Eight Things I Love That I Probably Shouldn't

1. Butter that isn't really butter. It's just so much more delicious and spreadable!

2. The fact that on pre-shaped cookie dough packages, they ask you: "Please do not consume raw cookie dough," as if the "please" will really make a difference.

3. Drinking coffee at about 5pm. I know what a poor choice it is, but I still make it more often than I should admit.

4. Trashy romance novels. I like the less trashy ones too, but I reserve the really bad ones for days that I feel like a terrible writer... to remind me how ridiculously easy it must be to get utter waste published.

5. Using hotel shampoo. It's like theft, since it's not mine, but I'm supposed to use it!

6. Toddler tantrums. I think they are some of the funniest things on earth, and I will laugh openly at them as they occur. (This usually spurs on the tantrum - which only makes me laugh harder.)

7. Eating an entire package of raspberries in one go. I always feel a little bad, because they're like $5 a box and you get like fourteen whole berries in there, but goodness they are delicious.

8. "Angry Birds". It is embarrassing to admit how long I can play that game and not get the least bit tired of it.

Rainy Day Playlist

A few years ago I posted what I called my rainy day playlist when I was hoping for a rainy day. Since then, it's expanded quite a bit! If my hard drive ever crashed and I lost my playlists, this would be the one I lamented the most! So here it is, updated for your viewing pleasure.

The songs are ones that are slow, relaxing, and varied in origin. They're wonderful to read to, study to, drive to, and are especially appropriate on a grey and/or rainy day.

• Breathe Me, Sia
• Tomorrow, Avril Lavigne
• The Lightning Strike, Snow Patrol 
• Stay (Acoustic), Little Big Town
• Llovera, Mia Maestro
• Canvas, Imogen Heap
• The Shadowlands, Ryan Adams
• Someday, John Legend
• Cellar Door, Holly Brook
• Mad World, Gary Jules with Michael Andrews
• Safe & Sound, Taylor Swift 
• Nightshade, Find the Others
• Now Comes the Night, Rob Thomas 
• Reasons for Living, Duncan Sheik
• A Lack of Color, Death Cab for Cutie
• Black Tables, Other Lives 
• Keep Breathing, Ingrid Michaelson
• Days Go By, Duncan Sheik
• The Fire, Imogen Heap
• Cannonball, Damien Rice
• Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop, Landon Pigg
• Turning Page, Sleeping At Last
• 9 Crimes, Damien rice
• Colorblind, Counting Crows
• Almost Lover, A Fine Frenzy
• Never Think, Robert Pattinson
• Tomorrow Will Be Kinder, The Secret Sisters

Things I Love

I've been so stressed lately (work, school, impending graduation, etc.) that I think I need to take a step back and remember some of the things that I love.

I LOVE that spring has sprung. Flowers are freaking everywhere, and I can't get enough of them!

I love that when I left Austin for New York last week, there was so much dense fog that it looked like the whole world was just made of clouds from the air.

And that the rivers north of Austin looked like they were made of clouds.

I love being surprised by limousine rides.

I love going on nature walks. (I went with Barb's mother and stepfather. Elke, her mother, was birding... the rest of us were nature walking and enjoying the lovely day!)

On that topic, I freaking love Barb. Can I go back to New York now? (I need to go back and take more pictures!)

I love Spring on Long Island. I love Spring everywhere.

I love swans that show off a little. 

Y'all, I love my job. Babysitting can be delightful.

The son of one of my old teachers, Brydon, who is about 15 months old, and one of the smartest kids I've ever had the pleasure chasing after for a couple hours.

Miss Lily, Emma's little sister. This is her "WTF?" face. She looks so like her sister! 

EMMA. I freaking love Emma.

She's so big now...

I love the Coopers' cat, Thomas. He is just the best - and I have threatened to steal him for years, allergies be damned.

I love finding funny things in places I don't expect.

Budget cuts?

I love The Hunger Games. I've just finished rereading it, and it took a great deal of strength not to go back to the beginning and immediately reread it again.

Hunger Games always makes me want to eat bread.

I love wearing watches.

I was babysitting, and the little girl, Cara, asked me to put on the watches .

I love that my silly mother has been living with one working light in the pantry for the last six months. When I told her I would fix the other light, she said, "There are two lights in the pantry?"

And on that subject... I love my crazy family.

And you. I love you, readers!

Pre-Dawn Extra Bonus Karma

This weekend, I think I regained some of the mojo back in my apartment. Although I managed to clog and apparently break the garbage disposal in my apartment last Thursday (my roommate leaves town and all hell breaks loose!) spontaneously, it began working again on Sunday! Being that Sunday was my baptism anniversary, I'm taking that as my miracle of the day. I didn't want to leave without the sink working because...

