I have terrible hair. It’s baby fine, thin, and straight as a board. In the seventies, it was great. I parted it down the middle and there I went. But then came the eighties, and my straight hair sucked. It’s been a struggle ever since. That may be why I have tried every hair style known to woman.

Here’s me for my prom, curled and sprayed within an inch of my life:

Here’s me in a Farrah Fawcett:

Here’s me in a perm:

Here’s me attempting the Bo Derek look.

And here’s me, tired of curling my hair:

I’m leaving out SEVERAL other styles. In fact, I can gauge where I was in my life by my hairstyles. I can practically gauge my MOOD by my hairstyles.

What about you? How often do you change your hair style? Do you follow the fashions or do you have one style that works for you? What was the wackiest hairstyle you ever wore?

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I would have put this up the day of my book release, but someone else had it at the time, so here it is, a little late. As usual, Will is a little delusional, but then, so are many of our heroes. They tell themselves they don’t need love. Or they tell themselves they don’t DESERVE love. They tell themselves they’re big, bad boys and marriage is a mistake. Then they turn around by the end of the book and take it all back, once they grow up. I just finished watching part of an old favorite, High Fidelity (with John Cusack), where he spends an entire movie deluding himself. I just love self-deluded heroes.

Then there’s the ones who have insecurities–they’re not wealthy enough or aristocratic enough or macho enough for the heroine. My favorite one of those is Sebastian, Lord Dain, from Lord of Scoundrels, who simply cannot believe that the heroine finds him attractive.

Do you like self-deluded heroes or would you prefer they not be deluded? Who are your favorite self-deluded heroes? What is your favorite hero delusion?

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On a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory, uber-geek physicist Sheldon said this immortal line about Valentine’s Day: “Given that St. Valentine was a 3rd century Roman Priest who was stoned and beheaded, wouldn’t a more appropriate celebration of the evening be taking one’s steady gal to witness a brutal murder?”

He had a point. If you delve deeper into Valentine’s Day, you learn that the priest thing might have only been an excuse for the Roman church to get rid of a persistent pagan holiday–Lupercalia, a fertility festival falling between February 13th and 15th. Two lucky bachelors participated in the sacrifice of two goats and a dog, made whips out of the flesh, dipped them in sacrificial blood, and whipped the bystanders with them. Women LINED UP for miles to get a bloody lash to enhance their fertility. Because nothing says fertility like the blood of a dead animal whipped onto your bare flesh by a drunk Roman guy.

Whose idea was this? Did some Roman frat boy sitting around at the orgy with his friends say, “Hey guys, you know what would be really fun? We get this goat, see, and then we line up a bunch of women …” Because no WOMAN would come up with that custom.

The other custom from Lupercalia was a lottery in which the bachelors drew the names of the single women to determine who was their “love” for a year. The English were still using that one during the Regency. I even used it in The Truth about Lord Stoneville. Of course, Stoneville never leaves anything to chance, so he fixes the draw in order to get the heroine. (P.S. The eye candy today, for those of you missing FROS, is Andres Velencoso, my inspiration for Stoneville.)

Stoneville also tries to manipulate one other long-standing English Valentine’s Day superstition–that the first man a maiden sees on Valentine’s Day will be her sweetheart. He shows up at the heroine’s door in the wee hours of the morning to be the first man she sees. This was a genuine superstition–some women even went around covering their eyes until they encountered the man they really wanted, so they wouldn’t be stuck with, say, the chimney sweep they ran into while polishing the silver first thing in the morning. Oh, if only it were that easy. How many women would cover their eyes until they could show up at Hugh Jackman’s door on Valentine’s Day ?

Thankfully, we now celebrate in less peculiar ways–flowers, cards, chocolate (the pic on the right is the gorgeous bouquet hubby bought me for Valentine’s Day). But it’s hard not to notice that red is the color of choice that day, and a heart … well, that’s just one beat away from being the blood of a sacrifice, right?

