Day Eight

We wake up early for continental breakfast and pack the car for our trip. We get out of there at about 11am and get lost around 1 or 2pm -- no one is quite sure when it happened exactly. We make it back to Grandma's a bit after 4, and I have won the contest of who can keep their tootsie roll pop the longest (I never bit the bastard). Grandma has us try on her old clothes. Morgan is hott stuf in Grandma's black and white checkered square dancing dress, with a huge skirt for good spins. We all settle down and watch The Imposters and chill out. The other part of the family comes over around 10pm and we watch "King of the Hill" and give them presents and talk awhile. Eventually, they have to go back home since Rachel and Luke have actual things to do in the morning. I call Brandon, and we get to actually talk for the first time in a week. Pretty pathetic the way separation hit us so hard. We were going to go for the whole 2 week period of combined vacation time, but we couldn't hold out. The phone bills are going to be massive. C'est la vie. In 30 days, he'll be in my house (arms, bed, etc).

Day Seven

The last day of convention. When Mom woke me up, Morgan and Dad had already left for Islands of Adventure early in the morning. Mom and I ate breakfast at the hotel, then bustled onto the shuttle bright and early. On the last day of exhibits, most publishing houses sell all hteir merchendise so that they don't have to lug it back with them. Therefore, Mom and I were buying up loads and loads of books. Plus, we found Paul Janeczko signing again, and he recognized us, which made me happy. We bought about 50 of his books, which I'm excited to read. After another hour or so, our shoulders were killing us, so we made our way to the little food court thing where I had an Italian parmesan pretzel and a pepsi. When Mom finished, she ventured back out into the sea of booths for "20 minutes" (ha!) while I guarded bags and bags and bags of books at our table. I'm not kidding when I tell you we took up about 5 or 6 chairs, for just today's ventures. Mom finished a little before 2pm, so we loaded up with bags and dragged ourselves across the exhibit hall, through the convention center, and onto the shuttle bus. We had to stop for a couple breaks, but we made it without killing ourselves. Back at the hotel, I lay on the couch and read Blushing, a collection of love poems. It put me in a mood. I called Brandon and interrupted his painting, which I felt bad about. He promised to call me back when he got done, and I was very grateful. After everyone in the family had taken naps, we went out for dinner at the Chicago-style pizza place across the street. It may be said that Orlando is not pedestrian friendly, but we certainly ended up walking to more places than we drove to. Morgan and I split a deep dish pepperoni pizza and cokes. At the hotel, Dad ordered tickets for himself, Morgan, and me to see Spiderman 2 at midnight. My father is a nut. We got to the theatre early, supposedly, but the crowd was huge and the line was long. Plus the place was a Muvico, like the one we have at Peabody Place. It didn't have a train motif, and yet it managed to be even more disgusting and tacky than Memphis's own. About 20 minutes of that night represented Alanna In Orlando very well. I think I was wearing one of my paisley thrift store skirts and my dad's old Billy Joel tourt shit. I hadn't washed my hair in a couple days, and it hadn't been brushed in months, maybe years. I felt way worse than usual because of being in Orlando. First of all, it's foreign territory; it's not my city. Secondly, it's fucking Orlando, tourist capital of the world. Everybody's tan and thin and blond and muscly and picture. It's easy to ignore (or avoid) when every place you go is at least half full of librarians, but this midnight movie showing was definitely not. Plus I was with my comic geek Dad, and Morgan & I were holding our Sprite, raisinettes, and reese's pieces, and the whole thing was quite ridiculous. Plus we had to wait in a really long line outside of the theatre in which I bitched about every movie poster we passed by. Anyway the movie was pretty good, for that kind of movie. And anyway I've been feeling kind of sentimental lately, what can I say? Still, a large portion of the movie was just incredibly frustrating to me, although I mostly got over it. We got home at 2:30 or 3am, and I'd (of course) missed my call from Brandon. Morgan was jittery but I went straight to sleep.

