Despite the fact that I cannot skate, ski or shoot a rifle, I love the Winter Olympics. Their slogan is above — Swifter, Higher, Stronger. One of the things that seems sure is that there will be upsets; that the odds-on favorites will fail; and the best stories will come from people we’ve never heard of before. Sure, I love Apolo, and I figured Bode, Shaun and Lindsay would do just fine. But it was the stories below that really grabbed me.
Alexandre & Frederic Bilodeau. Alexandre won Canada’s first gold medal in this Olympics as his brother, who has cerebral palsy, went a little nuts in the stands. Alexandre repeatedly referred to his brother as his inspiration, saying that when he gets tired and wants to stop, he thinks of Frederic’s limitations, stops his whining and gets on with it. The 22-year-old skier upset the sullen Canadian ex-pat (and millionaire) Dale Begg-Smith, who ignored reporters and generally acted like a sulky brat while the gold medalist, clearly stunned with his win, tried to take in the fact that he was the first Canadian ever to win a gold medal on his nation’s soil.
Chris DelBosco. In the wildly exciting ski cross race, Chris DelBosco, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, had the bronze medal in his grasp. With just one jump to go, he took a huge chance…and blew it. He fell. He lost. In an interview afterward, he said simply, “I didn’t want the bronze.” Nope. He put it all on the line, he was skiing for gold, and even though he failed, he gave it everything. Good for you, kid.
Marjan Kalhor. She is twenty-one years old, finished the giant slalom 35 seconds behind the gold medal time. She trains by skiing down grassy hills, and she wore a purple veil underneath her helmet to cover her hair. She is Iran’s first female winter Olympian.
The Night Train. In addition to being my favorite wine (well…not really), the Night Train is now my favorite bobsled team. Perhaps I love chubby, balding Steve Holcomb because he looks more like a kielbasa-eating champion than an Olympic gold medalist. Whatever the reason, I was absolutely elated at their win. Kudos to the good-natured German silver medal team, who called the American team’s driving “super-genius.”
And most of all…Therese Rochette. She drove her daughter to thousands of skating lessons, sat in the chilly rink for countless hours, sacrificed, scrimped and saved. She helped her child choose outfits and hair styles and music for her performances, made sure she ate well and did her homework. She knew with faith unshakeable that at the Vancouver Olympics, the world would see what she had always known — Joannie Rochette was a champion. She was right. Yu-Na Kim may have shown us the best of the sport, but Joannie showed us the best of the human spirit — the strength, grace, commitment and love she learned from her mother.
Swifter. Higher. Stronger.
Well done, Mrs. Rochette.





























Everyone has a sense of humor. Right? We all laugh at something. And we all think that our sense of humor is really the sense of humor. I often point this out to McIrish. He’s the type who laughs at the Three Stooges, I’m sorry to tell you. “That’s really kind of…dumb, honey,” I might say. He doesn’t care. He feels sorry for me because I’m missing Great American Humor.
I myself love snarkiness, of course…but I also love that sort of goofball, zany humor The Hangover, for example, made me laugh so hard I was in pain. I never miss an episode of 30 Rock or Modern Family. I own the complete set of Arrested Development. But the times I always laugh the hardest are when my mother falls down.
Take, for example, the time she was getting into the passenger side of my car. It was snowy and slick out, and all of a sudden, she was gone. “Mom?” I said. “Mom, where’d you go?”
Another time, Mom broke her foot. The woman has an incredibly high pain tolerance, so it was about a week before I finally dragged her off to the hospital for an x-ray. Sure enough, it was broken, so she had a cast put on, and the lovely young nurse brought out the crutches. “Oh, this is gonna be good,” I said, immediately excited. Sure enough, Mom couldn’t quite figure out how to use the crutches. We are not hand-eye coordinated in my family.
Last winter, I drove Mom home after we went to the movies. The snow was icy, so Mom tried to stomp through. This resulted in her falling yet again. “Here we go!” I announced. She was laughing too hard to stand, so she…yes…crawled to the back steps of her house, as I staggered along next to her like a drunken shepherd, wheezing helpfully as tears of laughter coursed down my merry cheeks. “I hate you,” dear old Mom said, but she was wheezing too.
