In which I am leaving, you know, on a jet plane

I'm leaving this morning for Houston where I will wallow in luxury, meet new friends, connect with loved ones, and sign books! (Insert obnoxious SQUEEEEE here.) I love to travel for work for a number of reasons. First, I think breaking with routine is essential for one's creativity and mental well-being. Ruts are dangerous things, don't you find? And whatever you can do to shake things up is deeply beneficial.

Second, writing is a solitary occupation. No matter how many emails you get from your editor or phone calls from your agent or notes from readers, when you go to write, it is you and the blinking cursor and the echo of your own thoughts. Is it any wonder then that when we get a chance to see kindly booksellers and devoted readers, we practically fall upon their necks, weeping? Well, perhaps it's not quite so dramatic. But it is very good for one's ego to be told that you're doing a good job and please do it some more. It makes you feel appreciated and charged-up, a very good thing when you are getting ready to plot another book, which I am...

Third, there is the opportunity to be pampered. You don't have to make your bed or cook your meals. You don't even have to get yourself from point A to point B. There are pilots and taxi drivers to do that! You just have to wait patiently like a schoolchild on a field trip, which I find immensely relaxing. I also admit that I indulge myself in my choice of hotel whenever I can. I know many people who claim that it is wasteful to spend money on a hotel room because you're never in it. I am! Speaking and signing can be exhausting, largely because I want to engage with every reader I can and because I try very hard to make sure I am enthusiastic and sharing that enthusiasm.

By the time I get back to my room, I am usually talked out, with several hours to spend by myself. What better than to spend them in beautiful surroundings, with excellent service and a nice view? It's restorative, I tell myself. And in the interest of killing a few birds with one hot stone, I have booked a massage at the hotel spa this time--something I have never done for fear of arriving at an event with "massage face", creased from the sheet on the massage table. (If I show up tomorrow looking like someone stitched my face together as a home-ec project, you will be kind enough not to point, I hope...) It's something I've been meaning to do at home for the last month and haven't had the time. On this trip, I really can't argue that I have anything better to do for that hour. There are no responsibilities, no appointments, nothing but time to sit and BE.

And I'm wondering how do you travel? Stripped down and budget-friendly? Or do you like to indulge when you can?

In which I fear I am unwell

Not physically, but I suspect something in my psyche may be slightly askew. I am trying to sort out my travel books for my trip to Houston and am dithering as I usually do. Travel books are a serious subject for me, you understand. I need books that are diverting but not demanding. I want to be entertained, but not talked down to. I want something that is guaranteed to be enjoyable, which is why a new book by a favorite author is the best choice, although seldom a viable one.(Why Elizabeth Peters won't write a new book for me every time I have to travel is beyond me. Really.)

So I sort through old favorites I haven't read in a long time, hoping that I won't remember who the murderer is or whether there is a happy ending for the romantic pair. (I do and there is. Always.) It's maddening, and all the more so when you consider the fact that I will be gone for a little over 48 hours. It should not be this difficult, particularly after acquiring my Kindle.

And yet. The Kindle, it seems, has made the selection of travel books MORE difficult. Do I take the Kindle? Do I not? If I take it, what do I take for backup books? Because you MUST have a backup book or two. For all the potential horrors of travel, few can stand up to the wretchedness of having a few hundred books loaded onto your Kindle and no battery life left.

Luckily, my iphone has made all my other choices vastly easier. I no longer travel with a camera, a white-noise machine, ipod, or cell since the iphone does all of that and more. Oh, and the iphone also has the Kindle app on it, so everything I purchased for my Kindle is actually on my phone as well, an excellent backup should my books prove unsatisfactory.

Which brings me circling back to the question of WHAT BOOKS? I'm feeling very England-between-the-wars right now, which opens loads of possibilities--Nancy Mitford, Gerald Durrell, I Capture the Castle, Georgette Heyer's mysteries. The one thing I know for certain is that somewhere in my bags, there will always be a copy of Rebecca, my perfect fallback book for all occasions. And you? What do you look for in a travel book?

