Journal Revolution

Mr. Monk and our brother

Our brother, Lee, got some great news yesterday:

I just got a double-header of good Monk news.

On January 14th, the USA Network is running a Monk Viewer's Choice marathon. Fifty thousand viewers cast their votes for their fourteen favorite episodes. Their viewers' choice for the best-ever episode of MONK airs at 10 pm...and it's MR. MONK GOES TO MEXICO written by yours truly & William Rabkin.

On top of that, I learned today that my book MR. MONK AND THE BLUE FLU was #18 on Barnes and Noble's overall mass market bestseller list last week.

How cool!  We're very happy for Lee.  We are gonna refrain from wondering out loud if his publisher or the production company sent out a press release.

pizza and gelato

Today We're FEELIN' GROOVY about:
~Tickets to see Rod Stewart in March.
~The chocolate caramel cluster ZONE Perfect Bar. I am totally addicted. They  have them at Trader Joe's in the energy bar section. The chocolate graham one is ok, but this one is really good. If you like the candy bar Whatchamacallit, you will like this.
~People not getting all huffy with us when we say we're still to busy to do anything.
~Thinking about Italy in May! All that pizza and gelato and ART!!

Our Bêtes Noires:
~People not wanting to settle their lawsuits which requires Karen to be in court instead of with me at a photo shoot.  What a bummer. Both things must be meant to be because we've already had to reschedule this shoot a few times. It's hard to be photographed alone because I am never sure where to look or what to do with my hands.
~ The L Word last night was terrible. TERRIBLE and ridiculous.That show is usually at least worth watching for the fabulous clothes and for Jennifer Beals's hair, but not last night. I feel kind of bad saying it was terrible because  we know what it feels like to get bad reviews.
~People not being helpful because they are too worried about their own egos.
~The runtime error that keeps happening everytime I open Word. Grrrrrr......

Odd thing: Have you noticed that now Bob Seeger looks like Kenny Rogers and Kenny Rogers now looks like a mannequin?

One other thing: I have some art on ebay that ends soon and the opening bid is only ONE DOLLAR.

dedication

This photo has nothing to do with what I am about to write other  than every time I crave something salty, I think of this photo. I love it. I am going to give Karen an imaginary prize if she remembers where I took it. And, I am craving something sweet and salty (maybe a Take 5!) after sitting here all day in the near end of book hell.
We're starting to see the light at the end of the Book Hell tunnel (but I am still not answering my phone). We still have to write our dedications and acknowledgments and that is really hard. It turns out that that is the hardest part! Who knew? What if we thank certain friends in the acknowledgments and not others? The others might get all mad and hurt and wonder why we didn't mention them.  We don't have that much space and we don't want any of our friends to be sad we didn't mention them.   Some of our friends are mentioned in or participated in some of the journal pages so is that mention enough? I don't know what the acknowledgments law is.
And then there is the dedication. Last time we were at this point, Karen and I had this conversation with my husband:
Linda: Dustin, I am going to do my dedication to YOU!!!
Dustin: Why? You should dedicate the book to each other since you're both working so hard on it.
Karen: [blink]
Linda: [blink] [blink] [blink] OK!

If you have our book you know that we did indeed dedicate the book to each other after we dedicated it to our husbands and kids.  When the book came out and I showed Dustin, he had no memory at all of the above conversation. Those of you who are married should not be surprised by that. So of course since we are both still married and we're both still sisters, we'll dedicate the new book to our husbands and kids and each other (don't worry, we won't be forgetting about our pal Rosie, either) again, because how could we not? I think there is some law about dedicating books to spouses.
But what to write? Hmmmmm.....