I guess pain and laughter go to together pretty well (at least, I think they do). There’s a scene in my upcoming book THE NEXT BEST THING that combines these two…a makeover scene, there’s your hint. In my own humble opinion, it’s a good example of very inappropriate laughter.
Ah, family. That’s what this time of year is all about, right?
When my in-laws visit, McIrish hides. He heartily denies this, but it’s true, and besides, I’m blogging and he’s not. But when his parents visit, he just fades away. I find him hours later, leaning against the furnace, chatting with one of his brothers. Or he takes out the garbage, which makes him remember that his truck’s oil needs a’changing, and apparently it can’t wait another minute. During this time, this hour or so of absence, I get the inside skinny on his large family back in Ireland — who had the new baby, who’s taking a trip, who’s sick, who’s getting married. Later, when I update him on these events, he’s always a little irritated that I know more than he does.
As a group, we are incapable of ordering in restaurants. I am extremely blessed in that I live close to New Haven, where pizza was invented. My aunts and uncles and siblings and cousins all like to get together a few times a year and visit Modern Apizza on State Street, where allegedly Jesus goes for pizza, because that’s how good it is. When the waitress comes, there’s a flurry of contradiction — “I didn’t say I wanted eggplant! But if you want eggplant, that’s fine with me. But get what you want. I’m fine. I’ll eat anything.” The proper response to this is, “Well, I don’t care. I also like everything. Get what you want.” The waitress sighs loudly. Inevitably, when the pizzas come, someone’s disappointed. “We didn’t order eggplant on anything? Oh. Well. I happen to love eggplant, but…”
My family is loud. What I love — and what I’m guilty of myself — is how everyone thinks everyone else is loud. My own dear mother still shouts into the phone, especially when talking to her brother in California, as if my uncle needs her to yell so he can hear across the miles. My darling aunt from Massachusetts can be heard from, well, Massachusetts. My uncles laugh so loudly that people jump and cower.
The people in my family regress when together. Suddenly, my ultra-mature and very brilliant daughter is showing just how far her eyes can cross. My son is eating under the table, like some poor feral raccoon. My sister does her medley of strange faces and animal noises (very well, I might add). I myself demonstrate my great talent of dangling a spoon from the end of my nose. Genius.
I was talking via e-mail to a reader the other day, and she mused that it must be nice to be a successful writer, since I didn’t have to waste my time doing housework and stuff. “I still do all my own housework,” I regretfully informed her. “Really?” she typed back. “Oh.”
Our nails are perfect. Well, at conferences and book signings they are, sure! Because we just paid for a full set. Once we get home, we’ll trim them right down, because it’s wicked hard to type with long nails. Don’t worry about the nail polish. I’ll just let that chip away.
We have really cool clothes, because we’re all creative and stuff. I have some cool clothes. But that’s not because I’m a writer. It’s because I have a thirteen-year-old daughter who dresses me when I have to go out in public. For the most part, I yearn for the days of my school uniform, when every day, I knew exactly what I’d wear. I sort of have a uniform now, I guess. Jeans and a solid-colored turtleneck sweater for winter; for summer, jeans and a solid-colored t-shirt, sometimes with a Yankees logo on it when I’m feeling wild.
Our book is being made into a movie starring Drew Barrymore/Sandra Bullock/Joseph Gordon-Levitt /all of the above. This is, I admit, my most Lotto-ish of dreams. Do I think my books would make great movies? I sure do! Do I think that will happen? I really want to think that, yes! But the odds are pretty low just the same. I still hope, though.
Our husbands are over-sexed hotties. I’m gonna leave that one alone, actually. No comment.
Laughs. Even if the book is a romantic suspense, even if Scarlett is not going to end up with Rhett, even if I’m going to dampen the pages with my tears later on, I want a couple laughs. If I’m reading a book that doesn’t make me at least chuckle once in a while, it’s fair to say I’m snowbound in a mountain cabin. Make me smile, on the other hand, and I’m yours.
