Guest Post Rose A. Valenta author of Sitting on Porcelain

Your Funny Bone Can Use the Exercise

Giovanni, thank you for inviting me to contribute to your blog and for reviewing my book Sitting on Cold Porcelain. I love reading books and am partial to humorous narratives. I love a good laugh and absolutely relish making other people laugh. Reading a good humor book tickles your funny bone and helps to make you a healthy and happy camper, especially when things inevitably go wrong.

Many people have asked me why I wrote my book. It actually got placed on my to do list when my children were growing up in Philadelphia, PA.

When I was a young mother, I didn't read the famous baby doctor, Dr. Spock; I read Erma Bombeck. He offered sound advice, but Erma made more sense. She inspired me to write essays like “2012 and Yo Homework.” Any excuse kids can use to avoid doing it, they will use.

Erma pointed out the fact that TV and children dominated our buying habits and that the kids could actually hum beer commercials before their eyes could really focus. So, this was my first clue that motherhood was going to be a challenge.

In addition to Bombeck, I was inspired by comedian Alan King, who wrote Anyone Who Owns Their Own Home Deserves it. At the time I read it, my husband and I were in the process of buying a single fixer-upper home in Northeast Philadelphia. I got such a kick out of Alan’s witty lines about home repairs, that I realized I had enough first-hand funny material to tackle the publishing industry for 100 years.

I did some research about the mechanics of writing a book and was advised to get a job with a local newspaper or publisher to hone my writing skills. I ended up working for McGraw-Hill in Delran, NJ, as a technical writer because creative writing for a newspaper didn’t really pay well. However, as usual, funny things would happen on the job and I would entertain friends and co-workers with stories and anecdotes. I couldn’t get humor writing out of my system and people kept pressuring me to write a book of humorous essays.

Then my grandchildren came along, and even more hilarious things would happen; like the time my oldest daughter, who got married and gave birth to three boys, finally had a girl. We brought her home from the hospital and the boys watched while I changed her diaper, they went ballistic saying that she was defective and had missing parts. They were terrorized and went running after their father asking if he could take her back to the hospital and get her repaired.

As if that wasn’t enough, I was noticing a cultural change in our society. News programming with adult content that used to air at 11:00 pm, rather than prime-time, was being broadcast while the kids were still up doing homework at 6:00 pm. Clinton took office and it was a prime-time fiasco. Children’s sex education was no longer left up to their parents and teachers. They were learning how to spell all the bad words like …“Oval Office.”

My daughters were at their wits-end about it and no v-chip blocked out intermittent news reports about all the hanky-panky going on in the White House. It was in their face 24x7. This was truly Murphy’s Law, right?

I asked myself, what sort of evolving situation is this in the media when my seven-year-old granddaughter, while doing homework in front of the TV, begins to ask embarrassing questions, and wants to know if Kenneth Star is a pinko communist, who is trying to fire our president and asks “What is philandering, anyway?”

This was it for me!

So, I started writing satire about some of these joker politicians on Rosie’s Renegade Humor Blog, remembering Erma Bombeck saying “If you can’t fix it, you can laugh at it.”

The blog became popular and I finally decided to write my book. I needed a title, so I asked myself What is the best example of Murphy’s Law in a woman’s life? A pithy phrase, a situation that affects practically everyone? - Aha! Sitting on Cold Porcelain! You’ve done that at 3:00 am, right?

You have to read the introduction to my book; it explains the idea in detail.

Funny material is never ending when we have people like Glenn Beck getting in trouble in the media for tearfully saying that he actually held George Washington’s Inaugural Address in his hands at the National Archives; when according to officials, he was never even permitted to touch the document. Between him and our other less honorable politicians always getting into trouble, will make perfect fodder for my next book, Sitting on Cold Porcelain II.

Just to give you a glimpse into Edition II, can you even imagine the President of Iran declaring jihad on Paul the Psychic Octopus? It’s true! And it will be appropriately spoofed in Edition II.

If you love reading humor as much as I do, here are a few books for your “must read” list:

Help I’m a Prisoner in a Chinese Bakery by Alan King; If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits by Erma Bombeck;  Never Stand Behind a Loaded Horse by Gordon Kirkland; Rebel Without a Mini-Van by Tracy Baron Beckerman; and The Athletic Benchley by Thomas Saunders.

My intent with Sitting on Cold Porcelain is to entertain you. I hope you laugh out loud reading it and whenever you find yourself in real life situations that are not funny at the time, and you can’t really fix itl, you can think about Sitting on Cold Porcelain and have a good laugh!

You can purchase a copy of my book at Amazon, including The Kindle Store; Barnes and Noble online; Better World Books; your local book store's order desk; and Rosie’s Renegade Humor Blog. It will make a great gift and it has been getting 5-star reviews.

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