personal

Back from Boston

Oh, the day that I’ve had.

It started with the first truly nice weather we had all the time I was in Boston, yesterday’s quite pleasant evening excluded. The sun-dappled river made a lovely, if perhaps at times a bit too sun-dappled and bright, view from our exhibit booth. I spent the day selling books, more or less the same as I’d done the days before, and then started cleaning up a little before three o’clock.

Clean-up went well. We’ve started bringing only a display copy or two of most of our books — and offering free international shipping in exchange for not being able to take the copy with you. It saves us considerably on shipping, and on sending books back that might just get pulped. Today, our last day at the conference, I was selling everything left on the table, display copy or not, so in the end I definitely had fewer boxes going back (some to Kentucky, some to New York) than were delivered. Which is almost always a good thing. Our shipping carrier showed up early, while I was still boxing everything up, and then the hotel staff they sent to collect the boxes — two of the same who’d been really helpful on Wednesday night finding our books — started hovering. But I got everything boxed up and ready to go by about 3:30, and a quick cab ride later had me at the airport.

Where I proceeded to wait around for several hours. You can follow the whole sorry story on Twitter (albeit in reverse), about the ground delays and the confused announcements and the fellow passengers with whom I first sympathized and then grew to see as impatient jerks. It was a long day. I think I slept on the plane — I must have slept on the plane — but I still feel pretty tired. And, woe is me, there’s no episode of Kojak here to console me.

I did, however, learn just this morning that I was accepted for a self-directed writing residency at the Banff Centre in Alberta this fall. Heather‘s talked about it so much, I just couldn’t let her have all the fun there. But seriously, I’m looking forward to it. There’s still a lot of planning to do for it, come September, and the last thing I want to do right this minute is look at an another airline itinerary, but the Centre seems like a really great place to develop my writing, enjoy the “powerful mountain setting,” and be inspired. I’m excited and really pleased to have the opportunity. Plus, you know, getting to meet Heather before that apocalypse she keeps reading about for her graduate classes actually happens. That should be nice.

Right now, I foresee sleep in my near future. It’s Daylight Savings Time this weekend, which is an abomination upon the earth. (Except in fall when it’s a quite pleasant extra hour of sleep.) So all the more reason to turn in a little early, I suppose.

All in all, I think it was a successful conference. I won’t know until at least Monday, when I add up the tally, just how many books we sold — and some people will take our catalog or order online; we offer the discount for thirty days after a conference, too. But I think we sold more than a few, and I think my boss met with a few key authors for some good projects going forward. I didn’t get to see much of Boston, or even much of Cambridge — and both ways my flights were delayed — but I’m glad I went.

Boston beaned

Another busy day away from the office selling books. I went across the street to the food court in the mall to grab a quick bite for breakfast, then spent most of the day on my feet, either with no one to sell books to (while everyone else was in sessions) or with too many people to sell books to. I don’t I realized how tired I was until I finally let myself sit down.

At five o’clock, when I closed up (i.e. covered up with tablecloths) the booth for the day, I took a very short stroll along the river (in the suddenly, surprisingly nice and not at all rainy weathet), and then returned to the hotel to enjoy some room service and Ocean’s 11 on cable. Which is what I’m doing now.

It’s not the most exciting way to spend an evening in Cambridge, but it was a long day, and I head home tomorrow.

With luck, that is. I have a 6:15 p.m. flight and the exhibit hours don’t officially end until three o’clock. But, with even more luck, will we will have sold enough books to make clean-up easy. Maybe we’ll sell everything.

That could happen, right? Right?

Boston public

Today was our first day exhibiting at the conference, so I spent most of the morning setting up our four tables worth of books. Then I grabbed a nice lunch in the hotel bar, and spent afternoon trying to sell as many of those books as possible. Or just standing out of the way in an occasionally very crowded room until somebody asked a question like “how much is this?” or “you offer free shipping, right?”

Tomorrow’s a full day at the “booth,” although thankfully starting half an hour later, at 8:30.

This evening, I took a bus to Harvard Square, across the river, and found myself not entirely impressed. Then again, a cold and rainy Thursday in early March maybe isn’t the best time to see it. I did realize, with some bemusement, as I was surrounded by all these twenty-somethings wandering about (likely students at Harvard or one of Boston’s seventy thousand other schools), that I don’t view them with longing to be one of them, or even nostalgia, but with at least a modicum of crotchety annoyance. Maybe that’s a sign of getting older, or maybe that’s just me being tired from being on my feet all day and waiting in the cold for my bus back to the hotel.

I had a nice dinner at a Vietnamese place I stumbled on, some very tasty spring rolls and a much too big (but also tasty) bowl of beef pho. I read a little in the most recent issue of Granta, which I purchased at a nearby newsstand, and I was amsued to see, as I was waiting for my bus, the very same stationery store Theodora Goss was talking about just recently. (Boskone, the local sfnal convention, was just a few weeks ago.) Alas, it was closed, perhaps because, as she noted with some sadness, it’s closing.

Now I’m back at hotel, watching an episode of Kojak on TV. Isn’t that why everyone comes to Boston?

Boston pops

I was having a pretty normal day until the whole “now I will fly to Boston for a conference” thing.

I went into work for half a day at the office, then walked back to Penn Station to catch the Air Train to JFK. Getting through security was no problem — beyond the airport personnel who kept cutting the line — and before long I was on the plane ready to go. Bag stowed underneath, seatbelt fastened, getting ready to taxi.

And then they kicked us off the plane. 

It was some kind of ground delay, which I think roughly translated into “the ground crew has to go home now,” and which I know translated into about an hour and a half delay getting out of New York.

But it was a quick trip, only about an hour altogether. And I got a cab pretty quick, too, arriving at the hotel not much later than expected.

Where I discovered that the books that desperately needed to be here, for tomorrow’s conference, were nowhere to be found. Yet at least one package that was supposed to be the concierge desk — in fact, the new book that really needs to be here, had be signed out by somebody. That somebody not being anybody I knew.

I spent a lot of the evening tracking down the boxes of books and supplies, which I think I finally managed to do with the hotel’s help, and grabbing a bite to eat from room service. I’ve also been watching Date Night on HBO, which is cute and sort of funny, but which also seems like a missed opportunity, given the real likable chemistry between Tina Fey and Steve Carrell and some funny turns by supporting players.

Tomorrow, I may actually try to see a little of Cambridge and Boston instead of running back and forth from one tower of the hotel to the other. I’ll also be doing the whole book-selling thing.

Time now for a little reading and then bed. About as exciting as what’s left of my first night away is going to get, I’m afraid.

Fired up for my trip

Tomorrow afternoon, I fly to Boston for a conference.

Today…well, I didn’t.

I did, however, spend a lovely day listening, yet again, to tests of the fire alarms in the building at work, practically every ten minutes from 9 to 4. That’s one thing I definitely won’t miss when we move to the new building.