Californian Double Headers
Feat. sea lions, tacos, and one soap star
Let me preface this by saying that I haven’t slept in the last two days, and am so distraught and rageful over the horrific events in Texas, so near where I was this weekend. I wish I was home to hug my kids, and I am so heartbroken for the families, and so fucking furious at the politicians who won’t actually do anything about getting rid of the fucking guns. Sorry for swearing at you. If you’re here, you probably agree with me. We are going to print more Melt the Guns shirts and prints, with Carson Ellis’s beautiful illustration, to raise more money for Everytown. 100% of the proceeds go to Everytown. You can also just give them money. Joe Biden, if you’re reading (let’s just assume he is), how about you go into beast mode round about now, and do everything you possibly can to grind the NRA into dust.
Back to book tour.
The Southern California leg of my tour was bananas. Two events a day, two days in a row, with the two La Jolla events on different days and the two LA events on different days. Make sense? No, I don’t think so either! But anyway, here we go.
The first event was a lunch at Pages, in Manhattan Beach. I did not know about Manhattan Beach! Manhattan Beach is adorable. This was my parking spot. Here is my cute chauffeur.
This windswept beauty with the ocean behind her is my friend Priyanka, whose forthcoming memoir will be the talk of the town next year. Priyanka Mattoo, 16 Kitchens, Knopf, get ready, stay ready. Pri is my favorite for many reasons, not only because she escorted me to my event, but also because she is the person who is most likely to have a good, solid answer for literally any question.
Janelle Brown is one of my fave contemporary novelists, and she was kind enough to join me and ask me good questions. (She also got a delicious lunch out of the deal, I will say.)
Thanks to Linda and the whole staff of Pages for having me! And Tom, her Penguin sales rep! And my brother, for these flowers, which I then passed on to my friends at Warwick’s, because you can’t take flowers on a plane to Oklahoma.
We had a wonderful time. My brother came, my favorite midwife came, my very pregnant friend came and let me lean on her body in this photograph, it was terrific. As soon as lunch was over, I hopped into a car and went to La Jolla, or, as I like to call it, Ville d’Argent.
You know what you can buy in La Jolla? Ascots. Where do you buy them?
Warwick’s is a wonderful bookstore—so enormous, with spacious offices every which direction—and Julie is in charge.
They were lovely. So many bookstagrammers! I love when bookstagrammers make friends and go to events together. Community! Cute stuff, La Jolla.
The next day, Julie swung me on up to a country club for another lunch event. I didn’t take photos of the lunch because honestly, it was too beautiful, but I am going to describe it to you. There was iced tea, with a lemon, waiting at every seat. There was a salad with chicken salad AND lettuce AND fruit and bread and butter and a slice of cheesecake for everyone. I think heaven is a country club with bottomless iced tea and endless salads and cake. I loved every second of it. Here is Mary Lee, who organized the lunch.
Oh wait! How rude of me. I forgot to show you my beach selfie.
Honestly, I am tired. Flipper and nose and belly, all straight into the sand. Okay, time to go back up to LA for my event at Diesel. I took no pictures of Diesel, or of the very smart and generous Antoine Wilson, who chatted with me, or of so many of my friends who came to see me. You know who I did take pictures of? Two people named Michael.
Michael #1, Michael Easton, the artist formerly known as Llanview PD’s Det. John McBain, mentee of retired police detective Pete Braust, and one helluva guy.
Michael #2, Michael Chin, the artist formerly known as Books Are Magic’s Event Director, and new Angeleno. He misses me too, you can tell.
One quick stroll through the Santa Monica Farmers Market, and off to Oklahoma for me.
What I’m Reading: Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence, enjoyable in every way.
What I’m eating: a Kind bar for lunch and dinner, womp womp. Here’s hoping someone in Wisconsin feeds me.
Again: melt the fucking guns.
And also: I hit #1 on several bestseller lists today. Thank you Washington Post, LA Times, and many more! And #3 on the NYT bestseller list! You’ve got some catching up to do, hometown rag! Thank you for buying the book. Now please buy it for someone else, as a present. And please join me at the rest of my events! Still on deck: Milwaukee, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore!