The WD/BEA Embedded Blog, Lemon Drop Shots, and Things to Do in Wrentham, MA

Least Obvious Internet Search of the Day That Turns Up My Blog: "Christian Magazine Opinions on Anna Nalick"

Worst Clif Bar Flavor of All Time: Apricot

Unrequested Anecdote from my Family Life: I've just spent Memorial Day weekend on a family vacation in Bermuda, which is probably the most beautiful, friendly and exotic place that you can get to from Boston in less than two hours, outside of the Wrentham Village Premium Outlets. My mother and sister and I went on the trip with our dearest family friends, and, because I lack the financial wherewithal and dental insurance to provide for myself, I was forced against my will gleefully shared a room with my mother. Most of the stories from my trip are boring (example: I ate and enjoyed an egg white omelet, and normally I don't even like omelets!!!!) or embarrassing (I spent much of the first day in the Bermuda Hospital emergency room, where a nurse was forced, against her will, to examine, touch then bandage my left foot, as I'd ripped the nails off of during a clumsy intoxicated fall), but there was one event that my mother will never forgive me for worth sharing with the general public:

1. My mother--who usually never drinks anything that isn't Newman's Own Virgin Lemon-Aided Iced Tea-- did the first alchoholic "shot" of her known life, a "lemon drop". The effects of the jolt of alcohol were palpable, especially when she confided to me that she "felt goofy" and then started telling mortifyingly personal anecdotes from her college experience in the 70s. Lesson: Unless your mom is Dorothy Parker, encouraging her to do shots will always end poorly.

Moving on...

This is a big week, friends, and not just because it's short. As you may have noticed from the advertisement above my blog, the Writer's Digest/ BEA Writing Conference is on Wednesday, followed by the Book Expo of America, the Book Industry's answer to Nickelodeon's Kid's Choice Awards. It's a time when the publishing houses pull out all the stops, revealing their big guns, newly annointed stars and catering services (sometimes with open bar!) in an effort to woo booksellers, librarians and Writer's Digest Contributing Editors. And I will be there in NYC all week, first wandering aimlessly around the Writer's Digest Conference, then aimlessly wandering around the BEA, while my editor Maria openly questions why she lets me come to these things each year.

But--in an effort to make myself seem valuable, or better, invaluable-- I'm going to keep a daily embedded journal of the Conference and Book Expo for those of you who want to know what happens when book industry people stop being polite, and start being real. It'll be just like that episode of the Real World: Hawaii when Teck and the drunk chick went skinny dipping, and everyone else felt uncomfortable...but with, like, agents and stuff.

So join me all this week, as I'll be dropping the most insightful, concise and unavoidably irrelevant points of interest from the book industry's biggest week, all while trying to figure out where in God's name the good people at the Jacobs Javits Convention Center keep their bathrooms. And if you happen to be attending either the Conference or the Expo and you see a striking, partially well groomed man with a shaved head and pre-distressed jeans pretending to scribble feverishly in a notebook, feel free to interrupt and say hello. I won't actually be doing anything, anyway.

Questions to Ponder: Will Rosie O'Donnell definitely accept Lizzie Hasselbeck's inevitable request to be Godmother to her next child? And--assuming they knew how to save a life--do you really think the Fray would stay up with you all night?

Guilty Feet Have Got No Rhythm,

Wham

Ps- pictured below: The second sweetest place to go during a Memorial Day weekend and me and a bunch of my golf buddies living la vida loca in 'Muda Shorts after six or seven Lemon Drops.