More Crappy Pictures From Another AMAZING Time!

This is just to prove I was in New York

Essentially, this trip to New York has boiled down to three major parts–

A. The meet up in the La Guardia Marriott with all of the AWESOME Dreamspinner authors for a day of workshops.

B. The Rainbow Book Fair on Saturday which was a huge event in a little teeny space.

C. The afterwards, where I got to play in the city with some friends:-)

Now, I probably should have blogged about all of this from the outset–because it would have been fresher in my mind, and because names– swear to GODDESS I suck at names, and not in the good way, either.  But I met some awesome people this time round, and maybe if I try to list them all now I’ll remember more and more as I write the rest of the post:

This is Chris, who will be my lunch buddy  from now on.

This is Damon Suede who made me drink RWA Kool-Aid.

Damon Suede (who is terrifyingly charismatic), Chris Koehler (whom I already knew but now we’re going to do lunch once a month and that’s awesome!), Eden Winters (who is both sweet, fun, and has the most charming accent!), Carole Cummings (whom I adore!), J.P. Barnaby (who is wonderful!), Rowan Speedwell (both sweet and shy:-),  Paul Richmond (who did the cover for the Promises books and who is both way younger and way prettier than I am!), Anne Cain (who did the covers for the Green’s Hill novellas to name a few, and is also way younger and way prettier and way hipper than I am!), Catt Ford, (who did the cover for Alpha and Fur-Bearing Critters and is way prettier than I am!), Nessa Warrin (who was a sport for being as sick as she was, and who listened to my stories with good grace), B.G. Thomas (who was both funny and salacious), Mike Murphy (who was another good sport about being bored silly at the dinner table), Jamie Fessenden (who jumped in and told some great stories of his own, thus saving me from further embarrassment), Zahra Owens (who brought Godiva chocolates until we HAD to worship her!),   Piper Vaughn (charming and warm), Taylor Donovan (charming and boisterous), Karen Klein (as adorable as a kitten), Ellis Carrington (sweet, cute, and serendipitous), and the usual suspects whom I live to see again– Ariel, Nicki, Elizabeth, Lynn, Connie, Julianne, Andrew, and, of course, my Mary, mine, whom I will not give to anyone else because I am a selfish bitch that way.

There are probably people I forgot–and I’m so sorry–but, as you can probably tell, that first part?  Yeah.  That was something of a blur.

This is the inside of the Rainbow Book Fair.  It’s insanely crowded.

The Rainbow Book fair was crazy busy– insanely crazy busy.  The vendors were in a teeny-tiny space, and DSP brought it’s own crowd of authors.  It was loud, it was hot, it was horrifically crowded–but it was worth it.  I know we don’t think about this a lot, because, well, if we’re reading this we’re on computers, but for a lot of the men coming by to buy books (and because it was the Rainbow Book Fair, many of our customers were men) did not own a computer.  If they wanted a book with a happy ending- a ROMANCE book– they were going to get it from this venue, because a whole lot of the GLBT book stores had closed.  It was worth it, and amazing to be there.

Rockefeller Center at night.

My book reading went well– but I don’t remember a whole lot.  About the one thing I do remember was asking Andrew (who had just finished his own book reading) if he knew where I was on the schedule.  He looked at the schedule and said, “Honey, you’re on NOW!”  I grabbed my copy of Chase and took off running, only to get caught behind an 80 year old man with a wheeled suitcase who was buying his year’s supply of books.  After that I vaulted two flights of stairs with Jamie Samms (need to give her a verbal hug because she was lovely, I adored her, and she was made of awesome) and my Mary behind me.  Uhm, my body?  Not so much with the two flights of stairs.  I got to the top and was heaving for breath when I walked into the reading room as quietly as possible.  A guy had gone on ahead of me, but they were very nice about letting me go after him.

My Mary.  Mine.  You can’t have her.

Lynn.  Who is lovely. And I love her.

This is the view from my hotel room on zoom.

