Laurie Sandell's Blog, page 374
July 23, 2009
Violet swims!
[image error]So, today I Googled the phrase, "Can Chihuahuas swim?" (She's not really a Chihuahua, she's a Rat Terrier mix, but she has those same stick-like legs.) According to Yahoo! Answers, they can, indeed–and this was corroborated by my research. I didn't even have to teach her; I just put her in the water and she started paddling away. Amanda said, "Maybe she can also speak Spanish." Violeta, donde es su bikini?[image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error]
July 22, 2009
Oh no!
Gregg DeGuire/WireImage.com
Yo quiero RIP.
Well, it's official: My book is in stores
[image error]At least, it's in stock at the Barnes & Noble on 86th St. between 3rd & Lex, in the "Biography" section. The release date is August 29th, so I was under the impression I'd have to wait. My cousin Jaimie is the one who spotted it–she bought two copies and gave one to her 16-year-old daughter, Rachel (who I may well never be able to look in the eye again). Rachel, if you're reading this, I hereby appoint you my "teen liaison." Please pass the book around at school–making sure to point out any racy
July 21, 2009
The most hilarious woman I know
photo by Andy Prieboy
Is the writer Merrill Markoe. I met her a few years ago when I edited a piece she wrote for Glamour, and we became friends. Merrill is the author of EIGHT books, including Nose Up, Eyes Down, Walking in Circles Before Lying Down, and It's My F–ing Birthday. She's also the co-creator of Late Night with David Letterman and "Stupid Pet Tricks"; she's won Emmys; appeared in The Aristocrats; done tons of standup comedy; and you may remember her as "Marcia the Museum Curator" on F
July 20, 2009
It's Hamptonstime
[image error]Don't let this photo fool you–Amanda and I arrived at her mother's summer rental home last night and since then, all we've been doing is working. I came outside into the backyard to let my dog go to the bathroom and to snap this photo, in all its wistful glory. It is a beautiful place, with a pool, and two living rooms to lounge in, and lovely white painted floors, but Amanda and I are both on deadline with two magazine pieces, two books to write–and one to promote–between us. Right now she's ca
July 19, 2009
The plight of Schapelle Corby
[image error]I swear, I'll get back to celebrities in a minute, but I had to post about a powerful documentary I watched on HBO last night called Ganja Queen. It's about a (now) 31-year-old Australian woman caught smuggling a 10-pound bag of cannabis into Bali, in 2004. She was visiting her older sister, who is married to a Balinese man, and had planned to spend two weeks at the beach with them. Instead, she is serving 20 years in horrific conditions in a Balinese prison. The documentary makes a convincing c
July 18, 2009
The "most trusted man in America" is gone
[image error]Woke up to sad news: Walter Cronkite passed away last night. He was 92. In 1969, he reported the first moonwalk; broke the news of John F. Kennedy's assassination; traveled to Vietnam and influenced the president; thrust Watergate into the limelight and covered every presidential election until 1980. There's an excellent video and article on nytimes.com detailing his life and career. (Interestingly, in his last years he was dating Carly Simon's sister.) A friend of mine who works at the Times ha
July 17, 2009
The Daily Grind
photo by Andy Newman
I work in coffee shops. This is one of my favorites, called Smooch. So often do I come here, in fact, that I accidentally ended up in this photo, taken by a New York Times blogger. (That's me, in the foreground.) I even have a little ragtag community of "co-workers": My friend Amanda, a food writer named JJ Goode, a memoirist named Abby Sher, and all those people I recognize daily but never talk to. JJ, Amanda and I have a system whereby if one of us is talking too much and t
July 16, 2009
Cleaning out my bookshelves
[image error]I've been a neat freak since childhood, though you wouldn't know it if you looked around my apartment right this very second. I'm on deadline for one magazine piece, doing a total rewrite of another (thanks to some celebrity breaking news which I can't reveal until the next issue of Glamour hits newsstands), and I'm also getting ready to head out of town for a mini-writing retreat–maybe my last chance to do so before my book comes out. But as often happens when I'm completely swamped, yesterday