In which I booked a trip

Last week, the darling husband found some money--enough for a vacation. Well, not so much "found" as "calculated our tax refund". Anyway, we were appalled to realize we had not taken a proper vacation together in 19 years. We've tagged along on each other's business trips; we've taken family trips, and we've done quick overnight stays, but we haven't just gone away together for days on end. Lamentable, no?

So, with a tidy little sum burning a hole in our pockets, we started to ponder destinations. We had originally planned a trip to Greece this April until orthodontia intervened and gobbled up our trip funds. (You'd think by the time your child is fifteen, you'd be off the hook for expensive dental work. You'd be wrong.) Anyway, we were perfectly happy to hand the Greece fund to the orthodontist, but when this money turned up, neither of us seemed quite as enthused about traveling overseas. To begin with, my pragmatic husband pointed out that the money was enough to give us a luxurious trip in the US or a more frugal vacation if we opted for Europe given the cost of overseas airline tickets.

There was another important consideration as well: travel abroad is glamorous and exciting and exhausting. Getting by in a foreign language, calculating prices in a different economy, counting out strange coins--all of it is deeply satisfying and extremely tiring. I just don't have the stamina for a trip of that sort just now. I want nothing more than escape and relaxation.

So that got us focused on finding a relaxing destination. Part of the reason I love taking our daughter to Disney World is that I find it to be the most stress-free place on earth. (No, really.) Because in Disney World, I simply don't care what we do. I know there will be shopping and shows and rides and if we miss something, I don't mind, whereas if I were in London and missed Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace or the British Museum or Sir John Soane's House or tea at Kensington Gardens or Westminster Abbey or any one of a hundred other places I've been MANY times before, I would sob into my little floral handkerchiefs for days. In a glorious, historic city, there are things you MUST do or you return home feeling a sad failure. So the husband and I agreed, we wanted a grown-up version of Disney World where we could escape, just the two of us, and leave work behind for a few days and do as little or as much as we liked without worrying about what we might be missing. We wanted shows, shopping, superb restaurants, and opportunities for general lounging in luxurious surroundings.

The consensus? Vegas, baby! Yes, I know, it's frenetic and crazy, but we decided on a lovely hotel with a great spa, beautiful pools, spectacular artwork, and more restaurants and stores than we can possibly sample while we're there. And since I happen to be uncommonly lucky at the blackjack table, we may do a wee bit of gambling...

Also, many thanks for the kind suggestions and good wishes for my mom. She's opted for a chic black cast and is learning to pootle around quite well on her crutches!

In which I have never been to Italy

but now I really, really must go. Not simply because of the art, the history, the culture, the cuisine. Because of the giant snails.

On a completely unrelated note, today is my daughter's fifteenth birthday, and I can't imagine a more fabulous 15-year old. Happy birthday, sweetheart! Being your mom is the best thing I've ever done.

In which I adore all things English

As you well know, I am a devoted Anglophile, and one bit of England that I am completely smitten with is my friend Sali. She lives in a village with a name so perfect and twee, you'd swear Winnie-the-Pooh must be a neighbor. She collects vintage velvet coats and her cell phone likes to ring me up from her pocket so I can eavesdrop on the goings-on in Sali's life. (My favorite call came from the Milan airport where I could hear Sali working her best Italian on a Customs agent.) Sali is the friend who started up the moor behind Haworth parsonage with me, then turned back after 100 yards or so and said, "I'll be in the village having a nice cup of tea."

