Don't you think it's a great cover? Snaps to Dave, he really outdid himself on the design. It's printed on foil, so it has this great shimmery quality when you see it in real life. I mean, real non-digital life. 

And what you can't see in this picture is, man o' man, this sucker is huge! Here, I'll show you the profile shot, taken with L's phone at first sight:

 

Okay so he wasn't using an actual camera, but still. You get the point. The book is fat & juicy. (And that was the one day my counter was clean.) I guess that was really two points…That was the first moment I saw it. 

Here is the second, and this picture is with MP…whom I may or may not have kept home from school to edit the final draft. 

MP:"Mom! I have to go to school! It's been three days!" 

Don't tell Little, Brown, but Kami and I are actually more scared of MP than anybody. She's a real butt kicker. She's already shredding through the early draft of our next project…"Have you learned NOTHING!? Do you have an ADDICTION to COMMAS!? Does NOBODY listen to me?!" 

Can't wait for you guys to actually read it now!  

8 months and counting…

<sigh>

Oh my bags are packed, I'm ready to go,

How does the rest of that John Denver song go,

da da da da da da da da da daaaaaaaaaah….

I'm leaving on a jet plane, I'm going back to Italy,

the place where I like to go-oh-oh-oh-oh…

K & A & M and I are meeting up in K's old
farmhouse/villa/not quite sure what in the middle of the countryside between
Sienna and Florence. I'm not even sure there's a town. I'm not even sure the town
that might not be there has a name.

They are going to take walks. I am going to write because
walking is harder. It doesn't really matter what I do when I'm there. No matter
what, there will be rolling hills and vineyards and if I'm lucky we will make
it into Florence once for the burratta the size of a grown man's head that they
serve at some pizza place called something like pizzaiola…

I am so h a p p y, and I am very rarely this h a p p y…

Something about planes just makes me write until my fingers
fall off, I think it's the being nowhere.

Something about Italy makes me eat and drink and take naps
and wander and think and write, I think it's the being somewhere.

When I'm there I'm really present, I actually think about
what I am eating and seeing and tasting and smelling…

Anyways, 5 days and counting. My plan is to bring nothing.
It's like a contest in my family, competitive light-packing. If it was an
olympic event my brother and I would constitute the U.S. team. Carry on only:
MacBook Air. Blackberry Bold. Kindle. Toothbrush. Old J. Crew Pea Coat. Jeans.
Sweater. Scarf. Shirt. Underwear. Done. Maybe a pen and a notebook, if my
computer dies. 

By the way, that's not a picture of Siena, that's Otranto,
where I go for to a writer's colony most years in June. Still, in honor of
Italian week, I'm putting it up there so you know what's in my head right now…

 

Ciao, babies!

style="text-align: center;">yeah, she always got the crossword puzzle right every day