I am tired. Really tired.

Today was Day Two of the L.A. Festival of Books, an orgy of writers and readers that warms the soul of any bibliophile and crushes the mind, body and spirit of those unpaid workers who make it all happen. I'm on the board of Sisters in Crime, the L.A. chapter of the national mystery writers association, which means I spend this one weekend a year wrangling authors, selling t-shirts and helping people find the bathroom. Every year, my cheeks - the ones on my face - hurt from smiling at every single person who comes within a forty foot radius of our booth. The only people who work harder than me are every other board member, each of whom sold, wrangled and helped their little hearts out.

And now it's 7 o'clock. I'm wearing my jammies. The sun is still up, and all I want to do is go to bed.

I won't because I have only a few weeks to finish my edits that are due to my agent soon, and wanting to die is no excuse for missing that deadline. Maybe if I were actually dead, but my body would have to be cold.

But that's not the point of this story, the point of this story was that at the very end of the very last day when all of us volunteers are the sort of bone weary that leads to spontaneous crying jags, one author came up to each and every one of us. Denise Hamilton. She sells a lot of books. She's always on the L.A. Times bestseller list. The point is she didn't have to, but she found each and every volunteer and thanked them long and hard. Not the "hey-thanks-have-a-good-one" tossed over a shoulder that most everyone else gave, but a serious, look-you-in-the-eye, I-know-you're-tired-and-you-helped-me sort of thank you. The sort of thank you that leads you to believe she might actually know you're considering sleeping on the grass rather than walk to your car because you simply cannot go on. She's the only author I saw do this, which is not to say others didn't or that others were ungrateful or anything else. The point is she tried really, really hard to make me feel appreciated. And I did. And I appreciate it back.

So thanks, Denise. See you next year.