The Rebels of Romance - Liz Maverick and Marianne Mancusi

Marianne Mancusi
GO TO: www.mariannemancusi.com

THE REBELS OF ROMANCE ON THE ROAD...BLOG-O-RAMA...

COUNTDOWN TO TOKYO 5/3/08

It's finally sinking in that Marianne and I are leaving for Tokyo in a month. Luckily, my Japan-savvy cousin is in town on business this week. He's been giving me fabulous advice that Marianne and I can use on our trip. He's certainly qualified; he once worked for Hello Kitty and built a Japanese amusment park for them. If we were going to Kyushu we would definitely have to check out "Harmony Land."

[OH MY GOD. He just told me that Hello Kitty *does* have a mouth. According to Sanrio, she has a mouth! It's just that it's hidden in her fur. Seriously. No joke.]

So, back to this morning's nugget of information. I already knew we were supposed to be up at 5:00am to go check out the fish market (if you're thinking it's something like Pike's Place Market in Seattle, you are mistaken), but he gave me some important secret scoop. If you happen to be in Tokyo, do the following:

After you check out the fish market, go across the street and start looking for a large crowd of people. They are waiting in line at a ramen shop. There are many ramen shops, but this is the one with the special recipe. Get in line, but take care not to stand in front of either shop bordering said shop as this would be a total etiquette foul. When you get to the front of the line, you will have three choices. Pork. Extra Pork. No Pork. Order and get out of the way.

Which reminds me, and I digress: At RT, Marianne suddenly looks at me in horror. "We're going to Tokyo in less than two months," she says, "And I forgot to learn Japanese!" Uh, yeah.

Well, no fear, Marianne. According to the internet, "pork" is "butaniku" or if you're lame and American, "po-ku." See, we're totally ready!

Anyhow, you get your ramen, which costs, like, $2 and you go out to the gutter, put your bowl atop a stainless steel table, grab your milk crate or whatever and elbow in with the good people of Tokyo.

Awesome. Just...awesome.

Liz Maverick

REAL LIFE 5/1/08

Oh, god. It's May 2008. How did that happen? What does it all mean? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? Ahem. In other news, I found my favorite wig picture!

(How many of you can say you have a favorite wig picture?) Marianne's on the far right, of course, and that's our editor.

Ah, yes. Our editor. In fact, I'm writing this in the home stretch. IRREVERSIBLE must go back in on Tuesday morning and that's not, er, reversible. Aside from blogging, I'm just editing. At one point Marianne called me, and I had to admit I hadn't left the house in three days. But that's not normal. In the final throes of a deadline week, I usually leave the house every day. For at least fifiteen minutes.

Needless to say, Ranier--the lovely doorman downstairs--thinks I'm a little crazy. I greet him in the morning, disappear for fifteen minutes across the street while I shop at the oh-so-convenient grocery, then return to the building with an enormous sack of food. For a while, he tried to pretend he didn't really notice how much I seemed to be eating, but there it was...in the air...the unspoken truth between us: I eat a lot when a book is due. Sigh.

Today, Leana Renee Hieber (you may know her as the other vampire in the phone booth) came over to write, and I freaked out (in a good way) and ran over to Citerella and started throwing things into my basket, so delighted was I that she would be arriving around lunch time. "We'll just have a bit of a feast!" I said. "Something to motivate us!" I said. "We've been working so hard on our writing, we deserve a little something!" I said, all aglow with justification culinarus.

The bag was so large and heavy, it was embarrassing. I get into the lobby and Ranier doesn't say anything. I point to Leanna who's waiting there and I blurt, "It's for her too!" He just smiles and calls the elevator.

It's okay. When Irreversible comes out, I'll give him a copy. By then I will have dropped the extra ten pounds, and he'll understand when the next deadline comes around. Of course, if he reads the book, he still might think I'm a little crazy!

:p Liz Maverick

REAL LIFE 4/29/08

It's become a habit for me to post photos to Flickr as soon as I return home from an event or a night out. It's a convenient place to store them and it makes them easily linkable to my blog. But since Flickr is a public service, anything you put up there becomes open to the masses to view. And so from time to time, Liz and I like to check to see what are the most popular photos uploaded to my photostream.

Some are obvious. This photo of me and Dr. 90210 has gotten 232 views. But he's Dr. 90210, so we get it. (BTW he's showing me here how Brazilians hug. He's quite a character!)

