ON TO HARVARD

What a week this has been. My memoir, Hats and Eyeglasses, was published on February 14th. Since then, I have gotten rave reviews in The New York Post, USA Today, Bloomberg News, The Times Picayune, AP, and half a dozen others. The New York Times ran an amazing piece by Joyce Wadler about me and my house in the Home section, and Tara Parker Pope blogged about Hats & Eyeglasses in her New York Times blog, WELL. I was on the Lenny Lopate show on WNYC, and did a standing-room-only reading at Barnes & Noble in Chelsea. This all seems an embarrassment of riches, but I'm remembering to enjoy the ride and not pooh-pooh the whole thing away.

And now, this college drop-out is heading to Harvard! Yup, leaving for Boston tomorrow for three days of TV (Wednesday morning's Good Morning Boston on Fox TV somewhere between 7:30 and 7:45 AM, and a half hour on BATV's Behind the Pages, which will be broadcast sometime in the next few weeks), taping Here and Now at WBUR, and capping it all off with a reading at the Harvard Coop Wednesday night at 7. So if you know anyone in Boston, tell them to come see me that night and to say hello. I love talking to the people who show up at my readings, and signing their copies of Hats & Eyeglasses.

FOUR DAYS TIL PUBLICATION

Here it is, four days before my publication date. Things are going great. The New York Times did an unbelievable story about me--- the great Joyce Wadler wrote it for the Home & Garden section, and I must admit that she really got me, AP wrote a really nice review that got picked up by hundreds of papers around the country and in Canada, there have been raves in magazines, from friends, from people I don't even know (all the reviews are on my website, www.marthafrankel.com).

So, why haven't I slept in two weeks? Am I going to become one of those writers who fret and never feel that they've reached their goal? Please, no. I hate that kind of thing. When I was reviewing books in the late 80's for DETAILS magazine, I listened to writers bitch and moan all the time. Either they were annoyed that other writers were getting more attention than they were, or they thought their editors had screwed with the essence of their book, or they were just miserable drunks who couldn't be happy because a cloud of nastiness and sadness hung over them.

A friend asked me last night when I was going to raise the glass of champagne, and I had a million excuses--- not til the book was out, not til my Amazon number broke ten thousand, not til I knew if it was a "Success."

And she laughed. "Isn't writing it, being honest about your addiction, and getting it published the "success"?

That really made me shut my mouth. Which, if you know me or not, is not the usual thing for me. But it did make me think that if I can't enjoy the journey, I'm screwed. This book is the most liberating thing I could have ever hoped to do. I hid my addiction from everyone I knew, and now they all know. And you know what? No one has turned away from me, no one is mad. My family and friends have embraced me in a way that I could never have imagined.

So here it is, four days before pub date, and I'm doing it--- I'm raising that freaking glass and toasting Hats and Eyeglasses. And I hope you will, too.