I Meet Crazy Aunt Purl

I've never attended a book signing before and after my sister's disaster with a local romance writer (ask her about it sometime) I was not interested in attending one ever. And it seems a little like legal stalking, but I had to make an exception.

I've gotta tell you that I was pretty weirded out about going to a book signing for someone I've been e-mailing with for the last couple of years. But in the end, I wanted to meet Crazy Aunt Purl in person and I'm awfully glad I did because she is just as funny in person as she is online. If you are one of the ten people who haven't read her "knitting" blog, by all means take some time right now to do so. We'll wait. There is a button just to the right of this post. She is the only one I know whose knitting blog contains less actual knitting than this one, so even my family members reading this will enjoy it. Especially the females.

Having never attended a book signing I was unaware of the protocol involved. Now being a veteran attendee I feel as though I can give unsolicited advice to any of you that might be thinking about attending a book signing in the near future:

1. Do not go straight from a work event that involved adult beverages and no food
2. Do not wear high heels because you are coming straight from work even your most comfy pair
3. Do take half a day off so that you can stake out a good seat aprox. 4 hours before the book signing (I did not do this and yet still do not regret it, but apparently this is what the veteran book signing people and author stalkers do)
4. Do not piss off the 22-year-old from the book store who controls the line. Even though it is clear from his introduction that he has not read the book or understood anything about the author. Even though he is wearing a velvet jacket and has long unwashed hair and braces on his teeth.
   
5. Do not piss off those around you when dissed by the velvet jacket wearing line control guy whom you have told that you could well do a complete Marie Osmond right there while waiting in the heat because your blood sugar is dropping due to #1.
   

Actually I think the three women around me thought I was funny and in the end Velvet Jacket realized that he should probably let the people who had attended the entire reading standing up get into line before he had a whole pack of crabby, low-blood sugar women (some of whom are packing pointy sticks) on his hands. I don't like to be a credit hog, but I do think that my argument that the people who had been sitting there since 3:00 with their big knitting baskets might just be the people with the most time on their hands, may have turned the line tide.

Anyhow, I got Laurie to sign my book. When she saw what I wanted her to write she exclaimed, "You are THAT Kate?!" and jumped up to give me a hug. And remind me that she does indeed have an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Gilligans Island, but will only use this knowledge for good.