Beautifully written and so many YAYS today! Congratulations on "Quickies" getting out into the world and "Come to Dinner" is so exciting. Can't wait to read everything. Still can't get over Rorschach with his rakish coiffure and smoldering gaze. I lol'd at "I mean, how am I supposed to focus on your finger paintings, Mister Doctor, when you look like Alexander Skarsgård in a chunky sweater? Get out of here. I am cured!" You're hilarious. Thank you for always making me laugh.
Lol... awww. I am so glad to make you laugh. I mean, we reeeeaaaally need it right now. And Come to Dinner is such a gem! I can't believe we are so lucky!
You are just a blast for me to read, a look into that no longer even remotely repressed female power that I really know so little about.
But, truth be told, my mother was an unstoppable powerhouse, my great grandmother was Edith Ogelsby Peale, first woman to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1900. She was also the granddaughter of Sarah Peale, first great American female artist born here in the USA.
My grandpa Paul Parker’s older sister Pearl was so good a horsewoman and such a great shot she was the ONLY FEMALE with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. How about them women? Also we claim Bonnie Parker (Bonnie & Clyde) as one of ours even if we’re not sure.
Oh my goodness, Weston! You have a whole Wild Dark Shore of unstoppable women in your matrilineal history! Pearl sounds worthy of a Doris Kerns Goodwin biography not to mention a Jane Campion epic film! And Edith! To make it through Penn in 1900??? Would take so much elegant gusto! I hope someone writes these stories!
Yeah, aren’t they a cool bunch? My mom and her best friend took off to Europe in 1948 and spent a year slumming around making art and drawing people for money. She lived in Paris, in Montmartre. She was a private woman who just looked at you if you peppered her with questions. She said, “Question and answer is the dullest conversation imaginable.” She had five sons. We think they eloped, my Dad and her. None of us has seen any photos of a marriage, no license. My older brother was born 7 months later, typical of the day. She and Dad moved to Germany six months later, in June of 1952 for ten years where the next four sons were born. She was pregnant with me, her fifth son by the age of 28. That woman could drink just about any man under any table and still cook, and chit chat in German, French, Spanish, Greek, and Dutch. She could fix a lawnmower while my Dad was unclear on how to add oil to a car. She would do a waiter’s portrait on a napkin by the time the appetizer was done, especially if he had a great nose or Adam’s apple or cheekbones. My grandma (Ria Longwell Peale) said Mom was drawing cool looking animals before she could run. She loved to dance and would wear out my Dad and then work her way through her boys and when she was done with me she would grab a broom. She could sing the Chinese National Anthem with such passion that I have actually seen Chinese business men get teary eyed. As you can guess, I miss her. She didn’t do chit chat and, at her memorial service I checked with the other brothers and we all remember that she never spoke in the morning other than pointing to the coffee pot or putting food in front of us, never once asked us a personal question, never once said “I Love you” and yet we all felt loved and we all adored her. Even writing this about her gets me choked up. Look up Charles Wilson Peale, her great 4x grandfather.
Okay, I'm in serious awe here--she was an autodidact genius who was almost a 'Beat'(?) but then also an uber-mother? She reminds me of an old friend who once scolded me, "Love is something you DO, not yammer on about." But, oh my word, Charles Wilson Peale's work is phenomenal, so classically lush, and of the revolutionary period... and then, the names he gave his children? Rembrandt Peale, Raphaelle Peale, Titian Peale??? No pressure there? Lol.
No modesty there and just a little pressure. Titian looks almost exactly like my brother Geoff and Charles Wilson like my cousin Steve. Raphaelle looks like my uncle Jimmy Peale, now 91 and Mom's little brother. Raphaelle is my 4x grandfather and of all the brothers, I got Peale as my middle name. Ha, take that older, bossy brothers.
Again, Doris Kearns Goodwin needs to write your family's multi-generational biography and then Wes Anderson or Taika Waititi probably needs to direct the epic film of it!
I like the part where I introduced you to my family during our Zoom call and you're all "But I haven't combed my hair..." and I'm all "Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Doesn't matter." LMAO. They didn't care. We all slept in until 10am and I can tell you she didn't want to get up. LOL Neither did I. Glad I'm doing this co-writing thing with you.
My "to read" pile is growing thanks to you! And the laughs you bring with your writing are much needed and much appreciated. Keep rocking the troll hair!! 🙌🏻 😍
Crossing everything for the easiest possible transition! Oof, such a doozy. ❤️🙏 I heard that Denzel was starting a church...??? And all I could do was giggle like a teenager. "Hail Denzel, full of grace, Let me sit upon your ____ !" I mean, come on! 😂
I loved this post for so many different reasons. The troll doll, OMG. I could almost still want a troll doll. And I love your hair, better than the troll. The joy of writing with another writer, wow, that truly sounds amazing and like such fun. The BOOKS, yeah for Walmart. I can't wait to get my copy. And Joan Didion, I will look forward to that book. And thanks for sharing your thoughts on Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, I joined a book club for a very short time. When it was my turn to select a book, I chose that book. Before I had even gotten very far into the book, a few of the participants decided they didn't want to read the book, so they chose another selection for that month. I'm digging that book out and starting it again. Thank you!
