Continuing my traveling this summer I just returned from Martha's Vineyard. I was there for a week with Dan, one of my best friends since the fifth grade and a single father himself. He's a newbie and had his two kids this week with him and the four of us made a pretty cute modern family. It was like the Odd Couple with kids. His were about the same ages as mine so they four of them quickly formed a pack. Cutest of all was my Ava, nine, and his Eli, ten, scootering around the 150-year-old gingerbread cottages of the Vineyard and taking long walks together in the dark after dinner. I've never seen this side of Ava before and I was not as overwhelmingly jealous of her first beau as you might think. I did, however, spy on them constantly. They were so sweet with each other that it nearly brought me to tears. Chet, almost six, however, was more jealous than I was. He adores his big sister, went through a phase earlier this summer where he was begging her to kiss him on the lips. All four kids were smashed into the back seat and Chet would lay all over his big sister. Eli was very protective of her, pushing Chet off her again and again.

For me the Vineyard is synonymous with my adolescence. I wrote about growing up here in the summers in Home Repairs and most famously in my script for the Inkwell. The movie turned out to be a disaster and an embarrassment for all of us who love the island so and I am still living down how shitty it was. I hadn't been back in ten years but the island had scarcely changed. Every single corner and cove holds a memory for me. I'm working on another film that takes place there to try and redeem myself.

As for the book, I just saw a first pass at cover art. I showed it to some friends and the reaction from all was the same: "creepy". (Except one guy who said, "skeevy.") The image is of a Barbie and Ken doll screwing but the Barbie looks so much smaller that it looks as though the brown Ken doll (me) is having sex with a small white child. Not good.