Guest Blogger: Jessica Anya Blau

We have a very special guest this week on Savvy Reader: Jessica Anya Blau, author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties. In this, the first of two posts we'll be putting up, she explores the differences between the writer and her characters, and why an evening spent with a capital "c" celebrity will remain burned into her memory for many, many years to come. NOTE: There's a bit of adult content, so just be warned!

Motherhood and Celebrity Penises

One question I am often asked by readers of my novel, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, is, “Have your daughters read it?!” The question is always asked in a way that demands at least one exclamation point, as the novel is full of sex. (Most of it is uncomfortable sex that does not turn out very well for the protagonist, Jamie. In fact --I’ll digress here -- one person at a reading raised his hand and asked if Jamie ever went on to have great sex!). The novel also has mild drug use (marijuana), alcohol (beer), and lots and lots of naked swimming.

The answer to the question is that I have let my teenage daughter read it (she claims she loved it) and I have not let my younger daughter read it (I told her she could read it when she’s fourteen). They both seem fine with the fact that their mother wrote a book that has sex in it -- they’re big readers, they’ve read about sex before. Also, and I’m not sure this matters much, I don’t drink, or smoke, or swim naked (although I have tried all those things in the past) and so my daughters fully understand that it is not ME, their mother, who is doing the stuff in the book, it is the character.

Now, onto my thoughts about blogging: The wonderful thing about blogs is that it is not characters we are reading about, but the writers themselves. Blogs are like public diaries, or musings -- we, as readers, take what the blogger says to be true. Also, because they are on the internet, blogs are more easily consumed than a book that you have to borrow or purchase, then peruse (or all-out read!), to find some tidbit that might titillate you. A blog can be pulled up in seconds, depending on your internet connection, and read within minutes. So it is with some hesitation that I am going to blog today about one of the most fascinating penises I’ve ever seen.

I once spent a weekend in Los Angeles with a somewhat-famous, male, sex-symbolish celebrity whom I shall call Celebrity (we were both guests in the same chic, glass, hillside home). On the first night of my arrival my friend (blond, petite, movie producer) opened champagne while her boyfriend (cagey, tall, talent agent) poured cocaine from a plastic bag into little anthills in even rows on the marble coffee table in the living room.  Also present at this party were Celebrity (of course!) and his screenwriter pal, a mutt-haired, middle aged guy who only talked about his Harley.

For most of the evening I sat alone on a black, leather plank couch and watched and listened while Celebrity and the others did sweeping, piggish snorts across the table using the same stunted silver straw. (I’d recently abandoned alcohol and all else, and so remained sober throughout the somewhat drug-laden weekend.) During the conversation, Celebrity often took center stage, chattering about prep school pranks and girls he had slept with. He was at once compelling (his onscreen persona in one of my all-time favorite movies was utterly captivating) and repellent with his endless exposition on himself.

Celebrity seemed vaguely interested in me as extended eye contact occurred a few times and once he took my arm and escorted me around a room to show me a painting. I’m fairly certain that his attraction to me was not about me in particular as much as it was about the fact that I was the only one at the house who wasn’t used to being around famous people and so the only one who seemed (and was) impressed by him. He asked nothing about me and I spoke very little (it was like my first date in ninth grade when I went out with the most popular senior boy in the school.  I was ridiculously quiet, like a stunned rabbit trapped in a garden.). In case you’re wondering, I shall let it be known right now that our flirtation did not go beyond eye contact and it is highly unlikely that Celebrity even remembers our time together, while I, sadly, can recall every detail.

The most interesting part of the weekend occurred on Sunday morning. I woke up somewhat late and stumbled out of my bedroom. I was wearing a black, silk nightgown that almost looked like a dress. My long hair was a straggled mess, like I’d just dismounted a motorcycle. No make up, cracked lips, crumbs in my eyes. I imagine I looked like some haggard woman stepping out of her mountain shack to chase the goats away from the turnip patch.

Outside my room was a glass wall that surrounded the pool.  On the other side of that wall was Celebrity. He was completely naked.  I walked along the glass wall towards the glass door that opened up to the pool.  Celebrity walked along beside me, holding my boggy-eyed stare the whole way -- it was like Marcel Marceau doing the mirror act with another mime. When I opened the door and stepped out to the pool, Celebrity asked if I wanted a swim. I declined and instead sat on a lawn chair with the Sunday L.A. Times and watched as Celebrity dove in, climbed out, mounted the diving board, dove in again and swam some splashy laps.

Now here’s the most amazing thing about this moment: Celebrity had the smallest penis I’d ever seen in real life. And it was as white as flour. It looked like a powdered thumbtack pushed into his pubic patch. I was astounded.

Tiny penises are fine by me; I certainly don’t care and would never criticize anyone because they have a tiny penis (I’d hate to read the blogger who got a good gander at me strolling around naked!). What shocked me was that Celebrity seemed to have no shame in his penis -- no worry that I would reveal to anyone the fact of his thumbtack. How marvelous to be so comfortable with whatever you were given at birth. How liberating to think, “This is it! Voila! Take it or leave it!” How fabulous to go through life believing that everyone finds you fascinating and has only adoration for your less-than-a-miniature-gherkin penis! (Alas, I do not have Celebrity’s non-judgmental self-acceptance.  If I leave a room naked and someone else is in that room -- my husband, for example -- I back my way to the door so as to spare him the view of my undulating rear.)

This brings me to my problem with blogging: the easy access, the eternal life on the internet.  If someone were to type into Google "Jessica anya blau tiny penis" would they pull up this blog? [Editor's Note: They absolutely will; isn't it great?]. Would my daughters be forever ashamed because their mother wrote a nonfiction posting about a weensie celebrity penis?

Let’s hope not.

Tune into Jessica's next guest blog tomorrow when she talks about the time she spent in the fair Canadian city Toronto putting things in her mouth she perhaps shouldn't...

More Jessica Anya Blau? Get Clicking:

• Buy a copy of The Summer of the Naked Swim Parties online from Amazon.ca or Chapters.Indigo.ca.
• Visit Jessica Anya Blau online.
• The first sentence from The Summer of the Naked Swim Parties: After all, it was the seventies, so Allen and Betty thought nothing of leaving their younger daughter, Jamie, home alone for three nights while they went camping in Death Vally. Browse Inside for more.
• If you like this...then you'll like this comparison.
• Watch the video. And then take a look at the Reading Group Guide.