Whew! I am exhausted, but in a good way, having just completed a whirlwind three day trip to South Florida. (I'm blogging from the airport!). Where to begin? Thursday I left Boston, where it was a whopping 29 degrees, and arrived an uneventful three hours later in Ft. Lauderdale, where it was about 78 degrees. So already I was happy. I checked into my nice hotel room and promptly fell asleep. Then I strolled across the 17th Street Causeway till I reached the beach, where the hot sand hurt my feet and the water was blue and cool and all was right with the world.
I gathered with the other authors (There were bunches of us, but I spent most of my time hanging out with Tasha Alexander, Lauren Groff, Amy Cohen, and John Hart, all of whom were lovely people whom I did not hate despite the fact that they sell more books than I do. ) (Lauren even got a glowing blurb from Stephen King, who has yet to blurb one of my books despite the fact that I've been a huge fan since I was 12. I'm just sayin', Steve. You could help a guy out.), and we had wine at the hotel, and then proceeded to a gorgeous penthouse apartment with wraparound balcony and beautiful views of the Intracoastal Waterway on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. There was more wine and really delicious heavy hors d'oeuvres. Lots of Broward County bigwigs were there, but I didn't know who any of them were. We left that party at 8, and that's when the real party started! Well, possibly, but I was asleep by 9:30. 'Cause that's how I roll, bitches!
Friday began with a trip to Blanche Ely High School in Pompano. (Go Tigers!) The students and staff were really great, I had a fantastic time, and I would have happily hung out there all day. But I went back to the hotel and napped ('Cause that's how I roll--drowsy and borderline narcoleptic!). Friday night we went to the main library and there was another reception with open bar top-shelf booze (I'm not much of a cocktail drinker, but I felt like I should have taken advantage of the free hooch, but I stuck with wine.) We sat in a circle of tables and signed books. I was sandwiched between the aforementioned John Hart on my right and Kevin Sessums on my left. (Kevin is also a very nice guy). This was a pretty humbling experience, as people were lined up for both John and Kevin and I got the occasional straggler wanting one of my books signed. Highlight--some lady, completly plowed, staggered up to the table, looked at me for a full minute, then pointed at Lauren Groff and said, "I'm goin' over there. I hear she's really good."
From there, I proceeded to the home of Kristin and Stu Jacobs for dinner. They were both really nice, really down-to-earth, really kind people, they cooked a fantastic dinner for 20, and their back yard is simply one of the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen in my life. I was really quite touched at all the effort and genuine hospitality they put into this event. (There may be video of this event showing up on Bocaraton.com, even though we weren't in Boca Raton at the time. But the guys who run the website were there with a video camera.)
I fell into bed at 1 a.m, and this morning went out to the campus of Nova Southeastern University (go sharks!), where Amy Cohen and I had a panel discussion. This was also fun. And then I went down to the lobby to sign books and was next to John Hart again, and once again he outsold and outsigned me probably ten to one. "Hey, I don't have a line!" I called to John's adoring fans. "Buy one of mine and get it signed right away, no waiting!" Some nice fan of John's took pity on me and allowed me to sign their program.
Ah, but I know what you're thinking--Brendan, you were in Ft. Lauderdale for Spring Break! Where were the drunken college girls lifting their shirts up? Well, as you can imagine, the intoxicated spring break crowd flocked to the literary events like frat boys to a warm keg of Milwaukee's Best--you could hardly sign a book without someone thrusting a sharpie into your hand and asking you to sign their left breast! (or, if you prefer, their hairless, rock-hard pecs and washboard abs) This afternoon, tired of wading through Readers Gone Wild everywhere I went, I took the water taxi (complete with cornball commentary about all the yachts and mansions we passed! I saw Leonard Nimoy's house!) over to the beach to buy tacky souvenirs. I landed in the epicenter of spring break. (There was a Howl at the Moon on top of a Hooter's. I think that pretty much sums the whole thing up.) On the water taxi over there, I was thinking to myself, "Why didn't I ever do spring break like this when I was in college? I mean, apart from the fact that I was constantly broke?" The minute I got off the taxi, I realized the reason--everybody I hated in college was there! It was a really repugnant scene I couldn't even enjoy as a prurient voyeur, so I fled back to the water taxi, tacky souvenirs in hand, and feeling deliriously happy to be pushing 40 and about as far away from that moronic bacchanalia as I could be. (Perhaps I sound purtianical--I certainly don't object to fun and collegiate hijinx, but drunken stupid people aren't much fun under the best of circumstances, and when you cram thousands of them into a really small area, it's just depressing.)
Olivia Wakeling, who is neither stupid nor intoxicated (well, then again, the event she planned and worked really hard on is finally over, so she might well be kicking back with a couple of drinks right now, and who could blame her?), and who did a great job organizing this whole thing, drove me to the airport, and here I sit in front of gate D1 feeling incredibly lucky to have been able to be a part of something so fun.
