Okay, so there was a bit of a bait and switch there, with me posting last Saturday’s Love and Lust and then taking it down and replacing it with a previous show (if you missed all that—well, I think you should probably be taking school a bit more seriously than you do). (Not that I judge.) But all that is ancient history anyway because Chi Mike has come to the rescue, as he is wont to do, and edited the part of the last show that needed editing so it’s now utterly perfect. I am thus now presenting you with the Chi Mike-edited last show of Tales of Lust and Love, which I won’t be taking down. (Unless I seriously lose my mind.) (Which isn’t likely.) (But you never know.)
Crazy Cat Lady Chat
Hey so you guys, I’m going to be doing a live chat on In The Rooms, the social networking site for people in recovery on Thursday, April 26th, at 6pm PST/9 pm EST. You do not have to be in recovery to join the chat! We’ll be talking pets, addiction, sobriety, crazy cat ladies and more.
(Invite photo via untitledmagazine)
True Tales of Love and Lust
Students! I’ve been hosting these monthly events at The Mint in LA and I finally got with it enough to upload the recordings. Or at least to upload the recording of last night’s event. If this works, I can upload the other two I’ve had recorded. And if my tech luck continues — I’m on a bit of a roll right now — you should be able to download two more in addition to this one from iTunes. Wish me luck, people. Oh, and not all of this material is appropriate for all audiences. Mature classrooms only.
Animal Attraction
I’m thrilled to tell you lovely people that my Kindle Single* has just been released. And it’s on a topic I’m almost disturbingly passionate about.
My cats. And, more specifically, my relationship with them. And how that relates to my relationships with men.
In short:
Animal Attraction is now available on Amazon with a cover that may cause you to spontaneously combust due to its cuteness.
So, if you want to know how one seemingly normal woman could end up so obsessed with her pets or what women get from their cats that they can’t get from men—or if you simply want to be entertained for a mere $1.99—you can get the (very short!) book here. And just because you don’t have a Kindle doesn’t mean you can’t read it. Also, if you’re an Amazon Prime Member, you can read it for free. What could be better than that (besides, of course, me paying you to read it)?
Here’s the actual description:
Anna David never expected to end up a crazy cat lady. A successful author (Party Girl, Bought, Reality Matters, Falling For Me) and dating expert for numerous television shows (including The Today Show, The CBS Morning Show and G4’s Attack of the Show), David had every reason to imagine that at this point in her life, she’d be sharing her bed with a man and not two four-legged furballs. In Animal Attraction, the author that The New York Post credits with creating the subgenre “Chick Lit With a Message” shares the unusual journey she took from fun-loving party gal to obsessive cat mom (with the Instagram photos and YouTube videos to prove it). The result is an uproarious, poignant, and painfully honest tribute that’s sure appeal to pet (and people) lovers everywhere.
Thank you so much for considering getting it (of course I hope you’ll get it, love it, review it, and make my cats famous in the process). Lilly and Toby thank you, too.
*A Kindle Single, by the way, is a semi-new form of book that Amazon is releasing: they’re all between 5,000-40,000 words and they’ve done less than 200 in all. (Read all about them here; I’m convinced they’re going to semi save publishing.)
TMZ, Tom Sizemore, Thomas Jane, and Me
Hope you lovelies had a nice Christmas. This post, of course, has nothing to do with that but is instead a brisk summary of end of the year news, which included my next book—with Tom Sizemore—being announced to a wave of surprisingly nice press as well as the thought, from the Chicago Sun Times, that it “could make for one of the juiciest Hollywood star books in recent memory.” It also included a riveting interview (riveting because of him, not me—i.e., the person pressing play and record) with Thomas Jane. It also included (includes?) exciting! New! Events! Coming Up! Really Soon! like this one for All The Single Ladies at Word Bookstore in Brooklyn on January 5th at 7 pm. And this one on How to Change Your Life (or at least hear about it) at Lolita (266 Broome St., NYC) on January 9th at 7:30 pm. There are more—like this one!-that I’ll be mentioning more down the line.
Oh, and yes, I was on TMZ. Why, I’m still not sure. But I was leaving a comedy show with my friend and we were having some deep, philosophical discussion about the meaning of life or maybe I was telling her how good the fries I scarfed during said comedy show were but suddenly I had a camera in my face and my friend was running away. I experienced a confluence of emotions because part of me was thinking, “Wait, you’re supposed to be mean to TMZ, right? Because they’re invading your privacy?” But the other part of me was all flattered that anyone who worked there even knew who I was. And, while I wasn’t aware of quite how Muslim I looked with my scarf over my head, I was a bit flustered so I didn’t get into the somewhat controversial theory that foot fetishes begin with absent mothers (children sexualize the image of their mom always walking away from them) but I did tell him how I was disturbed to find photos of my feet on WikiFeet. It’s probably for the best that this didn’t make the cut.
