Wednesday, July 25, 2007
My Life as an Authoress: No More Lies Takes a Road Trip
This past weekend was a ton of fun. I drove down to New York for the annual Harlem Book Fair on West 135th Street. My publisher, Kensington/Dafina, had a booth at the fair, and I got to sign some books and talk to folks about No More Lies. Not only was it the perfect weather for a day outdoors, but it was great to see the big selling authors like Omar Tyree and Zane shopping their wares right next to the cat with the self published title called I Love Him, Lord, But He's Not a Christian. Don't forget some of the other interesting selections, including Cheapa to Keepa, and my personal favorite, Thong on Fire.
The next day, I drove back to Boston because a book club had chosen No More Lies as their selection this month and I was invited to their discussion. What an enjoyable experience! If any other fairly local folks want me to come to their book club, please shoot me an email, especially if you serve good appetizers. Have I ever blogged about my obsession with hors d'oeuvres? For some reason, starters always taste better than the main course to me. I'd prefer to make a meal out of several appetizers than to order just one thing. My fave right now are oysters. Whenever I've met friends for dinner lately, I've purposely chosen seafood restaurants so I can have oysters on the half shell. I think I could eat three dozen, if they weren't so expensive. I'm digressing. Point is, I love this book and I love having opportunities to hear people's opinions about the characters and the drama. So buy a copy, durn it: http://www.amazon.com/No-More-Lies-Rachel-Skerritt/dp/0758216017/sr=8-5/qid=1169163807/ref=sr_1_5/104-2156885-3819107?ie=UTF8&s=books
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Buying a House: The Most Horribly Wonderful Experience Ever
Since my last post, there's been a lot of stuff going on. But today I'll focus on the fact that I have now closed on and moved into my condo. It is a fabulous space in a terrific neighborhood (Roxbury for life!); hence the "wonderful" in the subject line. However, the actual process of moving has been excrutiatingly painful, and never really seems to end.
I moved the big stuff over a month ago, because I don't have any friends who love me enough to try to lift my piano. This was actually the only enjoyable part of the move, because one of the men who showed up to put in a hard day's work happened to be drop dead gorgeous. If I had taken pictures as he lifted my piano in the rain, I could have the beginning of a pin-up calendar. So I didn't mind writing the check for five hundred bucks at the end of it all.
The roughest part about moving is all the little stuff. My mom decided to help me out this past week when I was out of town, and tried to move my file cabinet from my old residence to the new place. Because it was heavy, she was hit with the brilliant idea of emptying all of the contents into a TRASH BAG, so she could lift the cabinet more easily. Try to imagine years of tax returns, bills, book contracts, insurance forms, travel documents, all arranged by hanging folders. Now picture them in a trash bag. To make matters worse, imagine someone seeing the trash bag at the old house, presuming that the bag is carrying actual trash, and throwing real garbage into it.
Still, I don't know what I would do without my mom's help during this odious process, as I certainly didn't have people clamoring to help me pack and unload my five closets worth of clothes and three hundred pounds worth of books.
I will end the post with two very exciting pieces of news: 1) I now have my very own shoe closet. It's all that I dreamed and more. 2) I am now a high school principal. Maybe this means I should stop writing about things like shoe closets and cute movers. Till next time!
I moved the big stuff over a month ago, because I don't have any friends who love me enough to try to lift my piano. This was actually the only enjoyable part of the move, because one of the men who showed up to put in a hard day's work happened to be drop dead gorgeous. If I had taken pictures as he lifted my piano in the rain, I could have the beginning of a pin-up calendar. So I didn't mind writing the check for five hundred bucks at the end of it all.
The roughest part about moving is all the little stuff. My mom decided to help me out this past week when I was out of town, and tried to move my file cabinet from my old residence to the new place. Because it was heavy, she was hit with the brilliant idea of emptying all of the contents into a TRASH BAG, so she could lift the cabinet more easily. Try to imagine years of tax returns, bills, book contracts, insurance forms, travel documents, all arranged by hanging folders. Now picture them in a trash bag. To make matters worse, imagine someone seeing the trash bag at the old house, presuming that the bag is carrying actual trash, and throwing real garbage into it.
Still, I don't know what I would do without my mom's help during this odious process, as I certainly didn't have people clamoring to help me pack and unload my five closets worth of clothes and three hundred pounds worth of books.
I will end the post with two very exciting pieces of news: 1) I now have my very own shoe closet. It's all that I dreamed and more. 2) I am now a high school principal. Maybe this means I should stop writing about things like shoe closets and cute movers. Till next time!
