More famous by the minute

Am I allowed to gush for just a little moment?
This morning, THE BOOSTER got a starred review in Publisher's Weekly. Needless to say I feel like putting on a bad gown and screaming, "You really like me!" while running down my street.

Bear with me as I cite the thrilling moments:

First there was the star itself. We love stars. In general, all famous people love stars. Next there was the opener: "Solow's SPECTACULAR debut..."

Then there was a bunch of other stuff that was also really great. I will include the entire review because it IS MY BLOG, and I'm not sure that anyone besides me reads it so...for those of you who are not my mother but might still be interested, read below:

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
* Solow's spectacular debut sounds a warning to fashionista shopaholics while providing a healing catharsis that anyone grieving over the loss of a loved one can appreciate. "It is mine. It is mine. It is mine " is the mantra Jillian Siegel repeats before any major shoplifting expedition, believing her hobby is not a crime but her "birthright." The Upper East Sider's addiction to larceny increases after she loses her ad agency job just before the agency acquires the coveted Loevner's department store account. Loevner's had once been owned by Jillian's dying uncle Bingo, a beloved parental figure. As a little girl in bunny fur, Jillian had appeared in the original ad that defined Loevner's upscale glamour. After Shelly, a needy young drifter whom Jillian meets in jail in the wake of a tourist-trap incident, introduces Jillian into a Peruvian shoplifting ring, Jillian becomes the ring's star American booster. "Designer clothes are like armor" providing "protection from the masses," Jillian thinks, but by the thrilling wind-up, Solow, an ad agency veteran, has ripped the tags off this assumption, forcing Jillian to face what compels her to steal. (Mar.)

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM US?!!!

While it seems quite fashionable to weigh in on the whole James Frey controversy, to proclaim that writers are cheaters, thieves, deviants and murderers, every one, instead I'd like to discuss the unrealistically extreme expectations of the South Beach Diet.

How on earth is man expected to live without the evening martini? Without the late night gorge on dates, raisin bread, peanut butter and a bottle of beer? Now, as I have said before, this girl don't diet, BUT, if I did, I'd need something that involved pills, some expensive procedure, daily massages and oodles of moisturizer, not the elimination of the necessities.

First, we ask writers not to lie, THEN we ask a bevvy of Americans not to have French Toast with powdered sugar and maple syrup for breakfast! I am hopelessly dishonest and doomed to a life of carbohydrates. I may indeed have to find my culinary and literary freedom in another country.

Integrity

1. I, Jennifer Solow, would do a movie where I had to shave my head.
2. I would not do a movie where I had to wear really ugly outfits.
3. I would do a movie where I had to kiss Kate Nauta.
4. I would do a movie where I had to gain 15 pounds (with physical trainer in contract).
5. I would not do a movie where I had to lose 15 pounds (over that).
6. I would not do a movie where I had to spew vomit.
7. I would not do a movie with Jessica Simpson.
8. I would not do a movie where I had to wear one of those fat suits.
9. I would, despite the bad luck, do a movie with Madonna.
10. I would not do a movie where a bloody woman comes out of the bathtub.

Why I love gay guys

I am back from my fabulous tropical vacation with some horrifying news:
Wouldn't you know it, as the Pina Colada was just making its way to my lounge chair, I felt a little tickle in my throat - a burn, really, a cough and then some sneezing and snot.
I was sick.

But a gay guy knows that this is not the worst of it. He knows that coming home, unpacking the bikini and the diamonds and crawling into bed with a tub of Kleenex With Aloe Moisture is actually the lowest depths of all.

My dear friend and near-personal-stylist (who shall remain nameless unless I get an email from him saying that it's okay to be outted at 30ish in San Francisco), upon hearing the news had some marvelous advice.

I am reprinting it here because I think we all have something to learn.
Print is out. Put it up. Hold it in your heart.
(I love you, honey!)

****************************************************

Watch Oprah. Drink lots of herbal tea with honey. And insist to your man that,
strangely enough, expensive jewelry makes you feel better...

Take care, sweetie.
Call me when you're better - there's nothing more unjust than
being tan and sick at the same time.

****************************************************

Swimming With Sharks

My agent has been warned, the auto-reply button on my email has been pressed, the dieting is done (it will be what it will be when the day is done) and three tanning sessions (high speed bed "Grand Lounge," 6 minutes, then 7, then 8) have been completed.

It is that time - the pre-book-launch vacation of a lifetime. The last time I will perhaps go anywhere without the prying cameras and the nasty literary stalkers. Ambergris Caye, Belize, is a fine place for an escape - in the middle of nowhere, papaya for breakfast, bologna sandwiches on the dive boat for lunch, steamed fresh catch for dinner.

So long you all. Until then.
xxx