Read a Book, Read a Book, Read a MotherF*@#ing Book

One bonus of spending time at my mom's is that there's no Tivo or Netflix guilting me into watching. It's funny how things that are supposed to make your life more convenient end up making you feel more pressured.

By the time Baby Girl goes to bed, we clean up the debris from our play session, wash dishes & other chores, it's 9 or 9:30. Thanks to Netflix, we pretty much always have 3 movies waiting and Tivo must have 25 hours of stuff that we've taped - both movies and TV shows.

Every night it's a battle to watch as much as we can before I pass out on the couch. Unfortunately, we're losing. I always think I should cancel some shows but then someone will tell me how great this new show is...and I add it too. I really love television but some days, I just want to cancel cable. And my Netflix is a free subscription so no point in canceling that!

Anyway, the point was that at my mom's house, I was finally able to read a book - Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood by Cari Beauchamp. I've had it for a while, thinking I'd read it on the treadmill at the gym, but then I didn't want to get it all sweaty and gross.

Hmmm, now I'm a sweaty gross woman who hasn't read a book. Nice mental picture.

Try to erase that from your mind because it's not fair to the book, which is a fascinating look at Frances Marion, who was Hollywood's highest paid screenwriter - male or female - for almost 3 decades, and the women who worked with her, including Mary Pickford, Marion Davies, Anita Loos and Hedda Hopper.

I couldn't put it down and highly recommend this book if you're a woman, a screenwriter or interested in early Hollywood. If you're reading this blog, I assume you must be.

Either that or you're just looking for a way to humiliate your husband.