25 Things..

This is going around Facebook and, this morning, because I was looking for an excuse for not doing my work, I decided to come up with 25 random facts about me.


Once you've been tagged you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs, on your profile, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people, then click publish)

1. I'm colorblind.

2. When I was five, I changed my name to Thumbelina for two days and would not answer to anything else.

3. I'm still bummed that, in a fit of pride and a desire to prove my maturity, I threw my blankie out when I was seven and that by the time I came to my senses, the garbage man had already taken it away.

4. I can't believe I was a blonde for all those years. I'm so a brunette at heart.

5. I'm never happier or feel like I'm more myself than when I'm writing. Even on the days when it's not going well.

6. At some point I'd love to go to Pacifica University and get my degree in Depth Psychology and become a Jungian psychoanalyst in addition to writing.

7. I'd like to live in Paris for a while.

8. My dream is to be able to split my time between Manhattan and a house in upstate New York or western MA.

9. I'm incredibly disorganized.

10. As moderation is not one of my strong suits, I can't keep a box of cookies in the house without eating the whole thing.

11. I studied French for 12 years but have a horrible accent so I'm self-conscious about speaking.

12. If I had a daughter, I'd name her Clementine.

13. One day a few years ago when I was questioning whether I was on the right track with the writing, I was walking down 3rd Ave and I said to myself "I need a sign" and a black Towncar pulled up and Joan Didion got out. The next day I started writing CINDY ELLA, which became my first published novel.

14. I have two tattoos.

15. I could listen to Joni Mitchell and Miles Davis all day.

16. If I have learned anything, it's that everything passes. Most of the time not as quickly as I'd like, but it does pass.

17. I'm somewhat shocked at how many of my dreams have proved to be prescient.

18. I'm pretty sure one of my cats has Aspergers Syndrome.

19. I used to smoke a pack and a half a day for 15 years.

20. I really have no interest in cooking.

21. I was almost the Johnson & Johnson No More Tangles girl.

22. I've only been in a cab 4 times since I moved to New York. My favorite thing about living here is that I get to walk so much.

23. I tend to eat the same thing for lunch every day until I burn out on it completely. This month it's Amy's Brown Rice Bowls.

24. Sometimes in yoga, when it comes time to do crow pose, I say a very un-yogic "F*ck" under my breath because all these years later, I still can't do it.

25. I am incredibly happy and content in my life at the moment - and it's taken every day of the last 40 years to get here.

Publishers Weekly review of GEEK CHARMING

I have to say, it was hard to leave 82 degree-Turks & Caicos weather to return to 28-degree Manhattan, but this review as a welcome home gift made it a lot easier...

Geek Charming Robin Palmer. Speak, $7.99 paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-14-241122-3

The perils of popularity are showcased in a lighthearted contemporary novel filled with snappy dialogue. The fun begins when A-lister Dylan drops her designer handbag in a mall’s fountain. Her geeky classmate Josh rescues it, and to return the favor, Dylan (reluctantly) agrees to star in his USC application film, documenting the “the inner workings of the in crowd” at Castle Heights High. Told from the alternating perspectives of the two teens, the story traces Dylan’s fall from grace as her friends recognize her back-stabbing tendencies around the same time she is dumped by her handsome boyfriend. Her trials parallel Josh’s rise in social status when Dylan gives him a makeover. Readers will likely feel more for Josh than for Dylan in the beginning (although his hypochondria does prove annoying), yet aspects of Dylan—even her shallowness—become increasingly endearing as her vulnerabilities come to light. Rather than following the predictable route of having opposites fall in love, Palmer (Cindy Ella) offers a slightly more original and plausible alternative. Ages 12–up. (Feb.

40 is the new 30...

I actually wrote a book with that title once. Actually, it was called 30 is the New 40. I think. It was a while ago so I don't remember.

Anyway, my 40th is on Wednesday but I had a party last night that was great. If you are my friend on Facebook, you can see them there. I'm posting only 2 here. Because the cupcakes are inanimate objects, they can't demand photo approval.

I had waaaay too many cupcakes, but it was well worth it

I'm still around...

...just not blogging a lot.

I can't believe the last time was Xmas.

Not even a Happy New Year post.

Sorry about that.

Lots going on. GEEK CHARMING pubs on February 5th which is so exciting, but before that I have my birthday party tomorrow night, my 40th birthday next Wednesday (40...how on EARTH did that happen?!) and then a much-needed vacation to Parrot Cay on Turks & Caicos for four days. I haven't been on a vacation like that since Mexico with my ex-boyfriend Alex when I was 26 and he got food poisoning and I got sun poisoning and we spent the entire time watching HBO in the room.

It's freezing in New York today. When the New York Times says "bitterly cold" and "frigid" on the front page you know you're in trouble. I wish it would snow more though... We've gotten a little bit over the last few weeks but it never sticks. Meanwhile it' been in the 80s in L.A. Crazy.

I'm excited for GEEK to come out and start doing signings. Will post dates on my website when that's all figured out.

My father is in the process of transferring over stuff on VHS tapes to DVDs and the other day he told me that he found footage from his 50th birthday party in Las Vegas where I'm sitting there smoking a cigarette and saying to the camera that I'm "20 and a half years old."

Cigarettes. 20 and a half.

Both such a long, long time ago.

40 always seemed so old to me. It meant kids, and mortgages, and the suburbs. It didn't mean writing novels and living in downtown NYC and going to yoga and not smoking.

It's all good. Different than I thought, but all good.