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Flying through the Twilight Zone

I should have driven to Ohio – would have gotten here faster. Yesterday’s trip started in Syracuse, went to LaGuardia (NYC), Philly, then Akron. In LaGuardia we had to wait while they loaded our plane with sandbags. Bad passengers! We didn’t pack enough luggage. And then we sat on the runway… to punish us, I guess. I am working very hard to block the trauma and delays at the Philly airport, so I’m not going into it yet.

But my fellow passengers on Surreal Air were as bemused as I was, so the stress level was low. And I got here, which was the point.

I leave in a few minutes for Timken High. The plan for the day is a little different than my usual school visits. I’m really excited to see how it’s going to go. Plus, I’m jazzed about meeting some of the artists at this school. I’ve seen some of their work, and they are wicked talented.

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Running out of time

Good news – I slayed the paper mountain with very little blood loss.
Bad news – it’s 9:30 pm and I haven’t started packing.

Last week in a nutshell: fun, fun, fun. And tiring. But fun. Big, big thanks to all the librarians who did the hard work, and the kids who made the week so special. I met a lot of people that I shall remember for a very long time.

Tomorrow the plane takes me to Ohio. I’m speaking at Timken HS in Canton, OH on Monday and traveling on Tuesday. I’ll be at the Columbus School for Girls on Wed, and the Columbus Metro Library on Thursday. Because the plane schedules are weird, I can’t fly home until early Friday.

This whole month is going to be a blur, I swear. Thank goodness BH is doing my laundry!!!

I’ll try to be better about updating this week, I promise. I hope I’ll have something more interesting to say than ZZZzzzzzzzzzzz……

Off to pack.

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Stay tuned

Busy, busy, busy week visiting schools and meeting kids. Today I have to catch up on a week of mail and paperwork and pack. I leave for Ohio tomorrow. Will try to fill you in one what I saw and learned this week later – I took some photos, too.

Plus, I just received The Best Tee Shirt In The World from an awesome YA librarian in SC. Details later!!!

::dives back into paper mountain::

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Playing catch-up

The research for the speech I gave on Thursday wound up taking a lot longer than I thought it would, but it was worth every minute. The speech was about literacy and literature in Central New York (which I call the Heart of New York), and included one of my patented rants about how we Americans should not rest until everyone in our country is functionally literate. I gave the speech to a room of very nice people – the folks who head up local charities and libraries, as well as the business groups which donate to both. So, yeah, I was preaching to the choir. It was great.

(If anyone cares, I’ll post a link to the speech tomorrow.)

One of the highlights of the afternoon was seeing my fifth grade math teacher again, Mrs. Williams. She was the most beautiful teacher at my elementary school, and all of us girls had mad crushes on her. I didn’t even care that she taught math, I just wanted to be like her – dignified, elegant – when I grew up. I still do. I also met a girl (I think her name was Tiiso) who is a fourth-grader at that same elementary school – Ed Smith. That was fun and she was adorable.)

Hung out with my mom all morning, feeding her doughnuts and pumping her for stories about WWII, and what it was like to be a country girl and go to Brooklyn at age 18. She has great stories to tell. My ongoing war with Medicare on her behalf might reach a peaceful resolution, but I’m waiting until I see everything in writing before I believe it.

This afternoon I’m writing and mentally preparing for this evening’s games. Tomorrow I head towards Buffalo. I’ll be speaking at the Lancaster Middle School on Monday and the Lancaster High School on Tuesday.

This is the most enlightening and mind-opening essay I have read in a very long time. Please read it. Along with essays like that, I’ve been chewing my way through fantasy novels that I missed the last two decades. Neil Gaiman is still my #1 Author, but now I’m into Diana Wynne Jones. I tried to finish Charles DeLint’s Trader, but didn’t love it. Can someone recommend another one of his books to me?

Pictures of library heaven

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