Don't Shoot the Messenger

I had the best time this week—the Ta Ta s book club, of which I am a proud member, made Five Lessons their book of the month, and we had a great fun evening talking about it, and many other issues, at the home of one of the members.

One of the things I found most interesting was that, when asked whether they had feared for their lives when they had breast cancer, the majority of women in that room, women whose histories ran the gamut of cancer staging, said no.

“I thought the chemo might,” one joked.
“I wished it would,” another added.

This came as a shock to the group’s ringleader, founder, and icon of love and hope and health, Dr. Bonni Gearhart. If you’ve read Five Lessons you know she was my oncology consultant for the medical facts in the book, and saved me from several dumb mistakes I would have made.

Bonni is one of my favorite people in the world, it must be said. Because her practice is in New Jersey and my boobs, and the rest of me, are in Manhattan, she couldn’t be my oncologist, if GOD FORBID...well, you know. But she is my model of how to be a smart, supportive, funny, beautiful person, who also happens to save lives.

Speaking of boobs, I’ll be speaking of boobs, both literal and figurative, Monday night at my pal Lizz Winstead’s Shoot the Messenger live sketch comedy show, which is hilarious. Probably because it’s August and she couldn’t get anybody really famous, she’s asked me to be the guest in the second half of the show, when she interviews journalists and writers about media. We will be talking about both Five Lessons and my first book, Naked Republicans.

Shoot the Messenger is Monday night at 8pm at The Green Room, 45 Bleecker street, just east of Lafayette. It costs $12.50.

You'll laugh, I promise.