Mini-tomato plus basil equals a thimbleful of marinara.

Let's just say July ended up being one enormous series of snafus: unexpected setbacks, unplanned trips and unscheduled chores. I am pretty much in the same place as I was four weeks ago, except frustrated. I have gotten nothing done. Nothing.

Or have I? Looking back, I was able to succeed in the following ventures:

1. Boy, did I polish up that Chapter One. Every comma is perfection. Every word has been buffed to a high gloss. If the chapter were a laboratory cleanroom, you could now assemble microchips in it. It is that immaculate.

2. I reread Gone With the Wind from the perspective of an adult with a solid understanding of the Civil War, not a high school twit who glossed over the racist bits to get to the part where Scarlett and Rhett make out.

3. I read and edited two friends' unpublished manuscripts weeks after I promised to. There are still two more waiting for me. Lalalalala, unpublished manuscripts, I can't hear you right now.

4. I managed to keep a tomato plant alive long enough to harvest two delicious, if pea-sized, tomatoes. About 150 more and we'll have marinara sauce for one. 

5. I lost two pounds on the Anxiety Over Not Accomplishing Anything Diet. Yes, this is a happy side efNice, right? Don't look at the others.fect of my frustration—though only temporary, because eventually I will start eating again.

6. Also, I can now remain in the plank pose for three and a half torturous minutes.

7. I reupholstered the spare dining chair we keep against a wall—the only chair whose seat isn't hidden under the table. Which if you think about it is the only one that matters.

...and that's pretty much it. The good news is there are many more weeks to go until summer's over, and I've decided to ratchet back my expectations. This morning's goal is to get dressed, maybe answer some e-mail and then forage for lunch.

And this afternoon? It's got "plank pose" written all over it.

Does this card make my hand look old?

"Let's go to Lobster Night!" I'd proposed, giddy at the promise of a bargain. He was game, as long as we could eat early—say, six or six-thirty—because he'd skipped lunch and was hungry. Which is how we wound up wearing matching plastic bibs, splitting a lobster in full daylight, like an elderly couple enjoying the early bird special.

And then it dawned on me: We were an elderly couple enjoying the early bird special.

I should probably explain: I am not really a senior citizen (though I certainly aspire to be one someday). Neither is my husband, although he, twelve years and a demographic generation older than I, has for several years been getting mail solicitations from the AARP. It had never occured to me that he wouldn't toss the offending come-ons like the other, youth-obsessed Baby Boomers. Then, the day after the Lobster Night incident, searching the Internet for a bargain on a rental car for a ladies' camping trip I'm taking in August (which—good heavens!—includes an RV), I looked up to find him holding out a membership card.

"It's from the AARP. I joined a couple of months ago. You can use it to get a rental discount," he crowed, and I took the card with shock because, dear reader, IT HAD MY NAME ON IT.

That's right. I, the dewy-ish bride of an older man, am now an official, card-carrying member of the AARP.

And my husband and I truly are living a retiree life, albeit for the summer: I have cut back on the journalism grind to work on a third book—which has me on a fixed income. He is has been working from home for the past couple of weeks. We've retreated to our vacation home in Connecticut, where I have taken up sewing and my husband alternates between puttering around the house and getting underfoot.

But that's not all. In the mornings, I eat a grandmotherly, roughage-filled breakfast. After that, while all the youngsters are working, I hit the gym, along with the other seniors who are free in the middle of the day. I wear a sun hat religiously and—oh, dear, it keeps getting worse—recently ordered a pair of sun-protective driving gloves. In the evenings, we relax in rocking chairs on the porch and hit the hay by ten.

Come to think of it, this is a great life. It's not at all bad being a senior citizen. Maybe this week, after Lobster Night, we can even get cheap seats at the movies.

Just as long as I'm in bed by ten.

