It’s Manic Baby Shopping Time over here. Baby Countdown is 36 weeks today! I’m “Full-Term” which means the bambina can come anytime now…EEEK!!! We are NOT ready! First off, I have to finish Au Pairs 4: CRAZY HOT, which I’m hoping to deliver the week before I really deliver. As well as a horror short story for a collection put out by Scholastic next year. (Mine is about a girl and a hot ghost–oh yeah, a crazy hot ghost!) I’m really into the new Au Pairs title, as you can see..

On Saturday Mike and I ran over to the Juvenile Shop in Sherman Oaks, which is the only store in Los Angeles that sells the David Netto Collection. The David Netto Baby Furniture Collection has been an obsession for the last several months. I had originally opted to buy the new “CUB” line, which was lower-priced and more affordable, and very cute, but when I heard the CUB isn’t going to be available until DECEMBER, and the baby is coming in NOVEMBER, we decided we should buy the real Netto stuff instead of the “bridge-line” Netto.

My dear friend Karen (co-Fashionista author) knows my obsession with this as we have been emailing back and forth the advantages and disadvantages of Netto Collection vs. CUB for many many months now. But you know what? The Netto stuff wasn’t that great. It was a bit of a disappointment, as we had planned to order the Netto Loft line, but we didn’t like the stain on the wood–it looked pretty cheap (and at $1200 it shouldn’t be!). The best was the Netto Case collection, which is the most high-end. But $1600 for a crib just seemed a bit…too self-indulgent. Also, the furniture looked very heavy. If you are interested in more high-end nursery stuff, (and my, high-end can go all the way to $2000 to $3000 for a crib!) there’s http://www.modernnursery.com which stocks a lot of that stuff. I like the Ducduc Modern crib and the Ooba crib too.

We decided to go with the Oeuf line – crib ($850), changing table ($212), dresser ($895) and bookshelf ($580). In walnut. It was about $1000 more than the full CUB line, but looked a lot more substantial and very chic. Also more “baby-ish” in Mike’s words–as in much cuter somehow. And we got the MOD DOTS in pink crib set ($295) from Dwell. As well as a Dwell baby bib ($35) and a “Flat Bear” ($45) made out of Australian sheepskin and dyed black – so that it looked like it was made of mink. So fab!

Then on to babystyle, where we picked up our Bugaboo. Yes. Shut up. We got a Bugaboo. One of the signs of the Apocalypse apparently. Sure, you could go with a McLaren or a Peg Perego. But we who are trendy label-lovers are Bugaboo people. You have to know who you are in life, and shop accordingly. I mean, I’m 9 months pregnant and I’m rocking a cashmere tunic top, cropped leggings, and Chloe platforms. I don’t think it’s the best look for prego peeps, since the big-ass bump kind of ruins the long, lean line. (In fact, I suspect I look a little Edina-ish. Mike and I looked at my reflection in this outfit and we both burst out laughing. It doesn’t quite work.) But I love that I can still participate in fashion… We got the Bugaboo Cameleon ($879) in Sand for both the base and the fleece.

The Sand I think is the most “architectural” looking, since Mike is a major beige kind of guy. I wanted to get the Pink and the Gray, but the combo didn’t look that good actually. I was also thinking that if we have Kid Number Two, and it’s a boy, we wouldn’t want to be stuck with a pink Bugaboo. A friend of mine, who is also pregnant and also got the Bugaboo (in green and black) said I should get the pink because by the time Kid Number Two comes around, there will be some NEW Bugaboo (“The Alligator!”) that I’m going to want. But in the end, we decided the stroller actually looked better with all one-color. Then I also got the Sunshade ($24), the Sun Canopy ($39), the Parasol ($40), the Carrying Case ($120) and the Footmuff ($130). The stroller is a gift from Mom, (Mom you owe me $879) and the Footmuff is a gift from my brother (Chit, you owe me $130). So really, we didn’t spend that much.

We also picked up the Primo Viaggio Car Seat from Peg Perego ($250) in Toffee to match our sand-colored Bugaboo. A gift from Mike’s mom. (Mike’s mom already gave us the $250).

