Sorry for the delay in posting. Had a family emergency, followed by a mountain of work so high I got a nosebleed. But for the thousands (or dozens, who really knows) of you who missed me, I’m back!

I just finished reading The Bucolic Plague, from the author Josh Kilmer-Purcell, and, as a fellow memoir writer, I am incensed. This book is transparently untruthful, an absolute BOLD-FACED LIE.

I assure you that the fact that Mr. Kilmer-Purcell has sold more books than me has nothing to do with my opinion.

Or the fact that he’s obviously an attention whore, also starring in the hit reality series, The Fabulous Beekman Boys (about how he and his partner moved from Manhattan to upstate New York to become gentlemen farmers).

Or that he must employ a horde of comedy writers, since his books are screamingly funny.

Or that this particular tome was apparently ghost-written, since it adds a layer of immense heart atop his trademark humor.

No, what this is really about is a lack of veracity and integrity.

You see, The Bucolic Plague is a prequel to the Beekman Boys reality show. It tells the story of how Josh (an advertising exec) and his partner Brent (a doctor, aka “Dr. Brent Ridge” from The Martha Stewart Show) stumbled onto the picturesque farm they bought, and the challenges that they faced in trying to forsake their crazy New York jobs for a simpler, less encumbered existence.

That, in itself, was a fine theme. But sadly, Josh has attempted to top it with all kinds of fake literary drama, by claiming that acquiring the farm was only the beginning of their problems.

According to Josh, after buying their farm, Brent was laid off in the 2009 economic cataclysm.

According to Josh, the farm cost so much to run that he wasn’t able to give up his New York job.

According to Josh, after working 60-hour weeks in Manhattan, he travels to Sharon Springs to their rural retreat – and spends the entire weekends farming.

According to Josh, he and Brent seem to have little time together that isn’t spent herding sheep, chasing a llama or scooping up goatsh**.

According to Josh, even though he loves most of it, life is harder now that it was when they lived in New York.

It’s sad that Mr. Kilmer-Purcell needs to cheapen what is otherwise an idyllic story with such conspicuous plot-point ruses. Because anyone who’s ever left their overscheduled, overstressed life knows that when you give it all up to seek a simpler existence, everything is easy. Life becomes beautiful, a veritable picture postcard of pastoral moments and rustic bliss. Your desire to connect more deeply with nature and with family and friends is rewarded with endless moments of pure enchantment and wonder.

I know this, of course, because I personally plan to do it one day, and I already have all those moments mapped out in my head: the gentle frolicking with woodland creatures, the community coming together to raise my barn, the wizened old farmhand offering sage advice about life and love.

The Bucolic Plague – although highly entertaining – purports to be the truth. But Mr. Kilmer-Purcell obviously hasn’t watched enough Disney movies to know how life really goes.

Here’s how the tsunami in Japan went:

1)      Water

2)      Screaming

3)      Rescues

4)      Tears

5)      Hope

6)      Acceptance

7)      Cooperation

8)      Teamwork

9)      Support

10)    Honor

11)    Kindness

12)    Love

Here’s how a tsunami in America would go:

1)      Water

2)      Screaming

3)      Outrage that God would do this to us

4)      Looting

5)      Fistfights

6)      Gunshots

7)      Military intervention

8)      Curfew

9)      Rumors of a Muslim invasion

10)     Hoarding

11)     Suicides

12)     A lot of people waiting for their clothes to fly off in the Rapture

Don’t know if you’ve noticed from the coverage of this disaster, but Japan has pulled together in ways that we never would.

Ways that are clearly anti-American.

And I, for one, think we should sanction them.

In Japan, nobody’s busting windows of Best Buys and carting off flat screens – a clear sign that they’re thumbing their noses at the free market system.

Nobody’s shooting their neighbor in the cardboard box next door because he has a better sleeping bag – an obvious indicator of socialistic impulses.

Nobody’s selling their children into sexual slavery for some clean water and a Big Mac – a transparent bid to elevate themselves as moral arbiters.

Get this: on the news, I saw video of a guy who had lost everything, and still went to work at the restaurant where he was employed (and which was still standing), because other people needed to eat.

I saw men cutting barrels in half, loading the bottoms with wood, boiling water, and passing it out so that others wouldn’t die of dehydration.

I saw an announcement in a shelter that breakfast was ready, and hundreds of people quietly and politely forming a single-file line to eat.

I saw that, in the midst of devastation, one community had set out makeshift containers for recycling (which was sort of ironic since, at that point, the whole city was a giant recycling bin).

The Japanese are clearly some sort of Marxist radicals.

Oh, sure, I suppose that in a sad, weak moment, a disturbingly large number of Americans would behave this way, too…but fortunately, the fat, lazy, and entitled among us would rally and restore America’s role as a leader.

I remember this line from a Jean Kerr book, where she was on a plane, reading the Your Role in a Water Landing (plane crash) laminated card.

“My role in a water landing,” she declared, “is to splash around and cry.”

You said it, Jean. Because we’re America. Our role is to splash around and cry. And take our neighbor’s life vest. And demand that someone else kill the shark.

Because, after all, THAT is the American Way.

