Pictures and other crap.

I realized something about myself recently that will sound really strange and probably come as a huge surprise.

I am shy.

Painfully shy.

STOP LAUGHING. I REALLY AM.

I'm a lot better on paper than in person, I believe. People are so surprised to hear that I'm shy and well, let's face it, socially inept. But I am.

Needless to say? The past few days have been kind of hard for me. Not a bad hard, but still. Hard.

This nice guy made my life easier. His name is Rob and he's the Events manager at Barnes and Noble. He had actually read my book (which was so helpful, honestly) and made me feel right at home. He even brought me water in a fancy-shaped bottle and a thin-tipped Sharpie pen. I love Sharpie pens.


To further ease my mind, he told me a hilarious story about someone who recently brought the author of "The Shack" a vial full of their tears. To a book-signing. For reals. I had one strange experience (more on that in a minute) but nothing like that.


Rob was really nice. I did that thing that I'm doing in this picture (hand-wringing) a lot. And he was really nice about it.

Also nice?

This is my friend Rebecca! She came out to support me and brought her son and daughter-in-law. They were all so nice. And funny. And wonderful.

(Isn't Rebecca pretty? Can you believe she's old enough to have a married son? I know, right?)

AND...

My friend Amy drove a long way to see me too! I was so touched!

I don't think I got a picture of my friend Karin, who came to see me also. I didn't know she was coming, so I was so happy to see her!

Beyond that...




It was mostly a great time. Especially great?

I still don't know how his name is spelled. I said, "How do you spell your name?" and he whispered, "Zack".

Not great was a young man who made me extremely uncomfortable. I have a few pictures of him, but I will decline to post them here. I will post a picture of my face when someone was telling me about him and what he was saying.


I was a bit alarmed. Enlarge the picture for the full effect.

It was nice to have a lot of my family there:


And the cake was tasty too.


No matter how long I am blessed enough to get to be a writer, I'll always prefer writing over any type of publicity or promotion. But I think maybe next time it'll be okay.

We'll see.