Bahahahaha!... My poor hair needs so much product! When I get writing I DO turn into this very silly creature--living on Cliff Bars and yogurts. The Joan Didion book is such a gem--we're so lucky. "Tomorrow" unfolded in the most unique way for me. I'm sad the book club ditched it because the relationships become so layered and specific to growing up during that marvelously nostalgic 1980s Goonies era. I'm sure it helps to know MIT a bit. And they're such marvelous smarty-pants kids--I won't spoil it for you. I was glad to hear that Siân Heder from Coda is directing the film adaptation of it. Promises to be rich!
Oh, Mary! More sleep is possible, lol. I'm just here quietly trying not to screw things up! 😬 And your encouragement means everything. :) Meanwhile, I feel like there are a number of folks clicking their tongues and going, "Oh, isn't that cute??? She's trying her hand at publishing!" But we just keep going. 😂 🫏
Good morning from Marbella Spain. Six days post FFS and scheduled to get my first hair wash, I’d kill for your hair!!
Being here makes me feel like I won the ‘Golden Ticket.’
Hanging out with and supporting other patients from around the world as we approach and then heal from what I’ve come to think of as the ultimate power move of self- determination.
The energy, the joy and the camaraderie here is electric. Like nothing I could have ever imagined.
Making life-long friends from around the globe. Such an honor to be here.
Oh, I'm so glad you are doing well and feeling so supported there! What an incredible experience. Holding you in my heart. And I hope you have the best hair-wash day! I need so MUCH product to make up for my wild collab sessions these days! Lol. Sending you all good healing thoughts! Warmest, A
In the name of all that’s unholy, how did you get Walmart to take Quickies? Incredible. A big congrats on all of Q’s distribution, Come to Dinner, your in-progress romantasy, and, of course, Troll Doll sex hair!
“…far more orgasmic than trying to wrench my jaw open for some gray-pubed oldster” is The Description of the Month as far as I’m concerned.
Awww :) Thank you! As a branding person, I take that as such high praise!!!
Getting Quickies into Walmart was months of campaigning and late-night lobbying, but credit really goes to Claire, on our team, who was relentlessly wonderful. And re: Troll Doll Sex Hair... Yep, it's clearly time for some PRODUCT and some sleep! :)
The fact they were practically Joan's first words to her--and then it just kept coming up in our conversations about the intimate nature of their relationship and the manuscript--it all seemed so apt! :)
Reading this post is the most fun I’ve ever had with my clothes on with no gray man pubes in sight! God you’re one wickedly hilarious, smart She-Ra Princess of Power. I’m in awe of everything you’re manifesting over there through sheer determination.
I, too, have developed emotional blue balls thanks to hell-and-back neurology and meds. Good to know I’m not the only one. I do envy Dave’s waterworks over every.single.Apple ad.or.animal.rescue. I just started the Madonna Secret but I think I must pause and begin Wild Dark Shore STAT!
Awww... I am so grateful you are still laughing! :) I need to manifest about ten million dollars (lol) now that we're getting all these wonderful submissions, which help us to make more midlife jobs, celebrate more of our voices, and then ultimately donate a chunk back to midlife women in the areas of health and housing... No small feat, but so worth it. And yes, Wild Dark Shore... I cannot say enough!
Loved your personal story of running home! The wisdom of babes I tell you! Collaboration is a superpower and we do NOT use it enough, because why? Fear? Pride? narrative? Whatever the reason, so happy to hear you endorse it!
Congrats on the new imprints! YAY! Love the titles too. Hopefully one day I will be fortunate enough to be welcomed into your stable of incredible talent!
Tamara, thank you for the kind words! ❤️ I still can't believe I *did* that, but there you go. And we would love to have you at Empress Editions whenever you are ready! We are very happy (and wicked tired) after taming our distribution dragons! (So much work) After we get all the books into Simon, it will certainly be a lovely week all around :)
Beautifully written and so many YAYS today! Congratulations on "Quickies" getting out into the world and "Come to Dinner" is so exciting. Can't wait to read everything. Still can't get over Rorschach with his rakish coiffure and smoldering gaze. I lol'd at "I mean, how am I supposed to focus on your finger paintings, Mister Doctor, when you look like Alexander Skarsgård in a chunky sweater? Get out of here. I am cured!" You're hilarious. Thank you for always making me laugh.
Lol... awww. I am so glad to make you laugh. I mean, we reeeeaaaally need it right now. And Come to Dinner is such a gem! I can't believe we are so lucky!