So maybe Sheldon is right. Next year, we should all take in a slasher film in honor of Valentine’s Day, and leave the flowers and cards and chocolate to the faint of heart.

Do you have any unique Valentine’s Day traditions between you and your loved one? Is there a standard tradition you hate? Do you like getting flowers or would you rather skip that and go straight to the chocolate? And have you ever seen a slasher film on Valentine’s Day?

Remember, today is your last chance to post a comment that will be included in the drawing for a Sony e-reader! The winner will be chosen at random at midnight from all the comments that were made this week. So get in there and post, people!

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We hear a lot about celebrities who behave badly, mostly because they show up in the tabloids making fools of themselves. But we rarely hear about the ones who live stellar lives. So I thought I’d mention a few who’ve caught my attention.

Pierce Brosnan: I’ve had a crush on the guy from the day I saw him on Remington Steele, but I really fell in love with him when I read about him and his two wives. His first wife died of cancer at the age of 43, and when she fell ill, he put his career on hold to be with her. By then, he’d already adopted her two children by a previous husband. He got the Bond role a few years after her death and could have had any young thing he wanted. Instead, he married a journalist only ten years his junior, and together they support a number of charities and are active in other causes. Everything I read about him shows him to be a good, stand-up guy. Kudos to Brosnan!

Meryl Streep: Okay, I’m not going through the cast of Mamma Mia purposely, but she’s another impressive one. Not only is she a brilliant actress, but she has been married to the same man for 40+ years, has four kids who seem to adore her, seems genuinely nice in interviews, and supports several charities. Before her husband, she was engaged to a man who got bone cancer, and she too took a leave from acting to be there for him until his death. Go, Meryl!

Alyssa Milano: On the marriage front, she’s had some rockier times than the above two (she’s on her second marriage), but I admire her for two things–her perseverance despite her dyslexia, and her charitable work, which is considerable. Also, you never hear about her in the tabloids doing stupid things like running over ex-husbands she hates or driving drunk.

Weird Al Yankovich: First, I admire him for making a success out of doing novelty songs. He’s hard-working and highly respected in the music industry. He’s happily married and a general nice guy, according to just about everybody who works with him or knows him. His fans love him for that. And he too supports charities.

There’s lots more, but we never hear about them. So tell me, who are some of the celebrities who’ve impressed you by behaving well? Who do you admire and why? If you hear something good about a celebrity, does it make you more inclined to support the work they do or is that even a factor for you?

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I’m bad with dates. I admit it. Not sure why, but there’s a reason I have a calendar that reminds me in several ways of various appointments, and even then I’ve been known to miss one because I didn’t check my calendar first thing when I got up. It’s a sickness, I swear.

I have this really BAD tendency to schedule things on the same day without making the connection. If it’s two different worlds (for example, my son’s school schedule and my public appearance schedule), they don’t correlate in my mind. At some point, however, the worlds inevitably cross and I am SO screwed when I realize I’m double-booked.

For the most part this problem has been eradicated by slavish use of an online calendar. But with my life so busy these days, even THAT doesn’t prevent all trouble. Like when my parents stayed longer after Thanksgiving than I’d expected, so I ended up with the following events scheduled on ONE day: their departure (someone had to drive them to the airport), my husband’s dental surgery (someone had to drive HIM to the dentist and back, on account of the drugs), and my own one-year appointment at Duke (which had been set up weeks in advance). Hubby hadn’t bothered to consult with me when he set up his surgery and my parents kind of had no choice, so I was screwed. Fortunately, the appointments were at different times, so somehow I managed to do all three. I ate in the car (twice), and had to really book it to Duke, though. Didn’t get any writing done that day, either. Duh.

So how are you with appointments? Are you better making some than others? What’s the worst appointment mess-up you ever had? Do you ever double-book? And what do you think of the new Dread Pirate Roberts action figure I got for Christmas–isn’t he dreamy??