This is why it is great to be an older parent – you can afford all the fun stuff! Along with having family who love to give gifts! If I was 25 and pregnant, there is no way we would be able to buy all this. We’d have to scrimp and count our pennies and how lame is that?

For the baby’s room we chose a fabulous wallpaper from Innovations – the Gelato in Mango, which is actually a really light pink. The wallpaper is all natural fiber (most wallpapers are made of vinyl apparently) so it’s good for babies’ rooms. And my dear friend Kim DeMarco gave us a framed original print from her work on Cat’s Meow (my first novel that she illustrated) that shows Cat as a little girl for the baby’s room. It’s so beautiful and awesome and it’s going in the place of honor. We’re putting the Eames rocker in the room too. I remember reading about a MOMA curator, who bought his twins Eames walnut stools ($749 each) for their birthday, and a friend said to him, “Oh did they turn eighteen?” His answer, “Actually, they turned six.” Love that!

Oh, and we also got the Ooba Nest Bassinet in walnut ($500) for our room since the baby will sleep with us for the first couple of months.

Then we ran over to the Fred Segal sale, which was ending, and Mike got two Yves Saint Laurent trousers ($500 each), Edun jeans ($200), Yanuk jeans ($180) and Yves Saint Laurent shirt ($500) but everything was 75 percent off so it was only $400 for everything. I got a Pucci bag ($925) and Chloe shorts ($600) and a Rozae Nichols leather jacket ($1000) and got Mike two other shirts Commes des Garcons ($450) and Martin Margiela ($400) – again, at 75 percent off, so it was less than the original cost of the Pucci bag. Craziness!

We got all dolled up for dinner and Mike pointed out that everything he had on was from either from 1) The Outlet 2) Century 21 or 3) The Fred Segal Sale. Which cracked me up. We love our labels but we love our bargains more. And seriously, he looked really good. I don’t know why people continue to shop full-price at Banana Republic, when you can buy Saint-Laurent at the outlet for the same amount of money. It looks soooo much better. In fact, almost all of our clothes come from big designer sales. We have spent full-price on some items (Mike’s $500 Prada dress shirts from Barneys- which we send to this couture cleaner all the way in Brentwood–come to mind) but that’s it. And those full-price shirts are like, treasured, man. Treated like gold.

God, I love to shop. Then today I went to Barneys to buy my friend a birthday present, and of course I had to pick up stuff from my fall shopping list. I got the Louboutin booties ($950) in black calf leather (sooo zexy!), and Louboutin patent-leather Mary Jane platforms ($710) in black, two Vince cashmere tunics (the V-neck in black and the cowl neck in beige) $250 each, and several Vince long-sleeved t-shirts to wear under them. Picked up a couple more cropped leggings ($20 from the Gap) and I’m done. That’s all I needed to update the look, as they say. I was going to stop by Hermes to check on either the black Kelley or black Birkin but I was too exhausted from running from Saks to Barneys to Neimans that I just went home. The Vince sweaters look pretty good, even with the bump, so I’m psyched. I still want a Stella McCartney oversized sweater as well, but again, was too tired to drag myself over to Beverly Boulevard to her boutique, so I’ll save that for next time.

The other day Mike bemoaned the fact that I don’t cook anymore. I’m a pretty decent cook, and in New York, I cooked a lot, but with my insane book deadlines (I wrote four books this year), we had an agreement that I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not doing anything domestic. I don’t even go grocery shopping anymore. There is just no time. I asked him if he would expect me to cook and clean if I was just a stay-at-home-wife who didn’t work and he said, “Of course!” So THANK THE LORD I actually contribute to the household income. Because all I am expected to do is write the books and shop. Not a bad life if you can get it, girls!

xoxo
Mel

The chat was really fun! Although the chatsite (hosted by Chatzy) was a little wonky…it’s October so we must blame it on goblins. Thanks to everyone who was there!

Here’s what I revealed in the chat: The character of Oliver in the Blue Bloods series is based on my best friend from college (who was cute and sweet and I had a total crush on him). The question was, is anyone in your books based on real people? Oliver is the only one. Everyone else is completely made up, although I like to think they have a part of me in each of them…Oh, wait…In the Au Pairs, Ryan Perry is based on the two cutest guys I know in New York, both of whom are totally hot and sweet in a different way, with a sprinkling of my husband (who it goes without saying, is the hottest and sweetest guy of all of course) thrown in there as well.