You are just a blast for me to read, a look into that no longer even remotely repressed female power that I really know so little about.
But, truth be told, my mother was an unstoppable powerhouse, my great grandmother was Edith Ogelsby Peale, first woman to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1900. She was also the granddaughter of Sarah Peale, first great American female artist born here in the USA.
My grandpa Paul Parker’s older sister Pearl was so good a horsewoman and such a great shot she was the ONLY FEMALE with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. How about them women? Also we claim Bonnie Parker (Bonnie & Clyde) as one of ours even if we’re not sure.
Oh my goodness, Weston! You have a whole Wild Dark Shore of unstoppable women in your matrilineal history! Pearl sounds worthy of a Doris Kerns Goodwin biography not to mention a Jane Campion epic film! And Edith! To make it through Penn in 1900??? Would take so much elegant gusto! I hope someone writes these stories!
Yeah, aren’t they a cool bunch? My mom and her best friend took off to Europe in 1948 and spent a year slumming around making art and drawing people for money. She lived in Paris, in Montmartre. She was a private woman who just looked at you if you peppered her with questions. She said, “Question and answer is the dullest conversation imaginable.” She had five sons. We think they eloped, my Dad and her. None of us has seen any photos of a marriage, no license. My older brother was born 7 months later, typical of the day. She and Dad moved to Germany six months later, in June of 1952 for ten years where the next four sons were born. She was pregnant with me, her fifth son by the age of 28. That woman could drink just about any man under any table and still cook, and chit chat in German, French, Spanish, Greek, and Dutch. She could fix a lawnmower while my Dad was unclear on how to add oil to a car. She would do a waiter’s portrait on a napkin by the time the appetizer was done, especially if he had a great nose or Adam’s apple or cheekbones. My grandma (Ria Longwell Peale) said Mom was drawing cool looking animals before she could run. She loved to dance and would wear out my Dad and then work her way through her boys and when she was done with me she would grab a broom. She could sing the Chinese National Anthem with such passion that I have actually seen Chinese business men get teary eyed. As you can guess, I miss her. She didn’t do chit chat and, at her memorial service I checked with the other brothers and we all remember that she never spoke in the morning other than pointing to the coffee pot or putting food in front of us, never once asked us a personal question, never once said “I Love you” and yet we all felt loved and we all adored her. Even writing this about her gets me choked up. Look up Charles Wilson Peale, her great 4x grandfather.
Okay, I'm in serious awe here--she was an autodidact genius who was almost a 'Beat'(?) but then also an uber-mother? She reminds me of an old friend who once scolded me, "Love is something you DO, not yammer on about." But, oh my word, Charles Wilson Peale's work is phenomenal, so classically lush, and of the revolutionary period... and then, the names he gave his children? Rembrandt Peale, Raphaelle Peale, Titian Peale??? No pressure there? Lol.
No modesty there and just a little pressure. Titian looks almost exactly like my brother Geoff and Charles Wilson like my cousin Steve. Raphaelle looks like my uncle Jimmy Peale, now 91 and Mom's little brother. Raphaelle is my 4x grandfather and of all the brothers, I got Peale as my middle name. Ha, take that older, bossy brothers.
Again, Doris Kearns Goodwin needs to write your family's multi-generational biography and then Wes Anderson or Taika Waititi probably needs to direct the epic film of it!
Ha!
I like the part where I introduced you to my family during our Zoom call and you're all "But I haven't combed my hair..." and I'm all "Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Doesn't matter." LMAO. They didn't care. We all slept in until 10am and I can tell you she didn't want to get up. LOL Neither did I. Glad I'm doing this co-writing thing with you.
Congratulations on getting Quickies past that gatekeeper, and on another expansively fun read! Rorschach gave me the vapors! 😂
Almost forgot...love the hair!
My "to read" pile is growing thanks to you! And the laughs you bring with your writing are much needed and much appreciated. Keep rocking the troll hair!! 🙌🏻 😍
Congrats doll!!
I have emotional blue balls with our impending cross country move.
My hall pass is still Denzel.
Crossing everything for the easiest possible transition! Oof, such a doozy. ❤️🙏 I heard that Denzel was starting a church...??? And all I could do was giggle like a teenager. "Hail Denzel, full of grace, Let me sit upon your ____ !" I mean, come on! 😂
I loved this post for so many different reasons. The troll doll, OMG. I could almost still want a troll doll. And I love your hair, better than the troll. The joy of writing with another writer, wow, that truly sounds amazing and like such fun. The BOOKS, yeah for Walmart. I can't wait to get my copy. And Joan Didion, I will look forward to that book. And thanks for sharing your thoughts on Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, I joined a book club for a very short time. When it was my turn to select a book, I chose that book. Before I had even gotten very far into the book, a few of the participants decided they didn't want to read the book, so they chose another selection for that month. I'm digging that book out and starting it again. Thank you!
