I’m taking off in the morning (Monday), on another flight to D/FW, renting a car, and heading up to Oklahoma City for a reading/signing, and then out west from there to do three more (Portland, Seattle, Bellingham) and then back east to St. Louis for another. I’m gone 10 days this time, then home, then to New York, then to L.A., then home again.

I miss Michael when I’m off like this. He says it’s no big deal to live in the center of (and get left behind by) the Hank Stuever Show, but I can only imagine how quickly it wears thin. Keep in mind — he’s lived with this book as much as I have for the last three or four years. This song makes me think of how soon the Tinsel stuff will be over (would you buy a book about the suburbs and Christmas in January?), and how Michael and I will be flying away on Dec. 25 to sunny California for the holidays, to be with each other for a week and do nothing that has anything to do with book promotion or our jobs. I play this song over and over and think of that.