My Big "Problem"

"You have a problem," my husband says.  "...a big problem."  

Hmmmm, I'm thinking.  With two casinos practically within walking distance of my house, you're pointing out that I might have a book problem??  A problem with buying books??

And yes, I do use the library(ies).  I just like having my own lending/owning library, too.   I get very cranky and disoriented if I don't have a book/stack of books/whole case of books within reading distance.  I love looking at Dorothy Parker's face as I'm drinking my morning coffee.  

I've had this book "problem" most all of my life.  Ask my brother.  I made him play library with me when we were kids.  I taped pockets for check-out cards inside the front covers of my books and I scooted my tin bookshelf to the entrance of my bedroom for my circulation desk.  It was serious business for me.  I even made him fill out an application form for a library card, and I'm quite sure I charged him a ten cent fine when he didn't make it back down the hall to my room in a timely manner.

And I have an enormous pet peeve, that I'm pretty sure stems from my serious librarian days...I can't stand it when someone folds down the corner of a page to mark their place.  It's like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.  

The smell of Spring in the air is great.  But the smell of a new book...there's nothing like it.

Phone Talkers

"I gotta go," my sister-in-law said.  "I'm in the grocery store and I hate phone talkers."

My sister-in-law should have been in the dentist's office with me a couple of weeks ago.  I was waiting for my daughter, when the woman sitting across from me in the waiting area got a call.  She talked for a while, apparently forgetting she wasn't in her own living room.  Then, quite suddenly she "came to" and looked around her.  She glanced at me, resentfully, as if my presence might be interrupting her "flow".    

Then she gave me the look that I translated as, "you're trying to listen in, aren't you."  (Well, DUH, I'm a writer).  So she stood up and moved to the toy alcove across the room.  This obviously gave her permission to talk even louder.  The poor receptionist had to raise her voice to speak over the phone talker.  But my favorite part was when she was called in to talk to the dentist.  She didn't even miss a syllable.  She got up without tripping on any toys, pushed past the receptionist and plowed through the inner office door, the phone still attached to her ear.  Wow.  Impressive.

If she would've gotten off her phone for a second, I could've asked her a very pressing question. What had she done in her life to become so important?  I could've taken notes, told my friends the secrets to her success, etc.  I want to be that important.  I think I'm going to get one of those things that hooks onto my ear.  Hands free.  Yep, that's what I need.  Then I can pick through the apples at the grocery store and still keep talking.  Or, hey, maybe I'll just leave my phone in the car, and make my calls when I'm in a quieter, more private place.  Like church or the library.  

Schmoozing and Stalking in New York

                                                                 

Writing is such a solitary thing.  So of course I jumped at the chance last weekend to join my fellow 2k9ers in New York for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators winter conference.  Where else could you rub shoulders with (or just plain stalk) the likes of Richard Peck, Jack Gantos, Bruce Hale, and Jay Asher?  So far no one has a restraining order against me, so I'm hoping I'm safe.

Here I am with Bruce Hale.  (Obviously, Judy Blume hadn't yet told him about the time back in the nineties when I stalked her in Cape Cod...notice he doesn't even look afraid...)

                                                       

On the other hand, this picture with Jack Gantos is a little blurry--possibly because Judy could have just sent him a text message and he may have been trying to break free....

                But the very best part of the conference had to be connecting with my fellow 2k9 

friends (www.classof2k9.com).  We are the 2nd generation of Greg Fishbone's 2k7 group and are 22 middle grade and young adult authors that all have new fiction coming out this year.  Since we started as an online group, we hadn't had a lot of face-to-face contact. We realized we had come to think of each other as the person or image on our book covers!  Anyway, we had a lot of catching up to do, so we chose to forgo the sleep and cram in as much together time as possible.

*Clockwise from left, Danielle Joseph (SHRINKING VIOLET), me (ALSO KNOWN AS HARPER), Fran Cannon Slayton (WHEN THE WHISTLE BLOWS), and New York Public Library children's librarian and Fuse #8's Elizabeth Bird at the SCBWI Kidlit post-party (hosted by Elizabeth Bird)

**From left, me, CWIM editor, Alice Pope, and fellow 2k9er, Sydney Salter (MY BIG NOSE AND OTHER NATURAL DISASTERS)

                                                                                                           

                                                                      Fran and I with our 2k7 cousin, Jay Asher (13 REASONS WHY)

***In back: Ellen Hopkins (CRANK), Sydney, Danielle

Front:  Suzanne Morgan Williams (BULL RIDER), Fran, me

Had the nice men with the security badges not appeared, I might still be there...but they were kind enough to show me the way back to the train.  Besides, I really needed to get home to do some writing and get a little sleep...

