Thanks for sharing your book with us, Jennifer. I’m a big fan of the smart-ass take on being a good girl and working hard to perfect my style.

I’ve been one of those people who says, why wait for Hallmark’s permission to give gifts, light candles (which you may or may not ceremoniously blow out), dress up like a Diva, stay up past midnight (or go to bed before the ball is even close to dropping)? Life could be a daily celebration of that’s the kind of living we want to create.

I’m so convinced that romantic love is over-rated and often a vehicle for crazy commercialism that I’ve written a funny book about that combination called Cracking Up: Laugh or Go Crazy Trying to Be A Good Girl. I originally intended the book as a warning to my six nieces (also raised Roman Catholic, even attending my same school and church every day of their life, except, of course, on the Jewish Sabbath). I meant it to be a nutty memoir of growing up Roman Catholic and to spoof all the crazy messages that one receives about what most guys, (including God), like or don’t like in girls with whom they may approve and marry or disapprove and cast into outer darkness with the other lonely women who go eventually go “crack up.” Oye! It was so much fun unloading that rant in a little book and I hope and pray that the book has been useful, or will even be read by my nieces!

Again, thanks for your pluck and verve, keep it coming!

Where is THAT written? If one is going to pin all of one’s hopes and dreams on one day, then I can see where the angst comes from but I’m gonna call that foul on the receiver, not on the holiday itself.

Lighten up, Francis.