If you know the song I quoted in the first dedication to my husband (Dustin), I will give you the best ever imaginary prize. Go on, look in the book and  guess.

at in-n-out burger

Whenever my husband and I go to In-N-Out Burger (which is often), I inconspicuously take a photo of the person sitting across from us. I usually take photos of their shoes because you really can tell a lot about a person by their feet and how they sit.  And, Life Rule Number One: Never take a picture of a person when they are eating (especially if you don't know them).  I started doing this picture taking of shoes in restaurants to show my husband how you don't need to go somewhere cool to take pictures that tell a story, that there is art everywhere. [Well, that, and I was taking pictures of people sitting cross-legged and barefoot at nice restaurants (which totally grossed me out) to illustrate a blog entry.] You can find art wherever you are, even if where you are is a fast food restaurant, a library or even at the post office (WARNING! Do not take photos at the post office unless you can run really fast. It really pisses people off). So, get your cameras out - hey, there is probably one in your cell phone- and see if you can capture a story or some art around you! Taking pictures of stuff while running errands makes running errands way more fun.

we shall see

This is a big month for days. First of all, January 24th is Belly Laugh Day and we find that funny. Good funny. Don't forget to laugh that day (and every day). The other big set of days this month is the Craft and Hobby Association big trade show. Martha Stewart will be there, too!  Awe, remember when Rosie visited her in prison? That was nice of her. We have an odd link (the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon type) to Martha. It involves a pumpkin and some Christmas lights. Anyway, all the art and craft suppliers -and art and craft book publishers -and art and craft magazine people -and all the craft and hobby store owners swarm to this convention like we swarm to a Coach store during a sale.  Last year when we attended, it was days before Visual Chronicles came out and we got our first big taste of what that was gonna feel like. It felt good and it felt weird. I suspect this year is going to feel double weird because we already feel the need to apologize to all the other authors who will be forced to listen to Rosie saying our book is the only book you'll ever need over and over on a continual loop. Really, we find our own voices annoying, too, so we are sorry.
We are really excited to be debuting the cover of our new book, Journal Revolution: Rise Up and Create! at the convention as well as giving out I AM ART shirts to people who come to meet us (while supplies last) . This is a weird thing, too. It is all weird. Weird, weird, weird, It feels weird to be promoting a new book and it feels weird because as I look at my journal pages  for this new  book, I see that they are so different than the journal pages in Visual Chronicles. They are more open and  deeper and , well, revealing.  Not all of it, of course (we still like cookies and purses and the little things in life), but some of it  and now we have a whole bit of wondering what that will feel like going on.
Lucky for us, there will be one thing at CHA to distract us from our nervous feelings:

Last time, all the scrappers attending the convention wore these dark, thick-rimmed glasses while carting around these free lime green totes that were being given away. Why this style? What started that glasses trend? I hope we'll be able to find out while we are at the convention. I'll be sure to bring my movie camera with us as we search for the origin of this trend. Won't you want to see that investigative report?  Should Karen trade in her metal rimmed glasses for clunkier glasses or since we aren't scrappers does this trend not apply to us? We shall see. Gee, I am already distracted! It worked!

heavens to betsy

For Hanukkah, I adopted a sheep and gave it to Karen. Before the adoption took place, I had the usual jitters (thanks to Madonna's adoption goings on). What if there really was no drought in Australia and my newly adopted sheep wasn't even real? Or not even really thirsty? What if Betsy's parents came forward and said Betsy wasn't available? I spent countless hours on the internet researching the drought in Australia and sure enough there is one! I also spent countless minutes researching the man who runs the farm (with his lovely wife and very cute son)  where the thirsty and hungry sheep live. Hmmm. Ok.  He's apparently a marketing guru who has figured out the key to a happy marriage: men like sex.   Perhaps there's more to his discovery, but the thought of that link on the site about the sheep needing to be adopted kinda made me a little bit ill and I had to stop reading his blog.   Anyway, he obviously loves his family (and seems like a very nice guy) and the farm and I am happy to give my sister a sheep she doesn't have to feed or really take care of.  Isn't Betsy cute? I  named her after our favorite sheep covered place on earth, Betws-Y-Coed, Wales.