Home Again!

I'm home and I'm tired. But a good tired, mostly, other than my feet, which are very sore. I kind of overdid it on the walking, and shoes that have always been comfortable failed me, plus those blister cushion bandages don't really work very well. They tend to bunch up and slide around, giving you worse blisters, and by the end of the day they're down on the soles of your feet, where they're not very useful.

As much as I love New York, I also love being home, in spite of the fact that I got home to record-breaking cold temperatures. Seriously, it was warmer in New York than in Dallas yesterday, and there was snow on the ground in New York. Supposedly, it's warming up here, which is good. The weird thing is, one of the reasons I was glad to get home was the fact that I could sleep in a cool room once more. My hotel doesn't have individual room thermostats, and they had the furnace set to "tropical." The first night, it must have reached 85 degrees in my room -- with the windows open and temperatures outside in the 20s. I had to call to beg them to turn it down because I was seriously suffocating. The rest of the week it was better, but I still kept the windows open and I slept in silk pajama pants and a t-shirt under just a sheet. It was nice to get home and be able to snuggle up in my flannel PJs under my fluffy comforter. My ideal sleeping environment is far closer to "in an igloo under a pile of bearskins" than it is to "naked in the tropics."

I've more or less caught up on reading e-mail, though not on responding to it. And I'm sure I'll get around to something resembling a trip report sooner or later. In the meantime, I'm going to go eat popcorn and drink cocoa while watching On Demand movies. I'm hoping my brain will recover at some time during the weekend.

Someday, I swear, I'm going to visit New York and not overdo it to the point I come home utterly exhausted and sore. But if I do, I imagine I'll be obsessed with all the fun things I didn't do, all the things I didn't see. I don't know how many chances I'll get to visit the city at Christmas, and I didn't want to miss seeing anything. It was truly spectacular.

One quick bit of business: I've been asked where people can get autographed copies of Enchanted, Inc.. I got around to a few bookstores in the area, so here are some places in the general New York vicinity where you might find autographed books. Book numbers are as of this week and are, of course, subject to change.
Posman Books, Grand Central Station -- one copy
Barnes & Noble, Astor Place -- one copy
Barnes & Noble, Union Square -- two copies
Borders Books, terminal A, Newark Liberty Airport -- three copies

Of course, they're not personalized because I lack Owen's gift for precognition and didn't know who'd be showing up in the stores to buy them. You may also still be able to find autographed copies at the Borders in Uptown Dallas, the Borders in the River Oaks part of Houston and in the Barnes & Noble in Lewisville, Texas. I sincerely hope the store stock I signed in the general Dallas area in June has sold out by now.