We are all winners.
Boston and Back in 29 hours
I've had two anxiety dreams two nights in a row about doing readings. The first was that I was asked to read in Austin by a small obscure bookstore and I agreed, only to be asked the day of the event to read by a huge and wildly popular bookstore at the exact same time. So I blew off the small bookstore (because in my dream I am a total whore) and when I got to the big bookstore it was packed, there were hundreds of people there to see the reading, and when I opened my mouth, I had chewing gum inside, and when I tried to pull it out, it came out in long strings, sticking to my mouth and hands. And I walked around the room doing this, unable to speak.
Last night's dream involved me waiting all night to headline a reading, skipping dinner while I waited, but drinking instead, and by the time I got up to read I was so drunk I literally could not read the words on the paper. And I kept skipping sections, and asking them to turn on the lights because the words were getting away from me. Eventually I just walked off the stage.
Of course none of the business went down in Boston this weekend. Instead it was just awesomeness all around, from Wendy and Janice and me. Boy did we have a good time. It was a nice crowd (thank you for laughing), we got down and dirty, and everyone pretty much just rocked it. Also Brian from Brookline Booksmiths did a stellar job of hosting and I am eternally grateful, and thanks also to Girl Friday Industries for helping put it all together.
The highlight for me was the Battle of Bad Behavior, where Wendy, Janice and I all read excerpts from our books and were rated by three judges Olympics style. I totally won that shit (I won a dvd - Bad Boys starring Sean Pean and Esai Morales, not the one with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence - and the girls won lottery tickets.) but only because it's a lot easier to be bad in fiction than memoir, and just in general there's a ton of sex in my book. (Though Janice came in a close second with all of her angel dust references.)
Also Hallelujah the Hills had a great performance. There were a bunch of people there who hadn't heard them before and by the end they were believers. They are touring this summer and you should totally go see them play. And they have a CD coming out on Misra records. There is just a lot of good stuff coming their way, and I am excited for them. They deserve it.
As a reminder (and I will remind you again tomorrow), the reason why I am doing all this touring is in support of the Instant Love paperback, which goes on sale tomorrow. There is a new bonus story and illustration in it, and also it is cheaper than the hardcover. Last time I checked it was $11.01 on Amazon. What they're planning on doing with that penny, I don't know. Maybe it's one of those Superman 3/Office Space things where the extra pennies are secretly deposited into an account somewhere. It is not my account, that much I can tell you. Regardless, I still encourage you to buy the paperback, whether online or in your local bookstore. If they don't have it in your local bookstore it is ok to request it. They don't mind. People do it all the time. It's like, a phone call for them, or they just type it into a computer screen or something, and I bet it helps break up their day a little bit. What I'm trying to say here is: everyone comes out ahead when you buy my book.
(04/23/07)