I get a thrill out of seeing the foreign translations of my books. That people in France and Germany would want to read them is remarkable to me. It's also a great deal of fun to Google-translate the cover copy. Without further ado, here is the plot of my book in German:

"Dass sie im Bett neben einem fremden Mann aufwacht, ist für Peggy schlimm genug. Am Telefon zu erfahren, dass sie ihn geheiratet hat—unfassbar! Doch als Peggy und Luke übereinkommen, die Ehe annullieren zu lassen, macht dessen Tante ihnen ein unmoralisches Angebot: Wenn sie ein Jahr lang verheiratet bleiben, erben sie ihr Herrenhaus. Und beide brauchen dringend Geld...."

And here what Google says it means:

My abiding love lasted well into the fall, until one day "Boom Boom Pow" started to sound a little "two thousand and late," and that was the end. Still, as a summer anthem—the kind of song that puts you in a happy state of mind, and immediately takes you back to a particular summer, whenever you hear it—it ranks among the best. Here are a few of my other anthems over the years...

During the summer of 1977, I was constantly wrecking my Dorothy Hamill haircut by listening to "Hotel California" on my dad's giant stereo headphones. (I also thought the lyric "You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave" was sooo deep.):

A few years later, during the most monumental summer of music of my life, I went on a trip during which I toured colleges, played drinking games for the first time and got my first taste of New Wave*: "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," by Culture Club, "Rio," by Duran Duran, "Der Kommissar" by After the Fire, "She Blinded Me With Science," by Thomas Dolby, "Rock the Casbah," by the Clash, and this:

Now I'm wondering: What will be the summer anthem of 2010? So far I've come up with two possibilities, both already in heavy rotation in my brain. One is "Miss Independent" by Ne-Yo:

The other is "Rude Boy" by Rihanna:

But the choice of summer anthem is highly personal. You may have entirely different predictions. So I'm turning this over to you: Which songs have been your summer anthems over the years? Is there a song you think will epitomize Summer 2010? Click the Post a Comment link below to share your thoughts.

*Yes, I know, some of these artists are really synth-pop, or punk, or something else. Please indulge me.

For your skin's sake, ladies, cover up!

I can hardly believe this myself. I despise nine out of ten movies, even those everyone else adores, like the dreadful Avatar. Truth be told, I am so disdainful of popular culture (and, admittedly, have a hard time sitting still for two hours) that I don't see ten movies a year. I didn't see The Blind Side, The Hurt Locker, Precious or any of the rest of this year's Oscar-nominated movies. Given all of this, I was prepared to malign Sex and the City 2 along with everyone else.

Maybe low expectations are a good thing.

As countless reviewers have pointed out, SATC2 is a brainless paean to conspicuous consumption starring four characters who have it all but still want to complain—and I say this as a fan of the original HBO series. A truly cringeworthy moment: Over drinks in the private bar of their $22,000 a night Abu Dhabi hotel suite, swathed from $800-dye-job head to meticulously pedicured toe in designer clothing, Charlotte and Miranda—both of whom have full-time nannies—discuss the tribulations of motherhood. "How do the women without help do it?" asks Charlotte, who doesn't even work outside the home. Um, yeah, Princess; good question.

But as I registered this insipid comment, mostly I was transfixed by the gorgeous iridescent goblets from which the two were drinking. Which sums up my feelings about the movie. I abhor materialism, and yet it was fun to watch Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte sing karaoke and fall off camels and change into over-the-top outfit after over-the-top outfit. More than that—and this is probably the true reason I enjoyed SATC2—it's rare to find characters my age discussing topics that aren't necessarily Earth-shattering but are things I do relate to: Keeping marriage "sparkly," the age-appropriateness of fashion, the inexorable march of time.

Still, I do have a few minor complaints about the movie:

1. Hello, sun protection? These women were out in the middle of the desert in tank tops and shorts. I kept wanting to throw shawls over their tender, exposed flesh. No, Carrie, a turban does not count as a wide-brimmed hat.