Yesterday Mike and I saw The Departed, which was excellent. We haven’t seen such a great movie in years – action-packed and REALLY funny, in a totally unexpected way. We were very happy to see the screenwriter credit–our friend William Monahan wrote it! Bill was a writer for the New York Press during the same time I was writing for them, and we met him about a handful of times, usually at one of the bacchanalian Christmas or summer parties. A really cool, funny guy. One of our favorite writers, deadpan, witty, and totally real. (One of his lines that we always repeat to each other is: “Supreme Dictator of Chad sunglasses” to describe a certain kind of aviator. Can’t you SEE it? And how funny is that?) So it was not a surprise that he wrote that movie, as it had his signature humor all over it. What’s the opposite of schadenfreude? That’s what we were feeling–a happy glow knowing good things were coming to someone who so deserved it.

I also wanted to blog about two books that I recently finished: Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia, and Andrea Lee’s Lost Hearts in Italy. Julie and Julia was AMAZING. It was so raw, earthy and funny and touching. I was crying by the end–it’s such a great memoir of what it’s like to be poor and struggling and aspirational in New York…I so remember what living in a shitty apartment was like. There was the one in the West Village, that leaked from four different places in the ceiling, so we would have all these pots and pans all over the place to catch the dripping water, which we HOPED was from the clean pipes. Then there was the one on the Upper West Side where the entire ceiling in the living room and the bedroom caved in–at different times, and fortunately, not when we were there. And yet I lived in these apartments for YEARS–they were both rent-stabilized, so my rent was very reasonable compared to my friends who were paying market rates.

Lost Hearts in Italy was great too, but for a totally different reason–all about living in Rome, and has all these awesome details about ex-pat living… I like Andrea Lee’s writing a lot, mostly because her heroines are these totally sophisticated and fabulous women of color or mixed race. Everyone is always either half-Swiss and half-Vietnamese or from a prominent black Philadelphia mainline family, and lives in Hong Kong or London or Geneva. Droool…

Anyway, I was at Target today, and I happened upon that book “This is Not Chick Lit” and I was about to put it in my cart until I started reading Elizabeth Merrick’s introduction. And her introduction TURNED ME OFF SO MUCH that I got so annoyed and put the book down. I think all that sniping over chick lit is so silly, and I like authors in both anthologies “This is Chick Lit” and “This is Not Chick Lit”, and I had been meaning to buy the “This is Not” book for a while.

But then I read her intro, about how chicklit is like, responsible for the LACK of books from “real” women writers (or whatever she calls the “literary” writers) in this screechy, harsh, almost HYSTERICAL tone, and I just got mad. She’s not getting my eight bucks, sorry. I buy, read and enjoy a lot of literary fiction, and I am called a chicklit writer, and I don’t mind it. But I’m not going to have someone insult me to my face or tell me that my books are the reason some “real” writers are not getting published. Isn’t “literary” just another genre? The sad-everyone-dies-unhappy-ending genre? I mean, c’mon.

And is Andrea Lee a literary writer because she writes for the New Yorker? Yes, right? And Julie Powell was “just” a blogger. But Julie Powell I thought was the stronger writer…her book was a lot more real and tough and not pretentious in the least. Whereas Lost Hearts in Italy has a frigging billionaire in it, for goddsakes. The staple of the bodice-ripper fiction. Just with better adjectives and better observations, maybe. So which one is chicklit? I don’t mean to bash Andrea Lee at all, I thoroughly enjoyed her book and want to go buy her backlist now. This is why all this Chick Lit vs. Non Chicklit shit is so annoying… Good writing is good writing, whatever genre it is. And it’s all genre in my humble opinion.