One of the things I love best about Sali is that she is an unrepentant history geek. (Before we'd gotten to know one another, she sent me a pamphlet on some gruesome topic. When I thanked her via e-mail I told her it would be very helpful in my work. Then she asked, "What exactly do you DO?") Her idea of fun is mentioning quite casually that she spent a morning poking around some 14th century ruin just down the road, which I must confess makes me not like her quite so much. (If I were putting together a wishlist for my ideal place to live, I can promise you a 14th century ruin would be VERY close to the top of the list.) Anyway, she is also terribly generous with links she thinks I'll like, and yesterday she sent me one on London Curiosities. She's right, I adore it, and if you're planning a trip to London soon or just want to do a little armchair traveling, do have a look.

In which I am indolent

If all has gone according to plan, then I am home from RWA and following the prescription for re-entry I've detailed below. (A new puppy might well throw a SERIOUS monkey wrench into the plan. Or is that a puppy wrench?) The entry was originally posted on April 28, 2008 on the Blog A Go-Go. See you tomorrow!

After I travel, no matter how short and easy a trip, I like to decline. I come home and instantly unpack, take a hot bath, and take to my bed with a pot of tea and some good chocolate and my loved ones. Even if it's still mid-afternoon, I don't feel like I have properly returned unless I spend the first day back in my nightgown with my husband and daughter snuggled up next to me while we watch old movies. It is nesting at its most extreme, and I usually extend it into the following day. That's when I shove my travel clothes into the washer and take to the sofa with more tea and more movies. I might answer a few e-mails, but nothing strenuous is permitted, and I prefer not to go out.

It feels luxurious and wicked to be so indolent, but I've learned through trial and error that there is a crucial period of decompression after travel. If I rush back into everyday life, I make mistakes. I lose concentration, and I feel harried and breathless. Much better for me to slide gently back in. I might read something thought-provoking and delicious, like Isabel Allende's Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses or watch Chocolat. I might roast a chicken because it's comforting without being at all difficult. And if I decide to peruse the web, Fortuna Bella's blog, The Courtesan's Corner, is just the sort of thing I would like to read. There are only a few entries, and regrettably, she seems to have stopped updating in 2006, but the archives are well worth reading. They are sensual and diverting--the perfect reading for a lazy afternoon.

In which I'm indulging in some armchair travel

If I could hop on an airplane anywhere in the world today, I would go to England because I am desperate to see the Geffrye Museum. I have no idea how I've missed it up to this point. On my last visit I made it to Sir John Soane's house, and let me just say, OH MY. If you love all things English and you are, like me, a domestic voyeur, go there at once. I'll wait. It is deceptively small from the outside, but packed with fabulous things from the collection of Sir John Soane--Canalettos and Hogarths, Roman bronzes and Egyptian sarcophagi--and SO worth the visit. (His house provided a spark of inspiration for the London townhouse of the Earl March, Julia Grey's father.) But the Geffrye seems another thing entirely; where Sir John Soane's house is a single household frozen in time, the Geffrye covers English domesticity from 1600 to the present. Delicious!

In which I almost made like the pope

The husband and I had a very nice time in St. Louis this weekend, although all I saw of the place was the Westin and the convention center. (Had a VERY yummy lunch at Kitchen K, so if you're in the vicinity, I recommend the fried chicken.) Anyway, the weather was uncooperative at best, but we always have fun together and the work event we were attending for him was forty kinds of bizarre which means we had LOTS to talk about. But the longer we were in St. Louis, the stranger it seemed there. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a very nice city. Perhaps TOO nice...in fact, by Sunday morning I had developed a theory. I don't think there are any human folks in St. Louis at all. I think it's some sort of extraterrestrial experiment where entities from another galaxy are emulating humans and testing the waters before they invade Manhattan. You think I'm kidding? I give you the following exhibits:

*the cabdriver who drove us across downtown and waved off the fare when my husband wanted to pay with his corporate card saying, "Oh, that's alright, just catch me another time. It's too much trouble to run the machine."

*the waitress who wouldn't charge me for my tea because she only had plain black tea and no Earl Grey and "couldn't possibly charge for something that wasn't first choice".

*the other cabdriver who gave my husband back part of his tip because it was too much money.

