Sightings

So, there have been early sightings of Blackbringer in bookstores. Not by me, but there have been sightings and. . . purchases! [Squeal.] But when Jim and I went to peek at Powell's yesterday evening, they did NOT yet have it, though their computer said it was, indeed, coming. 9 copies to that location (the smaller one.) I had to steel myself when I asked this. Like when I go into a store that carries Laini's Ladies, I do not breeze up to the cash register and say, "Hi there! I'm Laini. How are my ladies selling?" I keep a low profile and get nervous if I see someone browsing the display. (When I'm nervous, my chest gets blotchy.) I do not want to hear if things aren't selling well, and I did not want to know if Powell's had not ordered my book or, if they had ordered one copy or something. The bookseller had this nonplussed look on his face like authors asked him these questions every day, which they probably do.

When I worked at a [wonderful] independent bookstore during college, I was very starstruck whenever an author would come in (and I am not saying booksellers should be starstruck over me!). Isabel Allende and Anne Lamott both lived in the neighborhood and came in often, and this young novelist named Glasgow Phillips had gone to the highschool down the street so he was kind of a celebrity to us and I'm sure I stammered whenever he came in and asked for a book. I probably got blotchy, too. Needless to say, the hardened character at Powell's did not get blotchy when he met me. Hee hee. Funny image, though.

Had one of those "Portland evenings" as Jim and I call them, when we went out and ran into people we knew at every turn. Love living in a small city! Walking from the car toward Powell's on Hawthorne, ran into Too Much Coffee Man sitting at a pub and stopped for a beer because. . . why not? He was one of the first people we met when we moved here. A little later at Powell's ran into a guy who I worked with six years ago. Interesting story -- he's an identical twin (and they are both poetry MFAs! How cool is that?), and Stephen Spielberg had somehow happened to get his and his brother's head shots that they'd done on a whim, and they got cast as the "precogs" in the pool in Minority Report. What a random life twist! Anyway after that there was dinner + a birthday party in a groovy hair salon with a disco ball.

I'm thinking of getting my hair dyed cherry-popsicle red. I've kind of wanted colorful hair ever since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but lately the idea has really been creeping up on me. Perhaps it would be dreadful, I don't know. Perhaps it is an early mid-life crisis. I'd also love bright blue hair. Stay tuned.

Oh, and writers, check out this awesome post by Scholastic editor Cheryl Klein.