Gene Fowler said: “Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”  That is how I feel about editing. I hate it. I hate staring at a set of words I once wrote with passion and verve, only to be forced to correct them. I always thought of myself more of a poet than a writer, and more of a fiction writer than a nonfiction writer. And of all the nonfiction genres I was sure I’d never write, travel guides were on the top of that list. Why? Details my friend, details. I hate them. A German phone number here and an Italian address there creates insanity in my brain. I am dyslexic and it is not a secret that I like to share. It is embarrassing and I hate it when people use dyslexia as an excuse for making stupid mistakes like, “Oh sorry I did not give you enough cash, I’m dyslexic.”  

The best way to describe what editing is like for a dyslexic is to take a bunch of letters and numbers and put them in a bathtub and let them float around. It is very easy to put words down on paper – much like putting ducks into warm bath water. It is systematic organizing of them that takes so much work. Letters spin in our heads, words wrap around sheets of paper, and sentences turn into images instead of cohesive thoughts.

My manuscript is back from Penguin and I have 2 weeks to go through and edit it. Did you know that big publishing houses still edit on paper, not on electronic word documents? I think it’s a big waste of time, to FedEx manuscripts back and forth, but that is the way it is. 

FLY SOLO is pre selling on amazon.com. It is a fabulous feeling seeing my name there. To me, it’s like seeing my name in lights on Broadway. I did it! I got an agent, I got a publisher, I wrote a book, and now it’s pre selling on the world’s largest book reseller – cool! But before any of that can happen, I have to finish editing it. Ick.

August means fashion week in SF! Join Mystery Girl Productions for a fabulous trip down the catwalk as only San Franciscans can serve it up. Fascinatingly creative local designers, parties parties parties, workshops and more parties await! Check www.fashionweek-sf.com frequently for schedule and event information. Designer Divas extraordinaire like Colleen Quen and Cari Borja will present their collections opening night.

Mark your calendars for august August 23-27, and a pre-party July 29th on Maiden Lane.

And speaking of fashion in San Francisco, we were pleased to get our very own Dress for Success chapter! This international organization dedicated to savvy suiting for Divas in financial distress is the perfect application of the look-good-feel-good philosophy.

Their mission is to get women back on their feet by providing job training and counseling and that oh-so-necessary good suit to wear to a job interview. Their clients build successful careers one suit, and one caring donation, at a time.

I was fascinated to learn all this and more at their recent launch party at the City Club downtown. A silent auction, a live Banana Republic fashion show, and the support of local luminaries like Kimpton Hotels and Harry Denton gave the organization the perfect entree into San Francisco nonprofit society, a well-suited cause for Divas everywhere.

Look at the new hybrid Tango that George is driving around in. Sharp. Sweet

Wonder if it comes in Tango Blue and Diva Green.  Anybody know much about it?

Lesley Joy Marcus is the best healing masseuse in Bexar County, Texas. Her daughter, Gabrielle, is one of my best friends on the planet. Joy is the perfect name for Lesley. She has a stash of dirty jokes that the Friar’s Club would kill for, and a hearty, church bell laugh that chimes the hour every minute you’re with her.  She loves the sound of French words and uses them when she can to great dramatic effect, and last night Gabi and I talked about the fact that she’s such a healer of everyone else that if there’s any lesson in her illness at all, it’s that she might start to focus on herself more.

Because she uses her powers to rub, knead, energize, visualize and, if all else fails, tell a barrage of dirty jokes so fabulous that the problems of prominent and not-so San Antonians are knocked out through a diaphragm shaking with laughter. But who heals the healer? We just found out that she has the big C. I won’t even say it, just the c. And what terrifies us most is that if Joy can get it, a woman who is more alive than any ten people you’ll see in a room, a woman who sizzles with life force and has devoted her life to bringing out yours and mine, if Joy can get sick, what’s to save the rest of us??

Her house tells it all, at least her old house that I remember. She moved not too long ago. But the old house on Bryn Mawr (why San Antonio has a district of Ivy League and Seven Sisters streets I can’t tell you) was just so Lesley. You walk in and on your right is a table full of stained glass. Here Lesley works on her latest creations. But you might not see that first because you will be too busy staring at the four-legged brigade who are barking at you. You’ve never seen dogs like them. These rare Egyptian hounds look like Cleopatran gray hounds, high and mighty and slightly orange. Lesley’s made you a cup of European tea and you sit down and tell her what ails you.