And why put down a type of book that people like to read?? Don’t they know that women who read chick lit also read lit lit or whatever they want to call those books that don’t have pink covers? Readers are omnivorous types, and to assume otherwise is pretty narrow-minded if you ask me. I read everything: chick, literary, mystery, sci-fi, memoirs, YA, etc. I’m gazing at my shelves and I see Harry Potter, Three Junes, Confessions of a Not It Girl, The Acid House, Stephen King’s On Writing, The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde…

Well, that’s enough of a rant for today.

xoxo
Mel

Just a reminder about the CHAT TONIGHT!!

I’m the guest author at the Ya Authors Cafe chat tonight, October 10th, from 5:30-6:30 PM PST/8:30-9:30 PM EST.

Come stop by and chat with me! It’s a Blue Bloods chat (because it’s October!) but I can talk about anything and everything…The Au Pairs, Fashionista Files, to Birkin or not to Birkin, etc.

xoxo
Mel

And yes, Cassie E., I will try to get an archive of the chat and post it here or at least link to the one on the YA authors cafe site!
🙂

We got a GREAT review for MISTLETOE in the latest issue of Publishers Weekly!

MISTLETOE
Four Holiday Stories by Hailey Abbot, Melissa de la Cruz, Aimee Friedman and Nina Malkin
Scholastic Point

Four short stories center on love during the holidays, ranging from a Jewish girl who finds the guy of her dreams while working as a department store elf, to a supernatural story about a hot celebrity who learns what is really important one New Year’s, after meeting a mysterious girl. Of this quartet with familiar themes (holiday loneliness, redemption in the New Year), de la Cruz’s twist on Gift of the Magi is perhaps the best of the lot. Her smart updates involve Jimmy Choo shoes and Kelsey’s determination to “look just as good” as the rich snobs attending her friend Gigi’s Christmas Eve/Sweet 16 party. Readers will sympathize with Kelsey, who overhears the rich girls making fun of her clothes, and will be touched when it’s Kelsey who learns the lesson. Readers may well predict how each tale will end, but enjoy them just the same.

WOO HOO!! I worked REALLY HARD on that story, and it’s so great to know they liked it. (They really liked it – as Sally Field says.)

And in other great news– Tom and I are turning in the final draft of GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS tomorrow and we have a fabulous cover that we will post very soon…as soon as we figure out how to do those things. I just realized almost no one can see the Masquerade cover, so I’m going to have to ask my Webmistress to help me with that…

Have a happy week everyone!
xoxo
Mel

Hi guys,

I’m the guest author at the YA Authors Cafe chat next Tuesday, October 10th, from 5:30-6:30 PM PST and 8:30-9:30 PM EST.

Come stop by and chat with me! It’s a Blue Bloods chat (because it’s October!) but I can talk about anything and everything…The Au Pairs, Fashionista Files, to Birkin or not to Birkin, etc.

xoxo
Mel

From today’s VARIETY… THE BIG FABULOUS NEWS!!!!

‘Au Pairs’ for Warner

Barrymore shingle to produce young-adult tome series

By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK, DAVE MCNARY

Warner
Bros. Pictures has bought the film rights to Melissa de la Cruz’s
steamy young-adult book series "The Au Pairs," setting up the first
tome to be adapted and produced by Drew Barrymore’s Flower Films.

Alloy Entertainment also will produce.

Three books have been published in the "Au Pair" series, with the fourth due out next spring.

The
first, "The Au Pairs," takes up as three teenage girls learn how the
other half lives when they take summer jobs as au pairs for a wealthy
family with a home in the Hamptons.

Like Cecily von Ziegesar’s
"Gossip Girl" series and Zoe Dean’s "The A-List" series, de la Cruz’s
series offers plenty of juicy fun and teen sex for the millions of
girls who are gravitating to such titles. ("Gossip Girl" is being
developed into a TV skein for the CW by Josh Schwartz.)

"Au
Pairs" producers are Barrymore and Flower Film partner Nancy Juvonen,
along with Alloy prexy Leslie Morgenstein. Alloy’s Bob Levy will exec
produce.

Flower Films has a first-look deal with Warners.

—-

Isn’t
that awesome??? Our girls, on the big screen? I have absolutely NO say
in any casting or even script development, all I’m going to do,
hopefully, is get to hang out on the set one day (with my dad, who is
DYING to see a real movie being filmed) and meet Drew
(AHMYGODILOVEDREW) Barrymore and maybe even walk the red carpet at the
premiere. (Oh, an author can dream!)

