a brilliant night, I'm still awake

I'm going to include some extraneous details here because there are things that I'll forget, which I want to remember, so bear with me, please.

For the Book Expo, I stayed first at the Hotel Metro on W. 35th St. It was pretty good, except the AC wasn't adequate. Then I spent one night at an official conference hotel, Holiday Inn Midtown. It was very nice, had good AC, large room, and was affordable because of the conference rate.

After the Expo ended, I went to visit my young friend John at his apartment on the upper upper west side, in an old building with a marble and tile lobby and marble staircase. He lives on the second floor with Bridget the cat and Parker the yorkie, along with a human roommate or two. I totally fell in love with Parker and want a yorkie of my own now. What a tiny sweetheart!

It was wonderful to be able to spend so much time with John and catch up on his hectic life. We went for a stroll with Parker, went out to eat at his neighborhood diner, made a trip to the dollar store down the street. It was all fun. He even came along on some adventures with me and my friends later in the week.

"she is too fond of books, and it has addled her brain"

How awesome was the New York trip? Empire State, Guggenheim, Bronx Zoo, MOMA, Natural History, Met. Harbor lights cruise. Time with John.

Book Expo America:
http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/App/homepage.cfm?moduleid=42&appname=288

I attended this with another librarian from my district; we got along well, both willing to be together or go separately to do our own thing. We adventuresomely went to Kmart, since she hadn't packed enough undies; who knew there was a Kmart in Manhattan?

At the Expo, I went to three informative sessions - the best was about how to plan author visits. I traipsed around both levels of the Javits several times, becoming more and more laden with free tote bags, advance reader copies of books, pens, pins, bookmarks, you name it, I got it. Crazy.

The best thing about the Expo (well, in addition to the free totes) was the opportunity to just run into authors. I went to the booth of the publisher for Jan Brett because I had seen people carrying a tote with the art from her Three Snow Bears book and I wanted one, and when I got there, she was there too. Jan Brett. Just hanging around. We chatted about hedgehogs. Another time I noticed John Green so I waited til he was free and went to tell him my thoughts upon finishing An Abundance of Katherines.

Friday night during Expo, we went to a concert by the Rock Bottom Remainders. http://www.rockbottomremainders.com
How amazing that was! Stephen King, Amy Tan, Mitch Albom, Greg Iles, Scott Turow and others, playing like a garage band. Frank McCourt came out and played harmonica (a little, bless his heart). Lesley Gore sang with them. Then they brought out Roger McGuinn; what a dream come true for a long-time Byrds fan, to be singing along with Roger McGuinn, in person, in a small hall. I'm so glad we decided to go to that concert.

More on New York to follow.