The glamorous life? Celebrating White House/Black Market

Writing may be a lot of things, but it is not, most of the time, the glamorous life.  Let's take this past week, for instance.  Were you to have driven by my house at nearly any hour of the day/night, you'd have seen the lights in the old office burning.  If you had stopped to stare in (and thank goodness you didn't), you'd have born witness to yours truly—hair frazzled, eyes blackened, shoulders slumped, Phillies T-shirt on.  I was dumping ten chapters of a book and writing ten new ones.  I was chatting with the brilliant members of my online Penn book group (and let me tell you, these people impress).  I was writing magazine copy for my corporate clients and teasing out a suite of new proposals, and, yes, I will admit, I was sitting here crunching into yet another chocolate chip cookie.  This was my week, this is my life.  Glamorous it isn't.

Sometimes, however, one must be fit for the world, and over the next several weeks, I must somehow become worthy.  Or, at least, dressed for events that range from talks and school assemblies to wondrous lunches and book panels.

And where do I go, when I'm in need of some beauty?  To White House/Black Market, but of course.  The clothes fit and they withstand the test of time.  They have some razzle dazzle, some style.  Add to that the fact that this year, White House/Black Market celebrated its 25th anniversary by honoring those who have survived breast cancer (one of whom, I'm so proud to say, is my friend, Denise), and you get the kind of store that I believe in.  [I urge you to watch this incredibly moving video featuring the 25 women WHBM is celebrating.] 

At 5:30 this afternoon, I was there, at the Ardmore location, looking weary, acting overwhelmed, asking for favors.  Here's what I have going on, I said, and within minutes, thanks to the loving, competent, creative, patient staff there, I was—is the word equipped?—to be a social person again.

It means more than they could probably know.  So I'm telling them right here.

(Now if I could only fix my hair.)