Anyway, working hard on the
AU PAIRS 4 outline right now… I’ve got to deliver that book before I
deliver my baby! Lots of juicy, fabulous fun in store!!!

The book (which is still untitled) comes out next May!

xoxo
Mel

I am BURIED underneath hundreds of reader emails. Ah, the guilt is killing me. But rest assured I am going to respond to each and every one by November. Why? Because I am taking off starting mid-November when the baby comes, and I probably won’t be in touch via email until the new year. I know, I know.

But please be assured that I READ every email you send, so do send them, and that the response time is slow right now because I always try to put in the latest news in my reponses and I have yet to get the go-ahead on the VERY BIG FABULOUS NEWS that I want to share with you all. Also, we (meaning me and my publisher) are working on my schedule right now and I’m not quite sure yet when my two new series SOCIAL LIFE and THE ASHLEYS is going to debut, I think THE ASHLEYS is going out next year, but we are holding SOCIAL LIFE until 2008 for now.

Too many excuses! But I promise I will get back to diligently responding and a flurry of responses should be FLYING out of my out-box by early next week. I just got buried in so many book deadlines (and Au Pairs 4 deadline is right around the corner). Plus, I’m putting final touches on the anthology I’m editing, I need to update my website, etc. And Mike and I are moving to our new house which is being renovated right now, and trying to go to Childbirth Classes and buy all the stuff for the baby and hire a baby nurse (DONE!) and a nanny for when the baby nurse leaves (NOT YET DONE!) that I am kind of running around like a chicken.

So of course, what do I do? Escape to the Fred Segal Sale of course!!!! Everything was 50 percent off, but if you buy FIVE items, it’s 2/3 off, which is 66.6% the Six-Six-Six sale. Of course, I found more than five things I wanted to buy… two Miss Davenporte silk shirts one in dove and one in gray, sooo cool and kind of gothy, originally $615 each. One dress from Milla (a Brit designer) orig $590, and the matching chiffon shrug orig $600. The dress is seafoam green, and has this cool decorative turquoise stones and embroidering on the front, and the shrug has sequins and turquoise on the sleeves. It’s very handmade looking and fab. I think I’ll wear it to the GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS launch party in June. Or my friend’s wedding in May. I can’t decide. But it’s always good to buy a special occasion dress even when you don’t have an occasion because then when the occasion does arise, you are READY for it. Of course, this means that I probably have, oooh, about five “special occasion” dresses in my closet that I have not worn yet. To any occasion. Eeks. I also bought this cozy Inhabit knit cardigan sweater coat in camel (orig $1050), and an insane Doo.Ri top which had glass embelishments on the v-neck, it’s kind of a wool v-neck coat/sweater/poncho-y thing (orig $1200). Kind of heavy for LA, but I think I might be in New York when it’s cold next year so it would be a good thing to wear then. With the six-six-six discount, I only spent less than two thousand bucks!

I just realized so many of my clothes are bought at sales and bargains. I just LOOOVE to shop. (I mean, hello.) And so to justify my habit I tend to limit myself to big sales. But who am I kidding? I can’t wait to go to Barneys and get all those new Chloe platforms and a big oversize V-neck Vince sweater and tons of tunics and maybe a new bootie (Louboutin? Or Blahnik?) so I’m up-to-date with “fall”.

To assuage my guilt, I also bought the baby a ton of Splendid t-shirts and leggings which were half off. I’m hoping I haven’t bought all my new clothes for nothing…I mean, I can’t imagine being just cooped up at home with the kid all the time…Mike and I agreed we will still try to have a “date night” one night a week even when the baby is here. So I can still get dressed up and go out. The thought of being one of those moms who never get out of her schlumpy sweats is kind of depressing.

I’m supposed to go to a conference in April (Hyperion is sending me–my first conference tres fun!), and then hopefully I’ll be back in New York in the spring, definitely for the summer, for the anthology mini-tour, so I’ll need new clothes!

