La Rosa Knows

Tomorrow I’m performing at the LA Times Festival of Books! Hooray for things!

If you’re planning on going you should come see me. I’ll be at the USC Stage on Saturday, April 30th at 11:40 a.m. in the storytelling series “Funny But True.”

It’s being hosted by the hilarious playwright Prince Gomolvilas, and it’s going to be super fun!

Justin Timberlake doesn’t believe in casual sex, one-night stands, or his groupies happiness.

“[Casual sex is] a really good idea until it becomes a bad idea. It probably becomes a bad idea really fast,” he stated.

But what if you’re a redhead who’s only 4-inches away from being declared a little person and sometimes you buy a bag of Goldfish and wake up the next morning surrounded by orange crumbs and regret??

Nope. No dice.

“If you’re going to be intimate with someone at some point somebody’s going to feel something,” he said. “They’ll develop a feeling but it’s going to be uh, uh.”

There are a few things in life that can be discouraging, going to an agent panel is one of those things.

I went to USC tonight to listen to Barbara Lowentstein of Lowenstein Associates. The woman has repped some serious authors, including my thesis professor, Gina Nahai.

So I was excited! Because I’ve been working with Gina and she has made me feel much more confident about my own writing. And when I snuck into the discussion (I was running late because of traffic, oops), I was as hopefuly as I could be.

That is… until Barbara started talking out all the details of just how hard it is to get a book published.

Admittedly, I worked at Random House once upon a time, and a whole host of other publishers prior to that. I am aware of what a ringer writers go through to get their books made into hard copies. But part of me has always thought, “Me? Nah, that won’t happen to me.”

That is… until Barbara laid out that the only books being bought right now are sci-fi thrillers set in colonial times. You need to write a book about cowboys and aliens (already been done, so don’t even try it) in order to sell a book to a publisher.

And also there was the part where I pitched my thesis project to her and got crickets in return. Silence so deafening that I heard someone retie their shoelaces.

Granted, Barbara had explicitly stated that she wants a book set in an “exotic” location with “exotic” characters doing “exotic” things. And my humble piece of writing is set on a ranch in Florida with characters who are interesting, but also happen to be reflective of middle America.

My good friend, Tommy, reminded me of this when he said, “She’s not the agent for you then.”

Okay, yes, she’s not the agent for me, there are plenty of other agents in the sea, I’ll end up successful and she’ll end up begging to have me back, blah blah blah.

But it was still disheartening. What can I say? Rejection is rejection folks!

But you know what did make me feel better? A Cadbury Creme Egg (thank you Easter bunny!).

Now, onto my new book ideas:

-A story of sisters who land a reality TV show after one of them accidentally records the sex a rapper has on her.

-A story of two sisters who leave their LA reality show to move into a New York reality TV Show. Working title “Kourtney & Kim Take New York”

-A story of one sister who marries a handsome black athlete and they have a reality show where they have sex on each other.

Would you buy those?

A friend of mine posted this article because it has a rather accurate write up about our hometown:

“While certainly slightly more cultured than any Florida City north of it, it is still not exactly Florence on the Gulf. Tampa is sort of like someone from a trailer park that moves to the big city and reinvents herself only to be caught chewing gum at the opera. You can take the city out of North Florida, but you can’t take the North Florida out of the city.”

Gawd, I miss it!

Now that I’ve watched the “Will & Kate” Lifetime made-for-TV-movie 3 times (yes, you read that correctly), I’d like to make some comments about love.

I have a hard time understanding people who know exactly what they want when it comes to relationships. Like Miss Middleton, for example, in “Will & Kate” who knew what she wanted right away when she passionately told her mother, “All I want is Will!”

Okay, this is a fictional movie written by someone who clearly has read a lot of romance novels, but still- I know women like this.

How do you know that’s all you want? And I don’t care for the response, “You just… know!” because I’m not going to accept that kind of bullshit. I’m not asking how do you know that you want that one person, I get that people fall madly in love and want to be together forever- I’m not a robot (yet).

But don’t you ever get scared? Aren’t there ever moments when you think, “Huh. Forever? That’s a long fucking time.”

Hell yeah it is. And you know what? Scares me right now!

I know I could be faithful, that’s not the issue. It’s the whole, “Oh, wait, you don’t go to your own place now that it’s the morning? You stay here and we have to figure out how I can watch my Lifetime movies while eating peanut butter off a spoon without you judging me? Yikes…”

I suppose I’m afraid of being judged, the way that Kate was afraid that Wills (that’s what she calls him in the movie, not me!) would judge her for being so darn pretty all the time.

Okay, that never happened. In the movie neither of them is judgey or defense or eating half a jar of peanut butter and dried pineapple slices for dinner. Which is why it all seems so… scary.

I mean, come on, Kate’s going to eventually fart or something. That’s going to scare the hell out of a balding prince, right?

“There are no words” is really just a silly way of saying that there are too many words.

So, technically my vegetarian diet ended over the weekend, but does that mean I’m over it?

This weekend was spent in Las Vegas with friends and, after an epic concert from Mumford & Sons on the roof deck of The Cosmopiltan Hotel, we decided to get some grub.

My friends have been very generous and forgiving of my diet, choosing to go to restaurants where there are veg options and bringing animal-free snacks for the roadtrip to Vegas. Only once did I get a question where I detected a hint of judgment. “You’re going vegetarian whyyyy?” With the last bit trailing up in tone at the end so you knew they were thinking what a putz I was for going sans meat.

But at The Cosmopolitan we wandered into a tapas-y place downstairs and set about ordering up some snacks.Everything was going well until Gabby saw bacon wrapped dates on the menu, to which she exclaimed, “BACON WRAPPED DATES!!” with the brightest of eyes.

I knew this would be trouble, as prior to my diet I had similar reactions to bacon wrapped anything. Except mine were also usually accompanied by drool.

To be fair, out of all the items we ordered, only that one was non-veg, and it was technically past midnight and my diet was officially over so… could one really hurt?

Okay, I had three. Three delicious bacon wrapped dates, after which I felt some pleasure, then remorse, then fear, and then denial.

I am still slightly in denial. I guess part of me assumed I might never eat meat again. but there I was, 45 minutes off my diet and a fistful deep into bacon wrapped fruits.

The next day I ate entirely vegetarian, and I have also continued this today. I also went food shopping, and decided that if I was really going to try and continue with the veg thing, I’d have to invest in some veg junk food.

Enter Tofutti Cuties! Adorable ice cream sandwiches that are dairy free. I’m hoping that these will help to keep me off the hooch that is meat.

Any other veg junk food suggestions?

Buzzfeed featured this bed that is shaped like a book from designer Yusuke Suzuki.

He made one “page” of the bed for sleep, while the other side is for playing.

This is WAY cooler than those dorky race car beds.

Today I am driving to Vegas with two of my very best friends in Los Angeles.

But we aren’t just going for debauchery (though, admittedly that will be part of it)– we are trekking to go see Mumford and Sons at The Cosmopolitan cuz we are crazy fans!

Admittedly, women are excited for that point in life where pregnancy gives you an excuse to eat whatever the fuck you want #HappyEndings