Behind the Bedroom Door

The happiest week (month? year? decade?) of my life: You decide.

I have never felt so bathed in the love and good wishes of friends, family, colleagues, students and btbd fans--truly, there is nothing like looking down on a sea of familiar faces, all of them smiling at you and sending good vibes. This string of book launch events--the SELF party, the B&N reading, the bash my sister and brother-in-law threw for me (anyone take pictures there?)--were joyful and joy filled for the following abreviated list of reasons. not in any particular order: 

1. Seeing my parents so happy
2. Seeing my nephews so excited
3. Being able to talk naturally and easily about sex (in front of an audience of 8 year olds and octagenarians and everything in between,)
4. Dressing up in different outfits and taking some time with my make up (I'm loving a black eyeliner gel that you apply with a little brush that I got at SELF)
5. Looking like a sexpert (!)
6. Having people respond, enthusiastically, to my book
7. Spending face-to-face time with amazing contributors and writers and great friends....

As we Jews like to say: What could be bad?

Ca-li-forn-ia, here I come!

Right back where I started from.

Actually, I was born in the Bronx, but I did live in Marin County when I was 3, and have never forgotten the lemon tree in our back yard.

I'm heading West on Saturday, first to L.A., then to the S.F. Bay area. Come here me talk about sex and listen to the brilliant West Coast (and Britain) based BTBD writers wax smart and poetic about women and sex

1/25/09: Meet the editor and L.A. contributors at Book Soup on Sunday January 25, 2009, at 4 PM.

1/26/09: Meet the editor and L.A. contributors at Vroman's in Pasadena on January 26, 2009 at 6:30 PM.

1/28/09: Behind the Bedroom Door comes to the Bay Area at Book Passage in Corte Madera at 7 pm (new time!)
.

"Pert" good. "Perky" bad.

Pert is fine. That's what the reviewer in this Winnipeg newspaper calls BTBD. Perky...now that I don't like.

A guy gives his thumbs up, a woman her thumbs down

This man gets it. This woman obviously doesn't.

SRO (and I don't mean the down-and-dirty rooming house)

The debut of BTBD at my neighborhood B&N was a rousing success. It was an incredible experience looking out into a crowd of people including old friends from summer camp, junior high school and college, plus my nephews, my family and my colleagues, all looking up and smiling widely at me. I'm still on a high.

Today's the day--or rather, tonight's the night!

Come one, come all, to the Barnes and Noble at 82nd and Broadway tonight at 7 pm to hear me and the contributors talk about and read from Behind the Bedroom Door. Sex! Women! Love! Relationships! Heartbreak! Lust! In other words, sizzling, smart, intriguing and poignant stuff.

Barnes and Noble loves Behind the Bedroom Door

Check out this cool, spotlight review! And don't forget to come to the reading at the real-life Barnes and Noble on 82nd and Broadway, at 7 PM, tomorrow night. (That's Thursday the 15 of January).

It's time to PAR-TAY!

SELF magazine threw an amazing party last night in honor of Behind the Bedroom Door's debut. How lucky am I?

Sexercise

Read an excerpt of Abby Sher's brilliant and disturbing essay in this month's Elle magazine or read it online!

$1,000.00 for a set of sheets. But they're Italian!

I have a thing for nice sheets. Every time I go to Rome, I wander into a Frette and lovingly stroke my hand over the high thread counts, trying to justify a 4-figure purchase for what are essentially nice pieces of fabric. I haven't managed to do that yet. So when I impulsively stopped into a local linens' store this past weekend and saw that they had a set of white Egyptian cotton percale sheets and pillowcases from Italy, sold originally for $1,000.00 and marked down to $299, well, I just had to act.

They are on my bed now. I am lying on them. The texture feels so smooth and silky that when I rub my bare feet against them, if feels as if I'm rubbing my foot on nothing at all. Except better.

Yours, in gluttonous (when it comes to sheets) guilt,

Paola

That's me, in the photo below, in Roma, on New Year's Eve, looking slightly three sheets to the wind. But truly I wasn't. I was just in the midst of a lovely, lustful, dreamy, blissful vacation. Can't you tell?

Tomorrow, I will be celebrating the book, courtesy of SELF, at Fig and Olive. Crostini. Vino. gelato. Mmmmmm!