2. Speaking of flesh, Samantha's little outburst in the spice market—"I HAVE SEX!!!!" she screams to a crowd of Muslim men as she simultaneously pantomimes the act—horrified me. It wasn't a feminist statement; it was simply crass. This ain't America, Samantha; this is Abu Dhabi (actually Morocco, but whatever). If you're going to visit a place where sex isn't discussed in public, don't discuss it in public. (I'm a prude that way. The final scene in which Samantha is safely home and getting it on on the beach also bothered me. We may live in the Land of the Free, but that doesn't mean people should feel free to have sex in public. Seriously, America, let's show some decorum.)

3. Wow, that Abu Dhabi lifestyle is something else, wasn't it? So opulent. So decadent. So made possible by America's unquenchable gluttony for foreign oil.

4. The sympathetic Muslim women in the spice market wearing designer outfits under their full-length burqas: How could those ladies not be boiling, sweaty, passing-out hot?

Despite these serious and not-so-serious issues, I thought the movie was a lot of fun. When it comes out on video, I might even see it again. And coming from me, the movie-hater, that is the highest of praise.

Hint: The evil force is not the cod filet. Not the vegetarian chili. Not the organic leeks.

"Open the box," it calls, alluringly.

Sigh. All right. I'll open the box. But that's as far as it goes.

Hello, you sexy thing.

Nope, not going to eat you, Birthday Cake. Back in the fridge you go. But wait, here comes another temptation:

I lost a whole summer to you once, B&B. Never again.

Sorry. Not happening. I need to write today. I am resisting you, daytime television, as I resist you every day. Just as I daily resist the urge to call my agent and complain about  writer's block, to update my Facebook page every half hour and to shop on eBay for things I don't need.

Okay, I am very bad at resisting eBay. I suspect it's worse than crack. If Hemingway had had eBay, his house on Key West would have soon been filled to bursting with vintage bullfighting costumes, "gently used" fishing tackle and collectible issues of Field & Stream.  On the other hand, he wouldn't have needed to drink so much.

Which reminds me: Every afternoon I think, Maybe I'll have a tiny glass of wine. Just one. Who would know? But I resist.

In fact there's only one distraction I can't resist. And today, I succumbed.

I should adopt a more glamorous vice.That's right. I cleaned the bathroom.

This is what a letter "I" looks like when you scrawl it on your arm in the dark at 2 a.m.

Or I remembered an urgent task. One that must be completed today under penalty of something very, very unpleasant.

Either way, it was deeply important. Important enough that I was worried about forgetting it. That can happen to ideas. Just ask Coleridge.

It was well into the wee hours, and I'd been awake tossing and turning; I hadn't ever gone to sleep. To turn on the light in order to write down the idea or memory might disturb whatever remaining properly functioning circadian rhythm I might have. So I got clever: I groped for a pen on my nightstand and, in the dark, scribbled a single black letter onto my left forearm.

Then I resumed tossing and turning. I thought about the day ahead. I thought of a "Modern Love" column I'd like to write for the New York Times. I wondered if anything would come from a book project I'm working on. I thought about what it would cost to alter a dress I plan to wear to a wedding I'm attending in four months.

Then I thought about the letter on my forearm: Mustn't forget that. It's a brilliant idea. No, wait, it's an urgent task. No, wait... 

I had forgotten it. Thirty minutes after scrawling a black "I" on my left forearm, I had no recollection of what it meant. Go to sleep. Go to sleep and you'll remember it in the morning, I promised myself.

Eventually I fell asleep, and this morning, after an oh-so-refreshing three hours of slumber, I woke up to find the "I" on my arm. It was like the movie where the guy suffers from amnesia and has to tattoo things on his body. I have absolutely no idea what it means. "I need to stop writing things on my arm," perhaps?

Yours truly, significantly less covered-up than usual.

