So, where were we?

Well well well!

 

I finally finished my book tour and have managed to get myself down from three giant piles of sh$t on my desk to one, which I am working on.  So, if I owe you an email, I'm getting there.  I started my UCLA Class, and that is going well-- the students are awesome so far, and we're making good progress on their projects.  Even though this photo is of the San Francisco book signing, I thought it was funny so I decided to put it up. 

 

I've been a little more diligent about updating Facebook just because it's easier, but just for fun, let me re-cap the book signing that was last Friday in Palm Desert.  I should probably preface this by saying that it is very, VERY hot there now.  Like, 108 degrees at 5:30 in the evening hot, which makes people in the desert go a tiny bit crazy.  I can attest to this because I grew up there.  And even though that is the case, I don't know if you can really ever prepare yourself for that kind of hotness-- the hotness that wears you out before you even get from your air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned house.  Actually, in high school I had a car whose A/C didn't work, and I was constantly getting burned on the steering wheel and the seats.  For real.  Getting burned by the seats of the car.  That's how hot.

 

Anyhow, I arrived in the desert a few hours before the signing, and tried to keep myself from dying of heat exhaustion before 6:00 pm, which was no easy task.  Fortunately there were already some people I knew there right when it started, so I didn't even have time for the "is anyone going to show up?" nervousness that always precedes an event.  Actually, people showed up from 6:00 until about 8:30, which was just awesome.  Alot of cool people were in town for a high school reunion (not mine), so they came as well, and it was totally nice to see everyone again.

 

But, back to the heat crazy.   The first person I might have put into this category actually ended up buying a book, so I feel guilty slandering her when she is now one of my readers.  For that reason, I will write up a little note about that and put it on Facebook for those who are interested.  You can also leave a comment if you'd like to hear the story but are not my FB friend.

 

Next up:  a guy who brought me a hand-written note, but DID NOT buy a book, so game on!  He was an older man who had read about me in the paper, and it seemed like he wanted me to do something for a charitable event he was putting together (at least this is what I could derive from the hodge-podge of inclusions in the envelope, one of which was a semi-obscene business card), and he called himself "Tijuana Joe."  He wore a seersucker shirt and a white fedora, and when I asked him if he was going to buy a book, he said "No, I don't have time to read, I'm a man on the go."  This went on as my friends and some other people from the bookstore looked on, like "What is going on here?"

 

I also had a few random elderly people wander over and ask "What kind of book is this?"  and when they heard it was fiction, they told me they only like to read books on real things that really happened, like wars, which is no surprise because my grandma tells me the same thing.  Is it a thing that when you get old, you don't want to read made-up stories anymore?  I'd think it would be the opposite, that the older you get, the more experiences you've had, and the more you want to see things that come out of people's imaginations.  But, what do I know?  I'm not old, I don't have a fedora, and I don't really care for books on wars or Hitler. 

 

Next, I spent a few days hanging out at a high school reunion that wasn't mine, which was totally fun and interesting.  I knew some of the people (and in fact, I went there with my friends), but it was pretty amazing to me how everyone from high school falls into the same patterns, even after 20 years.  Same people hanging out together, and for the most part, people looked the same.  I'm not saying that because I'm trying to say I look the same, but it was kind of crazy how "the same" everyone actually looked, like barely any time had passed.  I remember my mom going to her high school reunions, and I also remember the pictures and that the people seemed totally old.  Maybe it's a matter of perspective, or maybe it's that with the healthy food and the face cream and the hormones the drinking water, we're all just living longer and looking younger.  That part was pretty amazing to me though.

 

Oh, I should also mention that it is a very, very bad idea to take a totally black Prius to the desert during the summer.   Also pretty amazing is just how hot the inside of that thing can get when you park it in the sun and it's 113 degrees outside, then you make your friends ride in the back seat when they are wearing their fancy reunion clothes.  Sorry Lisa and Brett!

Comments

[Cyndi]

Awesome! Fun times :) And it's only gotten hotter, and then some humidity was added just to make us all want to leave our houses even more.