I'm in an airport! I'm on my way to New York! GUYS. I'M GOING TO SEE THE COOPERS!

Y'all may remember that way back in 2007, I babysat for little Jane and Ana, who were 6 and 9 at the time. Well, Ana just turned 14 yesterday. And Barb and Mark are just the most awesome people. Gosh, I can't wait to see them!

Anyway, the sun hasn't even risen yet, and I think my karma is extra good today, because on my way to the airport, I was literally locking my door when a girl who lives in an apartment on the third floor of my complex asked if I was on my way to the airport. Why yes, I was! She was desperate, the poor thing, had called a cab that ended up never showing, so I offered her a lift. It was nice to do a favor to someone in need, and I feel extra fulfilled today.

Pretty sure I should go buy a lottery ticket or something!

-----

Yesterday, I went off in search of gifts to bring with me, and found these gems on The Drag. They're coin jewelry, rings and earrings! Texas quarters, and aren't they just precious? (Have I told you how much I love rings?) The little one (that isn't a quarter) has found it's way onto my pinky finger. It has a boat on it, and is some kind of Caribbean coin, minted in 1965. You may not be able to tell, but there's a boat on there. It kind of reminds me of my mom.

Wrappin' Up and Shippin' Out

Let's catch up on the rest of the weekend... yeah? 

Thursday night after I posted my blog, Pam, Sherry, and I went out to Pizano's for dinner, where we had delicious pizza and the most fantastic waiter ever. He told us to call him Uncle Chach, and he was friendly, charismatic, and a total riot! 

I asked for a picture - he obliged "only if I had a beautiful woman like yourself standing next to me."  

Chach gave us FREE DESSERT, too, which has added him to my list of totally amazing people. He was so nice to us, saying that the world needed more people like us - writers and publishers of books.

His secret ingredient was cinnamon... A cookie, ice cream, and whipped cream delicacy!

My boss, Pam, was sitting in Oprah's favorite seat in the restaurant - sacred ground!

Friday dawned, cold and cloudy, and I made my way to Starbucks, where I stood in the longest line ever for a caramel macchiato. Being that it was the closest Starbucks to the hotel hosting the conference, it seems like everyone descended upon it at once, and the poor baristas had their hands full! By 9, I was down in the basement room again, reorganizing and straightening books like the good intern I am!

Pam and Sherry arrived at about 9:30 ("Oh! So glad that you're already here!") and Sherry wandered off and came back with THIS: The world's greatest mug!

This competes with my Mr Darcy mug for favorite mug! (Click the link to see! I found the Mr Darcy mug in Chawton, when I visited Jane Austen's house.)

Sherry realized that I liked to write, and so she went around and found contests for me. There were a number of tables that were having prose and poem contests that they would publish if they liked the entries. 

I wrote a 100-word prose entry on my favorite defunct object (I wrote about floppy disks in the style of a textbook or documentary about ancient technology) and a demi-Sonnet (7 lines as opposed to 14) and wrote a little poem. I really liked my prose entry, so I hope that I win! It'd be awesome to see that published online.

I don't think I'm all that great at poetry, but here's my entry for that! (click to embiggen. It's called Vows of Ink)

It's in iambic pentameter, too. Because, really, is there any other way to write a sonnet? And like a Shakespearean sonnet, there isn't necessarily a rhyme scheme, but it goes ABCDEFG, and the G line is the volta, where the change is in the poem, "Thank God I only have a pencil here".)

At the end of the day, we had an author reading in the Palmer House Hilton, which is one of the oldest hotels in Chicago. We had a beautiful room set up, and the authors were very interesting to listen to! I stood outside and chatted with some of them for quite a while, drinking the free wine and abusing the cheese selection. 

Apparently, Pr. Obama likes this room, too. They said this is where he waits before he does anything official in Chicago!

Friday's haul was not as plentiful as Thursday's but I was a little more selective of what swag I wanted to bring home. I found some great journal-type books, some hilarious satirical reads (by Idiot's Books, which was the only company I was even tempted to subscribe to. They send out 6 books a year, and I want ALL of them!) and I got two of the "Write like a motherfucker" mugs, one for me (of course!) and one for my dear friend Ally.

 Saturday morning began bright and early (again) with me drinking Emergen-C out of a stemless wine glass (I am just as classy as my hotel room) and three further cups of coffee. The Starbucks line was shorter, but not by much!

#classy

I went around and took more photos of the various exhibition halls, because it's pretty hard to appreciate the scope of the bookfair from merely describing it.

There were well over 500 tables and 100 booths to visit, and I feel like I at least glanced at most of them. I'd say I stopped to chat with maybe 250 tables and booths? It was delightful to meet so many people from all over the world!

