When you wish upon a star… or click your heels outside of a bar

I’m baaaack!! And, by the way, I’ll probably be talking LIKE THIS!!! For a very long time because I finally met my publisher, and my first attending-as-an-author book fair couldn’t have been more PERFECT!! Not even if Janet Fitch and Johnny Depp (AS IF you needed a link...but it is GREAT FUN to ogle him) had shown up with OPRAH especially for me, outfitted with extra buttery popcorn and an invitation to be the next BOOK CLUB selection!!! Okay, maybe THAT would have made it a tad more perfect. But only barely. Because standing all on it’s own, all Oprah-less and Janet Fitch-less and popcorn-less, it was STILL freaking awesome. Weather. People. Food. The lodge. Even my gas mileage was radical. For me to use the word radical speaks VOLUMES.

The whole drive over there, I couldn’t shake that Milli Vanilli at the Grammy’s feeling. Like I HAD NO BUSINESS being there. I mean, my book isn’t even done yet. And there was going to be an Author’s TEA! And an Author’s Margarita MIXER! And I imagined every other author walking around with their new book tucked neatly under their arm, pulled out with one hand while their other hand reached for mine in a nice authorly meet-and-greet exchange.

Imagined conversation:
“So, Catherine, is it?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“I heard you were a young adult fiction writer.”
“Yes, I am.”
“I am as well!!”
“What a coincidence!”
“I would LOVE to exchange some ideas. But first, may I take a look at your novel??”
“Well… it’s still being revised, so I don’t have a copy with me YET… But… But… . But I believe in it, and I think that it will strike a nerve with young social outcasts, and…maybe I can take a look at yours if it’s okay, and… by the way, I love your hair!”

This is where I imagined said author would be looking over my shoulder at a make-believe fan anxiously waiting for her so that he/she can receive her make-believe autograph. And so, of course, said author being the charitable kinda gal that she is, would have to excuse herself from our make-believe conversation.

I also imagined everyone dressing like sophisticates and smoking cigarettes and drinking martinis and talking like honest-to-God card-carrying grown-ups. NOBODY who would ever post a picture like this on their website:



But it was nothing like that at all. Not to say that everyone wasn’t spiffied up and shiny, but the most sophisticated-looking woman in the whole “tea” room turned out to be the town librarian. There were no martinis or cigarettes. Well… there were cigarettes, but they weren’t the kind connected to the end of a carved ivory cigarette holder like I imagined. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t a HINT of pretention the whole weekend long. Everyone was humble and gracious and friendly and generous with their time and knowledge. And no one admonished me for my lack of bookage. Which was nice.

But the best part of the weekend was clicking my ruby slippers together and coming home to my new Mother’s Day present — a high-speed internet connection!! (Allan, you really keep outdoing yourself in the gift-giving department.) Oh yeah, and coming home to this:



And this:



And these silly folk:

And you!