Ahem.

In other news: Up there we have our very own Ranurgis, who took The Runaway Duke on a trip to Tulum (lucky book! lucky Ranurgis!) and she was kind enough to share vacation photos with us. Clearly all three of them (Ranurgis, DUKE and Tulum) are pretty photogenic. Anyone else have any photos they feel like sending? I'll post 'em. I like photos of pets. :) Also, if you're posing with one of my books in your photo, I won't complain. :) What else? I just finished reading my page proofs of THE SECRET TO SEDUCTION, and I'm trying to decide if I should recruit some readers to read the whole book in page proof form before we have ARCs, which will be a few months from now (it's out in May of next year). Hmmm...let me think about it...

So kids, tell me: have you ever bought a product as a result of spam, or otherwise have a spam experience? Do you get a little or a lot or none (of spam?)?  Are you the person in charge of the care and feeding of your computer at your house? Have any computer adventures lately? How's your weather? :) (I'ts raining here. Pretty steadily. Looks like it'll keep up all week.)

On being walked on by a cat

         I’ve heard it said that living with a dog is a bit like having a child, because dogs are dependent on you, but that living with a cat is like living with an adult roommate from another culture. This sounded reasonable to me, as I’ve lived with both cats and dogs for much of my life, and as I've had at least one cat for a roommate for more than a decade, I can say definitively that living with a cat is all about compromise and bemusement. I was reflecting on these compromises in bed last night, because I was nearly asleep when my 18-pound cat decided to slowly walk up the length of me, then turn around and walk down the length of me, whereupon he turned around and walked slowly up me again. He’s so darn heavy it felt like a bizarre sort of Shiatsu, but he clearly had an objective, and I waited it out. On his fourth trip down, he finally paused and spent a little time arranging himself into a sleeping position….on my knees. 

Now, what in God’s name about my knees made him decide, “aaaaannnnnd… there!”?? I can assure you there are softer, squishier places between my toes and neck for a cat to sleep on, and he’s slept on all of them before.  And more than once I’ve awakened sweaty in the morning because, unbeknownst to me, I’ve been wearing a striped fur hat all night. Usually, however, he chooses to drape himself sort of half over my shoulder, a position that mostly works out for both of us. Instead, on this night, he chose what must have been the least comfortable place anywhere on me. Why? For variety’s sake? Who knows? Granted, he’s generously covered in fur and fat so the knobs of my knees probably bothered him less than they might have, but an eighteen-pound weight on my knees wasn’t conducive to sleep, and this is where our compromise ended. I waited for him to doze off, then tipped him off. Sleeping on top of humans must be like sleeping on the deck of a ship on a stormy sea, what with all the breathing and thrashing and all, but cats persist in doing it anyway. It must be in their DNA now. Part of our roommate bargain is that I let him sleep on me.

I’m always curious about what goes on in a furry little enigmatic cat mind. Why on earth do they decide to some of the things they do? For instance, one morning years ago when I lived in the Haight, I woke up, made my groggy way into the kitchen, reached up to open the cupboard over the counter to take down a coffee cup—and there was my cat Sophie sitting in the cupboard. Exactly as if someone had put her away with the cups and plates. How did she get in there? Why was she in there? How long had she been in there? It’s anyone’s guess. She didn’t look particularly distressed, or even surprised to see me. Another time she’d been missing for a while, and I looked all over the bloody flat for her (she was an inside cat). I finally found her sitting up very benignly in my wicker wastebasket, which was exactly as tall as she is. She wasn’t stuck. Just sitting. (“Oh, look!” I said. “Someone threw away a perfectly good cat!”) Sophie once took a small zucchini out of the bowl on the kitchen table and dragged it down the hall (one end in her mouth) to lay at my feet.

Again: why?

Then there’s my cat Domenic, who lives with me now. Now, this is a cat who’ll run to the front window to watch a fire engine go screaming by…but he’s terrified of the mop. I have no idea why. He thinks the broom is great fun—when I use it, he runs at it, then runs away, and runs back to pat at it again.  It’s a pretty good game. The mop, however, inspires only bushy-tailed run-under-the-bed-and-hide terror in him when I bring it out. I can only imagine there was some sort of horrifying mop accident when he was kitten—maybe he was roughhousing when I wasn’t around, accidentally knocked it down, and it scared the bejesus out of him—but I’ll never know.

        Part of the fun of having a cat, too: the amusing little one-sided conversations you can hold with them. Domenic (my cat), like other members of his culture (feline) knows only the one word (meow), but he uses it in hundreds of different ways, some enchanting, others purely obnoxious and deafening, and he always manages to eloquently make his point. It amuses me to answer things like: “I’m so sorry you feel that way,” or “We don’t use language like that in this house!”  when he’s bellowing at me. Because, after all, part of the fun of living with a cat is that you can occasionally have a little fun at their expense.

It’s fun to mess with that built-in curiosity factor that cats have, too. Cats are both irresistibly drawn to new things (the reason, I’m sure, Sophie wound up in the cupboard and the reason I once spent nearly an hour trying to get Domenic out from behind the four inches of space behind dryer, where, in boneless cat fashion, he’d managed to squeeze) and deeply suspicious of them. I can move a chair I’ve had forever two feet away from its usual spot, and in Domenic’s eyes it becomes a Brand New Chair. He’ll circle it warily, sniffing and sniffing and sniffing it, then get up in and decide to sleep there. Even if he’s ignored it his entire life. One of the tribal laws of the cat is that all "new" things (books, groceries, laundry, people) must be either sat or slept upon as soon as possible.

       He’s yowling at me right now to be taken outside. It’s sunny here and in 60’s, so we better go get some air. And in other news: technology has been giving me fits this week, as my ISP has been “upgrading servers,” which, in my experience, are slightly sinister words meaning “prepare for maddeningly erratic service for a few weeks.” Sure enough, I’ve been having trouble getting to my website, so I haven’t been able to update my contest yet. I’ve been assured it’ll be resolved quite soon. I'll be balder from tearing my hair out by then, but hey, who needs hair?

         Anyway, kittens, hope you’re doing great. This won’t be my last cat blog, I can practically guarantee that. LOL. What have you been up to lately? Tell me something funny your cat or (your dog, if you live with a dog) did.