*the waitress who wouldn't let me order off the breakfast menu but insisted I use the buffet at the Westin because a la carte oatmeal was too expensive and then worried that I didn't get enough Greek yogurt.

*the TSA agent at the airport who helped take all of my things out of the four assorted gray plastic bins after they had been scanned and smiled while he was doing it as his colleague was helping my husband unpack his electronics

There is a pattern there of a distinctly Stepfordian bent. Added to that is the fact that the entire time we were there, we saw NOT ONE SINGLE pedestrian downtown. Granted, the weather wasn't great, but there were some patches of clear and still not a single living soul ventured onto the city sidewalks. Say what you like, that is just not normal. I was getting extremely nervous until we had lunch in the airport and the waitress helped herself to the coins from my lunch change. (Clearly the advance efforts for alien colonization missed one. Either that, or they are getting MUCH better at emulating human behavior.)

Now lest you think I am being critical of St. Louis, let me say that the people are extremely friendly, and I don't think I have ever seen a major sports facility as nicely done as Busch Stadium. I mean, honestly, it's all red brick and black iron and it just looks like someone actually THOUGHT about what it would look like when they were finished instead of pouring a mess of concrete and calling it a day. It reminds me of an old-fashioned ballpark, and I am genuinely sorry to have visited out of season and missed my chance to see the Cardinals play there.

But my pope reference has nothing to do with St. Louis itself. It was the flight home that had me mentally reviewing my Last Will and Testament, updated just last year--by a very nice man who informed me that I apparently now have a "literary estate" and who seemed rather tickled at having to dispose of it for me. Anyway, my husband and I amused ourselves at the Philadelphia airport by watching what looked like the cast of "Saved by the Bell" service our teeny-tiny twin-prop plane, but it did not seem at ALL funny an hour later when we hit a hailstorm and got bounced around like whiffle balls. We dropped so far and so hard I came up out of my seat more than once, and only avoided concussion because I had my seatbelt strapped so tightly I could feel it in my liver. I sincerely hoped that Screech had done everything he needed to in order to make sure that little plane didn't shake itself apart, and bless him, he apparently did because it all held together. (I was not at all comforted by the fact that we had changed seats at the last minute to get exit row leg room since the exit door was rattling like a set of maracas and seemed entirely capable of just popping off entirely.)

But there was an off-duty pilot in the row behind us, and I kept telling myself that if he wasn't nervous, neither was I, but let's be honest here, I was about five minutes away from the mother of all conniption fits, and I was EXTREMELY grateful when we emerged on the other side of that storm intact. I wasn't sure whether to kiss the pilot or kick him, but when he popped out of the cockpit, GRINNING, and said, "Little bumpy back there?" I gave serious consideration to pitchforks and baling wire, but I just didn't have the energy left in my poor white knuckles to hold the torch. And when did they start letting twelve-year olds fly commercial airliners? I KNOW he wasn't old enough to shave yet, and I strongly suspect he stole his daddy's pilot's license. Someone ought to look into it...

In which I am out of town

Spending the weekend with my darling husband in a secret-squirrel location somewhere in the midwest...anyway, I'm no longer blogging when I travel, but we're still trying to pull over blog entries from the Blog A Go-Go archive, so here is one of my favorites from November 26, 2007. It's all about words--add your favorites!

Years ago I read a study which published the most popular words, chosen by sound only, not meaning. I've tried to compile a similar list for myself, although I'm sure a word or two has crept in there by virtue of its pleasant connotations rather than its euphonia.

