Greetings from JFK

I’m sitting in the dingiest terminal at JFK, a dank Jet Blue outpost that I had to take a shuttle to. I’m sipping grape vitamin water, a gnarly cousin of multi-V, which I’ve learned is the only thing that keeps me from getting nauseous. I thought they wouldn’t have it in this sorry terminal so I bought grape, and of course the minute I got here I spotted Multi-V at Dunkins Donuts. Screw it, I’m sticking with grape and hoping it has the same magical ability to keep me from hurling.

I meant to start writing days ago, but I was staying at my wonderful, generous friend Dana’s place in New York, a beautiful two-bedroom in a doorman building in Chelsea (read: didn't have to climb four flights of stairs to my sister’s place which used to be my place in the East Village). Dana only has dial-up, which was tough enough, but then two days ago, that went down. I guess the phone was disconnected. So, I was stuck checking email at Kinko’s and holding off on any other more complex Internet interactions.

So, I’m heading back to LA after spending a week with Harlan, my husband, in New York, where he’s shooting a romantic comedy called See You In September. It’s Labor Day and tomorrow is PUBLICATION DAY for Room for Love, my first novel. I’m nervous and excited… and I think I might see my friend Andy over there, Andy Fierberg, the producer of the first film I ever worked on. He’s chatting on his cell phone and I’m not 100% sure that it’s him. Might have to go get a closer look. I’m thinking it’s not him now. There are kids beating up on this guy and I’m pretty sure Andy doesn’t have any.

So, I spent a week in New York, because I cracked and had to see Harlan even though he’s coming home in a week. It was a good idea. I had been in LA, sinking deeper and deeper into the pit of book anxiety and all the tasks I should be and wasn’t quite accomplishing and the resulting self-recrimination. Plus I was isolating more and more, too tired to go out much, watching a lot of TV with the cats and missing Harlan and feeling sorry for myself. The trip was a smart move, even though I just did the same stuff in Dana’s apartment, except without the cats to cheer me up. At least I had Harlan at 11 or 12pm when he’d drag himself home exhausted after a 14-hour shoot, pizza box in hand and a face so genuinely delighted to see me as I crept to the door to let him in, naked, half-asleep, so genuinely delighted to see him.

It’s tough for me to be in New York, though, and odd that it’s tough. It’s just that New York City is exhausting. It’s hard to believe that less than a year ago I was living here, very happily lugging myself and my stuff around day after day. And here it is eleven short months later and apparently I can’t handle it. I’ve become a wimp. Or as another former New Yorker said to me the other day, “You get soft pretty quickly in LA.” No kidding! I have just melted right into the lifestyle—hopping in and out of the car, strolling slowly around the palm tree-lined streets, lazing in the yard with Jack and Maggie. In contrast, New York feels a little like an assault.

The other day—the first day the phone line went down—I went over to my friend Gina’s office in Soho to work, since I couldn’t get online at Dana’s. Gina works for a production company called Bikini and she was happy, as she put it, to “have some more Aries energy in the place.” I thought I was driving her crazy. Mainly I was on MySpace, trying to organize my page and get more friends in time for my pub date, which must have been irritating, considering every time you go to a new person’s page some dumb song bursts out of your computer. She giggled when she heard the familiar groovy tunes of her own page, or the page for her store Lola y Maria, a hip Lower Eastside joint where I’ve spent way too much money and where we’re going to have a book party for Room for Love in early October when I’m back in town to do readings. Yet another thing to worry about: friends Spencer who has the lovely gallery just downstairs from Bikini and Harris, the publicist for the IFC Center, have both also offered to host book parties for me (well, the IFC one would be hosted by myself and my old pals at indieWIRE)…but both have mysteriously disappeared on me, leaving me biting my nails.

Anyway, the reason I mentioned Gina is ‘cause I had to lug my computer bag, a cute MZ Wallace shoulder bag the weight of two bowling balls, to her place and felt like I was going to keel over. I was able to take the E train direct and then walk through Soho to reach her, a nice walk, but the lug practically killed me. The next day I did a recording session with my sister’s friend Ronnie, an amazing editor who offered to let me use his studio to lay down audio for the trailer we’re putting together for the book, and my actress friend Sam—the lovely Samantha Buck—offered her bubbly voice. Honestly I don’t know how I’d get by without the generosity of friends. Within half an hour we were in and out—and I have an audio track. Of course it’s four minutes long and I have to cut that in half, meaning I have to choose between passages, but I’m well on my way.

Okay, just to empty out my cluttered head, here are all the things that should be done but aren’t quite done the day before my book hits stores TOMORROW. My web site. My brilliant designer and friend Mae McCaw promises we’re up and running by tomorrow. By then, I need to get her any outstanding art and edits I want to make to any text. My trailer just isn’t going to be done yet. My editor Ben Meyer (no relation) says he’d like to have it off his plate by next weekend, though, so it won’t be that late. I totally slacked on trying to get free booze for my readings, but my mom has picked up the slack and started experimenting. I want to make signature cocktails for my heroine, the beautiful, witty and just a little fucked-up Jacquie Stuart. I thought something girly and pink, to go with the bright red, girly cover of the book: Jacquie-tinis if we landed vodka and Jacquie-linis if we landed champagne. (My friend Silvia who produces events came up with the concept.) My mom managed to find an inexpensive prosecco that she says tastes “divine” with a spot of Chambord. Sounds like a Jacquie-lini to me! And I thought of asking my friend Marshall to bartend for me, but forgot to call him. Granted, we only had the idea yesterday, so maybe I’m being hard on myself. Then on the way to dinner at a really great little restaurant at 22nd and 9th called Sauce, we saw an ad in a liquor store for Pink Vodka, and Harlan said, “You should have them supply the vodka.” And I kicked myself because my friend Melissa had had that idea weeks ago, hit up Pink Vodka—“they’re going for a feminine audience, it would be perfect”—and I completely spaced. Harlan thinks they probably have a distributor in LA and could probably pull it together in a day if I play my cards right. It all gives me a bit of a headache.

We’re boarding now.

I’m onboard, after a bit of a break during which I watched Live Free or Die Harder (is that what it’s called?), or at least kind of watched it. My TV was having something of a breakdown and the movie kept going in and out. I got all the audio but only about 20% of the visuals, which, strangely enough, was sufficient. I guess with a movie with such, um, extreme plot points, I was able to follow and even get stressed out by Bruce Willis’s plight, even if I was watching largely in two-second snippets. Worthwhile flicks I saw while in New York: Griffin Dunne’s Fierce People, really great premise—NY kid whose dad lives with a fierce indigenous tribe goes to live people in the country and discovers that the American aristocracy has vicious primal customs all their own—that almost sustains itself until it pussies out in the end. The Great World of Sound about two ordinary guys who sign up to hustle potential singing sensations for a duo of independent producers, and begin to question the morality of the venture. Saturday night, instead of dancing the afternoon away at PS1 as planned, Harlan and I took in Manda Bala, a poetic and disturbing doc about corruption, crime and frog farming in Brazil. What am I watching now? Steve Irwin hunting for elephant seals in the Antarctic, lions and leopards in the desert and crocodiles at the zoo. I do find Animal Planet addictive.

What else is going on? Got to post this baby! Oh, my heart goes out to Owen Wilson. I am so sad and distressed by the news that he attempted suicide. I read about the follies of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears and they leave me cold. But Owen! Owen is my boyfriend (I mean, if I didn’t have a perfect, gorgeous husband, he would be). Such a smart, talented boy, let’s just hope he reaches out to his support network and finds the strength to mellow out, kick the drugs and get back to work.