Same with this one of the Australian group "The Ten Tenors." Ten hot Aussies. Obviously we know the reason 131 people stole a peek.

But some are less obvious. Like the 71 people who viewed Liz and I deflating a blow-up dragon after the Dorchester party at last year's RT convention. Huh?

And some are downright disturbing. We took this photo of me with diapers as part of an inside joke. And yet 56 people have gone and checked it out! For the love of God, WHY?!

Are people out there in interweb land bored? Amused? Is my diaper photo some random guy in Missouri's wallpaper? Do people wonder what happened to the dragon post-deflating? I guess we'll never know!

Marianne

Post-Convention Reacclimation, 4/28/08

This is it, people. My very first edited video. (Um...woot?) Yes, this is from the raw Marianne brought over yesterday. She shot it on this teeny-tiny little purse video-cam sort of like the one Barbara "The Babs" Vey uses for her blog. The quality is kinda sketch, but maybe that's something I did while rasteroptigeneracombobulating. It's got hinks and jolts and futzs and wonks and glizms. And you'd think I could have used more than one piece of music...oh, and it seems to be lacking a narrative thread. But you know what? You've gotta start somewhere. You gotta just put it out there. (Sort of like a book you really don't want to hand into your editor.) Okay, is that enough of a disclaimer for even the most perfectionist amongst us? (I mean, me.) Here goes...

The Rebels of Romance starring in "Makeup is Fun!" (1A) from Liz Maverick on Vimeo.

Post-Convention Reacclimation, 4/27/08

So Marianne stopped by my place today to deliver some video we filmed on Thursday when I participated in one of her shoots for Better.TV*. I thought she could just send it up somewhere, and I could download it--which seems ridiculous in hindsight given the MB--but, no, she had to come over. And, of course, my place was a mess, and I ran around trying to camoflauge the chaos (thank god I'd just cleaned the kitchen). I mention this because it has to do with the writer's life at conference. I don't know how this happened (and my mother certainly doesn't) but somewhere along the line, I became a slob.

As my various conference roommates know, I have a certain quirk relating to housekeeping. I don't like housekeeping to come into the room. At all. During the entire conference. Usually, there's a lot of equipment and laptops around and it's just a total paranoia thing. The side effect of this, ahem, quirk, is that there is no incentive to clean up so that housekeeping can do its thing. Of course, since I refuse to let housekeeping in, it's my responsibility to go hunt down the carts and get the appropriate replacements. Sometimes you do run out of stuff, particularly if you use your last fresh towel to cover the corpse of a dead cricket and housekeeping isn't coming back to the floor until the next day.

Well, the room begins to resemble an archeological dig of sorts, in order of the days of the week. At RT, it began with the faery layer, moved through the vampire layer, and peaked at the boot-stompin' layer. Housekeeping even called to ask if we were okay. I think they may have worried we had a bag of ricin in there, or something. Anyway, all my friends are used to this behavior by now. In fact, I think Marianne was messier this time around. Maybe she's given up. God only knows what's going to happen when we get to our miniscule hotel room in Tokyo. Is it possible to suffocate in your own belongings? Maybe that's what happens to those women who are discovered four years after their deaths, mummified and with one of their hands still clutching a People Magazine.

Okay, that's just depressing. I think I'll go hang up some clothes...

:) Liz Maverick

*All of this video-blogging has piqued my interest. I'm using Microsoft MovieMaker to try my own editing for the first time. The result will be a little scary, methinks, but you gotta start somewhere.

Post-Convention Reacclimation, 4/25/08

Marianne and I agreed we are completely sick of ourselves. So we've decided to make today a photo and video free post and we'll all just have a chat, you and I.

Ahem.

Here's a snippet about what it's like when you're in a foreign country and people find out you're a writer.

So those who know me well know that I travel quite a bit. I'm often returning my friends' calls from airport gates.

I flew back from Buenos Aires the day before conference congratulating myself and my high school Spanish teacher Senorita Azevedo (She seemed so old back then, and now I know she wasn't. Sigh.) for my ability to succesfully communicate with the good people of Argentina.

I was there for about five days and as the cab driver squired me to the airport for my flight back to the States, he asked me what I did for a living. Now mind you, he asked me in Spanish. Luckily, it's the verbs that stick. The tenses tend to be the first thing to go out the window, I find, but the verbs and the nouns are loyal. So, I told him I was a novelist. And he asks, what's your favorite book? And I said Wired, because it happened to be my favorite book that day. And then he lowered the boom. He said, "Tell me what your book is about."

