IT'S BEEN A WHILE.
Partly because I've been traveling the world (read: spending forty hours in a car while my brother sang "Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall"), and partly because life is more demanding than my nonexistent significant other. But I'm back! I promise! And I will be blogging regularly! Hopefully!
So, East Coast Adventures: It was HOT. Like, please-kill-me-before-I-melt-and-drown-in-my-sweat-and-tears kind of HOT. But it was also lovely and crab cake-y, and the history nerd in me exploded from giddiness.
We drove through Baltimore (and had THE BEST crab cakes in the history of crab cakes) and walked through Washington D.C. that afternoon. Unfortunately, we arrived just after most of the museums closed and it started raining halfway through, but then:
The sun came out and painted this gorgeous
double rainbow over the Washington Memorial (the second
one is really faint).
These plaques line the entrance to the WWII Memorial. They tell
the story of the soldiers, from hearing of the war to going to battle to
coming home. So beautiful and evocative. I stood there and cried for at least
ten minutes. People gave me weird looks.
Snapped this one while driving back to our hotel. No filter, just
a naturally breathtaking sky.
On Sunday, we went to Philadelphia and...got there just after tickets
for Independence Hall had sold out. Womp.
The House of Congress didn't require tickets, though, so we got to sit
in the wonderful, wonderful air conditioning and pretend to be Representatives,
where John Adams was inaugurated. This is the Senate room, where
George Washington was sworn into his second term.
And kept driving. Spent a few days in Boston for campus visits and
such, and visited Plymouth. Yes, this is THE ROCK.
And this. This is Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
It's the most gorgeous library in the entire world.
This is basically heaven.
IS THIS NOT BASICALLY HEAVEN?
YEAH, THIS IS THE GUTENBERG BIBLE.
And this is Grove Street Cemetery, the first chartered burial ground
in the U.S. It makes an appearance in MEMENTO MORI, so of course
I had to go see it.
NYC. From the Staten Island Ferry.
More NYC. So pretty. I loved walking through the streets.
I did not love sweating through five thousand shirts and smelling
like an exploded duck.
But the best part of the entire trip? I GOT TO MEET MY AGENT AND EDITOR. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture with my agent, but she was lovely and fantabulous and absolutely amazing beyond words. And she assured me that I succeeded in not making a complete fool of myself. YAY!
And. HarperCollins. I. Went. To. HarperCollins.
It was AWESOME. I got to meet my publisher and the entire
Greenwillow team, and we had donuts that were like pieces of heaven
that someone had killed angels to steal and mold into these perfect
little sugary lovebundles. Except mostly I sat there and stared creepily
around the table and thought, "HOLY SH*T HOLY SH*T YOU GUYS
PUBLISHED SOME OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS IN
THE ENTIRE WORLD."
THIS IS MY NAMETAG. I NEVER INTEND TO
TAKE IT OFF MY JACKET.
SO THAT HAPPENED.
P.S. I'm thinking about starting a vlog. What do you guys think? Anything you want me to talk about in particular?
