November 18, 2005
Okay, not really anatomy. More like a timeline. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but not all of them will be aired in public (there's plenty of air in my head, so my thoughts are well aerated). I had a library talk last night that I shared with local mystery author Dorothy Bodoin. We are occasionally thrown together primarily because we have the same publicist, PJ Nunn, and we live about 35 miles away from each other. We were to give a library talk and signing at the Canton Public Library here in Michigan (not China, though we may have passed Hong Kong on our way there). Here is the timeline. The talk was to begin at 7:00. We did not know if there were any other authors, what the format of the talk was going to be, or how many people would be there, though 15 to 20 had been guessed at due to a sign-up list.

5:00. I leave the house to pick up Dorothy. Rather quickly I get stuck in rush hour traffic, something I left behind when I quit working at Henry Ford Hospital and have spent no time whatsoever missing since.

6:00. One hour to go 35 miles. Yippee. Dorothy lives on a dark street and I can't see any of the house numbers and I miss the house, back around, and she must have seen me coming because she's stepping out on the porch. This, in retrospect, is an omen, but I'm not aware of it.

6:35. Mapquest says it should take 38 minutes to get to the Canton Public Library from Dorothy's house in Royal Oak. Dorothy seems to think we're going to be taking side roads all the way there. I keep ignoring her suggestion that we go to 10 Mile Road. If I took her suggestions we'd still be trying to get there. I believe Mapquest to be accurate about 33-1/3% of the time, with one-third being so-so and one-third being so wildly inaccurate that you're lucky to arrive at your destination at all. Mapquest says something along the lines of, "Take I-275 to M-153/Ford Road, go toward Westland/Garden City." It fails to say which direction that might actually be. I am in the right lane (wrong, only sort of) to turn right and note the sign has an arrow pointing left. I go right, turn around in a gas station and we go east.

6:40. There is a sign saying "Ford Road Service Drive." I take it. It's clearly not the way to go, as it skirts below the freeway and I expect ravenous zombies to come shuffling toward the car at any minute.

6:43. Having gone about 3 miles past where the turnoff for the library should be, I stop in a gas station and ask them were the road was. They direct me back the way we came, saying it was about 3 miles away.

6:47. Stop at another gas station and ask where the road is, since I expected to have found it by now. Guy says, "Go past 275 (where we got off and went left, er, right, er, did a U-ey and went east, following the signs), it's down that way."

"Is it a major road?" I ask.

"Oh yeah."

6:55. Driving. Driving. Driving. This road is way the hell down past 275, maybe 2 or 3 miles. We go left. We have an address, but no landmarks. That's unfortunate because there aren't any numbers on any of the buildings, and pretty soon we find ourselves out in the country.

7:05. Yeah, we're late. And still not there. Hey, look, there's a big building with lights on it, looks kind of like a library, let's pull in there. I make an illegal turn into a wrong-way. Wrong building, too. It's the post office. Another illegal turn back onto the road, drive, drive.

7:10. Oh, look, Canton municiple center. If I were a city planner, that's where I'd put the public library. Oh, look, there it is... where's the entrance? Oh, just passed it. Another half mile, turn around, go back, hunt for a parking place. Can all these people be here for an author talk? (No.)

7:12. Ask some sexy blond where the author talk is, she directs us to the room. I apologize profusely. There are 8 people there, one of them the librarian. I ask if there are any other authors. Nope. Just us. Okay. I ask for a glass of water, hand out bookmarks and apologize, unpack books, ask directions to the rest room, come back into the room, ask Dorothy if she wants to go first. She doesn't. She goes off to brush her hair and I jump into my spiel, running my mouth until...

7:50. Do a Q&A for about 10 minutes, then turn it over to Dorothy and go sit in the, uh, audience.

8:25. Dorothy finishes her bit and we talk to the people who remain--four, I believe. I sell 3 books.

8:45. Hit the road again. Drop off Dorothy at about 9:35. Get home at...

10:20. Everyone's in bed. I put stuff away in my office, check my e-mail. There's yet another PDF, about galley #10, for the Client From Hell. I was under the impression we had already gone to the printer. I promptly call Graphic Designer (it's 7:20 in California), and say, in so many words, "What the fuck?" He calmly and rationally says, "They faxed me 17 pages of changes."

I say something along the lines of, "What could they possibly have thought needed changing... oh never mind. Okay. Now what?"

We briefly discuss in a very surface sort of way what the problem is, and never do the words "homicide," "murder," or "exorcism" pass from either of our lips. I hang up, shrug, get ready for bed, read for a bit, then get to bed around 11:00. I'm up with dog and son around 12:30, and then the phone rings at 5:10 this morning for my wife, letting both of us (like I wanted to know) that someone had called in when they're already apparently short about five people.

So there you have an author's book event.

p.s. It's actually a bit of a family joke, my ability to get lost. My sons, who are getting over this, used to ask, a thread of panic in their voices, "Are we lost?" I used to say, "No." Now I just say, "No, we're not lost. We just don't know where we are." For a really funny story about this, if you get a drink or two in my wife sometime, ask her about the time she and myself and my brother were driving down to my sister's house in Ypsilanti for Christmas about 18 years ago. My wife claims this directional inability is inherited on the Y chromosome of the Terry males.

Best,
Mark