From a hotel room in Birmingham

One more night on the road. I love book tours, but sometimes these hotel rooms start to close in on you, and I start to miss Mr. Mary Kay, and the Boomerang Boy, and Weezie and Wyatt. And to be truthful, I miss my pillows. My own, big, fluffy down pillows. But mostly it’s all good. I haven’t zeroed out any signings on this tour. YET. Of course, it’s threatening to snow this afternoon and evening in Birmingham, where I still have two more signings today. We Southerners are notoriously snow-shy. It’s not that we’re weather weenies. We brave hailstorms and tornadoes and droughts, and heat waves. You’ve never been hot ’til you’ve been stuck in a traffic jam on I-285 in August with an air conditioner on the fritz. But we have snow so seldom down here, most towns and counties don’t have snowplows. And the only people with snow tires are transplanted Yankees–who love to tell us how they do it “up home.” Helpful Hint–Never, ever, offer to tell a Southerner “how we do it up home,” unless you enjoy getting the death-eye. In Atlanta, if even the teensiest flake falls, we rush to the stores for milk, bread and videos. Also beer, and in my case, chocolate. My reasoning is–they have tons of snow in Switzerland, and everybody knows the Swiss are famous for chocolate–hello? ever hear of Swiss Miss? So the only way to guarantee you’ll make it through a snowstorm is to lay in an emergency supply of chocolate. My hope is that everybody in Birmingham will rush out to get chocolate and milk and bread, and then they’ll realize they should also stop by a bookstore and buy DEEP DISH. And then, tomorrow, I’m hoping the folks in Greenwood Mississippi will turn out at Turnrow Books, where a real live chef will make the tomato soup chocolate cake from DEEP DISH. After that, I’m headin’ home. Another reason I’m looking forward to going home is that this is Scott’s Antique Market in Atlanta. I’ve missed the last three months of Scott’s, so I am not about to skip going out there Sunday with the junk posse–snow or no snow.