is it everything you hoped it'd be?

For the past two weeks, I’ve been really obsessed with Del Amitri’s 1995 hit “Roll to Me.” I heard it pumped through the speakers at a restaurant during a birthday dinner where we found out they didn’t do cake/candles but this song really made up for it.

The video’s even better.

Whose idea was it to put the band members’ heads on babies? Who came up with that? I’m dying to know.

Also — whose idea was it to mix the song like that, where the vocals are on one side and the drums on the other?

Between those questions and “did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone,” I barely have any brain space left, but it’s been a fun week, including an event at a Marlins game down in Miami.

I do hope to make it to all 30 parks one day, but I have a long way to go. I went to the Coliseum once back in the day, thank god, so I can count that one off my list even though it’s no longer on the list. I’ve been to the home stadiums for the Rays (obviously), Marlins, Orioles, Phillies, Yankees, Cardinals, White Sox, and Cubs. It’s a big commitment — they’re spread out so far across the country!

The book swap event was hosted by Chapter & Coast, which is a mobile bookstore run in South Florida by two of the sweetest women, Joann and Yessy. One question they asked at the event was something along the lines of, what’s one perk of getting to be an author? and I wasn’t sucking up when I said honestly, doing an event at a baseball game was pretty damn up there. I mean, how often do you get to say that? I chatted about romance for an hour, and then I went and watched Sandy Alcantara pitch for the Marlins. Hard to beat.

I had a Marlins dog, which was a giant foot-long with lechon, onions, and some kind of cilantro sauce. It was delicious and also I only ate like half of it — that is just way too much food for me. Actually, you know what, it’s less that it’s too much food and more that it’s too messy. Once a sandwich or taco or hot dog or whatever else starts falling apart on me, I don’t want to finish it. But it was really good!

The ladies from Chapter & Coast also brought me these delicious guava pastries:

One feature that LoanDepot has that’s pretty cool is you can go down to this little bar area and watch the bullpen warm up like they’re in a fishbowl. You’re super close, albeit separated by glass. When I did an event with the Marlins a couple years ago, I asked the rep from the team if they could see us, and she was like, you know what, I’m not sure, but I’ll check on that for you! One of my favorite things about her is that she DID check on it for me!! Apparently the players can see, but it’s tinted, so they can’t see you super well. It’s nice to know you’re not spying on them like they’re in an interrogation room or something, but also that if you’re just standing there awkwardly for ten straight minutes it’s (hopefully) not distracting to them.

After the game, they opened the retractable roof (which I didn’t even see happen!! I’m kind of disappointed — I always thought if I was there, I’d notice it!) to set off fireworks. It was quite the show!

I love how Miami Miami is. That sounds silly, but if you’ve ever been there, I think you’ll know what I mean. It’s like, if you’ve seen Miami on TV or in the movies . . . it really is like that. The palm trees, the fashion, the vibes, you just can’t ever be confused walking around Miami that you’re in Miami. I love that pretty much everyone speaks Spanish, that if you ever wanted to have a fully immersive language experience you could absolutely get it. We saw more of those huge lizards and they were awesome.

The timing of this event turned out to be perfect, too, because I just turned in my revisions the day before. It felt so good to have that off my back, to be able to just enjoy myself without thinking in the back of my head about how if I got through one chapter that morning then maybe I could . . . no, but wait, I guess I could do two chapters when I got back, but then I’d have to . . . I was just done. I didn’t even bring my laptop.

It was also perfect because — I don’t know if I’ve told you this yet? — my 2027 romance is going to be another baseball book!! Let’s fucking gooooooo! Despite the fact that you’ve caught me bitching about the work a little here and there (I’m allowed; take it up with the union), so far I have to say that my two baseball romances have been the easiest to write. They just flow out of me. What can I say, I love baseball!!!

I did start writing this one “just for me” — it was meant to be a project while I was biding my time waiting to hear on a few things, and I never knew if anything would come of it. But eventually it got called up to the majors, so to speak.

I can’t wait to tell you everything about it!

And finally, a few timely things to share:

• I was interviewed for Playgirl along with other romance authors about writing sex scenes — you can read that here!

• Rachel Lynn Solomon very kindly included In Every Possible Way in a round-up of some age gap romances in The New York Times! That link goes to a paywalled version; I’m sorry — I’m not a subscriber and don’t have a gift link. But I did have someone screenshot my mention for me (along with some of the comments1, which were insane):

If you’re as big a fan of Rachel as I am, I hope to see you at our event at The New Romantics this Saturday, July 18! Tickets to the event itself are sold out, but I believe there’s still availability for the signing line.

Currently reading . . . I just finished Dreamland as part of my Summer of Sarah Dessen. It’s definitely one of her books I remember most viscerally. She did a good job of making Rogerson seem so charming and cool, and then so terrifying when he turns into something else.

I also read Set Piece by Lana Schwartz. I love a novella. It really struck me, rereading The Stepford Wives, just how much you can do in a slim, elegant volume if you really make your words work for you. I love a long book, too, don’t get me wrong (I finally finished 11/22/63 on audio), but yeah, I love a novella. I’ve started writing one. 👀

watching . . . My family just finished “The Day of Black Sun” episode in our Avatar watch — IYKYK! I also had the strongest urge to go back and rewatch In Treatment, an HBO show where Gabriel Byrne plays a therapist and every half-hour episode is a different session, cycling through four different patients and then a session where Gabriel Byrne himself talks to another therapist (Dianne Wiest). I watched the first couple seasons back when it came out but then never finished the show, but it’s really so brilliant — the writing, the acting, how much story they can tell just in dialogue and body language in (mostly) a single set.

listening to . . . I hate repeating myself in these, but I really am still on Ecca Vandal’s new release LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW. It’s so good! I love “MOLLY,” of course, and also “BLEED BUT NEVER DIE.” My older son asked me which I preferred, when artists write in all lowercase or all caps, and I said lowercase only because the caps do sometimes kinda stress me out, but I also recognize my hypocrisy here given that I do all my Goodreads reviews shouting the whole time.