Then you’ll lay down on her massage table and you won’t get a gentle petting. If you’re like me, you’ll no doubt be in significant distress the whole time while she tries to get your body healthy again. You’re dough; you’re grapes at crush. My toes always tattle on me, and Lesley will admonish that my kidneys and bladder are complaining that I never drink enough water. And apparently when I walk I come down too hard on my heels.

We’re all fine and very close now, but in high school, all the adults in my family lost their minds. They were having grown up divorce problems amongst themselves, that sort of thing, and for a period of a few years, they were even more immature than I was. So I started acting out, getting in trouble in school. I got in with the bad crowd and started experimenting with smokeables and hair colors. My saving grace was that my best friends’ mothers were there to pick up the pieces. They were all Mrs. at the time: Mrs. Marcus, Mrs. Forland, Mrs. Riley. I call Lesley Lesley now, and that makes me feel very grown up, but at the time when I needed her most, she was Mrs. Marcus.

She’ll be fine. She has enough mojo and chutzpa and fire to beat this thing. But it’s still a shock. Isn’t it always a shock? So if you have any room in your prayers and meditations, it would be great if you could add Mrs. Marcus to the list. The healer needs healing. Thank you for listening.

Here’s Lesley Joy Marcus with her gorgeous granddaughter at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens: 

There was much talk in the theater tonight of whether it was appropriate to even call it a festival at a time like this. But art is at its best when things around us are at their worst, and art isn’t an escape so much as a needed glimpse into what can be possible. And film is a particular kind of media that can show us life on the other side of the fence, or wall, or world.

Be that as it may during this very tricky time with high security with our popcorn and a carefully low key movie marquee that announces movie titles but not the festival in any way, I was still there as a reviewer, and this is my review.

This wasn’t the best film festival I’ve ever been to. I wouldn’t call the staff overly friendly; I wouldn’t call it supremely well organized. And the films definitely ran the gamut in terms of quality, but there were a few that tackled women’s issue very well. Some of the more interesting films are listed below, and I just hope that peace will prevail in that ancient Middle Eastern region with its thousands-year-old scars that still have yet to heal.

1- "Be Fruitful and Multiply" and "The King’s Daughter" were both fascinating peeks into the daily lives of devout Hasidic and Orthodox women in both Israel and New York. I was absolutely riveted. If you’ve ever wondered what their secret lives are like (I SO have!), these short documentaries are for you. "Be Fruitful" discusses the pressure on women to bear kids in double-digit numbers. Just a simple grocery store trip is unimaginable- it’s more like stocking a restaurant when you have 18 mouths to feed! Fascinating!

2- "Free Zone" is a big-name production because Natalie Portman is in it, and if you ignore the director’s overblown fondness for trying to be too artistic, you’ll find an amazing story at the heart of it. An American woman, a Palestinian woman and an Israeli woman all end up meeting and having to help each other one strange evening in Jordan’s free economic zone.

3- "Close To Home" is an interesting film about young women serving in the Israeli army

4-**** "Four Weeks in June" is a gorgeous, bring tissues, laugh out loud, fantastically amazing Swedish movie about two women, a troubled young woman on probation, and an older woman nearing the end of her life. The actresses, both beloved in Sweden, are unbelievable in this, and I just absolutely loved every second of this movie; I could have sat for days watching the relationship between the women unfold.

5- Films I Wished I’d Seen: "Forgiving Dr. Mengele" is about a woman coming to terms with forgiving the monster who experimented on her and her twin. "The First Zionist Bunny" sounds deliciously intriguing- it’s about finding a woman to be a hostess on the Playboy Channel when it comes to Israel. There are also two films that take a special look at Jews of color, from many African nations like Ethiopia, called "Live and Become" and "Sisai".

6- Finally, "The Tribe". I saw at Sundance and it hits close to home and my own absolute LOVE for Barbie. Did you know that this aryan poster doll was created by a Jewish woman??? It’s narrated by Peter Coyote…San Francisco’s answer to Ken? 

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is currently playing in the City and will soon be moving to Berkeley, Marin and the Peninsula. For more information, see sfjff.org. And remember, like all ethnic film festivals, everyone is invited and encouraged to come and either strengthen your own identity or walk around in someone else’s for a while.