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Reader expectations can surprise you. I was reminded of this after the release of Wed Him Before You Bed Him. The book ended my School for Heiresses series, about a school run by a widow who had an anonymous male benefactor known only as Cousin Michael (not her real cousin). Their correspondence appeared in epigrams throughout the series, and the last book was to be their story. Along the way, I planted red herring characters, so readers would have fun guessing who Cousin Michael was. One of those, Oliver Sharpe, the Marquess of Stoneville, became extremely popular. And the more e-mails I got about him, the more nervous I became.

Because, you see, I really didn’t want to disappoint readers. But I also had never intended Stoneville to be Cousin Michael. I’d carefully plotted out who Cousin Michael was from the beginning and wasn’t about to change horses midstream. By the time the book came out, my website poll asking who people wanted Cousin Michael to be had Stoneville as a clear frontrunner (by a two to one margin!), and I was a nervous wreck. Of course, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it by then.

Some readers did end up disappointed. Others were upset about who it was only until they discovered they liked who it ended up being.

Fortunately for Oliver’s many supporters, my new series (the Hellions of Halstead Hall) features him and his entire family. In fact, the first book is coming out today–The Truth About Lord Stoneville! So I think readers will be pleased. But the whole experience taught me a valuable lesson—authors can never anticipate exactly what readers will want and they shouldn’t try. It will only make them insane. Why? Because readers don’t all agree. And books written by committee are crap. Trust me on this. You can only write the books in your own head–the ones that please you, the ones you were meant to write–and pray that readers enjoy them, too.

As a reader, I don’t like being at the mercy of the author’s whim. But as an author, I know that’s the only way the system will work. If everybody wrote what I told them to, I would miss out not only on the unique world perspective of the authors I love but also on the original moments and surprising twists they so often deliver . . . the very qualities that keep me turning the pages.

So how do you react when an author defies your expectations? Do you like it? Does it annoy you? Does it keep you from reading them ever again, or do you chalk it up as an aberration and give them another chance? Do you wish authors paid more attention to reader expectations? And if so, what divining rod would you use?

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I’m not good with plants. Okay, that’s an understatement. When plants see me coming, they hide under a rock until I’m gone. The only reason there are lovely jonquils in my garden (I THINK they’re jonquils–hard to know since I know next to nothing about plants) is because the lady who lived in this house before me planted them, and apparently they grow on their own every year (yay!). Every year I walk out and marvel that the jonquils are blooming again (yay!). And that they don’t depend on me for their survival (now you know the real reason I don’t have pets).

Just to emphasize how bad I am with plants–here are some languishing in my house right now:

This jade plant has hung on for three years. It hasn’t gotten any bigger or healthier looking than this.

I made the mistake of cutting back this Dieffenbachia and splitting it into two pots. One half died, and the other looks like this. Sometimes I scare myself.

I’m usually pretty good with pothos, but I forgot this one outside during a freeze. It hasn’t done well ever since.

And yet ….

This is one of my Christmas cactuses. I have seven of them, all thriving. Why? I don’t know. I’m not sure why I’m good with Christmas cactuses, but I am. They all get bigger and more beautiful every year, and when they bloom in winter … they are spectacular! I do try to repot them and fertilize them, but mostly they’re neglected. And they love me. I also have some devil’s ivy, crassula gollum, and a dragon tree that do very well, but my Christmas cactuses are my pride and joy. This year I added two new colors. I can’t wait to see them next winter!

They give me hope that my thumb is brown on only one side. Or maybe only one thumb is brown. I don’t know. Since I’ve killed several other species of plants before them (let’s see–a begonia, two ferns, two ribbon plants, a cilantro plant, some chives, a kalanchoe, a ficus … the list goes on and on and on), I’m not sure this proves much, but boy, can I grow Christmas cactuses!!!

So how are you with the plants? Brown thumb? Green thumb? Mixed bag? Is there one you just seem to be able to do well? And does it make me a bad person that I can’t garden worth a darn?

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