It's been an excellent weekend thus far. We went out on Friday to Quail Ridge books and spent way too much money. Got a signed Neal Stephenson, a signed Jasper Fforde, a signed Alice Seabold, and a signed children's book that was just too nicely illustrated not to get. There was much cringing before handing over my debit card, let me tell you. Honestly, I *did* put things back. Then I found more.

Of course, after all that, I was pretty well broke and not able to get any nifty books to have signed at the NC Literary Festival this weekend. We got up early (but not as early as Brent(?), who got on a bus in Carrboro at 6 a.m., apparently) and shuffled off to the 9 a.m. panel (I forget what it was called; they were a bit off topic). Then we went to a much better panel that was moderated by John Kessel and had Kelly Link, Andy Duncan, Dale Bailey, Richard Butner reading sniblets of stories as examples of what Kessel is dubbing "The New Strange". Not to be confused with "The New Weird", which is pretty much Mieville, who is apparently just so darn weird (but not strange) that they had to come up with a sub-genre for him. After that, we had an excellent time introducing ourselves to the talented Janet Chui, who recovered nicely from having yet another group of strange people who know a lot about her come up and say hi. Then Andreas had some things signed, I was attacked by two ladybugs, and we got to hang around and chat with Janet, Jason Lundberg who had organized a big portion of the festival and was looking all official-like with his walkie-talkie and "Staff" badge, and the always amazingly nice Jamie Bishop. There must be some sort of special thing they all take and I haven't figured out what yet...I just can't manage being that nice. Probably has something to do with being part of the forces of evil. *sigh*

Finally, we went and replenished our supplies of Pocky. There was only one fuzzy bumblebee out in the clover today. There were five of them the other day, hence the bee o.d.

Oh, dear. The real world beckons.

Currently Reading: probably Kage Baker or some Atwood next.

Recommend: "The Everlasting Story of Nory" by Nicholson Baker

Stories out: 2

Books read this year: 14?