sarah · dessen

Yesterday, I bundled Sasha up and took her for her very first trip to the UNC campus. It had been ages since I'd been down there, and it was really nice to go back, although I have to say this: nothing makes you feel older than pushing a baby stroller on a college campus. I kept passing tiny girls in leggings and cute coats with their backpacks and perfect skin, and there I was with my diaper bag, and my Snap n' Go and...of course, my beautiful baby, who makes it all worthwhile. We hit the student stores, where we stocked up on UNC apparel (onesie, T-shirt, jacket) and then went to the English Department, where we bumped into a bunch of people I hadn't seen in ages. It was a lot of fun, and made me miss my teaching days. A little bit, anyway.

In other news, Idol started last night and...I didn't even KNOW until my cousin called, surprised to find me not watching it. You'd think that with the lack of original programming these days I'd jump on the bandwagon again, but honestly, I just can't. I flipped over for about two minutes, just in time to see someone who had just gotten rejected going off about Simon and repeatedly flipping off the cameras (it was blurred, but you got the idea. Again, and again, and again). And I just thought, nope. Maybe I'll come back in for Hollywood week, but I don't know. For now, I have too many Gordon Ramsay shows to watch, and one last Brothers and Sisters, and, even better, a HUGE stack of books I might actually get to start reading now that my baby is going to bed before I am. It's a whole new world, and I don't want to spend any my time there watching people's dreams getting crushed.

Finally, I've been hearing more and more from people who have gotten early copies of Lock and Key at various conferences, which is very exciting. As well as a little nerve-wracking. April seemed like a LONG time away back in the fall, when the galleys first came out, but now it's coming at me faster and faster. This is the eighth time I'll be doing this book release thing, so you think it would be No Big Deal, but it's not. It's still great and huge and terrifying, all at once. The nice thing is that whereas once, it was ALL I could think about, now I just don't have that option. I can only freak out in small, contained increments, which is really much better. Of course, I'm still freaking out. But it's more manageable.

Okay, I have a few more minutes before she's up from the morning nap and the real day begins. Gotta go!

have a good day, everyone!