The Reason Some Things Are Funny

My friend Jane Brda just wished me a happy Rachel Ray birthday. This is funny because of this.

(Yes, that's a link to my book, "Every Freaking! Day with Rachell Ray: An Unauthorized Parody." )

Another thing that is funny (albeit in the "isn't that odd" and "well, one just has to laugh because otherwise one would cry" senses of the word) is that Rachael Ray, for all her mediocrity, is so very popular—-and powerful, perhaps--that some publications wouldn't review or even mention this parody of her for fear that they would lose advertising money or something. Therefore, Rachael Ray is a huge success and I am not. Funny, right?

Overwhelmed

My office is a mess. This is, partly, because I walk in here, sit down at the computer and begin to work on whichever project is on deck. This is, partly, because there are so many projects rotating to the top of the pile:

• Memoir revision (and coming up with a workable—according to my agent—subtitle)
• The novel I've decided to revise as a sort of break from the unrelenting me-ness of the memoir and as a way to explore specific issues of craft
  
• A ghostwriting project that I'm enjoying working on
  
• Syllabi and lesson plans and reading so I can come up with lesson plans that make some sort of sense to me and, more important, my students
• Freelance projects
  

Yes, it's too much. But what do I not do? Clearly the novel is the thing that could be set aside. I don't want to, though, for so many reasons—it's fun and it is, I think, teaching me much about writing that can be applied in other areas. Plus, the novel and the memoir make me feel like a writer.

I guess the thing to do is to clean the office. The whole thing makes me cranky.