Wishing everyone a happy shopping day,
xoxo
Mel

So it’s our second to last day here at the Parker Palm Springs a truly fabulous hotel designed by Jonathan Adler, husband of my fabulous friend Simon Doonan (he of Wacky Chicks and Nasty and Barneys fame, Jonathan of superchic pottery fame). It’s just sooo lovely. The landscaping, the grounds, the little fire pits where you can sit at night and have a drink (non-alki for prego me sadly), the two pools, the decor–which is happy, campy, native, chic, modern and awesome…the SPA! which is ironically called “the Palm Springs Yacht Club” – hello, there is no water here – it’s all desert!–where I had the best facial and massage…it’s just been a great langorous, lazy week, (although I did have to do a smidgen of work on the anthology, thanks to Tom for holding the fort!). I finished Jen Weiner’s The Guy Not Taken and Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children, both excellent. I was particularly obsessed with Messud’s book, since it touched upon the lives of people who sounded a lot like people I know, or met in college, that whole aspiring, lost, ambitious Ivy League bunch…I got really caught up in it, and at one point said to my husband, “I love this book but right now ALL THE CHARACTERS ARE SO UNLIKABLE I just want to throw it across the room.”

Which I guess is the point of it, that they are complex, complicated people…my favorite character was the one we were all supposed to despise (or at least, several characters despise), the old liberal intellecutal, who is a moral paragon in public but is carrying on an adulterous affair in private, and is supposed to be a hypocrite. Why did I feel so sympathetic towards him? The creepy nephew in my opinion, deserved all the scorn he got… basically the plot is that this hick nephew invades the ivory tower world of the intellectual (his uncle) but then finds out his uncle is just human, and somewhat shallow, so he writes this screed against him…which he tries to get published in a “revolutinary” new “satricial” magazine. Of course, the uncle throws him out. His uncle had taken him in, fed him, helped him get a job, get landed in New York, and that’s what he gets in return? In my world, family first, before everything. So my favorite chapter by far was when the uncle throws his nephew’s sad fat ass on the street. Good riddance!

Anyway, I also found it kind of apalling that the intellectual did not put family first in the question of his daughter’s book, he bascially tells his girl that it’s crap and she shouldn’t publish it because it’s so trivial. I can forgive the affair, the shallowness, but to say that to your kid???

Obviously, I got WAY WAY WAY into this book. It’s like this New York soap opera that I got really into. I highly highly recommend it. Not sure if it would appeal to my teen readers, sometimes I think you need to live a little to really understand some books (for instance, I never really understood Catcher in The Rye until I was in my twenties. I had read it in high school and liked it, but never really got it. That’s why it’s good to re-read books. You get so much out of the same book at different points in your life.) You can tell a reader from a non-reader because a reader, re-reads.

But what I really wanted to blog about was how staying at this fabu hotel, the GREATEST JOY IN STAYING HERE is the TOILETRIES they RE-STOCK every day. Ok, this is so embarassing, but in the past week, I have amassed enough HERMES hand soap to stock our guest bathroom for years. Every day, when we come back to the room, and there’s another beautiful pile of Blistex lip balm, Peter Thomas Roth sunscreen, Hermes soap, L’Occitane soap, Penthagalion shampoo and conditioner and Erno Laszlo body lotion, I am in HEAVEN. I hoard them in my luggage, and do a little happy dance as I put them away. Yes, I know, it’s all part of the cost of staying here, but it SEEMS like it’s FREE. And there’s nothing I adore more than swag. Seriously, this vacation is worth it for the toiletries alone.

I have a friend (who shall remain nameless) who said their pool bathroom is stocked with towels from every Ritz Carlton her parents have stayed at. Yes, they are towel-thieves! Rich towel thieves. Hilarious. Towels are too much grand larceny for me, but I do love extra toiletries. When we were staying at the Alex Hotel earlier this year, my mom and I tipped the maid so much because we asked for extra Frederic Fekkai toiletries they stocked the bathroom with. Omigod, we went home with like a huge BASKET of that stuff.

This is what makes vacations worthwhile…

Anyway, Mik’es back and he has brought me a Coldstone so I will eat my icecream now.

xoxo
Mel

[Note: I wrote this blog on Sunday, Sept 24. I am now currently on vacation. It’s ahhhhhwwwsome.]

