The Times, you probably saw it coming, has dropped me cold, like a potato.  Like a cold potato, like a parboiled potato that’s turned to mush (can that even happen?)  They’ve dropped me like a paper clip, like a trial NetFlix subscription, like the pair of socks on top of a tall pile of laundry that they’re carrying upstairs. 

They’ve dropped me and I’m alone.  They’re cold now, and distant, they don’t email or return my calls. 

We didn’t say it, explicitly, no.  We didn’t discuss these things out loud but still it was implied, I thought, that there were bureaus somewhere and I’d be chief of one.  I thought I’d be flown to warm places, I thought I’d have diamonds and snack on bird livers.

Instead a check arrived by mail today, and now I feel cheap.

Is that all it was? 

Words?

Money? 

Will The New Yorker never call?  Do they know I won’t wait forever, that I’ll move on?  That they’ll regret it?

You can send me diamonds, if you want, or money.  If you think that will help.  Me and my misty water-colored memories, meanwhile, will be on the couch.  Don’t make me sign for the packages you send, I won’t get up. 

I need one of you to edit my book.  I’m stuck cold on my book.  I like all the parts but some of them must go and also there are gaps that I don’t have the slightest idea how to fix.  My book and I should be in therapy. 

Oh, I’m exaggerating, just for attention; it’s barely anything.  But I need one of you to read and edit it and get me back on the road, again, to fixing it up.  To wrapping it up, actually.  I want to be through with it, I want to send it out.  I want to chew bubble gum while poring through glossy magazines deciding which glittery, glam, hopped-up movie star will play whom in the movie of my book.  I want to be done, and doing that, not this, and so I need you to read it and edit it and be happy with my leftover backyard blueberries as your payment.  I’ll also try to think of a good joke. 

A. has a good joke, that one about the doctor, and this guy’s doing this thing and the doctor makes him stop because he’s trying to examine him. 

I’ll tell you that one, plus blueberries, if you edit my book.

You’ll have to put thought into it, you’ll have to have revelations.  You’ll have to praise it wildly and still come up with new ways to add brilliance.

Ugh.

Some days work sucks.

Send your love for my book here.

That this piece is titled, “Sex and the semicolon. The punctuation mark that makes men tremble,” is all you really need to know.  Right? 

I haven’t read it, I’m still rattled from my bug.  But you should, it sounds fun!

I’ve got this comma problem that my friends whisper about behind my back.  Well C., mostly; I know she does.  I know she whispers.  And the Times scolded me, too, on my commas. 

Whatever.

I like commas and you know what?  They’ll all scramble for my commas when I’m gone.  Swashbuckling entrepreneurial types will pay exorbitant sums for them, for one of my commas.  They’ll auction them off at Christie’s.

But today is about semi-colons.  Read the piece, why not.  Have the report on my desk by 5:00.

I’m in a terribly awful mood, I’m moody.  I could break down for you, how I got here, but you don’t have time for that, you’re working.  You should make time, though.  You should make much more time for me, I don’t know how you live with yourself, in fact, considering the appalling lack of time that you make for me.  But we’ll get to that later.

Instead I’ll tell you what capped my terribly awful mood, what sent all of the little things that chafed against each other to create my mood, over (as they say) the edge.  The edge.  Over the edge of all moods, here it is. 

Can you see it?  It’s not a good picture.  First of all, it was 12 times bigger than that.  And 52 times as creepy.  So instead of the picture, just think of your own version of terror.  It might be scorpions, birds, date nights with your wife, whatever thing makes your heart stop and skin go clammy and internal organs leap out of your mouth.  Think of something that scares you enough to do that. 

So.  “Hi my name’s Teresa and I’m scared of bugs,” I have entomophobia.  It’s a condition.  I’m not just ‘shoo bug’ scared, but frightened, terrified.  More even than the first time I watched Jaws, I feel more fear in the presence of a bug than when Jaws bit off that guy’s leg.

This particular bug, the one pictured, appears for an entire chapter of The Good Wife.  A short chapter, but still.  So perhaps the appearance of it in my kitchen was a sign.  I thought that the chapter was done, but perhaps Ernest Hemingway’s doting soul sent me a scary bug to tell me it needs work.

Regardless.  I have managed, despite my condition, to lead a fairly normal and productive life, with the help of medication (vodka) and therapy (complaining to A.)

