drive-by

Greetings from beautiful Wheeling, West Virginia! Which I am visiting on account of it being almost halfway between St. Louis and New York and on account of me being crazy enough to think that driving home for Thanksgiving was a good idea.

I had a wonderful if busy time back in St. Louis, but I'm looking forward to getting back to New York, having the chance to blog about something other than publicity, and for the love of all that's holy finally being able to watch Razor.

Until then, a few quick things:

1. My email at unhappymedium.com is ten kinds of wonky. If you've emailed me in the past week and a half or so and I haven't responded, I am so sorry. I just fixed my incoming mail and only just read your email tonight. However: I haven't yet been able to figure out how to route my outgoing mail through an smtp server that isn't my home ISP, so I cannot respond. If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this, feel free to email me! You'll know if your idea worked if I'm able to write you back. As soon as I'm back in Queens, though, I promise particularly witty responses for all those who have written me.

2. Only I would go back to my old high school to talk about language and writing and end up ranting for ten minutes about Crash.

3. If your last name is Raper, you should: change your name. You should not: publicize your RV dealership with dozens and dozens of billboards along I-70 that proclaim "Tom Raper Country." Because I guarantee that "Tom" is not the first word that motorists will see. While driving through Indiana this evening it took me three separate stops to find a gas station I was willing to go into by myself.

4. My hotel in Wheeling only had two rooms still available when I checked in tonight. As I was chatting with the nice man at the front desk (something I would normally be too shy to do, but he was reading A Clash of Kings, which outed him a fellow fantasy nerd), he told me that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are their busiest nights. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS.

5. Even less explicable: Mizzou is ranked #1 in college football. Anyone who isn't from Missouri might not understand how completely insane this is. Imagine Ethan Hawke winning a Nobel Prize in literature. That insane.

6. Raper. Raper.

4 comments:

becky said...

WHEELING! You're 30 minutes away from my hometown. Please wave to my parents for me.

Tuesday and Thursday in Wheeling hotel are the busiest? Hmmm. Just where are you staying, Elizabeth??!

Dan said...

Welcome to my home town! I hope you're taking in all that there is to offer in the "Friendly City," including, but not limited to: Moon Dog sightings (ask a local -- you'll be amused); the dog racing and slot machine mecca that is The Island; and the magnificent Festival of Lights in Oglebay Park.

The lights are probably why the hotel is booked -- not quite sure why Tuesday and Thursday are the busiest days. But, if you have some free time you should go check them out in the evening. Think what would happen if the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney had a christmastime bastard child with "Lion Country Safari." Yeah. That's about right.

At any rate, I hope you enjoy your stay in my fine hometown.

zhoen said...

I always thought it was weird that Pete Townsend refers to "Raper" on Street in the City, because I'd only ever heard Rap -IST.

You might want to list your email as unhappy medium dot com, to avoid spammer bots who get email addresses from websites.

Edward said...

It's not nice to make fun of peoples' names!
I'm sure Mr. Raper (at least it's not Rap-ist!) takes a lot of crap about his name and is getting pret-ty tired of it.

Ed Lemon <-- guess how much crap I get :-)

PS: Loved everything about your book except its length - too short!