I wrote the previous post a couple of days ago, I didn’t post it because I couldn’t get the frigging book cover to come up…but when I went to my comptuer today, the code that linked the photo to the blog was actually working without me doing anything different! See, computers ARE like magic.

I have a book that I started writing a couple of years ago that I shelved that was about magic, but in the book, it was all turned around because “electricity” was magic. “Electricity, who’s heard of that? Microwaves run on MAGIC, my friend.” Does anyone else think this is funny? Becuase I kind of think all things like computers and electricity and everything with “scientific” explanations are actually…magic! Haha. I mean, who can understand WHY things work the way they do?? Dont answer! I don’t want to know. All I know is, it’s magic. (My brother-in-law and his wife are both scientists -he a rocket scientist at NASA and she a geneticist at the NIH, and I’m sure they would be able to explain everything to me very slowly. They are the best people to ask if ever you need to know how anything works. Like fake tans. Apparently fake tans work by dying dead skin cells–it causes a reaction that creates that color. Who knew??)

By the way, where we live in Hollywood is right next to the famous “Magic Castle Hotel” and everytime we drive by it, Mike and I say to each other, “So that’s where the magic happens.” Yes. We are that corny.

So, I have such good news to share, not only did I get MASQUERADE done, I got ANGELS ON SUNSET BOULEVARD done as well. It was a really hard slog. I didn’t realize how much harder it would be to work on books while pregnant (you get kind of wooly and forgetful and also, I don’t want to push my body that hard, for instance, I usually finish by pulling a week of all-nighters, staying up till 3 or 5 am to finish a book, but this time, I just couldn’t do it, which explains why the books were so late. Sorry my editors! But I really tried!!). I just turned in my approval for the copy-edited MASQUERADE, and ANGELS just went into copyedit, which means I’ll probably have to do the same to that book in a week or two.

I am just SO RELIEVED the books turned out the way they did. I’m enormously proud of both of them, and I think you guys are really going to enjoy reading them…so much sexy fun in both! I get hot just THINKING about it! Hee.

It’s been a pretty workaholic year, so for the next week Mike and I are going to Palm Springs to relax. We’re staying at the Parker Hotel, the Jonathan Adler-designed resort, and we just CANNOT WAIT. I am going to get massages and treatments and lie by the pool and read fashion magazines and all the new yummy books I can’t wait to read: Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Phsyics, Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children, Andrea Lee’s Lost Hearts in Italy, Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale, Jennifer Weiner’s The Guy Not Taken, and the cookbook memoir Julie and Julia.

I’m SO excited for all and have been saving reading them for my vacation. I’m also going to be reading my friend Jessica Wollman’s new YA book SWITCHED, which looks hella fun as well. The only one I bought on a whim was The Thirteenth Tale, which I’m HOPING is going to be good and not a washout like The Historian, which it is being compared to. Am I the only person who thought that book was blah?? I mean, Dracula doesn’t even appear until the last twenty pages, and everything was SO plodding and boring until then.

Pessl’s book is going to be fun because she has her own “Bluebloods” in it. Kind of funny! I bet her Bluebloods aren’t undead like mine, who are Blue Bloods (two words, capital B and capital B). I was at dinner once with some friends, and they were asking about my new project, and I told them it was about rich vampires in New York called Blue Bloods. And they said, “That’s a cool metaphor!” And I said, “No. Not at all. It’s very literal. They have blue blood.” Just to show what kind of writer I am. Metaphor schmetaphors! When you dream up a title like Blue Bloods, you’ve got to take it all the way, man.

When I get the go-ahead, I’ll post first chapters of both ANGELS ON SUNSET BOULEVARD and MASQUERADE on my site.