For the better part of two decades, I refused to bend to the pressure to be tan. After living in Southern California, trying to transform my freckled English/Irish/Eastern European pastiness into gleaming, Nordic bronze, I long ago accepted my true self. Ever since then, this is what I do: I wear enormous hats. I use nuclear-grade sunscreen even when it's raining. In summer, while the world skips around in tank tops and shorts, you'll find me in high necklines, long sleeves and pants. I wear my pallor with the pride of a courageous iconoclast.

Except in a New York summer, the long sleeves/pants combination can be unbearable, so sometimes I want to wear a skirt. (Yes, I slather on the SPF 100.) And when I do, I inevitably feel like an escapee from the freak show. Just like the rest of me, my legs are white. Gleaming white.

Don't believe me? Consider a reunion in Las Vegas I attended with my sorority sisters some years ago, right after I'd moved from Los Angeles to New York. I was by the pool in a black maillot, the very picture of Manhattan sophistication. I got up to fetch another cocktail from the poolside bar, picking my way across the sunny deck, and realized all eyes were on me. "I must look goooooood," I thought, sashaying back to my chaise like the hot thing I was. Only when I got the photos back weeks later did I realize: People weren't staring because I was good-looking. They were staring because my legs reflected the sun.

So yesterday, knowing it was going to be 88 degrees today, I bought some of that body lotion that is supposed to very gradually impart a "natural glow." I put some on, and sure enough, there was that gross self-tanner smell. A few hours after that I was no longer lily-white but ever so faintly yellowish.

And I'm kind of disappointed in myself. On the one hand, it'll be a relief to walk down the street un-remarked upon. On the other, I've caved. It's easy to be an iconoclast in a turtleneck sweater, leggings and boots. How courageous am I if I can't flaunt my pallor in the summer, when doing so means something? I keep thinking of "meta-vegetarian," a term the writer Douglas Coupland once used to describe vegetarians who eat soy products meant to look and taste like meat. Maybe I'm meta-pasty. Or fair-weather fair. Or, more fittingly, foul-weather fair.

But at least my legs aren't blinding people.

Rumor has it Jane Austen lived off of this stuff.

Now, I'm no lumberjack (and not much of a breakfast eater), but when I have this much work to do, I need a solid morning meal. And it can't be any old thing. My breakfast must, without exception, meet the following criteria:

1. Filling enough that I won't be hungry again for hours. I usually work from home, but just for fun over the past two weeks, the owner of the apartment below me (whom I now loathe wholeheartedly) is doing a gut remodel, which naturally requires several hours of daily, skull-splitting jackhammering. Meanwhile, outside my apartment, the City of New York won't be outdone; it, too, is jackhammering—into the center of the earth, to construct the new Second Avenue subway (which I may loathe less when it is finished in, ahem, 2016). In any case, I have taken to packing up my laptop and working from my new office, where neither noise nor snacking is allowed.

2. Healthy. Enough said.

3. Low-calorie. Ditto.

The breakfast also must be easy (I truly can't stand cooking), fast enough to get me out of the apartment before the jackhammering begins, and, I almost forgot, tasty.

After much deliberation and experimentation, I'm proud to say I've developed the perfect writer's oatmeal. If you want to try this at home, here's the recipe:

In a tall, microwave-safe bowl, combine:

I don't really arrange my ingredients like this. It was just for the photo. Though we do use this milk.1/2 cup quick oats

1 cup skim milk (Tastier than water, plus, we all need our calcium.)

1 tablespoon dried fruit (For sweetness and energy. I like dried cranberries, blueberries or raisins.)

1 tablespoon slivered almonds (For crunch, protein and a little healthy fat that'll keep you feeling full longer.)

1 tablespoon flax seeds (For fiber and fun texture, this is my secret ingredient. Just don't go crazy with the flax seeds because they're fattening. A tablespoon is plenty.)

The jam is optional. If the oatmeal isn't quite sweet enough after you cook it, add a teaspoon.

Now, microwave on high for 3 minutes, more or less, depending on your microwave.

And that's it. Eat, enjoy, and get to work, already. That project won't write itself.

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