Pally dragging and Elephant Seals
June 16, 2002
I'm reading a pig book. Daddy's day is today. Gave him a superhero calloge with his face pasted on superman's head. Read all day. MET COLEMAN BARKS! AUTHOR DUDE! AHA! We ate some Asian food but Alanna didn't want to so she wa pissy little demon the whole time and ordered the same meat on a stick as me. We got a picture of Ben stein. Alanna and I went for a swim with dad and fought over him like male elephant seals. (We're not male elephant seals.) I swam under the gate between pools with the sign that ays "no swimming beyond this point" and accidentally ran into a Asian kid and he said "no swimming beyond this point" and I apologized. Alanna and I said I ran into him and accidentally hit him with a big rock three or four times and decided he'd be okay, because his pally was dragging him out of the pool. That didn't really happen. Dad got tried so we got some candy and are watching Ocean's Eleven. Went to the 41st floor again.

Cubby the Soap Wonder
June 15, 2002
Blah! We did go to the book thing today. I sat and red.
P.S. (While watching T.V. & soap operas & sitcoms)
Alanna: There are four characters on the show.
Morgan: And they're all named CUBBY!

BUM BOTTOM ABILITY
June 14, 2002 3:16
We were gonna go to the shops. I was gonna ask where they were. I wasn't. Was. Wasn't. I know what you're thinking. My brain is a giant decapetated chicken trying to decide which wall to run into. Much fun. We went swimming. Alanna loves to impersonate my ability to Kick the air but I can touch the bottom of 5 feet with my BUM! HAHAHAHA! Alanna cannot. Alanna is now wrapping herself in the curtain. It began to thunder, so we left the pool and went ALL the WAY to the 17TH FlOOR. And then we got out and walked around! AHA! WOOOOOHOOOO!

DingBat 17th FlORE
June 14, 2002, 11:00
Alanna and I went up to the 9th floor. Then the 10th, 11th, 12th. Alanna wanted to go to the 17th (there are 48.) Me, I'm not afraid of heights. Just falling from them. That being extremely true, I said no. But she pressed the up button so I had to follow. For Some reason I thought she wasn't pressing it. But she did. I closed my eyes and cried some almost. Allanna laughed. Then I laughed. Good times. When we got up to 17 we didn't get out. Went back down.
P.S. "I had a heart of tenderness and pity" sasy the dingbat lady on the movie that twas on.

Bluberry Bagel Lady
June 14, 2002
I was awake from 1:00 to 4:40 last night. It was awful. Mom and dad are at the pre conference. Blah Blah Ruzza Ruzza Blah Blah Blah. Let's get to the choclaty goodness of today. I had a blueberry bagel downstairs. There was a T.V. Because it showed a 10-10-220 commercial, it is no longer holy in mine eye. We stole some iodized salt. We will now explore the Hotel. We're out to discover!
P.S. The bagle lady is nice.

SAtANIC DUcK NOISE
June 14, 2002, 1:00 in the morning.
Everyone's asleep in the room, Mom's here. Alanna and I went swimming. I had onion rings and cheese sticks for supper. I cant sleep. The dad makes a satanic duck noise. The city lights are eerie faery glow kinda through the curtains. I bet city is beautiful from up here.

PEACH TREE OKY DOKY
June 13, 2002
On our way to Atlanta. We're going for the American Library Association. I just saw a red plastic bag twirling and spinning in the air before it fell on the street. We are in Atlanta. It's like Memphis only bigger. It does't feel like Memphis. I saw a taxi. Not many of those in Mempphs.
"Good Lord. That's Peach Tree? Do I turn left? How do I get over there... Which is white halll which is Peach Tree. okey dokey, yes." <- This is dad stressing and solving a directional problem to get to the Hotel.

