Month: March 2009

I’m getting on a train in a little while and I just wanted to say to all the people who have emailed me, if you’re reading this, I’m going to answer your email, but it’s going to take a few days.  At least!  I’m not sure what my internet access will be for the two days for instance.  But I’m not ignoring you.  And I appreciate your email.  There’s something very exposed about putting a book out there.  You put your heart and everything you’ve got into it and then you sit back and wait.  Your book is out there, laid bare.  I can’t tell you how that feels.  And the fact of the matter is, some people are going to stomp on your poor frail heart … okay, book.  Maybe you didn’t do a great job this time and that’s the deal. People are going to point that out.  It comes with the territory.  So I love your email.  It makes me feel better.  

Oh, the life of a wuss.  It’s not easy people!!

And my book is on the shelves!!

Check it out!!  They sent me flowers on my pub date!!  And the roses are YELLOW!  (My favorite color.)  You guys are so sweet!!  I screamed when the UPS guy showed up with them.  My desk is so happy and cheerful looking now!!  THANK YOU!!

I wanted to post a link to the show I was on from 2 – 5 in the morning, Coast to Coast AM With George Noory. You can listen to last night’s show, but you have to join and become a member, which I now am. He was such a gracious host! And now that I’ve written this book I’m very curious to hear more about that kinds of topics covered on this show.

It’s not exclusively paranormal, by the way.  The first show I listened to was about the banking crisis.

I’m not sure what block I was on when I took this picture.  42nd Street?  41st?  I was on my way to the NPR studio.  I think of the two buildings as beauty and the best, but the beauty in this case is the building with the gargoyles, and the beast is that thing next to it on the left.

8:42am.  Just finished my second interview of the day.  It was only ten minutes long so it was short and painless.

Before that I was on the Coast to Coast AM with George Noory from 2 – 5am. That was a pleasure, and he was a great host, but I have no idea how well I did. As per usual, sometimes my mind would just blank and I couldn’t access information I know I have in my brain, and I’m afraid I sometimes rambled. The picture on my desk are the notes that I had planned to refer to, but the few times I tried I couldn’t find the ones I needed so I gave up.  (I took that while I was on hold, so that’s a live, as it was happening show!)  

One caller asked me a particularly sad question and I did my best to give her a real and compassionate answer.  I’m afraid to go back and listen to what I said.  I really wanted to give her an answer that might give her some peace.  But maybe I rambled there, too.

I’ve gotten some nice email about the show, but then I also found a website where the people were live-chatting about it and they wondered why I was even on.  They said I was just flogging my book, something I tried not to do.  I tried to focus on the work of the lab, and how cool it was, and I probably did talk a lot about the parts of the research I liked best.  Ugh. Can’t win. It’s not easy, people!!

I’m doing a reading in Boston this week. I am looking forward to that, being in Boston. Not the terrifying getting up and talking in front of people part, just being back in a place where I once lived.

I had my first interview yesterday, on the Ghostman and Demon Hunter show.  I’m not sure how I did, but it was a good first interview for me because it was so friendly.  Thank you Nathan and Shaun.  You crazy men, you!  (They are insane.  But a good insane.)

I took a snapshot of my desk right at this moment because it’s a good peek at what’s going on with me, since I basically live at this desk.  Notice it’s still dark out.

– There’s a cat on it, as per usual.  Buddy.  
– And the daffodils that I found and snapped up in an effort to improve my frantic state of mind.
– The pile with the People Magazine on top is the reading material I’ve been collecting for the various train trips I have in my almost immediate future.
– The Watchman belongs in that pile. It’s misfiled!  It’s on top of my Beethoven Missa Solemnis score, which is still kicking my ass, but less and less.  
– Behind the Watchman is my to-do pile.  On top of that pile are the prepared answers I wrote for every question I could think of that people might ask me.  (I blank sometimes in interviews, so I have to practice answers, just in case.)
– The phone is the old-fashioned, not-mobile one that I keep for emergencies. On 9/11 no one’s cellphone worked and everyone thought phone service was out, but it wasn’t. If you plugged in one like this you got a dial tone. I pulled it out for the radio interviews. Not just in case there’s a terrorist attack during my interviews, but because one place asked me to. Maybe the sound is better on non-mobile phones?