Is Sex Addiction Real?
So I wrote a story for The Fix that’s up today about something I’ve always felt unsettled about and finally felt like it was time to discuss (meaning write about): when I was diagnosed as a sex addict. For reals. With all the chatter about sex addiction everywhere, I felt like having had this experience gave me a unique qualification to say that yes, it’s real and no, clinicians can’t go around telling people they have it. (I did, by the way, once try to write about this before: I spent almost a year working on a novel called Sexual Healing about a guy who’s so obsessed with a girl that he hacks her computer and discovers that she’s going to a rehab for sex addicts. Thrilled, he shows up there, thinking they’ll spend the whole time in bed, only to discover that she’s actually a sexual anorexic and the place makes them do all this crazy hitting-chairs-with-felt-bats and cradling stuffed animals stuff. It’s actually one of my favorite things I’ve ever written but I was advised to quit trying at novels and try my hand at non-fiction instead. But! Before I abandoned the project, I read a section of it—the filthiest section of it—at Rachel Kramer Bussel’s now defunct In The Flesh reading series.
The Meaning of XO In An Email
Years ago, I wrote a piece for The L.A. Times about the significance of putting “xo” in an email. I’m writing something else on a similar topic so I just looked for it on my site and realized it’s one of the pieces that got lost in the shuffle as I transitioned from one website developer to another. But luckily it’s still up on the site at the Times. Of course this whole thing only leaves us stuck with one question: Who at ADA is up for teaching “Inappropriate and Appropriate Uses of XO in Email”? Professor Chi Mike has excelled as a hashtag instructor so my sense is that he may be the best bet but I’m definitely open to other nominations.
Alec Baldwin Removed From a Plane?
Yes, people, the 30 Rock star was apparently kicked off a plane because he was trying to play Words with Friends on his phone. Or maybe that was a cover for the fact that he was sending his girlfriend and some other dude a creepy Twitter message? Well, actually it seems that he was being verbally abusive to a stewardess flight attendant (how calling someone your attendant is considered more PC than calling them a stewardess, meanwhile, is a mystery to me).
This isn’t quite a Steven Slater hooray for the man moment but I do have to hand it to the flight attendant for actually shutting him down. I’m so used to seeing celebrities get treated better than everyone else (there’s nothing like being at Soho House in LA and being told you have to leave to use the phone before watching Macy Gray have a half-hour phone conversation next to you) that it’s oddly comforting to hear they were making him follow the rules. I know, Alec can be hot headed and once called his daughter a pig—an incident that I, randomly, once discussed on TV (just looked for the video, couldn’t find it). But I have to say that never seemed that crazy to me—my dad has a horrible temper and has said far worse to me. Isn’t that just sort of how dysfunctional dads are? Also: I once, quite randomly, had an interaction with Alec Baldwin and he was so incredibly kind. So there you go. Not sure what my point is except that the world is full of shades of grey. And also that I’m glad I never jumped on the Words with Friends bandwagon since it always screamed addictive to me. And also that Alec may not be the biggest jerk of the day since at least he didn’t send an email novella about getting a second date that screamed Asspergers (ass + Aspergers).
What’s a Woman Without a Man?
It’s an important question that Dr. Paul Hokemeyer asks on the Doctor Oz site, mentioning Falling for Me in such a genuinely touching way that I’m still smiling. The question could obviously just as easily be asked in reverse for you fellas.
Here’s the story, Morning Glory.
Is Tobey Maguire a Gambling Addict?
Honestly, I don’t have any idea. And I thought this was an excellent point: “Just because someone loses $100,000 doesn’t mean that person is a gambling addict. If you can afford to lose the money and it doesn’t damage your life, it is considered a hobby—or, at worst, a bad habit. The problem is when people continue to gamble despite horrible consequences.” It was made by Dr. Timothy Fong, who’s the leading expert on gambling addiction. Addiction is never about numbers; in the same way that you can’t call someone an alcoholic because they drink X number of drinks a night or because they’ve gotten Y number of DIU’s. It’s about the obsession and the consequences. And we can’t read people’s minds to know how much they’re obsessing over something, which is one of the many reasons why we’re not equipped to diagnose them.
Point is, I learned all about gambling addiction doing this story and it’s up on The Fix today. Visit and comment, why don’t you, so Joe’s not the only one who comes off smelling so pretty today?
Meanwhile, despite becoming addicted to so many of the things with which I come into contact, I’ve never had a gambling thing. Call me a saint or just call me cheap.