Bahahahaha!... My poor hair needs so much product! When I get writing I DO turn into this very silly creature--living on Cliff Bars and yogurts. The Joan Didion book is such a gem--we're so lucky. "Tomorrow" unfolded in the most unique way for me. I'm sad the book club ditched it because the relationships become so layered and specific to growing up during that marvelously nostalgic 1980s Goonies era. I'm sure it helps to know MIT a bit. And they're such marvelous smarty-pants kids--I won't spoil it for you. I was glad to hear that Siân Heder from Coda is directing the film adaptation of it. Promises to be rich!
I can't wait to read it. Thanks again for shining a light on it. And I'll be waiting for the Didion book!!!
Congrats and more, if the latter is possible...
Oh, Mary! More sleep is possible, lol. I'm just here quietly trying not to screw things up! 😬 And your encouragement means everything. :) Meanwhile, I feel like there are a number of folks clicking their tongues and going, "Oh, isn't that cute??? She's trying her hand at publishing!" But we just keep going. 😂 🫏
Oh, you're doing much more than "that's cute". You're changing the world of publishing!
Good morning from Marbella Spain. Six days post FFS and scheduled to get my first hair wash, I’d kill for your hair!!
Being here makes me feel like I won the ‘Golden Ticket.’
Hanging out with and supporting other patients from around the world as we approach and then heal from what I’ve come to think of as the ultimate power move of self- determination.
The energy, the joy and the camaraderie here is electric. Like nothing I could have ever imagined.
Making life-long friends from around the globe. Such an honor to be here.
Oh, I'm so glad you are doing well and feeling so supported there! What an incredible experience. Holding you in my heart. And I hope you have the best hair-wash day! I need so MUCH product to make up for my wild collab sessions these days! Lol. Sending you all good healing thoughts! Warmest, A
In the name of all that’s unholy, how did you get Walmart to take Quickies? Incredible. A big congrats on all of Q’s distribution, Come to Dinner, your in-progress romantasy, and, of course, Troll Doll sex hair!
“…far more orgasmic than trying to wrench my jaw open for some gray-pubed oldster” is The Description of the Month as far as I’m concerned.
Awww :) Thank you! As a branding person, I take that as such high praise!!!
Getting Quickies into Walmart was months of campaigning and late-night lobbying, but credit really goes to Claire, on our team, who was relentlessly wonderful. And re: Troll Doll Sex Hair... Yep, it's clearly time for some PRODUCT and some sleep! :)
🤣🤣🤣
…and and and! Come To Dinner OMG Amazing!
The fact they were practically Joan's first words to her--and then it just kept coming up in our conversations about the intimate nature of their relationship and the manuscript--it all seemed so apt! :)
More than apt…PERFECT. 👏
Reading this post is the most fun I’ve ever had with my clothes on with no gray man pubes in sight! God you’re one wickedly hilarious, smart She-Ra Princess of Power. I’m in awe of everything you’re manifesting over there through sheer determination.
I, too, have developed emotional blue balls thanks to hell-and-back neurology and meds. Good to know I’m not the only one. I do envy Dave’s waterworks over every.single.Apple ad.or.animal.rescue. I just started the Madonna Secret but I think I must pause and begin Wild Dark Shore STAT!
Awww... I am so grateful you are still laughing! :) I need to manifest about ten million dollars (lol) now that we're getting all these wonderful submissions, which help us to make more midlife jobs, celebrate more of our voices, and then ultimately donate a chunk back to midlife women in the areas of health and housing... No small feat, but so worth it. And yes, Wild Dark Shore... I cannot say enough!
Loved your personal story of running home! The wisdom of babes I tell you! Collaboration is a superpower and we do NOT use it enough, because why? Fear? Pride? narrative? Whatever the reason, so happy to hear you endorse it!
Congrats on the new imprints! YAY! Love the titles too. Hopefully one day I will be fortunate enough to be welcomed into your stable of incredible talent!
Congrats also on bucking the distribution demons!
A god week all round I'll say :)
Tamara, thank you for the kind words! ❤️ I still can't believe I *did* that, but there you go. And we would love to have you at Empress Editions whenever you are ready! We are very happy (and wicked tired) after taming our distribution dragons! (So much work) After we get all the books into Simon, it will certainly be a lovely week all around :)
Yay!!!🌸💞
WILD DARK SHORE!!! Yes.
I know right? I want to buy this book for everyone I know.
Love this! Viggo Mortensen. Similar but have you ever seen A Walk on the Moon with Diane Lane? So sexy, so sad, so Viggo.
YES--I have! Viggo, ghaaaagh! So agonizingly haunted and hot. 😂 He most certainly CANNOT be anyone's shrink!
Glad to discover you. Looking forward to more from you.