But if yours are alive, then you are lucky! Watch this video from Sarah Silverman and take action.

She says everything perfectly, so without further ado…. The Great Schlep!

It will give me such nachas if you watch this!

This weekend Violet and I were watching Cinderella. When it was over she asked me what Cinderella was doing after the ball, before the news of the glass slipper got to her. Her question was about the contentedly cleaning image of Cinderella, humming and waltzing to herself thinking about last night. It got me thinking. If you were essentially enslaved by your step-mother and step-sisters and you had met a prince at a magical ball and you two had spent the evening falling in love, and then you had to run out without giving him your number or name, wouldn’t you be freaking out the next morning? How am I going to get in touch with him? Who do I know who knows him? Is he on Facebook?

She doesn’t know if she’s ever going to see him again. If it were me, I’d wonder if he thought I ran out because I was really married, or turned off by something he did. It’s all kind of infuriating because to-date, her life had been a long run of bad luck. Her kindly father dies leaving her with these ugly bee-yatches. She spends her life scrubbing floors with no rubber gloves, what makes her think it’s going to work out okay?

Conversely, my life has been pretty good. Why do I always think everything is going to turn out disastrously? I sit here with a furrowed brow and my leg tapping madly, biting the inside of my cheek and I have no answer. Where does one get that kind of Cinderella faith? Thoughts?

Several times a day, one of my operatives calls or e-mails me the latest on McCain and Palin. It always makes me quesy. I got this video this morning. Very moving and powerful, but you’re talking to me who is already voting for Obama. The e-mail said, “Pass it On.” And I thought, to whom? Everyone on my e-mail list with one exception is a Liberal Democrat, “in the choir,” as they say. And the one who isn’t is a VERY CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN. She is not going to see this video and say, “Hmm… maybe I was wrong.” This is a problem. I would do almost anything, like be on Jackass or get a tattoo or eat a snake to get Obama in office, unfortunately that’s not going to help him. I need to talk to undecided voters — so if you know any, have them call me. In the meantime, I’ve signed up here to make phone calls. Just for the record, calling up strange people and trying to convince them to vote for Obama is my version of eating snake or getting a tattoo. But I’m still going to do it. Even though I’m a big coward. (“Alright, I’ll go in there for Dorothy. Wicked Witch or no Wicked Witch. Guards or no guards, I’ll tear ’em apart. There’s just one thing I want you guys to do…talk me out of it.”)

I am so excited –my brother Matthew is going to be at the New Yorker Festival and the venue is a Center for Dance which could only mean one thing: the world will finally know what Matt can do in a unitard!

The Devil Within with Matthew Klam, Elmore Leonard, and Joyce Carol Oates. Moderated by Daniel Zalewski.

Matthew Klam is the author of the short-story collection “Sam the Cat and Other Stories,” whose title story was originally published in The New Yorker. His story “Issues I Dealt with in Therapy” was included in the magazine’s Future of American Fiction Issue, in 1999. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a pen/Robert Bingham Award, and an O. Henry Award.

Elmore Leonard published his first novel, “The Bounty Hunters,” in 1953. He has since written more than forty books, most recently “Up in Honey’s Room,” which came out last year. His novel “Riding the Rap” grew out of his New Yorker story of the same title. A dozen of his books have been adapted for film, including “Hombre,” “Out of Sight,” “Get Shorty,” and “Rum Punch,” which was made by Quentin Tarantino as “Jackie Brown.” A new book, “Road Dogs,” will be published next summer.

Joyce Carol Oates has written numerous novels, most recently “My Sister, My Love,” as well as works of drama, poetry, nonfiction, and literary criticism. In April, she published “Wild Nights!,” a collection of short stories. She has received the National Book Award and the pen/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton. Her fiction and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker since 1994.

Daniel Zalewski is the features editor of The New Yorker.

7 p.m. Ailey Citigroup Theater, Joan Weill Center for Dance
405 West 55th Street

For ticket info: Click here

The information you’ve all been waiting for is here! My salon info is as follows:

Saturday, October 25th, 11:15 a.m.

“Managing Your Mother: Or Is She Managing You?”

with

Margaret Cezair-Thompson author of The Pirate’s Daughter

Christina Meldrum author of Madapple

Julie Klam author of Please Excuse My Daughter

Moderator: Maud Carol Markson

For more details and ticket information go to BookGroupExpo.com

Here’s the reason I haven’t been posting –because between Goodreads and Facebook I just have too many places to update!