My partner and I just returned from a long weekend in Cabo San Lucas, visiting our compadres Robert and Paul (that word, and a savant-like ability to count, comprise the whole of my Spanish vocabulary) who moved from Los Angeles to Mexico a few years back.

As magnanimous and empathetic human beings, we’re tremendously supportive of our friends’ desires to relocate to exotic vacation destinations, provided they have a guest room. We have no real issue with abandonment, since the world has become a much smaller place in recent years and since, thanks to Facebook, we know far more about the daily lives of our friends than we ever really hoped – or wanted – to know.

The issue, really, is envy.

When we visit them, I find myself dreamily contemplating their utopian lives, and fantasizing about giving up our frantic existence in LA and joining them in paradise.

Fortunately, Robert and Paul have learned the drill.

“Look at this weather,” I’ll say, as we sit on their rooftop patio on a 75-degree evening, gazing out at the crystal blue waters of the Sea of Cortes. “It is absolutely perfect. It’s bliss with brown people.”

(FYI, I get a free pass on saying stuff like this – my partner and several good friends are Mexican. Bliss IS brown people, for me.)

“Yeah, it’s way better than when Steve and Scott were here last summer,” Robert will reply. “God, that was Hell.”

“I’ll say,” Paul will add, “between the heat and the hurricanes, you pretty much can’t leave your house from July to November.”

Their attempts to balance my unrealistic view of their lives usually doesn’t “take” on the first try, of course.

“Wow,” I’ll say with barely disguised bitterness as we drive by a Pemex gas station, “everything’s so much cheaper, here. Your gas is a bargain!”

“It’s government regulated,” Robert will reply. “But since the attendant fills your tank, be sure to tip him a few extra pesos so he doesn’t rip you off.”

Nor does the second try do the trick.

“Thank God people drive on the right side of the street, here,” I’ll say wistfully as we whiz down Highway 1 in Paul’s Nissan.

“Just watch out for the other drivers,” Robert warns. “Speed limits and lane markers here are just considered suggestions.”

“Oh, and be sure to bribe the cop if you get pulled over,” Paul adds. “I didn’t do that once and had to go pay the fine at the prison.”

Usually, it requires several more.

When paying the gas and electricity bills, they have to go stand in line at the utilities’ main offices. There is no online bill pay.

Their mail service occurs on a whimsical schedule, and does not include packages, most of which mysteriously “disappear”.

One of them had a medical emergency a couple years ago, and had to be airlifted to the states (at a cost of like $18,000) because if left in the hands of the local hospital, he’d have likely wound up dead.

Eventually, as they batter me with enough of the realities of life abroad, I begin to sober up and realize that Cabo is beautiful – a wonderland of perfect beaches and five-star resorts, full of American expats and kind, welcoming Mexican folk. But I guess, no matter where you live, no existence is idyllic, no locale free from random trials and annoyances.

Maybe my 90-minute roundtrip commute to work and those sky high LA taxes aren’t so bad. After all, that commute means there are a lot of people who know what a privilege it is to live in beautiful, exciting California. And those taxes pay for salaries that generally exclude the need for bribes or visits to the local penitentiary.

I guess, until California breaks off and falls into the ocean, I’ll try to remember that it’s a pretty great place to live.

It’s a kind of bliss. With brown people.

A while back, a friend of mine told me that her mother’s aunt used to stand in front of the stove, cooking dinner, wearing a full-length mink coat and her best jewelry.

This is my kind of woman. Not just because she sounds slightly insane and obviously doesn’t care if somebody breaks a tooth on a diamond brooch in the meatloaf; but because this kind of behavior represents a “live for today” attitude that I pretty much suck at.

Don’t get me wrong, my furniture isn’t covered in clear plastic (yet). I don’t reuse toilet paper (yet). I do manage to have a little fun. But all too often in my life, I’ve “saved the good china”.

And then, I lost a work friend to diabetes. And another friend’s longtime partner to AIDS. And last week, my partner’s twin brother to liver disease. All of them in their 30’s or 40’s. All in the space of a few months.

And I began to think that life is waaay too short. So maybe I should just go crazy. Maybe I should take a trip around the world or try out for America’s Got Talent or blow all my money on a talking robot.

Of course, I can’t take months off of work to backpack the world. And it’s unclear exactly what talent I actually have. And I don’t really need one more person yelling at me on a daily basis.

Maybe I’m just too practical for my own good. I’ll probably end up in the spirit world going, “Damn, why didn’t I show up at Starbucks in my SpongeBob p.j.’s? Why didn’t I hand out $100 bills at homeless shelters? Why didn’t I rent an Amish buggy to drive to a rave?

Which leads me to a question: What constitutes “living for today”, and what is just plain irresponsible?

Trying to balance having a life of No Regrets with the possibility that you might outlive both your money and your liver is not exactly easy. I’d kinda prefer not to hit my expiration date lying in some gulag nursing home staffed by Nurse Ratched and the guy from Saw.

 So what’s the answer?

Maybe Controlled Crazy. Maybe I’ll travel as far around the world as I can get in two weeks. Maybe I’ll try out for a stand-up comedy class at the Improv. Maybe I’ll blow $100 on a talking pedometer.

Hey, baby steps.