I’m home! Man, as much as I love connecting with people all over and seeing old friends and making new ones, I’m starting to hate the sight of my suitcase. I can’t imagine what it’s like to really be on tour, six or eight or ten weeks straight. One more trip in 2009—NCTE/ALAN in Philadelphia next weekend. I’m contemplating a rebellion against packing. Maybe I could wear one outfit the entire time, and on the plane both ways. No? Kinda gross, I guess. Not that I’m not grateful to get to tour at all! I totally am. I just wish Sven could pack for me, and that I would never get travel headaches, and also that I (or Sven) could pack my entire kitchen and fridge so as to make it easier to keep my blood sugar under control while on the road. On the up side, G. and I do NCTE together, him being an English teacher and all, so at least I won’t have to sleep alone. Or with Sven.

On this trip, I did my first ever private book club appearance (which sounds way more formal than it was) and had a great time. A group of women in Pacifica read Story of a Girl and had me over to talk about it, while plying me with food and wine. A great discussion about Pacifica, sex, daughters, and sons ensued.

The event at the Pacifica library was, wow, well, it’s hard to explain. It was the first time I’ve been back there in my official capacity as Author Sara Zarr and there were people there who’ve known me since I was a little kid, there was family, there was the pastor that performed our wedding, old SF friends, and Terra Nova classmates as well as a good turnout of current TN students and their English teacher. There are some pictures here at my friend Joe’s blog. A really special night—for me, anyway!

On Friday I visited a couple of high schools on the Peninsula, then Friday night was the Not Your Mother’s Book Club Fall Book Bash at Books Inc. Authors in appearance besides myself: Andrew Smith (In the Path of Falling Objects), LK Madigan (Flash Burnout), Barry Lyga (Goth Girl Rising), and Allen Zadoff (Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have). Based on the combination of excerpts read, the night can only be described as “a chilling laugh-riot,” with Andrew providing most of the chill while Allen had me laughing so hard I was crying, and then I was only crying because his excerpt was poignant as well as hysterical.

Thank you so much to everyone who came out to both events, and if you’ve got pictures leave a comment here with a link or links, would you? I completely failed to get my camera out of my purse.