Day Six, Entry Twenty-six
Midnight. We've been here for a good long while obviously. Strange that I'm writing this in this journal now, i guess. well let's see. on the road, we never had lunch. just pecan twirls and crispy M&M's and root beer from some gas station that i guess used to be a house and that was obviously some kind of hangout for bored kids. they also sold leann rimes shirts but mom wouldnt buy one for me. i finished reading only part one of american gods because i read so damn slowly. anyway we got here some time before 6. the dogs are very excited to see mom. my cat is not swelling.

farewell until next vacationing.

Day Six, Entry Twenty-five
What I Hate About Highway Traffic Jams:
You sit there forever and ever and ever and you're nearly out, it seems like, and then these big stupid fuckers way far from behind decide to drive on what is NOT a lane (it may be that little anti-lane, or one that's closed a little way ahead, or even the goddam median) and get ahead of you! and THAT is inconsiderate and shit-headed and i hate hate hate that and people who do it.
another thing that really pisses me off:
the goddam strokes. (we had a conversation, Mom and Dad and I, at dinner on Thursday night.) did you know they actually use technology to make their voices and whatnot sound rougher and grungier? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT! THAT'S DEFEATING THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF THE SOUND! ALL THEIR MUSIC IS A LIE. THEREFORE THEY ARE A LIE. i didn't know that before Dad told me. he read it in some interview. before he'd even said that, i was trying to describe their sound to mom and said something like "it's pop disguised as alternative rock" and told her how all these delusional people listen to it and think they're being grunge and cool and un-hip and then they call the goddam strokes the fucking saviors of rock and/or alternative. they have no fucking idea. that shit is just as fake and synth-pop and satanic as Britney Spears. it's so ridiculous because in a way you'd think their stuff is simple and fucking easy enough for anyone to play and the guy in the damn band has to fuck with his voice to get the stupid sound. what does that say about the band? i hate hate hate them and people who like them.
another thing that pisses me off:
the perks of being a wallflower HAHAHAHAHAHAHA just kidding. i'll leave you alone.
but just for you information, the other day I discovered that fucking ALA had picked the perks of being a wallflower as one of the best YA books of 2000 or something like that. It was all YALSA's fault of course. So for the rest of the conference I glared at people with YALSA stickers on their badges. They never saw me doing it of course. But that really pissed me off.

Day Six, Entry Twenty-four
12:10 We didn't find the stupid $30 shirt so hopefully somebody packed it without remembering. We're trying to find the highway. Yes. We are in the car. You should see it. STUFFED!!! there are 3 bags at my feet. 8 or 9 bags up front. god knows how many bags and 3 suitcases in the back. I have convinced the family to let me listen to Throwing Muses in (further) honor of Atlanta. god god god I love this album. (their debut) I'm going to read now. Bye.

Day Six, Entry Twenty-three
It's almost 12. We're done with ALA! My shoulders ACHE like anything. We're back at the hotel because we left the ugly long-sleeved shirt in the room. (and plus our car is still in the garage.) Mom just came back and said it wasn't in the room so she's looking for our very nice maid. Morgan and Dad just came back from the bathroom and Morgan is telling him about her Egg and Cookie Man comics. She got upset because there's some comic published by Viz or somebody called Hamtaro where the main hamster looks almost exactly like the Puddin hamster character from her comic. Puddin is actually based on me, you know. " but only when you act drunk." according to morgan

Day Six, Entry Twenty-two
Morgan and I brought the last 3 bags. Dad wasn't in the room so we figured he carried stuff too (which turned out to be 3 bags and 1 suitcase) but we didn't see him at all which shows how huge the hotel is, if you didn't believe me already. Dad is in the room again picking up all the loose items.

Day Six, Entry Twenty-one
Mom brought 3 bags and sent us up to get the rest.

Day Six, Entry Twenty
9:55am Trying to get situated in my chair is not working. I am dropping things everywhere.

Day Six, Entry Nineteen
9:50am Morgan and Mom brought five more bags

Day Six, Entry Eighteen
we are getting ready to leave. mom and i carried two bags and two suitcases to the lobby. I am sitting with them.

