Long-Lost Tomatoes

One of the best things about being on the literary D-list is you achieve enough psuedo-fame that long-lost friends come back into your life.

For example, I just got a cool email from my good childhood friend, Carlie (yea!). Carlie recently married our other good friend, Jason, and, in addition to attending law school, has morphed into Super Bride by planting a garden with 17 tomato plants.

Seven-freaking-teen.

I happen to know that one tomato plant can keep a person in tomatoes for months. Seventeen plants are enough to open your own salsa factory. Carlie, being quite intelligent, has realized this. And she's scared.

If you knew Carlie, you’d be rolling on the floor laughing right now. Like I am.

Attack of the killer tomatoes. Rotten tomatoes. So many tomato jokes I so very much want to make. I’m almost in physical pain.

And the thing that makes me laugh most isn't the image of Carlie and Jason having to move out of their house because there isn't room for both them and their tomatoes.

Oh no, I'm laughing because all through school, Carlie was my pace car—the Paris to my Rory (not that she’s Paris-ish—it’s just that the person making the analogy always gets to be Rory, right?) and so upon hearing of Carlie's new tomato endeavor, the first thing that popped into my head was maybe I should grow tomatoes?

But I don’t really like tomatoes. And I'm busy. And it's not like we're talking about growing chocolate here, people, so in what I see as a moment of real growth, I’ve decided to let Carlie win the tomato war instead of going out and buying eighteen tomato plants.

Yep, this is a big moment for me. Don’t ever let it be said I’m not maturing.

In other news I just finished a book—which is NEWS! And no, I don’t mean that I finished writing a book. I finished reading a book, which is a surprisingly big deal, because lately, if I can put a book down I probably won’t pick it back up.

But then I started Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist.

Warning: it’s not PG rated like my stuff—so if that’s one of the reasons you like my stuff, this probably isn’t for you. But if you don't mind a little mature content and want to see what truly talented writers can do, then check out Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. They’ve got chops.

I’m on the road a lot and very busy this week, so forgive me if I’m not super-blogger.

It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Honest. I do.

But not enough to buy eighteen tomato plants and keep you all in salsa.

-Ally