And it seemed to go well– Elisa Rolle put some pictures up on Facebook–I have no idea how to capture them, but I didn’t look like a freak of nature, so that’s something.  And after that, there’s a big blurry mess. I remember Damon, making me promise to sign up for RWA, which I will do when I get home, and Chris, who was snarky and fun, and being table captain which terrified me because I’ve made a habit of shirking responsibility, and seriously?  BLUR.

From left: Julianne, Connie, me, Elizabeth, Lynn, & Zahra

On Sunday, a few of us said goodbye to our newfound friends– it was difficult because we’d so enjoyed meeting them–and went into the city to see a play. Alan Rickman… zomg zomg zomg… okay… and not just him– the writing was OUTSTANDING.  The play was called Seminar, and I want a T-shirt with my favorite line from it.  “Novels. Need. Silence.”  I LOVE that.  Anyway, when we were done with the play, we visited Times Square.  Which is really as bright as everybody says it is, even in the middle of the night.  It was aMAZing.

Lynn, working dutifully with the city as her backdrop.

The view from the concierge suite at the Marriott.

Monday… well, let’s just say that Mary and I talked WAY into Sunday night until it WAS Monday, and then she left when I’d finally fallen asleep and then?  Then I woke up swimming in sweat because it was suddenly 80 degrees in the damned hotel room.  It was only six in the morning NY time and so I called the front desk to have someone fix the damned thermostat.  He had a very high tech solution:  he opened a window.  Sounds simple, right?  Except this was the La Guardia Marriott hotel, so named because it’s RIGHT NEXT TO FRICKIN’ LA GUARDIA AIRPORT, which means that a plane took off every twenty minutes.  Ask me how I know?

The view of CPW from the Egypt Room at the Met

Anyway, I took a car into the city all by my lonesome, and then got to the city to find everyone in the Marriott Marquis on Time Square.  They were working.  And I know it SOUNDS lame, but after taking some pictures of the square from the window because it was FRICKIN’ AWESOME, but I sort of enjoyed just sitting down with them and working too.  And then, after lunch?  (The Stage Door)  I took a nap.  Oooooohh… canya just feel the electric sizzle of the city, right?  But it really WAS nice, because I sort of AM a writer, and like Alan Rickman said, “Novels. Need. Silence.”  And after all of that frickin’ hustle before?  The silence was peaceful.

Have Seen this painting three places!

A Tiffany Window at the Met

The next day a couple of us went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art… and I frickin’ cried.  Renoir, that bastard–who knew I had such a hard-on for that picture of two girls at the piano?  I mean, I guess I knew I did, because my Aunts had given me a card that featured them at one time and said that the girls reminded them of me, but to see the picture for real?  God.  That and the picture of Toledo, Spain, painted by El Greco, because I’d seen it in a textbook next to The Pit and the Pendulum, and then taught it to my son’s 3rd grade class as an Art Docent and THEN seen it for REAL at the Met?  ZOMG.  Truly overwhelmed.

And the Tiffany windows weren’t bad either.

Wednesday, it was back on the plane again–and I have to say, that the charm of air travel is no longer quite what it was.  I’m tired of feeling my feet swell and getting mashed against strangers, but I do have to admit that Julianne my traveling companion whom I love made all the difference between a shitty trip and an amazing trip– we talked and talked and talked, and since we talked all the way THERE that’s saying something!

And now home.

A largish housewife in a hotel room in NYC

And, as I wrestle with blogger (and just decide to leave the crappy pictures where they are because I’m trying to tell them they’d look more attractive somewhere else on the blog) and let the dog in and out and in and out for the umpteenth time and remember how happy the kids were to see me (and how they loved their gifts from NY) and how happy I was to see them and how the damned cat woke me up at five in the mourning in sheer, stinking need (okay, since she sang me an Aria of Mourning the morning I left, I shouldn’t be that surprised!) and how VERY happy I was to see Mate, waiting with my baggage at the airport…

I think it was a GREAT trip.  And I think home is NEVER overrated.