Have you noticed how many books these days are really a bunch of riffs on life? You know, a collection of blogs or short articles with titles such as “When I Meditate” or “I Can’t Get That Penis out of My Mind.” Stuff like that. (You for sure want to know which book has that penis title in it.) I like the idea of writing a book this way. Seems a hell of a lot easier than actually stringing together a coherent, thematically interesting book from page 1 to 300. I’m pretty sure this will be the only way I will ever get a book put together, if I do at all, and I’m not saying I will or want to, but this piecemeal approach seems doable to me.

Anyway, that leads me to why I’m saying this in the first place because one of new favorite books is, you guessed it, a bunch of riffs on life called Would Everybody Please Stop by the hilarious Jenny Allen, and, yes, it has the penis chapter in it. Allen is a woman of a certain age reflecting on her life; she’s raised a family, lived through a nasty divorce, survived cancer, and gone through pretty much what most people have gone through. But she has a way with words that will keep you in stitches and make you feel like she knows exactly what your life is like and you end up thinking, “Wow, Jenny, I would really like to have coffee with you.” But of course you can’t because she is a popular author now and probably already has a lot of coffee dates. Plus she lives in Martha’s Vineyard which is way too far away, although it would be a fun place to visit. Sorry, you’ll just have to read the book instead or you can just have coffee with me. Give me a call! I’m an empty nester now.