injaynesworld "Shop Early!"

It’s almost September, and even before the candle melts in your jack-o’-lantern, retail shops everywhere will be shoving Christmas in our faces and screwing Thanksgiving out of its rightful due.  I rail against this every year, but it’s like pissing into the wind.  So this year, I’m saying screw it.  If you can’t beat ‘em… well, you know the rest.

Merry Christmas, everyone!  

Does your gift list seem to grow every year while your wallet stays the same?   I've got the answer.  

It’s called “Suitable for Giving” for a reason.  

Making the Christmas party rounds and need a hostess gift?   Book clubs, garden clubs, office parties!  Be the most popular “Secret Santa” at your AA meeting! 

Best of all, at only $8.99, my little book is cheap and funny.  A gift doesn’t get any better than that.   

Check out the 19 5-Star and one 4-Star (you know who you are) reviews on Amazon!

“Hilariously brilliant book.”

“I want more!”

“Witty and bright!”

“Love this book!”

And I didn’t even sleep with any of these people!

“Suitable for Giving: A Collection of Wit with a Side of Wry” is the fail-safe gift for absolutely everyone.  You can’t possibly fuck up.  Even those people who are impossible to buy for will compliment you on finally getting it right. 

Buy now!  Buy extras!  Don’t be caught again this year by some asshole who buys you something and makes you feel like a douche because you’ve got nothing for them. 

Seriously.  Buy now.  I’ve got rent to make.   

 

 

CLICK HERE TO BUY

 Ho! Ho! Ho! 

injaynesworld "Good Fences..."

Mr. Conroy lined up another redwood plank; little soldiers straight and tall.   He raised his hammer, pounding steel against steel, driving the nail deep into the cross rail. 

No more screaming kids running through his azaleas; no more dog droppings on his lawn…

He’d been at it since dawn.  The metallic taste from the nails he held between his teeth had begun to make him queasy, but he would wash away its bitterness later.

No more neighbors trying to sell him some damn thing for some damn cause or another that he didn’t give a whit about; no more bible thumpers come to tell him that their God was better than his…

He tugged on the freshly-secured board.  It didn’t budge.  He reached for another.  Damn, it was hot and he ached all over but, determined to finish today, he pushed through the discomfort. 

No more pesty campaign workers banging on his door.  How he’d come to hate elections.  Wasn’t nobody’s business who he was gonna vote for…

When he had finally nailed the last nail into the last plank of the last side of the six-foot fence that now encased his yard he took a rag from his overalls pocket and wiped the sweat from his neck and face.  Stepping back to view his work, he nodded with satisfaction.

Yep.  That would do it. 

His thirst was mighty.  The boys ought to be filling the bar stools at Arnie’s right about now.  He’d earned himself a cold one.  Couple of them, in fact.  He turned to walk out of his yard and head down the block. 

It was then that he discovered the one major flaw in his efforts.  

injaynesworld "It's A Woody!"

Today is the five-year anniversary of injaynesworld, traditionally themed the “Wood Anniversary,” and no one is more surprised than I am that, after five years, I can still get it up.

When I started IJW on August 9^th, 2009, I had no expectations.  I had written my last TV-movie script in 2004.  Reality television was kicking script writers to the curb like used condoms and creating a feeding frenzy for the few TV-Movie assignments that still existed, so I took an early pension (God bless the Writer’s Guild) and figured my writing days were over.   

It wasn’t until the summer of 2009 that I felt the urge to write again creeping over me like prickly heat.  I’d had never even heard of a blog, but the Universe is interesting.  It always presents an opportunity at exactly the time when we are most open to receive it.   And so injaynesworld was born.

From the beginning it felt like home; a place where I could experiment with words, ideas and forms in ways I’d never attempted before; a place I could just be me.  What started out as mostly humor essays and political commentary has morphed more and more into fiction – something I never foresaw or even thought myself capable of doing.  While I made the big bucks writing for television, I have never experienced the kind of satisfaction from writing that I do now in this little corner of the blogosphere. 

During this whole journey, I’ve received nothing but kindness, support and generosity from my readers.  I’ve gotten to meet some of you in person and others have become treasured friends online, but all of you have enriched me in ways too numerous to count.  That, more than anything, is why I continue. 

Cheers!  And thank you. 

injaynesworld it's "The Luggage Birthday..."

The year was 1967.  The “Summer of Love” in my hometown of San Francisco.  I had just turned eighteen and graduated from high school.  For a gift, I received luggage.  Subtlety was not a strong suit in my family.  However, unlike so many young people today who cling to the nest like a tick on a hound’s butt, I could not wait to be on my own.  In the time it took to pack those bags, I found a job, a roommate, and an apartment and I was out of there.

The job was answering the request line for DJ Tom Campbell on what was Radio KYA at the time.  My on-air name was “Rabbit,” a nickname given to me by a high school boyfriend who said I had long toes.  It was kind of sweet coming from him.  Not so sweet when it was blasted over the airwaves to the entire San Francisco Bay Area but, despite my protests, it stuck and I became a pseudo-celebrity in my own right.  (For the record, my toe-length is well within the realm of normal and perfectly proportioned in size from big toe to pinky.)

While the job didn’t pay much, there was always enough money for the necessities.  My portion of the rent on the apartment I shared with my roommate, Sharon, was seventy-five dollars, gasoline was twenty-seven cents a gallon, Kraft Mac & Cheese was thirty-nine cents a box, and marijuana was only ten bucks an ounce.  Good times.

Our kitchen window overlooked a National Guard armory.  On weekends, groups of ordinary guys torn from family barbecues and now armed with rifles would prepare for clashes with anti-war protesters in neighboring Berkeley.  Because we were assholes, we would blast the iconic Vietnam protest song, “Feel like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” by Country Joe & the Fish, to taunt them.  It never occurred to us that they might not want to be there.

Inside the apartment, the air was thick with a bouquet of weed, incense and patchouli oil, and often filled with friends in various stages of hallucinogenic bliss listening to “The Moody Blues” and eating copious amounts of Sara Lee chocolate cake.  A long curtain of orange beads hung down over the doorway dividing the living room from the bedrooms.  Covering nearly every square inch of wall space were psychedelic posters from Fillmore concerts that, had I only the foresight to save, could be supporting me in my “golden years” today. 

Sharon was already sexually active while I was still a virgin and, though not quite the oddity it would be considered today, still it was a situation that I felt needed to be remedied as soon as possible.  Another DJ at the station ten years my senior and, as it turned out, married, was happy to oblige.  Aside from being a liar and a cheat, he was actually a pretty nice guy.  He was gentle and considerate, and he bought me a bottle of “Joy” perfume and a stuffed Snoopy dog.  Read into that what you will, but a girl could do a lot worse for her first time.  

Two years later, Sharon and I would part ways and eventually lose touch, but the memories I have of that first summer on my own still get me high to this day.  

Sadly though, some things never change.  Where's Country Joe when you really need him?