Day Six

Nobody wakes up until 11am, and good for us. We take the shuttle to the convention center and walk across the street to the Peabody Hotel -- a larger version of the Memphis one. They even have ducks in the lobby fountain. Quite irritating. We had a quick lunch at the B-Line Bistro. I had a turkey B-Line Deli sandwich and half of a huge chocolate chip cookie with Morgan. We headed back to the exhibits and Dad went off to a meeting. Today we had to look at a lot of stuff for Mom's work, and that was fine. We still met Paul Janeczko and Walter Dean Myers. I can't really remember what we did all day lon, honestly. But I know that at 5pm we met up with Dad at the ALA Store. We loaded Morgan and Dad up with bags and packed them off to the hotel. Mom and I walked next door to the Rosen Plaza, bought medium size cafe mochas from their Starbucks, and went up to the second floor for a poetry reading by about 15 to 20 children's poets. The line up included Douglas Florian, Nikki Grimes, Paul Janeczko, Walter Dead Myers, Marilyn Singer, Lane Smith, Jane Yolen, and many others. It ran way over time, and we were there for almost 3 hours -- it was great though. We took a taxi back to the hotel and then went right back out for dinner with the rest of the family at Cafe Tu Tu Tango again. We dined on alligator bites, coconut shrimp, and bread & crackers with hummus. Then we all had dessert! I ordered some kind of chocolate thing covered in nuts that I didn't eat, surrounded by a raspberry sauce moat. Just before our desserts came, I tried to start this discussion with Dad after he made a comment about the music, tying it to the movie he'd first heard it in. Unfortunately, he and the rest of the family saw it was an attack and jumped back at me. I gave up and slumped into silence for the rest of the night. It was really fucked up to witness that they functioned better and were more happy when I wasn't talking. When we got back to the hotel, I called Brandon just to leave a message, then tried to go to sleep in my parents' bed. Mom came in after a while, and I went back to sleep. Dad woke me up again when he finally came in, and he bumbled around for what felt like forever, then tried to make me scoot over so that he could sleep on the other side of me. I was already angry and cranky and I just left the room and went to the fold out bed with Morgan. I hate being woken up. Luckily I got back to sleep quickly, but it was a bad night anyway.

Day Five

I woke up pretty freaked out, wishing my prince had come to save me from that dream. Unfortunately, during all that dreaming, Morgan and I had slept the morning away. Mom woke us up when she came home from her meeting, around 11. We missed a lot of signings, but by the time we got to the convention center, it was basically time for everybody's lunch break anyway. So instead of going to the exhibits, we walked to the nearby Rosen Plaza Hotel and had lunch at their restaurant Cafe Matisse. Then we stopped by the hotel's Starbucks where I ordered a mocha frappuccino, seeing as we were about to walk in the blinding hot hot sun all the way back to the convention center. But of course, we ended up going in this weird side door into the center, so the outdoor walk was very shot. Basically, I froze all day long because it was so cold inside. It sucked, and I felt really weird standing in all the lines with my damn Starbucks frap. When we did get into the exhibit all, we set Morgan down by the wall next to Scholastic, and Mom and I trekked off into the sunset. I love doing this so much. And our team works so well. Morgan holding down the fort by sitting on the sidelines with our excess bags, me and Mom splitting up and standing in different lines so we can cover more territory. I love it. I held our spot in (this year's Caldecott winner) Mordicai Gerstein's line while Mom slid through Eric Carle. Then Mom took my place for Mordicai while I made the rounds, combing back to Bothh 2300 to report that Nikki Grimes and Angela Johnson were signing simultaneously several aisles away. Which books? I'm on it, and off again, dipping through the crowds of librarins with perfect grace. Ho ho! Today I'm invogorated (is it the coffee?) I feel in place. We head over to the collective Canadian publishers' booth and look at several utterly gorgeous new picture books -- Red Tree, new versions of Pinocchio and Alice In Wonderland, reissues of Terry Jones/Michael Foreman story books, a digitally created version of Over the Meadow, and so on. It was amazing to me that this tiny, brand new imprint of the collective publishers had some just plain gorgeous books that no was seeing because they're hidden over in the damn 700s aisle, when the biggest children's publishers are up in the 2100s through 2300s. Mom was flipping through this beautiful WWII book called In Flanders Fields when I sighed despondently and turned across the aisle, to the part of the display we hadn't ploughed through yet. There's a man with a pen sitting at a table next to one of the publishing reps, a little sign advertising "Michael Foreman now signing!" I turn back around, blink a few seconds, and glance over at that new edition of Fairy Tales -- I'm NOT wrong that Michael Foreman is the illustrator of what used to be my favorite books on the planet. I poke Mom and whisper "Michael Foreman is over there." She doesn't believe me. Hell, I don't believe me. She insists, "No he's not!" We both look back over our shoulders and sure enough, there he is. Alone. No line. Nobody for miles, except the nervous rep. We scuttle over and, in shot, make a scene. Later, the rep will tell us later that we couldn't have done it better if she'd paid us. Apparently Mr. Foreman just showed up from his London home and she had no way to publicize by then. They'd been pushed out to the boonies of the exhibit hall (though still not quite as far as the L. Ron Hubbard booth) so nobody knew he was there. Except us. We told him of my love for Fairy Tales -- especially the Fly-By-Night-- as well as Spider the Cat, Cat and Canary, and on and on. We must've bought six books. We couldn't help it, the man is adorable. He showed us how he slipped himself and his house into some tiny illustrations. We wanted to take a picture but I only had my own camera, with dead batteries. Morgan had the digital, so no picture for us. I was so happy that we got to meet Michael Foreman. I wonder if even a single other person stopped to talk to him. The rest of the day, I walked around carrying the new Bedtime Stories in front of me like a sign. Mom and I told a few random people to go see him, but I don't think anyone took us seiously. It made me really upset and I got kind of depressed for a large portion of the day. I took a really long shower, and you know what that means. But, we ended up going to dinner with Debbie (my mother's cousin who lives in Orlando) at Bahama Breeze. I tried everybody's drinks, and I even sampled a chicken wing appetizers. I consumed a beautiful vanilla milkshake, and then had only chocolate mousse for dinner. How disgusting I am! Seeing Debbie was really nice, since we haven't seen her for years. She has totally different interests and tastes than we do, but she's so much fun to be around that it was still a successful night. She kept saying how much I look like Phyllis. I wonder if I actually look like her. I do wear all her old clothes... We said goodbye to Debbie around 9:30 and headed over to the convention center to see a special conference showing of Farenheit 9/11 at 10pm. Beforehand they told us that the movie made that night was being donated would go towards efforts to protect the First Amendment, intellectual freedom, and USA PATRIOT Act education. (If you didn't know, librarians hate the PATRIOT Act because it allows your library records to be searched and the librarian can't even tell you about it.) Then showed a little short film made by ALA that talked about how great librarians are and all they stuff they do for the community and how underpaid they are. So everybody was all riled up when Michael Moore's movie started. There were hisses, cheers, angry comments, and applause. I honestly don't think there was a dry eye in the place by the end of it. We left the convention center all in a tizzy, Mom shouting into the night "WE HAVE TO DO OUR PART!" as we drove away. She wants to get a sign or three for our front lawn. I came home tired at 2am and went to bed as soon as I could.