This is where I looked desperately at the time and realized we had a good 45 minutes left and I was going to have to describe to him--in Spanish--the alternative reality, slightly existential, funny but science-fictiony, actiony but romancey nature of my book. I suspect if I were a native speaker it would have sounded something like this:

"My book is complicated. My book is about many different realities. It is love. It is time. It is...love...and time...and fantasy-like...and science-fictionalityish. But it is also very funny. There is activity. Many activities. It is a complex book. There are many...what is the word...complications. Of love. And time. And realities. Many of them. Many...oh, hell."

But he seemed to understand and we began to discuss--still in Spanish--his philosophy on life and death. At this point my brain really hurts. You know how there's that whole thing where if you know a language well, you don't actually translate it word for word? It just comes out naturally? Yeah. Well, I don't have that.

So we moved through his belief system which involved the idea that there is no death, but only change...(Cambiar! I remember cambiar!)...I think he was trying to say something very deep that I could only interpret to mean that we are the same as trees except we aren't, and then we headed straight into how the Aztecs have predicted that there will be a disaster of cataclysmic proportions in the year 2012. He then said that everybody knows that the Aztecs are extremely accurate.

Dude.

15 minutes to go, we discussed the Chinese zodiac and found out we were both Year of the Dog. And then he produced a funky card with a bunch of symbols and told me to go research the "Blue Palm." I'm still a little freaked out about the year 2012 so I have yet to research the Blue Palm though I do intend to at some point.

And all this is to say that writers fascinate people all over the world. You go straight from "Where are you from and are you pleased with your caipirinha?" to discussions that really get into a person's gray matter.

I think that's super-cool, don't you?

Of course, my little "we are the world" and "isn't my Spanish amazing!" buzz kind of hit a roadbump as I was returning home after the conference. I'm in the airport and I go into the restroom just before the flight. (Is this an overshare?) I have to blink my conference-addled eyes twice to take in what I'm seeing. It's a small poodle. The owner has placed some sort of blue hospital urine pad down on the floor of the bathroom and is pleading with it. "Hace pee-pee, baby. Hace pee-pee!" And you don't need high school Spanish to know that it's basically an idiom for "please do your damn business now so you don't do it thousands of feet in the air in my carry-on bag area." Que horror.

Hasta manana. (Wish I knew how to get the tilde and accentos happening.)

:) Liz Maverick

The Romantic Times Convention, Post Mortem 4/24/08

Um...a video is worth a thousand words...heh.

The Romantic Times Convention, Post Mortem 4/23/08

A hand frees itself from a maelstrom of blankets. It reaches...catches only air. Reaches again...nothing. Frantic now, it palms the sheets. Ah-ha! And with a mighty *thwack* the alarm is silenced. Liz here, back from her death bed. So let's dive right in. I'm going to pull some random photos and see what we've got...

Oh. Right. Well, yeah, the hotel left a little to be desired (see photos of the WOMEN'S restroom below), but, so what! We were too damn busy to worry about such matters and it was really only an aesthetic issue.

More Rockstar Goodness:

I just have to say, I LOVED THIS BAND. They were sponsored by kick-ass authors Erin McCarthy and Kathy Love, and I think this was the first time we've had a live rock band at conference. If anyone's listening up there, *BRING THEM BACK NEXT YEAR! PLEASE GOD. PLEASE BRING THEM TO ORLANDO...AND HAVE THEM PLAY FOR WAY LONGER. IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK? OKAY, I'LL TAKE A PLACE ON THE NYT LIST, TOO, BUT PLEASE GOD BRING THE IMPALERS BACK TO ORLANDO* There's just something about a live band that really injects a lot of fun into a party. There's also something about a live band that is totally into what they are playing. And there's also something about a live band that plays awesome, danceable music that doesn't come off every DJ tray at every "dance party" you've ever been to in your life.

Marianne and I requested Guns n' Roses, people! And did they deliver some Sweet Child o' Mine? Why, yes they did! Everybody was singing along and rocking out and Leanna Renee Heiber and I were doing a mean air guitar. So mean, in fact, that a crowd of people stopped dancing thinking we'd hurt ourselves. Marianne tells me there is actually VIDEO (what's with the caps today?!) of this moment because she actually pressed record instead of snap. Hey, Marianne, can you upload that?

