Month: April 2005

48 hours of antibiotics, asthma meds, and sleep is a very good thing. I’m still coughing, but I’m starting to feel not quite as dead. And my voice no longer resembles that of a 90-year-old man who smoked three packs a day.

When I wasn’t sleeping the last two days, I’ve watched bad TV (which usually put me back to sleep) and have tried to read. I’m working on The Game by Laurie R. King, one of my favorite mystery writers. I’ve also followed the news. Boy, do we live in a strange world! Couldn’t she just have called a time-out?

Here are some recent questions:

Sheen writes: i thought that your book {Catalyst was pretty cool, like how it was in the first-person perspective of a teenage girl obsessed with MIT…..   well, i have a question…..  i was reading your acknowledgment part of the book and when u were thanking “the rest of the world”, u mentioned linkin park on there somewhere…..   i was just curious to know if u actually met them or if u just listen to their music and get inspired…….   btw, i listen to their musik and i am writing a story myself which i was inspired by two things:   the imaginary people in my head and linkin park musik (they rule!!!!)   so i hope u can answer my question… thanx….

My daughter Meredith turned me on to Linkin Park a couple years ago. She took me to a concert for my birthday and we had a blast. I wish I could meet them (I’m sure Mer does, too). But I’m just a fangirl, like bazillions of others. Glad you liked Catalyst.
 
An anonymous reader writes: First, I want to say that Fever 1793 was one of the best books I’ve ever read. Second, I was wondering if it will ever become a movie, (I have some friends that don’t enjoy reading, and they have to hear the story!).

FEVER 1793 would be a great movie, IMHO, but no movie people have shown any interest in it. Yet.

Morgan recently saw me at her school. She writes: You are killing me. I can’t wait for Fever 1803. When I read Fever 1793 i was addicted, I “caught reading Fever,” as you said. Fever 1793 is the best book I have ever read. It’s my favorite book. Saying that Mattie and Nathaniel are going to get married saved me for a few days. You have to write the book NOW. I’M GOING TO DIE.

Yep, I’ve been thinking about a sequel to Fever, set ten years later. But it’s going to be a loooong time before I get to it because of other writing commitments. Please don’t die, Morgan. Go to the library and ask for some more historical fiction.

I also wanted to say “Hi” to Jessica H. from Sheepshead Bay – I’m really sorry you couldn’t join us. Thanks for the sweet note!

I’ll get to some questions about Speak tomorrow. Right now I need another nap.

I gutted out today’s school visit (thank you, Lenape and sorry about the frog voice) but I felt like the walking dead when it was over. I knew I had more than just a cold. The beastly germs in my lungs were churning up a foul brew, the color of which you do not want me to describe. And it was getting hard to breathe.

Doctor’s diagnosis: nasty bronchitis, complicated by asthma.

Doctor’s advice: crank up the asthma meds, add a few others, lots of water, rest, and do not – under any circumstances – go to the conference in Maryland this weekend.

So both my body and my spirit feel really bad. I hate, hate, hate being sick, but it feels awful to have to back out of an engagement at the last minute. If I had any energy, I would rant and rage. But I don’t, so I won’t.

The last time I got sick like this, I ignored the doctor. That’s the time I wound up in the hospital, and it set off a chain reaction of illnesses that lasted more than two years.

So I am following the doctor’s advice.

*grumbles*

*coughs up lung*

*stops grumbling*

Did you read the last line in yesterday’s post?

Guess what?

I got sick.

Getting closer and closer to the end of this spring marathon. Today I spoke at West Broad Street Elementary in Souderton. It was a little weird visiting an elementary school after having been in so many high schools the last couple of months. I felt like a giant, Gulliver maybe.

And, as fate demands, a germ slipped through my careful defenses of vitamins, veggies, and tea. Something is trying to grow a colony of yukky stuff in my lungs. Ack. So let me post some photos and go to bed.

For my third presentation at North yesterday we thought 15 students were coming and then all these guys showed up. It was fun. (I am still dreaming about the food in the English teacher’s lounge, BTW.)

These second graders at West Broad showed me their haiku because I told them the first time I got excited about writing was when I learned to write haiku in second grade. They were SO EXCITED. It was like being around puppies. Second grade was the best. I wish I could go back. I used to love sharpening my pencil so I could smell it. Yes. I am a self-confessed pencil-smeller.

Now I am going to bed to think healthy thoughts – I will not get sick – I will not get sick – I will not get sick…

I promise I’ll post the photo of the third group tomorrow. I came home to a ton of paperwork and am still not done. *grumbles*

But I can’t go to sleep without saying thanks to all of you for a great day.

I’d say “You rock” but that would be completely cheesy and cliched. How about “You rawk”?

Probably not.

But thanks anyway for a terrific day. And thanks to the library “mice” and thanks to the English teachers who had an absurdly fine potluck lunch in their staff room.