Day Four

We wake up around 7am and hop down to the hotel's continental breakfast. I have 2 poppyseed muffins, scrambled eggs, bacon, and apple jews. I've been eating more than ever lately, and it's driving me crazy. We take the shuttle bus over to the convention center before the exhibits are even open. We get first dibs on all bags, buttons, coffee mugs, and other goodies. We also get to meet Tamara Pierce, author of the Lioness Quartet, four books about a girl named Alanna, several of which Mom read while she was pregnant with me and were at least part of the reason for my name. Ms. Pierce said that was a first, and was quite flattered. We spent a few hours at the exhibits in their prime and eventually left to put our many many bags back at the hotel. We ended up taking a shot nap before Mom left for her meeting. Morgan and I were instructed to come to the exhibits on our own and meet at the Ursula K. LeGuin signing at 3:30pm. Well, Morgan and I were sucked into a VH1 program called Totally Gay! or something like that. We didn't leave the rom until 2:45 and when we got to the convention center, realized we'd forgotten our badges. Since we were already so late, we just sat around outside the exhibit hall waiting for Mom. We spotted her after only about 10 minutes. She went ahead and got Ursula K. LeGuin's signature while Morgan and I checked out the ALA Store. Then we went back to the hotel, took a real nap -- for 3 fucking hours, or some craziness. I've been sleeping so much lately, it isn't even funny. I think my sleeping and eating patterns are directly related. Fuck that shit, I'm ready to go back to my life of barely sleeping with a steady diet of air and crackers. Anyway, Dad came back to the hotel and we got on a bus to go to Universal Studios. It took a damn hour to get there, with all the hotels we stopped at. We really only ended up going because it was this special 'scholarship bash' thing that ALA was doing, so the only people there were librarians, and it really wasn't crowded at all. We rode Terminator 2, Back to the Future, Men in Black, Shrek 2, and ae at Mel's Drive-In, where I had a lovely vanilla milkshake. We got out of there around 11:30 and had to wait for the shuttle buses, so we didn't get home until about 12:30. Morgan put the TV on for a little while and we watched "Reno 911" which actually helped spawn a nightmare I had. It was pretty disturbing stuff. I'm sort of glad I remebered it at all, though, since I normally don't. Good for me.

