Book Signing - Check!

I can now check going to a book signing off my life list of things to do. As I have mentioned, Stephenie Meyer, the author of my favorite books, the Twilight series was coming for a book signing for her new novel, The Host. She was only going to 11 cities and my Houston Barnes & Noble was one of them. I thought it would be something fun and different to do. I was so excited and felt so adventurous. The book went on sale at 9 am on May 6th. I knew there would be a major line forming the night before! You had to buy the book and you would get an armband for the actual book signing for May 9th. The guy said that he could not tell me how many they were giving out but that it was in the 'hundreds'. I am guessing around 700. They had it at the local high school to accommodate the crowd. So the day of the 5th, my birthday - by the way, I packed my bag with my iPod, Nintendo DS, a bottle of water and the newest issue of People magazine and was all set to leave at midnight with all the other crazies out there. I thought it would be so fun to be away from the kids for a night - while listening to music, reading, and playing a little DS all alone in a lawn chair outside of Barnes & Noble off FM 1960... hhmmm... Then I called Barnes & Noble at about 6pm to see if people were starting to line up and he said they were... Then it started to rain... Then about a minute and a half after that... I came back to reality and thought, "What the hell am I thinking!?" I had been planning on this for weeks and weeks and a little rain and 2 minutes later I was in my jammies watching tv with the kids. What a pansy! The next morning I started wondering if they still had armbands? It certainly wouldn't hurt to ask. So I called and they did! My sister-in-law Tiffany and I leisurely drove down, bought 4 books, and got 4 armbands! Those poor, poor people who slept outside. What a waste...

I sold one book to my neighbor Debbie, and two books to my aunt Holly, and on Friday night we made our pilgrimage to the high school. It was LONG but entertaining, and most of all fun talking and telling stories amongst ourselves for all 5 HOURS!
When they introduced her the crowd went crazy! Funny stuff! They were snapping away with their cameras. Of course so was I - but I can justify it because at this point all I was thinking was, 'this is going to make a SWEET blog post!' :)She had 2 cops flanking her the whole night...After Stephenie spoke for a little bit answering questions she moved to the auditorium and then the audience started lining up. They started with the front of the group and row by row they started taking people to get their books signed. The event started at 7, she spoke till about 720ish and our row finally got in line about 11pm! It took WAY longer then we expected. At this point we were laughing at ourselves that we were doing this. As you can see it was mostly teens. With a few 'oldies' like ourselves thrown in. And here you see... right in the middle of the line... was a group of girls that were all dressed alike in black and red Twilight t-shirts with big red bows in their hair. That in-itself was not unusual. There were tons of groups like that. But the girl in the middle of this group was carrying a huge cellophane wrapped basket! Holly, Debbie and I were laughing and laughing! Can you imagine getting it? I wonder what was in it. I am surprised one of the cops didn't 'scan' it with some sort of 'bomb wand'. And I wonder if Stephenie's 'people' threw it in the trash the second everyone left... Probably not. Being Mormon and trusting, she probably took it back to her hotel and snacked on the treats inside. :) Then she probably wrote a nice little thank you note and found out were to send it.Sadly, this is where our story ends......because my camera got confiscated. Well, they told me to put it away anyway. We had finally made it into the auditorium and apparently too close to Stephenie. I was REALLY dying to get a photo of the 'basket' close up and after we finally got up on the stage, I realized what I was really missing... What would have been the best picture of all... A long table with Stephenie sitting in a big red velvet chair with people and cops on both sides of her. And a cart next to her to hold all of her gifts and the 'basket'. The whole scene cracked me up! But I understand. Of course she needs security. Some of her fans are CRAZIES I'm sure! I just have to laugh though!

By the time we got up to her she looked BEAT and I am sure her hand was killing her. The rules of the night were that she would personalize with your name The Host and then sign 2 books from the Twilight series. I couldn't believe it. That was pretty generous on her part. So I figure she probably singed her name about 2100 times that night and personalized her book about 700 times. My wrist gets a cramp if I am using my mouse too much.

It must be unreal for her. Just your basic run-of-the-mill mom with kids at home decides to write a book and now look at her! One of Time Magazines most influential people of 2oo8. I read an article recently that asked her what has changed about her life and she basically said something to the effect of... "Everything is about the same, except maybe for the types of cars in our garage." I know I am not getting it right, but I translated it in my mind to mean - 'I have a gazillion dollars now!'

So, that's my synopsis of the fun little book signing. Not what I expected, but still a very fun memory! Thanks Debbie and Holly for an enjoyable time!