Violet, leopard, thrust, deceiver, whisper, buttery, crescent, scandalous, bashful, sumptuous, cuttlefish, translucent, pastoral, tale, camellia, moose, bliss, perfume, mystery, embrocation, scarlet, bodice, luscious, ribbon, lascivious, silken, punish, mollusk, bivouac, implode, incantation, slipper, wistful, plum, glisten, nacreous, willow, shiver, eviscerate, feather, tumble, incense, velvet, mellifluous, limber, moon, invocation, stormy, mirage, blush, regime, tantalize, cassowary, plume, thistle, marshmallow, revenant, enthralled, benediction, creamy, pillow, vivacious, seduction, mist, ruminant, thunder, cupcake, moss, luminous, serpent, wander, stocking, fig, honeysuckle, sibilant, teacup, gossamer, salamander, invidious, supper, tumescent, pleasure, shimmer, enchant, odalisque, rapture, conjure, silver, hither, relucent, plangent, capture, plaintive, destrier, tempest, ocelot, aqua, fallow, mermaid, serendipitous, ponder, pluperfect, veil, siege, trebuchet, tarantella, glassine, savage, puffin, ossuary, hoplite, incandescent, bumblebee, marionette, nascent, illuminate, madrigal, lilypad, pearlescent, toadstool, escarpment, autumn, madeira, tassel, tuffet, pomander, quicksilver, epistle, parasol, picaresque, epaulette, fable, tulle, salsify, seraphim, illuminate, myth, tortoise, galleon, fortuitous, galleon, feverfew, gust, corsair, forbidden, sacred, smoky, caravan, amaranth, rosary, lush, basque, leather, mystique, voluptuous, paisley, glamour, wisteria, russet, ellipsis, glissade, chrysalis, pellucid, lucifer, invidious, oubliette, statuesque, inviting, hermitage, escapade, desire, glorious, champagne, voluminous, turret, soliloquy, violin, dulcet, phantom, alchemy, castanet, scriptorium, palanquin, wolfish, bellicose, vicious, cygnet, whimsical, whisker, capricious, mulberry, lashing, lilac, fenestration, forthright, testament, melancholy, calypso, gloved, malicious, weep, lust, lubricious, sparkle, sympathy, ensorcel, woebegone, nautilus, vicarious, pessary, flutter, dolorous, rampant, phantasmagorical, sylvan, passementerie, ambrosia, villainess.

It occurs to me that this could be the vocabulary list for a very interesting tale.

In which we talk about spooky places

Oh, how I love a good spooky place. There are few things more enjoyable than checking out an excellent eerie spot. (Please note, I prefer spooky to cursed and completely creepy. No WAY will you find me hanging out at the Bunnyman Bridge...) I once spent a maddening ten minutes between clots of tourists trying to detect a ghost in an ancient tower at Warwick Castle, and all of my favorite travel destinations have a ghost or two hanging around. So, it's no surprise that the setting for Silent on the Moor was taken from the very excellent East Riddlesden Hall in Yorkshire. If you haven't already checked out the link, DO. It's a wonderfully atmospheric place where my husband got scolded for taking a photo indoors. Momentary lapse--we forgot it was a National Trust property. The funny part is that they will let you take all the photos you want outside, but put a TOE inside the door and you're in for it. Ironically, the Hall was holding a sort of Easter scavenger hunt for kids at the time, and the place was awash in daffodils, probably looking as pretty as it ever does. And STILL, there was an air of menace that was absolutely delicious. Perhaps it's the soot on the stones or perhaps it's the sinister pond grieving on the front lawn...In any event, it was a wonderful spot and a perfect inspiration for Grimsgrave Hall. The only thing missing was a proper moor as modern development has insinuated itself close up against the boundaries of the place, but if you squint and the wind is high enough, you won't notice.

Of course, I also live in a place that's reputed to be very haunted although I have yet to see George Washington pootling around. And across the river is Bacon's Castle which is supposed to be haunted by a tremendous fireball that likes to hurl itself at visitors according to local lore. (Seriously? Because I think a fireball is probably worth the ferry ride...)

So what are YOUR local haunts? (Muchas gracias to Dan F. for unintentionally suggesting this blog topic!)

Also, I did a quick interview with the fine folks at Writing Raw. If you have aspirations of a wordy sort, check it out. They provide an online literary magazine as a forum for writers to share their work.