This week, I am laying low, because I went to the dermatologist and had her “freeze” some…ahem…SUN SPOTS from my face.  The verdict is in, people — those of us who laid out in the sun with Crisco and baby oil to get that really good burn that would turn into that really good tan are paying for it now.  I use a great sunscreen (so says my dewey-faced dermatologist) and still I get them.  She said–and very lightly, as this is clearly not her problem–”oh yes, as you age, this skin damage will begin to show itself.  There is nothing you can do…except this five thousand dollar treatment that I highly recommend.”  And she actually smiled as she handed me the brochure.

I said no.  I am going the cheapy route of having them frozen off, but the result is that for a week, I look like I have the measles.  A couple of years ago, I had a cosmelan peel.  That is where you go into the dermatologist, and they paint this stuff on your face that is the exact shade of baby poop, and you wear the mask for eight hours.  You leave the office with the gunk on your face, go home (although they told me one woman went back to the office!!).  After eight hours,  you wash it off, and continue to wash off layers of skin for about two weeks after.  But the result was amazing!  My skin looked great.

I don’t know where my bottom line is.  I know that I am on the cusp of some serious middle age, but I still don’t look too old.  I don’t know what sort of vain monster I will be in the coming years, but I think I have the potential to try all sorts of new things.  And hair!  Is there an end to coloring?  Is there a moment in time when you wake up and say, okay, I am ready for the curly bob that both my grandmothers sported?

I don’t know the answer, but I do know that right now I cannot stand those age–er, SUN spots that appear overnight and remind me what an idiot I was in my teens.  And I am willing to walk around with what looks like a flesh-eating disease for a few days to make it all go away.

What is the most outrageous beauty treatment you’ve ever done to yourself? How far are you willing to go? Are you in the color-my-hair til I die camp, or the aging-is-beautiful camp?

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I woke up one morning with so many memories crowding my thoughts about the house in LA my parents lived in when I was in elementary school. I missed it. I wanted to see it again. And then I thought of Google Earth.

It was like a magic carpet ride across the planet, nearly instantly taking me past the stables that used to be at the beginning of our neighborhood–is it a park now?–to the street where I learned to ride a two-wheeler, and the front lawn where I played freeze tag, and the curving driveway where I played red light/green light. The pool is still in the backyard. The trees my mother planted next to the street are huge now and still there. Still there! My mother’s trees…it’s almost like a memorial. At least to me. I’m sure the house has changed hands many times now and no one knows who planted those trees. But I do. Google Earth let me see them again.

After floating over LA, I cruised to Connecticut to see my old high school. It’s still there. It was new when I went there, I was the third graduating class in that building. It’s old and funky looking now, and it was built on swampy land so I’m sure they’ve had drainage and settling issues over the years, but it’s still there. I saw the football stands where I watched our team on crisp, fall Saturday afternoons. I tried to look for my old house in that small town, but you can’t see anything from the air for all the trees. It looks like I lived in the middle of a forest, and that’s not far from the truth.

I then cruised back to LA, since I had nothing but time on my hands and the gas was free, and looked at the house where my kids were born. It looked good. The grocery store was still down the street, the lemon grove was still across the street. Our lemon neighbors encouraged us to take as many lemons as we wanted, whenever we wanted. So we did. Free fruit. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Cruising the planet courtesy of Google Earth. I can go anywhere, see anything. It’s the most magical device on the internet. It lets me see places on a whim. It lets me sightsee without cost. It lets me see where my memories were made.

Do you Google Earth? Do you visit your memories? Where have you gone? What have you seen? What would you like to see?

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Fellow Goddess Freedom Writer loves us. But not as much as we’re going to love the FROS she so kindly sent us! Check it out:

All together now:THANK YOU, FREEDOM WRITER!

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About a year ago, I switched�my computer wallpaper�from an image of pretty little fish that came with the Mac to a montage of images of whatever actor most closely depicts my current hero. It turned out to be a good idea–everytime I see the wallpaper, I’m reminded of the book. So far, I’ve had Richard Armitage (for Anthony Dalton), Jake Gyllenhaal for Martin Thorncliff in my upcoming novella, Rodrigo Santoro for Diego Montalvo of Don’t Bargain with the Devil (coming out mid to late July 2009), and�for Cousin Michael …�a great actor who shall remain nameless.�:-)

A good friend of mine has Bono on her wallpaper. She does different images every week, but it’s all Bono, all the time. And�I understand that some people put pics of their family on their wallpaper. What’s up with that?�

Seriously, though, I always find it interesting to see what wallpaper a person has on their computer and how often they change it.�

So where do you stand in the wallpaper scheme? Do you find pics to use or do you just put up one of the pretty computer pics that are provided? If you choose pics, is it celebrities or family or something off-the-wall? Do you manipulate the pics? Switch them out? How often? Most importantly, what does your wallpaper say about you? (Psst, mine says that I spend WAYYY too much time in my cave with my characters.)

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I think I mentioned in the past that on any given day I have random bits of dialog running through my head. I think of it as some sort of tourettes. It just pops into my head and there’s no controlling it. So, I thought I’d share some of my favorite bits with you and make it a kind of contest. I’ll send a signed copy of my last book, Not Another Bad Date, to the first person to correctly match up the random bits of dialog to the correct movie.

Who said:

1 “Some men are Baptists, others Catholics; my father was an Oldsmobile man.”

10 “Words can only hurt you if you try to read them. Don’t play their game.”

A) Napoleon–Napoleon Dynamite
B) Raymond– Rain Man
C) Freddy Kreuger–Nightmare On Elms Street
D) Juno McDuff–Juno
E) Derek Zoolander–Zoolander
F) John Keating–Dead Poets Society
G) McMurphy One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
H) Ralphie–A Christmas Story
I) Old Woman, Princess Bride
J) Mama Morton–Chicago

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You see that cave on your left? I feel as if I’ve been living there for the past several months. Not only have I had no time to smell the roses, I think I completely missed summer this year.

I’m sure my “kids” think they’re orphans. And I know my dh feels abandoned.  It’s partly my fault since I wasted way too much time following election news. But at least I wrapped up one book and started on the next story (which is the most fun time for me).

In emerging from my cave, a friend advised me to wear sunglasses, and I’m talking her advice to heart! I’m attending a writers conference next week, and I’m planning a trip to NYC in mid-October to meet with my publisher. After that, I hoping to get a little ME time.

It seems like everyone else is really busy, too. But I’d love to know what you all are up to these days. So let’s play Ketch-up and please tell us:

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I know goddess Rachel generally does our “news of the weird”, but I couldn’t resist this one.

On my local news yesterday afternoon there was a story about a wealthy family in England who abandoned their mansion after residing there for only eight months, allowing the bank to repossess the property because they were too frightened to live there any longer.

Clifton Hall in Nottinghamshire was built sometime around the Norman Conquest. It has 57 rooms, including 17 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, a spa, and a movie theater. The family reportedly heard voices and knocking and screams in the hallway, as well as seeing ghostly figures and blood spots on bedding.

I don’t think they made it all up as an excuse to default on their loan, because the husband is reportedly worth something around $23 million. Somebody joked that the bank has repossessed a house that’s already possessed. A local paranormal society president said that this was the first investigation where he’s actually been frightened with the lights still on.

Now. I would expect a nearly 1,000-year-old English house to be haunted. I would at least expect it to be creepy. For that reason, I wouldn’t purchase that house in the first place. I wouldn’t mind visiting it, however.

Would you buy a haunted house? Would you visit one? Are you fine with spooky things, or only as long as they don’t happen where you live? Or would you flee at the sound of a creaking door?

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