Okay, last one I'm gonna pull...Holy Mother of All Things Sacred.

Speaking of Leanna...did you know that she's not just a writer...she's also a card-carrying actress? Does this photo convince you? Should Marianne be frightened? Methinks the answers would be yes and yes.

Those are today's snaps from the archives. More coming at ya soon... Liz Maverick

The Romantic Times Convention, Day 4, Part III (In which The Rebels of Romance become ROCKSTARS!)

Marianne here! Has everyone caught up on sleep yet? I sooo haven’t. But it was worth it. Especially when I watch this part four of the RT video blogging. Saturday was such a fun day!

This video has footage from the Mr. Romance competition. As in hot guys with no shirts on. Yes, I know, you can pause reading this and go watch. I’ll wait!

Rebels of Romance Video Blog Day 4 from the Romantic Times Convention from Miss Media Productions on Vimeo.

Back yet? Before reading on, I’ll give you one more link. The incredibly wicked Sybil’s How to Drive a Cover Model Round the Bend in Ten Easy Steps. Not that I’m advocating this, mind you. I’m just pointing our her wickedness for all the world to see.

On a more serious note, I wanted to give a shout out to our publisher, Dorchester, for being awesome as usual at the convention. Chris, Erin, Renee, and the RT goddess Diane Stacy herself bent over backwards to make us feel at home and ensure we had everything we needed to maximize our conference experience. And the Dorchester "These Boots Were Made for Stomping" party was totally the best of the week. (Okay, I’m probably a bit prejudiced since it was a party dedicated to my anthology, but you gotta admit, it was pretty darn cool. And there was popcorn! You can’t go wrong with free, freshly popped popcorn!)

Here’s a photo of the gang on Fairy Ball night. (Renee gets extra props for wearing her wings!)

Anyway, that’s all the video blogs we produced -- one per day of the convention -- but we have lots more video to share with you in the upcoming weeks. We took a lot more than we could squeeze into three minute segments, so we’ll be producing separate little pieces and uploading them here. There will be interviews, games, and other such fun. So check back soon!

And lastly, thanks for supporting the first official video blogging experiment for The Romantic Times Convention. We’ve had an overwhelming response so far -- over 12,000 hits in just four days! We’re honored you took the time to watch our silly adventures and can’t wait to do it all over again next year in Orlando! In the meantime, come back tomorrow when Liz rises from her death bed to weigh in on the last couple of days and post more photos...she's also obsessed with the idea of making a blooper reel, so there's that coming as well.

Marianne

The Romantic Times Convention, Day 4, Part II

Hey all,

Liz is post-conference sick (she blames me who was during-conference sick, of course!) so I'm taking over the blogging duties for the day. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by and viewed our videos. Today we will be posting both Day #3 and Day #4 of our RT Adventures. We have interviews with vampire authors Kim Harrison, Angela Knight, and Kerrilyn Sparks. Meeting Kim Harrison, I have to say, was one of the highlights of my conference. She and her husband were so nice! I always love when it turns out that authors whose work I admire are also great in real life!

The label got left out, but that's Kim in the first interview. This clip's a little short because we saved a lot of the good stuff for the Grand RT Convention Finale.

Rebels of Romance Video Blog Romantic Times Convention Day 3 from Miss Media Productions on Vimeo.

On Friday we attended the Mr. Romance competition. Both Liz and my books were featured -- and the cover models acted out our heroes as the narrator read the back of our books. Of course my hero scored the guy who had to be escorted off the premises later that day by Pittsburgh's finest for assaulting the winner.

Liz's guy, playing Q from Irreversible, was less of a troublemaker...

On Friday, we attended the Dorchester bookseller party and mingled with some great ladies from bookstores and libraries all over the country! They were so fun and enthusiastic! Long live independent, romance friendly bookstores!!

For the party, I dressed up as my "These Boots Were Made for Stomping" character "Hailey" who dresses up as her character "Karma Kitty" (she's a comic book writer) at Comic Con. The story was inspired by the costume controversy at RWA last year when Liz and I were accused of dressing up like our characters at a booksigning. (We didn't -- we were just dressed up in generic manga outfits.) I'm pretty proud of the costume - pictured below:

Liz didn't dress as a specific character, but she still looked adorable.