Day Five, Entry Seventeen
nearly 10 pm. we are basically finished packing. earlier, we went to the pool for a while but I spent most of my time reading American Gods and listening to Kristin Hersh more. I only went because Morgan wanted company, and I did swim for a little while. Morgan wasn't feeling well when we came back to the room, but Dad was there. After that I took a shower and everyone napped. Mom, Dad, and I walked to dinner at some Bosco's-esque place called Max Lager's. They were big on beer. so i had root beer. Morgan obviously stayed at the hotel (sick?) and watched TV. dinner was ok. in the room, we watched "Witchblade" and i am now discovering that i hate "seinfeld," as does the family, and have no idea why everyone likes it and what is with the laugh track?!?!
most entertaining things about watching seinfield:
trying to laugh with the laugh track
as mom says, "waiting for it to be over"
the Wolf Man - ancient man with huge, grey, shaggy beard that covers his whole head. he sells Atlantan furniture. i am in love.

anyway, we are going to bed soon hopefully.

Day Five, Entry Sixteen
1:56pm and we are back at the hotel, and I am falling in love with this pen. YES! We left convention a little while ago, rode the shuttle back. Morgan and I ran around the hotel more, taking pictures with film that Mom and I bought in the little hotel gift shop thing. I'm going to read some more of American Gods finally if I can find it and listen to Kristin Hersh in honor of Atlanta. Morgan and I are whispery so that Mom can nap. Dad is still in meetings.


Day Five, Entry Fifteen
Well! This is the first time I've written from convention. We woke up this morning plenty early but it took us forever to leave and we were LATE getting out, so we didnt have time to eat breakfast at the hotel. Mom bought film for me in the atrium gift shop and talked to the lady at the counter, who was from Memphis and saw it on Mom's ALA badge.Then Morgan told us that she'd forgotten her badge in the room so we had to go back and that made us even later. Somehow, though, when we actually got here, (Mom, Morgan, and I. Dad was in a meeting) we didn't miss anyone we'd planned to see! That was pretty great. Firstly, at Penguin Putnam, Katherine Paterson signed quite a few of her books for us, but I forgot to take her picture. Then we went to Laurie Halse Anderson,but they only had Speak for sale, so she just signed her galley of Catalyst and let me take her picture. We looked at photos of her daughters. Next we met Susan Guevara, Barbara Kerley, Brian Selznick, and Pam Muñoz Ryan who make children's books for Penguin Putnam. We stood in the longest line we've stood in all convention, for Linda Sue Park's A Single Shard which won the award this year. very prestigious stuff. It's pretty amazing since that won along with Newbery Medal Three Pigs by David Wiesner for Caldecott, but we had that autographed already. Anyway, both books are published by Clarion, which is a really small company, comparatively. Everyone is quite proud of them. Point being: while we were in the line this woman coming around with post-it notes (for people to write their name on and stick on the book so that the author would know who to sign to) who told me she liked sleater-kinney (i was wearing the shirt obviously) and told me about the Quasi concert she saw recently in NYC, which is Janet Weiss's other band, who is the drummer for S-K. That was quite cool. After that we met Peter Dickinson (who is married to Robin McKinley) and he was quite wonderful. Then we ate mini pizzas and Morgan is demanding the pen. It's almost 12:30. Mom is walking around the exhibits alone now, here for work though. We're deciding what to do next, sort of. Ta-ta!