Bus Stop Underwear

Today I just had to write about how much I don't know.  

Why is it, that when I'm freezing my butt off with the heat cranked up in my house, my thirteen-year-old tries to go out with just a thin sweatshirt?  We live in Connecticut, for heaven's sake--it's a million below out there!  

This year, I even relented and bought her a way-overpriced coat from the way-overpriced-shoddy-quality mall store that she loves.  And does she wear it?  It looks really nice on the floor of her bedroom and it matches quite nicely with the arm of our living room couch.  

My friend, Monique has figured it out, though.  She has four kids and she's got it down pat.  Her husband will rush out to the bus stop in his boxers, yelling, "you forgot your coat!!!"  I'm pretty sure their kids wear their coats to bed now. 

I need to go do a load of laundry.  I have to make sure my husband's underwear doesn't have any holes in it.

First Grade Advice for President Obama

Today has been full of hope, excitement, advice and anticipation.  So many offered their predictions for our future.  But no one amidst any of the television or radio coverage of the inauguration offered the solid, practical advice of my first graders.  

 I picked them up early from lunch so they could see the history unfold before their 6-year-old eyes.  President Obama had their complete attention.

"Where is he now?"  someone asked.  

They all leaned forward in their desks, trying to spot him doing something presidential.

One boy said, "I think he's taking a tour.  He has to start work tomorrow so he has to find the front of the building and his office."  

Someone else nodded.  "He's probably finding the lunch room--and the bathroom."

"Yeah, the bathroom."

"Then he's going to that thing like Cinderella's ball."

One of the boys stared really hard at the president and said, "If I was him, I'd go eat in my office."  (Duh!)  Snacks are a big part of a six-year-old's day.  Someone else added, "I'd eat a hot dog and do my job."

Truly, nobody filters out the excess garbage and sums things up like a first grader.  One girl said, "I'd change the rules, eat cake and help the country."  

How old am I, anyway?

When did Molly Ringwald become a TV mom?  It's absolutely impossible.  My daughter was watching The Secret Life of the American Teenager and I saw a very familiar-looking woman playing the mom of one of the main characters.  Her voice was a little lower than I remembered it (more mom-like, I guess).  

I had a brain scramble going on, because Molly needed to be the one playing the main character! (How old was I, anyway??)  Molly is the perpetual angst-ridden, but cute and quirky high school student.  Everyone knows that!  Someone get Andrew McCarthy off of Lipstick Jungle so he can star in the show with her.  

And why is it that so many of the TV moms look like they are my age?  Do I have to stop wearing my Converse hightops?

Maybe I should just get out my old Tiger Beats.  (And yes, Penny, I still have them!)  They arrived in a cardboard box when my dad and stepmother sold our old house.  I'll feel better if I go back in time.  By the way, Tim...I know you have my old Partridge Family albums (along with my Boston.)  Because who else would dare to take them? (and play them...)

  

Killer Playdough

"Playdough can kill you."  She said it calmly, but with a definite air of authority.  "I learned it on the Internet."  That back-up sentence definitely sealed the deal, because the other five-year-olds around her immediately stopped their squashing and shaping.  One boy, in particular, was very alarmed by this new piece of information, because he stopped his little wooden rolling pin mid-roll and moved over to the action figure mat. 

 

I have never understood the gullibility of some people.  Maybe that's why lawyers are rarely out of a job.  My sister-in-law, Terri, says if you say anything with authority, people will automatically believe you.  I hate to get all political, but case-in-point:  the G.W. administration...

When I was a kid, we had a neighbor who got all her news and current event information from a couple of tabloid "newspapers".  She believed these "facts" because they were in print and readily available to the public.  But really, when you think about it, who doesn't want to believe that an 83-year-old man just had triplets or that a cat in a far-away unnamed country can speak fluent French?

Truth is stranger than fiction, right?  (I saw that written somewhere, so it must be true.)  Maybe that's another reason that I write fiction.  I guess I just prefer the mundane...