TravelbyJen.com announced a $399 sale on 4-night all inclusive Los Cabos
packages from San Francisco. Travel is valid August 1 through October 31.

Includes:
- Non-stop airfare on United from San Francisco (reg. $399)
- 4-nights accommodations at the Tesoro Los Cabos resort
- All meals, drinks, onsite entertainment and gratuities
- Roundtrip transfers in Los Cabos

Offer ends Friday July 28.

Restaurants that have bathrooms a floor above or below the dining level. If I wanted to go on a hike, I wouldn’t have worn stilettos.

Women who take waaay too long in a single stall bathroom.

United Airlines

Men who want to go dutch and/or cheap on a first date. Do I want to ‘meet for coffee’? That depends- do you want to not get laid?

Cherished girlfriends who drop off the face of the earth when they get married/ get a boyfriend/ have kids.

Girls who shoot the messenger. If I tell you that your boyfriend booty called me last night, you best believe he did.

Our culture of obsolescence. I shouldn’t have to replace my ipod, computer, tv, cell phone and boyfriend every other year.

The pressure for female perfection. Doesn’t it count that my thoughts are a size 0? Oh, wait, that didn’t come out right…

Kill Bills 1& 2. Does said director really think he’s so hot and brilliant that he can’t confine himself to 2 1/2 hours for godsakes?

Car air fresheners. If your car smells, let’s address the underlying problem, shall we, before I end up smelling like strawberries on meth?

X-ray screening of luggage. After grappling with my Vuitton trunks and getting them, finally, to the check-in desk, do I really have to turn around and drag them to the x-ray area? Call me crazy, but this seems like a process that can be streamlined.

People who can’t multitask. Does talking on your cell phone while driving really mean that you can’t engage the gas pedal at all?

What are your pet peeves?

I am sitting at my desk at home, looking out onto the street. I just finished writing a article for Marie Claire magazine and ejoying the MSN coverage we got last week. You can read it here. I laugh when I see that picture they used of me. I was dancing in a parade in Brazil, and when I booked my trip, I thought I would be getting a really sexy outfit, so I stopped eating for weeks and worked out like a mad woman, so I could have the perfect body for a tiny outfit. But when I went to pick up my costume, they handed me a big foam crab and I thought I was going to die. All that hard work was going to be covered by a big, ugly crab. I lost the crap half way through the Sambadrome and did not look back! I just kept samba-ing like Carmen Maranda!

Anyway, back to my original  question. Where are you and what are you doing right now? I bet we will all be surprised by the various answers we get. Be honest and let see who’s where, doing what.

Yesterday I had tubes put into my ears to help me hear better and to equalize the air pressure behind my ear drum. What a trip! I am hearing in a different part of my head now, and my voice sounds totally different. It is really freaky and I know it’s going to take me a while to get used to it. Oh, it didn’t help that I was not feeling well the night before my operation. I was feeling a bit tired the morning of the operation, but it was not until yesterday that I hit a wall and got real sick. I am sure that detoxing had something to do with it, I wanted to get the toxins out, but not when I am getting tubes put into my head! Note to self the next time I decide to detox.

I am still collecting picture for my book. If you have a picture of yourself in Lisbon, St. Petersburg, or Stockholm, can you send it over to me please? You will need to be alone in the shot and it needs to be outdoors. You can e-mail me at jetset@tangodiva.com. You will need to sign a release form if I use it, and you won’t get paid, but you get to be in a book!

This film is hitting the West Coast hard and fast - just like the skaters it profiles. Wassup Rockers, directed by Larry Clark, is a jarring look at inner city life and the innocents that grow and play amongst the violence and general craziness of South Central Los Angeles. I did flinch at the punk rock sound track - but I fell for the story and the young boys in it. About 8-9 young latin men who spend there days skating, flying thru ugliness of life so that appears like a colorful blur in the background. The boys are real-not actors. Larry Clark (previous films KIDS & BULLY) recruited a few of them for a high profile french fashion magazine ad about 3 years ago. After the Saturday shoot - he dropped the boys off home, saving them several hours and dollars to get back. The next Saturday - they called him up and asked him to take them skating. Thereafter, every Saturday for 18 months, Larry took them skating all over the Los Angeles basin. Eventually he realized he had more than new friends, he had a viable story to tell. I really enjjoyed this film. Kico and Jonathan are adorable and have film futures ahead of them. Patti Anne sez check it out!