I took the weekend off. I normally don't. Normally, I am not in the office, but I am still doing things around the house that pertain to work. I work on the blog, I check in with email via the remote server, I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about what authors to stick in what stores on what days, or worried if I ordered the books. I really am quite mad. I really do dream about event management. Call me crazy.

But last weekend I thought I could use a bit of time off. With forty hours on the clock when I punched out Thursday night, I figured a long weekend was in order. I woke up on Friday morning and checked in with my never-ending pile of emails. There were a few things that needed some immediate attention, but nothing that would end the world before I got back.

Given that there were no impending catastrophes, I piled in the car and headed South. My original plan was to head South to Williamsburg, VA, find some dinner, walk around the little town and just hang out. That was the original plan. Things changed a bit as the road unfolded. Nothing tragic, just a nice day and a mild detour.

Due to some fit of... call it stupidity, call it curiosity, call it what you will, I thought a nice little detour through Charlottesville to see a couple of wineries would be a good idea. It really wasn't a bad idea. It only took five hours extra but it added at least another case of wine to my rack. Now, my wine rack is not huge but it does hold near 40 bottles. It was full to begin with but after this little side trip to three of the wineries in the Charlottesville area, it is beyond full. I even had to resurrect my old wine rack to hold the overflow bottles. I wont even tell you where my final total lies, suffice to say, I have a lot of wine in the house and I am planning a wine party to try and clear it out a bit. If you are all good, I might even invite you along.

I got back to work on Monday and found that the world hadn't ended, but a lot of things did come about that needed my love and attention. Nothing too bad, just a few last minute off-sites and a couple in store events I promised I would be around for. I know I say this from time to time, but I really do get too busy to sneak out to events most weeks. This week I had two events back to back that I had to attend.

First up was Monday night's Crystal City event with Jon Clinch. Jon wrote a book called Finn. You might recognize the name Finn from one of two places. One could be a book that was written a while back by a guy named Twain. The other would be from my blog a couple weeks ago where I talked about this same book. Jon joined us out in Crystal City to read from and answer questions about Finn. He got in early enough that he could take in dinner at Jaleo with his agent and his lovely wife Wendy. I hear they split a nice paella, but I didn't watch through the glass while they ate, so that is only hearsay. After dinner, Jon started talking to the 25+ people who came out to hear him. He started in on the -- Wait! Did you hear what I said? 25 PLUS! That is more people than I have chairs in Crystal City. Jon just started his tour, we were his first stop and this is his first published book. Imagine how big this is going to get when he hits Mississippi and starts talking at universities. Guess who had him first? Me! ME! Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. Jon started in on the first page and read a strangely beautiful description of a body floating down the Mississippi and introduced us to his main character, Pap Finn. Pap has made his way to the local bootlegger's fire and proceeds to toss strip after strip of flesh into the flames. What a wonderfully dark intro and insight into a great character. Thank you, Jon Clinch. Thank you for writing a great book, for coming to our store and chatting with our customers, and thank you to Wendy for taking our picture.

The second event I made it out to this week was Janice Graham. Janice came out to DC from the Darkest heart of Middle America -- she lives in a town best known for Meth Labs. What else would you call it? -- where she hangs out and collects matchbooks. Actually, she is a real writer doing everything in her power to push and promote her book. She is funding this author tour out of her own pocket. She has made fliers, promoted to a local sorority, and even baked brownies to get the message out about her book. I will be painfully honest with all of you. I haven't read this book. I have talked to Janice though and I have listened to her talk about her characters in her book and the amount of crap that women had to contend with back in the day.

I brought this up as a question towards the end of Q and A period. Janice had made mention of "mad women" in Victorian Era novels. She said that a lot of women went mad from the the pressures of holding back their true personalities. Hiding their true selves from everyone could cause a Psychic break and drive these women over the edge. My question was in the form of three words: "Britney Spears. Discuss." My faith in humanity was restored when I heard one of the attendees at the event didn't know that Britt had shaved her own head. Ah, Bless her.

Speaking of attendees. I had no clue what I was getting into when I figured I would head to Dupont. I got to the store and settled in. A few minutes later a couple of guests rolled in. One, a lovely young college girl. Then another, and another, and another and herd of others. 25 guests. 22 beautiful sorority girls, two boyfriends and me. Wow. Let me say that again another way for effect. Ahem... It was me, two boyfriends, AND TWENTY-TWO gorgeous ladies talking about empowered women in Victorian England with a beautiful author in a beautiful hand made suit.

The books I mentioned this week are very good. Very different, yet good in their own ways. Both deal with pain and suffering of a main character that finds a solution in different ways. Please, they are good books and they deserve to be read. Get your hands on a copy and read, read, read.

Editor's Notes: While I was in Williamsburg I hoped that I could dress up as a British soldier and shoot at some Americans. For some strange reasons they won't let you do that in Williamsburg. What sort of theme park wont let you shoot at "Traitors". They were traitors, they just got away with it. I was going to compare early America trying to throw off the ropes of oppression to Iraqis attempting to do the same thing. Maybe next week.

I do have too much wine. I have started drinking more to counteract that.
Jon Clinch is a lovely man and I want to thank him and his wife for coming by our store. For those of you that came out, you missed another famous author who showed up to meet Jon. I am not going to drop names, if you missed it, you just missed it.

Janice Graham is great, she is the hardest working author I have met and has a beautiful daughter to boot. Her daughter's boyfriend just got an internship with Bloomsbury in NY. Congratulations! Oh. Gabby, I am sorry about mentioning that your mom was my favorite cracker. Tell your friends to stop teasing you. And to all the ladies who came out to the event. Thank you.