Blog

Forgot to mention the lovely lunch of legumes I enjoying with lively literary librarian ladies.

I desperately need coffee

and sleep

and punctuation

I’m writing this in the Ann Arbor Library which has wireless Internet. Someday the whole world will have it. Boggles the mind.

Spoke this morning at Community and Huron high schools here – great kids, lots of energy. My BH had to fly home today. *weeping*. We had a blast watching the NCAA tournament selection and eating too many chicken wings. I miss him wicked.

Second audience at Community HS.

I loved everybody’s LJ comments about the marching bands in hotels yesterday.

Lauren writes: Firstly, I would like to say how much I adore your writing. Speak is on my all-time favorite books list. I also loved Catalyst and I just bought Prom today. Anyway, I know you are from the Philadelphia area, and I read the “Special Thanks To…” thing in the back of Prom. The part where you said who you listened to while writing it, and one of them was Y100. I don’t know if you already know this or not, but sadly on February 24th, Y100 was taken off the air. (Full story & a lot of other awesome stuff is at www.y100rocks.com) Please, if you can contribute anything to the Save Y100 Cause, please help. Anything you can do is greatly appreciated.

Yes, I wailed and gnashed my teeth when the radio station was so cruelly snatched off the air (see archived Feb. posts). Thanks for giving me another chance to plug the effort again. Thank also, to Erin who wrote in to say she liked PROM, especially the epilogue.

Schedule notes:
Tonight I’m speaking here in the Ann Arbor Library, 7pm.
Tomorrow I’m speaking at schools. I’ll be presenting at the Battle Creek Library at 7pm.

Random photo from Los Angeles airport. Reminds me that I want to learn more languages.

And then I rested!

Best news of the day, month, year: my Beloved Husband flew in late last night to remind me what he looks like. (We haven’t seen each other in three weeks.) He has to go home tomorrow morning. When he’s around, I feel like I’m 17 years old, in the best possible way. Let’s just hope all this happiness doesn’t make my face break out.

Awesome review of PROM in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. I’m really excited about it.

More signs:

Big Brother is watching your recycling habits, LA airport.

Found in last night’s hotel. Note that they’ve grouped marching bands with circus animals. Opinions, anyone?

Syracuse won the Big East, but St. Joe’s got beat in the A10 *sigh*. Our big event of the day – watching the March Madness Tournament selection on CBS at 6pm (EST)!!!

In other thrilling basketball news, the fearless men of the Mexico High School basketball team beat Batavia last night to advance to the Section III, Class A state championship game. (Go Tigers!)

A note about author wranglers:

Did you know there was such a job? The proper title is “media escort”. Karen, who is helping me in LA, calls herself an “author schlepper”. Their job is to pick up the befuddled, confused author at the airport and drive them all over the city, get them to events on time, keep them fed, hydrated and awake, and cope with the weirdnesses that crop up in this line of work. I bet all author schleppers could write their own books. I’ve had fantastic schleppers on the West Coast – Tina Mandt, Sharon Chabon, Larry Lewis and Karen Hebert. I just wish they would come home with me and schlep me to the dry cleaners, the grocery store and Wawa. Maybe if I had a full-time schlepper, I’d get my library books returned before they are overdue.

To anyone taking the new SATs today – I’m sorry. I hope it wasn’t too bad. I once heard that the worst predictor of a kid’s chances at college success is the SAT. If you don’t do as well as you’d like, remember that.

Enjoyed Friday night gridlock driving through Los Angeles last night, but Karen is such a pro, she got me to Vroman’s on time. Lots of teachers turned out and a few kids, and Karen Madden, author of the new book Gentle’s Holler. (Hello Lucy and Nora!)

I can’t tell what’s smog and what’s fog here. All I know is that it’s hard to see anything. This is what it looks like to the left out my window.

This is what it looks like out the right. The ocean is out there someplace.

Back to the airport in a little while, then I catch a plane for Detroit. Back to cold. Back to snow. Back to gloom.

Thank goodness. All this sunshine messes with my head.

Real quick – here was my morning at Santa Monica High School.

Everybody stuffed into the library.

This is Tony and Madison. That is Madison’s hat on Tony’s head. The hat came from Prague. I bet the hat has stories to tell.

Meet Walter. He helped me move stuff around. I got him out of History so he could listen to me talk. It was a fair trade.

Thank you librarians Anne and Dana and bookseller Sharon. And note to the English teachers – first, thanks so much for taking the time to share my books with your students. I appreciate that a lot. Second, I’m totally bummed I can’t take you up on your kind invitation. Can I get a rain check?