Sandi Kahn Shelton

My favorite part is at the end, when I thought that camera was off—and I’m doing a high-five with the host, Desiree Fontaine, and I say triumphantly, “I didn’t cough!” It’s because I had the world’s worst cough, and I was quite sure that at some point in the interview, she would ask me a question, and I would start hacking up a lung and would fall to the ground, eyes and nose streaming. (I think the producer of the show might have been worried about that, too, since she ran and got me a throat lozenge, which later I found stuck to my skirt.)

Sometimes I just have to stop and count my blessings that I’m a writer and so I don’t have to go in public very often.

I barely have time to type today because I’m busy thinking away away ten pounds. It’s clear that somehow along the way through forty pounds of Christmas cookies, I forgot to get in shape—and now it turns out that tomorrow morning I am going to be taped on a television show. Yes, that’s right. Channel 8, WTNH in New Haven has a fun show called “Connecticut Style,” and they’ve invited me to come and talk about Kissing Games of the World and how insane I was while I was writing it and stuff like that. The show will air at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday. If you live far away and want to see what decline and neglect will do to a person who is used to working at a computer all day long, you can go to WTNH.com and see the whole train wreck.

ALSO!  Because it seems to be Media Week in Sandi Shelton World, there is another media event I am doing this week, one that I won’t even have to take off the fleece sweatpants, the wooly sweater, the mukluks, the fingerless gloves and the plaid hat with flaps, in order to appear before the public.

My friend Barb Scala has begun an internet radio show, called “Bloom Talk,” and I have the honor of being her second guest EVER. We are going to be talking on the phone LIVE from 3-4 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 7th. To listen, you just need to click here …and if by chance you’re a Working Human and can’t listen live, I hear that it’s downloadable and you can listen on a podcast.

Also, if you’re available and want to be on the radio yourself, you can call in (877-864-4869) and ask me questions. Really! Ask me anything! I’ll be talking about how I got started with writing, how it was always my dream from the time I was a little girl…and then how it then happened that it took me 17 years to write my first novel, despite the fact that it was something I always always ALWAYS wanted to do.

In fact, that’s what Barb’s show is about—how women need to let themselves “bloom” and not be scared to do the things they really want to do.

And now, without further ado, I must go to about 100 sit-ups.

Which I am scared to do.

Well, we’re STILL awaiting spring here in the Northeast, still being teased by the fact that it’s April and yet ridiculously colder than it has any right to be.

Today, driving to the library, I saw little ICE crystals bouncing out of the sky onto my windshield. I wanted to close my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see such a miscarriage of meteorological justice, but then I would have probably driven off the road.

And now that I have gotten to the library, where it is warm enough that a person can drink iced tea without shivering, I have perceived yet ANOTHER problem. There is a little bit of a bad vibe here today, which I now realize is happening because nearly all the people here have TAX FORMS in front of them. Some are even whispering furiously with official accounting types and shuffling through briefcases filled with receipts and such. What can be worse than having ice crystals AND tax form pressure all in one day?

Life is so unfair sometimes.

But here is an offering, in case you also are shaking your fist at some sky somewhere, or else scowling at tax forms: a video that has a chance of making you smile. As my friend Beth Levine said when she sent it to me, “I already knew that musical theater could cure the world of all its troubles!”

Go–watch and smile.

Some people are starting to email me, wondering if I am still alive since I never blog, write, or call anybody anymore.

Yes, I am still breathing oxygen and drinking caffeine and typing as fast as my fingers can manage. As I may have mentioned, I have to hand in a book on Jan. 31st. And since I cannot seem to write this book at my house due to the fact that I have carelessly allowed wireless Internet to be there, I find myself every single day going to Starbucks.

Did you know that there are people who go to Starbucks every single day and stay there most of the day? And they don’t even work there!

It is a beautiful thing, like a recreation center with armchairs and good warm things to drink. We are all quite happy there. Obama has become president, and every now and then people need to have a discussion about how amazing that is.

Every day the chess players come and set up their games. Alan the Yoga Teacher comes in to write his newsletter exhorting us all to stretch more in the new year. Dick the Mailman comes in after his rounds and reads a book on burnout. Bob is on year five of writing a book. Jane, a visiting nurse, brings in her patient notes to write.

And then there is Ernie, who is possibly the oldest and kindest man in America today still driving a car, who comes in daily to discuss politics, movies, and possibly find a game of Scrabble. We have had many enlightening conversations about education and Hillary Clinton over the past weeks.

The other day he crossed the room to get to my armchair in the corner. It took about ten minutes with the cane and all, and when he got there, he wanted to know if I’d watched the Golden Globes. I said I had.