Day Four, Entry Fourteen
Well, I DID take my notebook to the convention today, I swear. I just didn't write in it, is all. We woke up earlier this morning, so we got to have breakfast here (I had a donut. I told Dad I wanted a bagel with cream cheese but he somehow translated this as "coffee cake" so I got to eat his breakfast. I hate coffee cake. I hate nuts.) Mom, Morgan, and I took the shuttle to convention and met Leonard Marcus right off and Mom made a general fool of herself and it was wonderful. No one minded, of course. Then Nancy Farmer signed the galley of her new book for us. Then we got Rosemary Wells to sign some things for us, and afterwards Mom and I sat Morgan in her corner again. Next we got Chris Raschka and Vladimir Radunsky to autograph their children's book Table Manners in which Mr. Radunsky purposefully signed his name upside down. the book is hilarious btw. I won't bore you with too many details. I'll try to have a list at some point with all the people we met and whatnot. From about 11:30 to 2, we had NOTHING TO DO. So Mom, Morgan, and I had sandwiches, walked around the convention center, checked 2 bags, froze to death, bought an ugly long-sleeved shirt at the ALA store, sat outside, decided that the puppet museum or whatever the hell it is was too far away to walk to, complained about how ugly the shirt was to the ALA store cashier woman, and headed back to the exhibits too early. It was a great day, even though I did fall asleep amongst the bags in Morgan's corner for a few minutes while Mom bought sandwiches. We met up with Dad before Coleman Barks' poetry reading. (he as FANTASTIC! and quite funny. he translated all these Rumi poems into English and became a bestseller, and Morgan used a lot of his stuff for her Rumi history fair project, and told him so, and I took their picture, which you will get to see if I love you.) After we took the shuttle back to the Marriott, I feel asleep AGAIN as soon as I hit the bed. Sorry about not writing again, I really meant to. I hate only having one entry per day. Oh yeah, today is Father's Day. Mom gave him a Celtic tie, Morgan gave him this collage of super hero pictures (that i printed for her off the internet) with Dad's face glued over Superman's. I gave him the Ramones anthology. I got a bazillion comments on my shirt (I was wearing my Girl Goddess #9 shirt which was free from ALA several years ago when it came out. also some jeans. night sock. snake sock. black converse low tops. faery earrings. ghastly ALA shirt)
We went to the little Pacific Food Bistro or whatever the fuck it was called. Hut Of Asian Food. I ate these little meat things and garlic pasta. We came back, went up to the 41st floor again. Morgan, Dad, and I went swimming while Mom napped, and then we all watched "Ocean's Eleven" back in the room. Mom and I had a semi-discussion about Go Ask Alice and we decided that it's not really a true story and that's just a thing to sell it. after all, it IS in the fiction section at bookstores. "Alice" is the typical teenage addict. she could be anyone, really. but these specific events. nah. It's hard for me to think of Atlanta so much as a city more than the Marriott and the convention center. Atlanta is only ALA for me. We aren't sight-seeing at ALL which is actually a pretty massive relief. COMPLETE focus on Ye Books. But it also means I don't really see people either, besides librarians (which the hotel and restaurants are simply teeming with.) So I guess I won't really be able to speak in terms of Atlanta because really I don't know anything about it. We haven't gone ANYWHERE except restaurants and even some of those have been inside the hotel. Right now, Mom and Dad are trying to sleep now but I've got the light on and I have no idea what Morgan is doing in the bathroom. My sleeping patterns have gotten more regular even though I'm REALLY tired sometimes during the day or right when we get back to the hotel. I've ben trying to save things like napkins (yes, clean) and business cards and things as souvenir kinda things. I don't know why. Like last year when I picked up all these postcards knowing I wouldn't send them. I'm insane. Or maybe I just need a hobby. Or a LIFE! Yes, I did just write over two pages about my non-day, and you? I really like this pen though. shwa shwa. Goodnight.

