If, when my book is published, I sell twenty-five copies, I will count
myself lucky (though my publisher surely won’t) so long as I sell those
copies to the amazing people who showed up to my little Julie/Julia
wake on Wednesday.  The problem with these things is that inevitably
someone gets, not forgotten, never forgotten, but misplaced for a
moment at the time of writing.  This goes double on the day I am to
load my husband and my hundred pound dog into a rented car to drive
back to Austin, when my house is still a wreck and I haven’t bathed in
two days.  But I will do the best I can:
Thanks be to Rebecca and Bill of the tamales and Deborah and Cassandra
of the cigarettes and Jane and Ellen and the Antstett cousins (all the
way from Connecticut!) and Bala, and Helene and John and George, a
co-book-slogger, and Amy from Nylon, and Hellkatte was there, though I
hardly got to talk to and now I’ve misplaced your card, grr argh!  Not
to mention oh-so-classy Amanda, and poor Katie and Brandon and Amelie,
and my faithful Bekkah and Lisa, and Jeff and Konrad and even NoSluggo
Dave – well not in person, but he called the bar from Memphis, which is
plenty good enough for me!  There are people whose names I never caught
and of course I didn’t get to talk to any of you as much as I’d like,
but in case I was weird or distracted or getting high on gimlets, and
you got the wrong idea, please know now that it was one of the most
incredible nights of my life, and I am utterly in awe of each and every
one of you.  Thank you.
My god.  Sometimes it hits hard, just how much I have to thank you for.
So.  I just got my 12-year-old Ford Bronco with the busted rear window
and mirrors and torn up seats and mushrooms growing in the back seat
towed away, so I’m on the right track,  And this afternoon I’m off on
our drive to Texas, where to pack back on the few sad pounds I’ve lost.
  And all this I’ll be doing without you to talk to about it.  Which is
sad.  But good.  And so.  On to the next….

10:59:36 AM    comment []  

This thing was always meant to last a year and no more.  I knew that.  What I didn’t know, when I started, was how much I would come to rely upon the feedback and encouragement and just plain daily greatness of all of you who’ve so inexplicably agreed to go through this thing with me.  I am sure that keeping the blog limping along past its useful life is no good to anyone involved, and the last thing I want to do is jump the shark; I know it’s time to go.  But that doesn’t mean I’m necessarily happy about it.

So I was out at lunch yesterday, and Julia Roberts was sitting at the next table, and maybe that’s why I’ve got all these stupid Pretty Woman quotes in my head.  Well, paraphrases, I guess.  Remember that bit where she says to Richard Gere something like “You’ve changed me, and you can’t change me back”?  Well that’s like you guys and me.  I started this project in inky isolation, to pull myself out of a tailspin of secretarial ennui.  How was I to know that you were all out there?  I am in a place that a year ago I could not have imagined. Because of all of you, because you kept coming back, my life has changed.  I credit Julia Child’s spirit and example with the inspiration to start this crazy thing, but for finishing it, I can only credit all of you.  And it’s great.  But it also means I’ve come to a place where I’ve got to let go of this, and of you, to some extent, for a little while.

So – that was the bad news.

Good news – I want to go out with a bang, so there is at long last going to be a J/JP Party!  On Wednesday, December 17^th from 6 to 8 pm (and beyond?!) Eric and I will be at the Fat Black Pussycat at 130 West 3^rd Street, between 6^th Ave and MacDougal, expecting anyone and everyone to show up for a Julie/Julia Project wake.  I’ve never been to this place, so I make no promises, but I’m reserving a lounge just for us.  So come!  I want to meet you all in the flesh, and lift a gimlet or three to you!

For those of you who can’t make it, what with living in New Zealand or wherever and all, thank thank thank you, for everything.  Please keep in touch.  When I come crawling out of my hole with my (our) book in the spring of ’05, I hope some of you are there to greet me.

9:38:37 AM    comment []