LHA – Page 173 – Laurie Halse Anderson

June 1, 2007

My Friday Five

First, I owe a shout-out to Lydia, whose older sister, Elena, works at Writer’s House in New York. ::waves from couch:: She said really sweet things about you, Lydia!

Now – my Five Friday Things:

1. My surgery is over and my leg is in the air and healing nicely. (Thanks for all the warm wishes.) BH tells me that when I was coming out of the anesthesia I tried to negotiate with the doctor and get him to agree that I could go running in four days instead of two weeks. I do not remember this. Both the doc and BH were amused.

2. Two weeks without running is a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long time.

3. Pain pills make you stupid, but are useful when you need to sleep.

4. Two weeks = fourteen days = seven missed running days = 35 missed miles. Humpf.

5. I am not in New York for BEA because of The Leg. So here are my photos from last week’s New York City trip.

This is Kevin Lewis, my Simon & Schuster editor, with me. We’re holding Thank You, Sarah, and Fever 1793, our past projects, and drafts of Independent Dames and Chains, my books that Kevin is publishing in 2008.

Derry Wilkens, the Publicity Goddess at Viking/Penguin who put together the Twisted book tour.

Sharyn November, my Viking Editor and sister of the spirit.

In between meetings I snuck down to Books of Wonder, one of the best children’s bookstores in the country.

And here are some of the nice booksellers who work there: Angela Williams, Lee Burnley, and Cyrus Krapf-Altomare.

Does anyone have any BEA stories?

May 29, 2007

What did you do?

The trip to New York was very, very, very good – I saw friends, had meetings, ate smoked beef tongue and went running in Central Park.

And the weekend? Daughter Number Two came home with a gleam in her eye and before I knew it there was a paintbrush in my hand. We spent three days making over the upstairs bathroom, which desperately needed the love.

What did you do this weekend?

(I am going to take a couple more days away from the Internet to have some minor surgery. It is not a big deal at all, just one of those things that gives you an almost-decent excuse to lay on the couch and read. See you next week!)

May 20, 2007

Because running makes me feel like a kid

The Syracuse Susan Komen 5K race on Saturday was uplifting, inspiring, and a really good time. More than 7,500 people were there; 700 kids under the age of 12 ran in the Kids 1-Mile Race (BH and I cheered and whistled for them), several thousand did the 5K walk, and the rest of us ran the 5K proper. BH was very sweet and ran with me, even though he is much faster than I am. It felt so, so good to be with a crowd of people who were all there for one of the best causes in America.

::author blisses out for a moment::

Got up early this morning for a long, slow run. Normally I don’t run two days in a row (old knees), but I am going away again tomorrow and don’t think I’ll be able to get an exercise until Friday. My long-term goal is to run the Philadelphia Distance Run this year. It’s a half-marathon, aka 13.1 miles. If I want to run it without dying (I do not worry about running fast – I can’t – I just try to complete races without needing to be rushed to a hospital) I have to start logging more miles ASAP.

On my run I saw one sunrise, one Baltimore Oriole, and three red-winged blackbirds. Then I came home and ate a bagel and fried eggs. ::more bliss::

I am off to NYC tomorrow to chat with my agent and meet with my editors and talk about the next books I want to write. I am not bringing the computer with me (shocking, I know), but I will take pictures. I’ll be back Friday.

May 18, 2007

Playing catch-up

OK, OK, OK…. I am here and trying to catch up again.

The first news of the day is very sad: Lloyd Alexander died yesterday. School Library Journal and the Washington Post have obituaries. I wish someone in Philadelphia would kick the Inquirer (Lloyd’s hometown paper) because they don’t seem to have noticed the event yet.

On a happier note (which I think Lloyd would appreciate) the apple trees and lilacs up here are just about to explode into goodness and the hummingbirds are back. My daffodils have started to roll up their flags and go to sleep for another year. I find myself dreaming about fresh tomatoes, but it is still a little early to plant them.

Let’s roll the tape on my totally excellent adventures of the past week.

First, the booksigning at Moravian Bookshop in Bethlehem, PA. This was the last TWISTED event on my calendar for a while and it was a delightful one because so many old friends came out. Click for tons of pictures, including me at IRA with The Stinky Cheese Man Himself!

May 16, 2007

Whupped

I was SUPPOSED to come home last night from IRA in Toronto.

But a monsoon hit the airport just before I was supposed to leave. They canceled all the flights.

So I made a lot of phone calls, got drenched waiting for the shuttle bus, walked into the hotel looking like something that just crawled out of the sewer, slept (sort of), woke up at 3:30am to catch the 4am shuttle to get the first morning flight out to a far-away city where I could finally get on an airplane that would take me home.

I am beyond cranky right now. But I will sleep tonight and after many, many errands tomorrow, I’ll try and post a tale and photos of what were the totally excellent adventures of the last week… totally excellent, that is, up until the monsoon hit.

G’night.