Day Three, Entry Thirteen
wow. let's see. t his morning seems like SO LONG AGO! sorry i haven't written all day, but i forgot to take my notebook to convention (not that i really would've had time to write.) the first thing I remember from this morning is lying in bed waiting for somebody t come out of the bathroom. i was the last one to use it, therefore the last one to get dressed, therefore the last one to be ready, therefore everyone was LATE, therefore it was all my fault? it wasn't a great way to start off exhibits. we found the shuttle bus (which transports librarians around to and from their hotels to other hotels for meetings or the convention center, where we were going.) Dad went to get in line for Neil Gaiman (yes, again!) who, in the conference program, was listed as "Neal Gorman." Mom had to get mine and Morgan's exhibit passes, so that took far too long. we took about a million escalators down to get to the exhibits and headed straight for HarperCollins to find Dad in the American Gods line, which he was not in because apparently it was moved quickly. So he was in the line next door for Art Spiegelman, signing Maus, Little Lit, and (Morgan's favorite) Open Me, I'm A Dog, which was QUITE a long line. or maybe it felt longer because it was the first. i don't know. i was quite disappointed about not getting to meet mr. gaiman, BUT Mom sent Morgan and I to get his new children's book Coraline signed. While in the line, I was offered a free copy of either American Gods (paperback) or Stardust (without the Charles Vess illustrations) for him to sign as well. I took Stardust because Dad already had Mr. Gaiman sign his hardback American Gods and besides, Morgan, who was behind me in line, could get it. But, seeing as she is a complete and utter IDIOT, she said "no, thank you" when the nice man offered it to her. NO THANK YOU??? a word to the wise: in the ALA exhibits hall, you NEVER say "no, thank you." I was quite upset and beat her brutally. sort of. anyway though, Mr. Gaiman was dressed all in black (including sunglasses) and looked exactly as he does on the jackets of his books. He looks younger than he is, has a stubbly face, and is rather "handsome" as my mother says. and i certainly agree. he was LOVELY LOVELY to speak to. i enjoy him thoroughly (although i did already, obviously.) he signed Coraline to Morgan and I, and he drew a rat, which he told us that he was making sinister by giving it little teeth, evil whiskers, etc. (the book was supposed to be just morgan's but i wanted him to sign something for me because i am greedy that way, only that i just love that man, so we got it to both of us. and then it turned out that i got Stardust free anyway but morgan didnt mind that both of our names are in her book. anyway.) he signed Stardust to me (he drew a moon and a shooting star kinda thing.) i told him i love Sandman and morgan told him she wished she'd brought her plush Delirium doll for him to sign. he said he would have. I think he may have been impressed that younger people read his older books. except not and that is just my wishful thinking. he told us about a Lil Endless manga that Jill Thompson is doing and about the Coraline web site. he seemed to think that it was silly, strange, and exciting that after he finished signing American Gods there at HarperCollins, they were going to move him 6 feet away across the aisle to another table representing HarperChildrens to sign Coraline. (yes, Morgan and I snuck it into the line before we were supposed to. dirty girls!) that was just about the highlight of the day and it was the first thing we did and my hand is going to fall off!!! well i won't go into so much detail for the rest. let's see. we met art spiegelman, and then we had breakfast (bagel with cream cheese, apple juice.) Then Morgan and I tramped off with Mom, and Dad looked at comics. Morgan is JUST as i remembered. She is always 10 steps behind Mom and I, or tying her shoe, or sitting somewhere looking miserable. Eventually we gave her a book and set her down in some corner, near Scholastic. We met lots and lots of authors today, whose names I can't recall. I got to meet Sarah Dessen and she signed her new book This Lullaby to me and her older book Dreamland. I've read neither. Nobody else in the line was talking about Keeping the Moon which is the only one I've read by her and loved SO MUCH. I'm scared to read these two, in case they're really different. We also met Jane Yolen, Nikki Grimes, Pat Cummings, Katrin Tchana, Trina Schart Hyman, and lots of people whose names I can't remember. I got posters and galleys and postcards and several comments about my shirt. (I was wearing the ancient Bob & Dog McKenzie shirt my Dad gave me, my black Moondance skirt, orange sock, pink sock, black Converse low tops, and Nightmare Before Christmas watch with the Mayor on the face. i love that damn watch.) After we took the shuttle back to the hotel, we all took NAPS because it is hard to be a librarian. or something. Dad went to dinner with some committee, and after Morgan complained to death about leaving AND it was discovered that some bistro across the street was too crowded, so we ate sandwiches at the Atrium Express. Then we rode with Mom to the 41st floor and terrified ourselves (sort of) as expected. I should go back and take the camera. Then we watched "Kate and Leopold" on the hotel TV and Dad came home and I have had NO time to read my book and I'm going to bed. Hopefully we won't be in a rush tomorrow morning, and I'll pack my notebook and my camera.