Tom and my anthology GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS is also coming together really nicely. We’re just SO PROUD of it, and adore all the authors who participated with their illuminating, intriguing and touching essays. I have SUCH a good feeling about this book, and we’re so puffed up because it’s coming out from Dutton in hardcover. Tom and I will be making appearances in New York, East Hampton, Los Angeles and San Francisco to promote the book, with some other possible cities added if we can manage it. I’m a bit loathe to travel too much because of the coming child, but on the other hand, I really loved visiting Atlanta, Las Vegas, Chicago and Miami during my last book tour so we shall see…

I forgot why I wanted to post! Yesterday my mom and I went to the Billion Dollar Babes sale, which is a great sample sale of tons of LA designers. I SCORED that T-bags dress that I was OBSESSED with! Hello! And it was only $90, instead of the $225 or however much it was before. Also bought a fabulous pink metallic leather clutch purse from Anya Hindmarch ($100 from $700), several gorgeous necklaces from Maya Brenner, five $5 wood and metallic bangles (it’s all about bangles this fall), an insane black and white leopard fur shrug, with leather on it for the print. I know it sounds weird, but trust me, it is SO GOOD. And it was only $85! From $500! Several printed tops from Mon Petit Oseau. Kind of sad that I can’t really wear any of these clothes until I get back to my normal weight.

It was so fun to shop with mom. Mom is the original super-shopper. She used to go to Hong Kong for the weekend just to shop, when we were still living in Manila. She’d call her mom and two of her sisters, and they would stay at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and spend several days madly shopping.

Mom and I now have shopper’s elbow from carrying around so much stuff. (We like to take everything we like, and then edit before going to the cashier.) We’ve been needing some retail therapy since my dad’s chemo is in full swing right now, and it’s been awful just watching Pop go through it again. It just really takes its toll on him, and you feel so sad and helpless since you can’t do anything to help… UGH! So for a few glorious hours yesterday, all Mom and I had to worry about was whether we liked something enough to buy it. Now that’s the kind of problem we like to deal with…

Anyway, I should log off now and start packing for Palm Springs…which means a trip to the Yves Saint Laurent, Prada, Tods, Barneys, Gucci, and Dior outlets!!!! Woohoo!

xoxoo
Mel

Check out the hot cover for Masquerade: A Blue Bloods Novel! Yeah, boyyyy!

Doesn’t it look lovely??? It’s going to be the cover for the galley (Advanced Reader’s Copy). Hyperion is doing a photoshoot for the real cover of the book. But we are using the same mask. The mask is a real Venetian mask!

Sooo excited!!

It’s rainy and gloomy here in L.A. today, which is putting me in a good mood because all I want to do is shop for fall/winter clothes! Aarrgh. Except I am like, HUGELY pregnant and cannot fit into anything. Wah! I’m SO dreaming of layered cashmere tunics and leggings and flat boots and all that fun, fun, fun stuff…except of course, I will be at home with the baby who will be throwing up and so it will not be a good idea to wear cashmere around the kid… Don’t you LOVE all those long, knit cashmere tunics?? Uh, so, so good, as my fellow Fashionista author Karen and I used to say to each other regarding a particularly choice purchase.

So far, we have not settled the Birkin question. As Mike says, it’s just a matter of time… I mean, it means anytime I want to get it, we can go order it. I just have to say the word. But sadly, I think I’m going to opt for a new bathroom instead. I know, how boring right? But we are renovating the house and the new bathroom will probably cost the same as a Birkin, and well, I’m TRYING to be a practical person now that I’m supposed to be someone’s mother in a few months.

And in the back of my mind, the fact that I KNOW I will OWN a Birkin someday is almost as good as having it, in fact, it’s BETTER because I can wallow in the excitement of anticipation and not experience the anti-climactic feeling of actually getting what you want.

It’s Fashion Week in New York and I am stuck in LA. For years I covered Fashion Week, and the funnest thing about fashion week was running into all your friends at the tents–my fellow fashion journos–all that air-kissing and commotion and checking out each other’s outfits and gossiping about the shows and complaining about all the parties we had to attend and the champagne we just HAD to drink. Oh, it was a fun, fun, fun time…and I do miss it. I especially loved the complaining because we were SO ridiculous about it. “Can you believe Marc’s after-party is crosstown? How are we EVER going to get there from Diane’s townhouse?” (Marc as in Jacobs, Diane as in Von Furstenberg of course!) One season I think we even rented a town car to take us to all the events since it really was SUCH a pain to have to catch a cab all the time. The best parties are the ones that provided town cars home… that was definitely a luxury I could get used to.

xoxo
Mel