“Which won for best picture?” he wanted to know.

“Slumdog Millionare,” I said.

“Oh!” he said. “And have you seen it?”

I said that I hadn’t.

He stood there, ruminating on that for a moment. His rheumy old eyes looked as though they might lose focus altogether. Then he said, “Well, I heard it sucked.”

I wanted to get up and hug him.

I was interviewed by Cindy at WALK 97.5 radio, and she sent me a podcast of the interview!
So here it is.

In these days when the financial markets have gone to hell and everybody on TV speaks in apocalyptic terms, I have decided to do the daring act of buying a pair of jeans.

It’s not much, I know, but I am doing my part for the economy. I am sacrificing my sense of well-being by going into a store, seduced by an ad I saw in a magazine that says there are jeans out there that actually make you look thinner. I am already mostly thin, I know that, but–let’s face it–there is a stomach pooch issue. There is ALWAYS a stomach pooch issue if you’re over the age of, say, thirteen. And when you have let your body give house room to three babies–well, let’s just say, there is enough poochiness to warrant attention over a pair of jeans that promises to do away with your belly.

I didn’t know that buying one pair of jeans was going to become nearly a full-time job.

The first pair I buy seems to fit great in the dressing room, but once I get them home, it turns out that they don’t allow a person to sit down. They come up all the way to my waist, a site that does not want to be constricted with fabric ever, ever again.

I take them back and try on 35 pairs of jeans–all the same size, mind you–some of which are baggy and make me look like I’ve put on my husband’s pants, and others which constrict all my blood flow in my legs and would have to have about 6 inches cut off the bottoms. I put on some that come down so low on my hips that they would slither off if I made any sudden moves. And other, "boot-cut" types were so wide at the bottom that I could have smuggled a couple of toddlers underneath.

When I come out of the dressing room, holding all the rejects in my arms, another woman is staring at the sign over the piles of jeans. The sign that reads "CUSTOM-FIT JEANS. PERFECT FOR EVERYBODY."

She laughs. "Ha! Have you ever found a perfect pair of jeans?" she says. "Ever, in your life?"

I say, "I have never even found a pair of jeans that I can stand to keep wearing after dinner."

She hands me a pair that she says seem as though they might fit me. I hand her one of the pairs from my stack that I think might fit her. We meet at the mirrors.

"These actually feel pretty good," she says. "I think I can settle for these."

I loved the pair she handed me. They come just below the belly button, and yet they hang on for dear life. Not too tight, not too loose. They feel kind of like leggings. They’re not the color of jeans I usually buy–they’re much darker–but I can live with that. The dark blue is actually rather…well, slimming, I told her.

We shook hands and headed for the cash registers.

"It’s been nice working with you," I said. "Ten years from now, when I’m done with these, I hope I run into you again."

"September 2018," she says. "I’ll be here."

I swear that I’m not simply going to keep feeding you You Tube videos…actually, I’d planned to write about the lovely hostas in my garden that look like girls in big skirts, but then my friend Beth sent me this wonderful video of a man who, in my book, is a genius. Genius trumps hostas every time!

I wonder if this trick works on babies? Jenny, Amy, Allie…I’ll bet you would hire this guy in an instant!

My friend Carol has more energy than most people. She’s written several books, about a million newspaper and magazine stories, AND she’s flown off to all parts of the world to make full-length, incredible documentaries. Plus, she volunteers in the school system and runs the Fairfield Writers Workshop where she teaches three classes a week. All this, and she’s a fabulous cook. Oh, and she’s the mother of two teenage boys.

I long ago gave up trying to figure out where she gets all her energy, never mind trying to keep up with her.

Recently, she let me in on her latest project. She wants to have a cooking show for teenagers, because (1) she’s noticed that quite a few teenagers are left to figure out their own meals while their parents are at work, and (2) that usually means they eat a lot of fast food, and (3) that’s also perhaps why the levels of childhood obesity are so high because kids don’t know the first thing about nutrition and how fun and easy it can be to put together a healthy meal all by themselves.

So she’s made this wonderful You Tube video as a promo to her first show (while she’s waiting for people to send her vast sums of money to finance this worthwhile project)…and she sent it along to me, and I thought it was great, so I’m sharing it with you.

Go watch it. Naturally I can’t embed it into the text here, because wordpress and you tube are not friends…but here’s the link. Enjoy! And let me know what you think, and I’ll pass your advice and comments along to Carol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5dB442T5mc

I write about how much I’m going to re-train myself to love the summer–all the good and the bad it has to offer–and then today I get bitten by a Lyme tick, a huge thunderstorm warning comes up in the afternoon, AND my sunburn starts peeling.

Summer obviously is not going to pander!