But this mosquito, the big one … the Elephant mosquito, let’s call it.  The one everyone says, “oh, those are the harmless kind, those ones won’t hurt you,” this particular bug I haven’t made peace with.  I still have visible terror.  And he came today, to my kitchen, and I threw magazines at the wall until I maimed him enough so that it was safe to get close up and kill him.  And squash his guts. 

Right before I did, I swear I saw something in his teeth.  He was that big.

At times like this I read cookbooks, they comfort me.  So I’m right now reading Alice Waters’ “Chez Panisse: Vegetables.”  There is a lovely paragraph on page 16 about grilling asparagus and it makes me want to tell A. to come home and “prepare a wood fire in the grill” right now, then grill asparagus. 

If you want to come home A., and grill asparagus with me, that would be nice.  I’ve disposed of the scary dead bug. 

The bonobos are mine!  Mine, mine, mine!  I was the one who got caught searching “horniest animals,” me.  I paid my dues, I did the hard stuff, I did it for my book, those monkeys are mine.  Yes, I have a capuchin, too, I could be found guilty of greed, I don’t care.  I want my monkeys!

Why am I telling you this?  Well, I’ll tell you why:  there are TWO, yes TWO books out right now with boinking bonobo covers and I can’t stand it.  One of them’s on marriage. 

Blug!  Urg.  Whatever. 

Click here to see the covers, they’re priceless.

Click here to read what Daphne Merkin said about it.

Click here to promise me you’ll not tire of bonobos before reading my book.  Promise me, I mean it!

I just cut this little bit, it’s old and doesn’t work where it is.  Still, I like it.  Here’s its sendoff. 

Ellen had never wanted to be married, she’d never dreamed it.  She felt pressure at times, and so pretended it was something she’d do, but she never wished for it.  Then Howard came along and delighted her.  It was instant and certain.  It couldn’t possibly fall apart.  

I believe, my friends, you’ll like these crazy kids.     

So I’m still totally into myself, but don’t worry I’m almost done.  Will last no later than 5 today, PST.  Promise. 

I’m reading The Good Wife on my Kindle, it’s amazing.  (H., remember, is best m-i-l ever!) 

I insist, in fact, that every one of you write a book but before you finish read your manuscript on a Kindle.  It will look like it’s completely done and fabulous and then you can take a vacation and dream about the three-book-plus-movie deal you’ll get. 

Lisa Austin fell off her bike in Sausalito.  She had to have an ambulance and gurney, the whole thing  So don’t go to Sausalito, but do send Lisa presents.  Me, too, in fact.  Send me some, too.

I’ll be sunning myself if you need me.  Watch this if you’re bored.

(Have a fun day, A.) 

Not really, I didn’t shower today. Hair’s flat and unwieldy but that’s not important. “Thanks!” is the main thing. Thanks infinity, you like me, you really like me! Thanks for the notes and flowers and jewelry and cars, I love you!

I’m in the middle of nowhere for three more days. Playing golf. Seriously. Because with my fabulous fame and flowers and cars that’s what I do now, play golf. And golfers don’t need internet access, apparently, because there’s one tiny spot in a 10-mile radius the size of a bark chip and ten of us are fighting for it. So I’ll write you back Thursday, but in the meantime, send me more stuff and tell me I’m great, that’s really fun, I like it!

(More, as I say, later.)

So.  You can save five bucks by reading it here.  I don’t mind.

The artwork, I think, doesn’t flatter us.  Especially A., he has much better hair.  Or is that Blocker?  Either way.

On a slightly more serious note, I wish Gary was around to read it.  He’d like, I think, being a star. 

[The New York Times, "Modern Love"]

I can’t believe this.  I’m in a stupor, I’m in shock.  I’m dumbfounded and weepy and so undeserving all at once. 

H. sent me a package.  H., you’re incredible.  Truly.  You have this uncanny ability to send things to my door when I need them the most. 

I can’t believe you, I’m charging it now.  I’m calling you in minutes. 

People.  Are you out there?  Remember, buy the Times on Sunday, Sunday Styles … page 5 or maybe 7, but also, besides that, I have the most magnificent mother-in-law in the world, I don’t deserve her!

(Oh, sorry to be coy, it’s a Kindle, H. sent me a Kindle!)