The Southwest Exhibition hall was where I lived. In row H, table 2. (I remembered it by thinking of the formula for water: H2O)

Toward the end of the day on Saturday, a group of people tried to liven up the scene (which was desperately zombielike at the time - by 2pm on Saturday, everyone had only blank, glazed stares to offer customers) by doing The Human MicroPoem. They would stand and shout the poem, 3 or 4 words at a time, and the crowd would repeat them.

The woman who started it had the most awesome tshirt on.

Another guy had cue cards, which he discarded as the crowd read them. Here's a video! (Only 20 seconds) 

By 4 on Saturday, Pam, Sherry, and I were totally beat. We packed up and left early, seeing that a lot of other tables were doing the same. We were required to get out of there by 5:30, so it wasn't a problem! 

I spent Saturday trying to scour the place for good book deals - a lot of tables were giving away books they had previously charged for, or were giving a heavily discounted rate ("$3 books? YES PLEASE.) So Saturday's swag was considerably greater! 

Buttons! Stickers! Books! Bags! Woohoo!! I even snagged a couple books by our authors to bring home!

I found a booth offering these little gems - reprints of short stories on recycled paper and illustrated.

A table nearby was offering lessons on binding chapbooks, so I went over and bound one (Easy peasy - Only a needle and thread required.)

Here's my swanky badge I wore through the whole thing.

And here is the collective haul of books! I plan on giving most of them away, but some of them I will keep and read!

Saturday night, I met up with a girl whose fanfiction stories I edit! Her name is Reena (penname Selene Liath) and we went to an Irish pub called Lizzie's. 

I haven't been editing her stuff for very long, but we really hit it off! She's really sweet, smart, and I absolutely adore her already. I very much look forward to continue working with her - and it was just a bonus that I got to meet her so quickly!

I love getting to meet people from the fanfiction community (you may remember that that was how I met Siobhan), and I've also met a few other writers that way. And although I met Ally in class, we realized rather quickly that we both wrote fanfiction, and that was one of the ways we bonded.

Overall, the time I spent in Chicago was amazing, and I wouldn't trade it for anything! I learned so much, and if I can, I want to try and go next year!

Internet trouble

I haven't forgotten that I need to publish a post of other things that happened in Chicago! Unfortunately, I got home and discovered my Internet is broken... So, y'all may have to wait a while, at least until tomorrow. I'm writing this from my phone right now, because I am a clever lady!

In the meantime, have some photos I took on my phone!

(They're all altered through an app on my phone, instagram.)

Androgynous Ceramics; Books, Books Galore!; and Free Swag

Today started early. Earlier than usual, and I've been really good at getting up at a decent hour recently for class. Today started at 6:15. (I began to wonder if the definition of being an adult is getting out of bed after only hitting the snooze button once.) Very important that I get up and go, so I made myself some coffee (nom nom nom) and made my way downstairs for a very expensive breakfast. (Yeah, tomorrow it'll be Starbucks for breakfast. I'm not paying $16 for coffee and oatmeal again!) 

At breakfast, I had coffee in a mug that was square at the bottom and round at the top. 

Is this the ceramic equivalent of androgyny? 

And oatmeal in dishes that were more sure of their orientation.

Square OR circle. Not square AND circle.

And then I made my way to the bookfair, where I registered and got my name tag. Our table was FULL of books.

You like books? WE'VE GOT BOOKS.

 We were tucked away on one side of the bookfair, which was absolutely MASSIVE. There was a whole other room (more pictures tomorrow!)

We rocked Row H.

Looks endless, doesn't it?

NO EDGE.

All day, I wandered around chatting with people, distributing my business cards and getting what I hope will be some good contacts and a good idea of the industry! It was exhausting, but I think I've managed to make an impression on some of them... at least so I hope.

Also, I got FREE STUFF.

Totes a free tote.

This was the collection of stuff (that doesn't include buttons.)

I paid for one thing here... it was a book.

The purpley thing is a USB stick that kind of turns into a bracelet! And what's better at a writers conference than writing utensils?

A sticker that says "You are beautiful" and TEA. Some of the tea was from real live British people.

M&Ms that I will munch on tomorrow when I need a good sugar rush.

Matches were also a popular giveaway. I like the ones on the left because it's a book cover!

A petite notepad that I like because the formula is totally accurate.

NANO Fiction has scavenger hunts for the whole conference! They give away prizes and things, but I just think the things to spot are hilarious. "Group of people in skinny jeans", "Younger writer hitting on somebody much too old for them", "Writer trying to haggle a dollar off of the price of a non-profit literary journal". 

Now I am off to have dinner with Pam (my boss) and Sherry (my other boss?) at Pizano's, which is apparently Oprah's favorite pizza restaurant.

Who's ready to get up and do it all over again?