Animals. Yes, yes, you all know I’m a dog lover. But how a person views animals is so revealing. Sherry Thomas’s Private Arrangements is about an estranged couple who hasn’t seen each other for ten years. Way back when they were still in love, he gave her a puppy. That dog is very old now. I can’t tell you how poignant it was when the hero sees that dog again after their long separation. Blerk!
Food. In a perfect world, I’d have a butler to procure me whatever the heroine was so enjoying (and I’m working on it, believe me). If you’re a writer who can make a reader hungry — even a well fed reader like myself — you’re a really good writer.
A scene where the hero and heroine look like idiots. Even better. Let them screw up, let them be less than perfect, let them babble, let them ruin an important event. Let them be imperfect. Bridget Jones making that speech at the Darcys’ anniversary party… “No! No! NO! It’s just that…it’s such a terrible pity. For Britain. To lose such top people…top person, really.” Nothing is less interesting than two perfect people who are perfectly happy in their perfect world. Just typing that sentence makes me sleepy.
A person you love to hate. The nasty coworker. The sneaky pseudo-friend. The guy who keeps getting in the way of Our Hero. The ex who breaks a true and loving heart and doesn’t even care. What I love too is when these characters get at least a glimmer of redemption.
A job I’d like to have. I read to escape, as do we all. Chef. Airline pilot. Navy Seal. Horse trainer. Vampire slayer. I’m never going to have those jobs, but how cool to get a little look into what that would be like! Personal shopper. Jewelry designer. Wizard. Surgeon. Yep. I need to have a few more lives. In the meantime, I really like reading about a person with a cool profession.
There are some tried and true elements in a romance (shocking!). Not clichés, necessarily, but classics. A happily ever after, for example. The idea that The One makes Hero/Heroine a better person. Classic plot lines and traditions. When done well, we can’t get enough of it. But when not…ruh-roh.

Oh, my heavens! You dance with predatory, masculine grace that has me oh-so-aroused, despite the fact that I quite hate you! Where did these guys learn how to dance like that, huh? I have yet to see Gerard Butler down at Ye Village Dance Hall in my town. And yet, there he is in The Ugly Truth, dancing in such a way that my eyeballs were on fire, and I just sat there thinking, “But when? But how? Was he raised on a pasa doblé ranch in Brazil?” Furthermore, Katherine Heigl claims she is a terrible dancer, then begins gyrating and pulsating and throbbing…I had to dunk my head into my super-large silo of root beer just to cool off. Dancing like that doesn’t happen in real life. No, tragically more realistic was the tango scene in Along Came Polly. Ben Stiller gets points for realism, if not for smokin’ sex appeal. (Note Heigl’s hair…it’s curling. I told you.)
Frooooowww! Miss Carlisle! That red dress and those Jimmy Choos slut you right up! I quite and suddenly ravenous for you! Sure, sure, we all have dreams of prom/wedding/fabulous ball during which we’re scooped up by a Greek billionaire (Andreas, I’m still waiting!) There was Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality. Princess Mia in Princess Diaries. Cinderella in Cinderella. Just once, I’d like to see the heroine in a hideous dress that makes her look worse than the yoga pants and college sweatshirt did. (Note to self: do this in future book). Granted, my heroines have required special underwear…Dr. Rey, thank you!…but still. Let’s have him be stunned with her beauty without the dress, ’kay?
When I Faint — and I Shall — I Shall Be Caught By Hero. I fainted once. I was gardening, I was on a roll, smiting weeds with my mighty sword, I forgot to eat breakfast, didn’t stop for lunch, stood up suddenly, next thing I knew was facedown in the dirt, a rake atop my eye (the gardening tool rake, not the Duke of Badboy, heir to his grandfather’s considerable fortune) Recently, I saw Only You. The heroine faints. Robert Downey, Jr. catches her. Love that movie! Love Robert Downey Jr.! Love Italy! Love red dresses! Why oh why was I eating dirt with a rake on my eye instead of in RDJ’s arms, huh? Not fair! Not! Fair!

