Day Three

Mom wakes us up for breakfast and we dawdle since Dad decided to skip his 2 o'clock meeting. Grandma shovels pancakes down our throats. Her theory is that since we'll be in the car, we might as well eat a full day's meal now. Best quote ever -- "The black ones are blueberry. They're purple." ho ho ho! We packed up the van and set out. I listened to Throwing Muses, Pixies, and Kimya Dawson while drinking coke and eating white cheddar popcorn. Man oh man. We only ever buy that stuff on road trips. I felt disgusting. We drove into Orlando with the Pixies' Bossanova blasting in my ears on top of the grossy tacky buildings going on forever into the horizon. I already hate this city. We check into the hotel before walking to Cafe Tu Tu Tango which is a pretty cool little restaurant/art gallery place. We then walked past the horrible buildings in the heat down to the convention center to get our ALA passes. We rode the shuttle bus back to the hotel and watched Down With Love. Mom and Dad left to go hear a panel of fantasy authors read and speak. Morgan and I go swimming in the in/outdoor pool until lightning starts. I stick my foot in the lobby fountain just to be silly. We watch the storm from inside -- the ceiling of the hotel is glass, and there's big windows (overlooking the Aussie Steak House) in our hotel room. The TV has cut out, so we travel to every floor of the hotel to check out what kind of vending machines they've got. We finally end up getting ice cream from the machine on our own floor. When we get back to the room, the TV is working in, so we partake in a good heaping helping. Alaska provides entertainment even afte the parents come home. Morgan and I unfolded the futon couch and watched some more crap TV before sleep. Is it odd to watch moe television when you're on vacation? I always end up doing that somehow.
(happy birthday, sallis!)

Day Two

I wake up at about 12:30 and lay in bed forever and ever. At some point my cell phone beeps and tells me I've missed a call from Brandon, so I call him back. He's at work so he can't really talk -- it turns out he'd called the night before and my cell phone is a dumbass. He's in a really sad mood, and I don't know what I can possibly do. Morgan and I stay in bed forever longer. Rachel had to go to dance and she left hours ago while we were sleeping. Luke brings us breakfast in bed -- chips, pretzels, cookies, and Berry Gatorade. Food of the Gods. We leave that house around 2:30 and go back to the other house where everyone's trying to set up the DVD player unsuccessfully. Morgan reads The Count of Monte Cristo while I go through old photo albums -- these always fascinate me. Rachel comes home, and we all sit around for awhile. I take a walk out into the soft truck-tread dirt through the tobacco field. I watch butterflies in Grandma's garden. I wish we were younger so that we could still play on haystacks or catch minnows or pretend we were elves in houses of trees. Maybe I can convince them when we get back from Orlando... Eventually I was missed and Morgan came looking for me. Inside we were sitting around the kitchen table when Dad and Papa came back from town, where they had gotten the batteries in five watches to get fixed. I synchronized them down to the second because I'm insane. Now I am the Mayor from Nightmare Before Christmas. Later we had dinner (I had a biscuit, anyway) before Morgan, Rachel, and I went to the attic to explore. We came upon an old trunk of my aunt Phyllis's old clothes and trinkets. We got Grandma, Mom, and Aunt Jenny o come up and look too -- we found a lot of awesome things and tried some on. I think high school age Phyllis and I have similiar taste because I'm bringing virtually everything we found back home. In the middle of all this, the power went out because of a storm. We lit some candles and eveybody had ice cream. A tree at the end of the road got split in half. Grandma found some old cheap ground fireworks which we played with in the driveway. The 6th one sort of spluttered and then flew towards my Dad in a mad rage. It was insane. I guess it was angry at him for standing on the porch, instead of in the driveway with the rest of us. The one after that flew up in the air and split in two. After that we stuck to running around with sparklers. We also ran around the carport trying to catch a frog. He was soft and calm, and I was afraid I was holding him too hard. I'm such a little kid, I loved it. Then we watched A Thousand Clowns which was really really good. When it was over, I called Brandon, who had called me 6 times that night and somehow my phone never rang. Again, he was really upset, and I couldn't console him in any way. I felt so helpless and farther away than ever. Plus that's supposed to be our last conversation until our vacations are over (July 7? I can't remember. It's 11 days, I think.) which should be good for us since we're both obsessed and pining sickeningly. Our phones kept breaking up and I had to switch rooms repeatedly. I sat on the porch awhile with Dexter the cat but a dragonfly came up there to die, loudly and using quite a lot of the porch space. He was way too overdramatic so I went back inside and eventually went to bed upstairs with Rachel and Morgan.

Day One

We leave the house arund 11am -- a late start! It rains most of the day and there's bad traffic, so we don't get to Alma until 11pm. All day I listen to music (Brandon's summer mix, Kimya Dawson, Dead Milkmen, De La Soul, Rasputina etc.) and think about dancing in my kitchen. I get chills like mad from a lot of the songs. I feel obsessive more than usual today. Is it just that I'm awakening? So we finally get to Alma and have a brownie. We present Grandma and Papa with a DVD player gift and a few movies. Eventually, Morgan and I go to sleep over at Curtis, Jenny, Rachel, and Luke's house across the pond. Rachel and Morgan put on The Goonies but I'm suddenly very tired, and I try to sleep, which turns out to be impossible because Rachel and Morgan talk and talk and talk through the whole thing. I think about my friends and worry. I do not dream.