At the party, I had to get on stage and draw names for the boot/shoe giveaway by HiHeelia.com. Free shoes! Fun, fun.

Then Liz and I got to be backup singers/dancers for the Impalers - the vampire band sponsored by Kathy Love and Erin McCarthy. We danced and sang on stage to "Pour Some Sugar On Me." I totally felt like a rock star. The band was awesome - played lots of 80s hair bands. We danced and danced. I hope they come back next year cause they were certainly a highlight at the convention.

And finally, here's me at the end of the day. Cause these boots were REALLY made for taking off.

Still, I had a blast and it was an amazing conference. Thanks so much for everyone who worked so hard to make it a success. I can't WAIT til next year. I hope we get invited back to video blog too. So if you enjoyed the videos, please let Carol Stacy or Jo Carol know!! :)

And keep checking back - there are a lot more videos to be uploaded over the next couple of weeks!

Marianne

The Romantic Times Convention, Day 4, Part I

I guess I should begin by noting that I messed up when I posted the first day's video and accidentally just posted the opener. So, I posted it again. Remember to look for parts 3 and 4 on Monday and Tuesday. I have to tell you that Tuesday's is going to be particularly hilarious. I think, anyway. It was nuts. And I'm going to blow the lead by posting a picture that will go down as one of the best conference moments of all time. In part, because Marianne and I were was not only ogled by Fabio from across the room, but also because he's sort of copping a feel in the photo.

In all seriousness, the guy was lovely and gracious and perhaps he did not actually mean to put his hand on my bazoonga. He was getting ready to leave after a very long day and we had to get the shot very fast and I'm short and he's tall and perhaps the mathematics of it all led to the moment captured below not to mention one could argue that it's not really a cop or a feel given that he's not really, like, *gripping* at anything, really. Perhaps it's more of a...shall we say, "grazing"? Well, it's a matter of interpretation. And I kind of appreciate his saucy smirk.

Anyhow, there's much, much more to discuss. Chocolate-covered bacon, Adrian Paul, Marianne and I screaming "Pour some sugar on me!" onstage with the band...I'm at the airport but I promise to get more photos up when I get back to New York. That all being said, I have to say this week of mini-blogging may just have brought me back from Blog Hiatus for good. Besides, I haven't properly documented the Marianne underwear story which has a very amusing punchline.

The Day 1 video, one more time...

Rebels of Romance Video Blog Romantic Times Convention Day 1 from Miss Media Productions on Vimeo.

More later...Locked and loaded (vodka cranberry, anybody?), Liz Maverick

The Romantic Times Convention, Day 3

[The 3rd video clip will be posted on Monday and the 4th on Tuesday.]

Dayfits: Marianne wore an adorable black dress (that seemed slightly homage-ish to the Chrysler Building) with fishnets and massive platform boots. I went with cargo-camo-capris, black patent clomper boots and a cute white majorette vest. Can't wait to get home and download all the photos for you.

Friday morning Marianne and I met The Lipstick Chronicle gang (named after their blog--check it out) at breakfast. Harley Jane Kozak, Sarah Strohmeyer, and Nancy Martin had us laughing so hard, I nearly inhaled my croissant up my nose. We shot some interview reel with them and talked a little shop. I went upstairs to do techie stuff while Marianne attended the RT Awards. I find this hard to believe, but she says the conference chicken was the best she'd ever had. Chicken-wise. At a conference.

After lunch, we headed up for an interview with Kim Harrison. She was delightful, to say the least. A doll. She also hosted a challenge put together by our producer Morgan. All I have to say is I lost and had to eat something really gross. Heh. You'll have to wait and see it when we post the clips.

After hanging out with Kim, we got dressed for the Vampire Ball. If one were in the Halloween section at Wal-Mart, Marianne would be described as Saloon Vampire Girl, and I'd be Audrey Hepburn Vampire Girl.

Party talk included the rumor of a Fabio-sighting, but no confirmation--photographic or otherwise--could be made. Stay tuned...

The Romantic Times Convention, Day 2

Yesterday was a blur. When I try to articulate everything we did, the only words that come out are, "panels" and "fairies." Woke up, got out of bed and stepped into our Day-fits. From there, it was the Action Romance panel. Marianne, our Shomi editor Chris Keeslar, yours truly as panel captain, and bookseller Stacey Agdern discussed the new breed of hybrid romances. Someone asked if there was anything that Chris didn't want to see in a submission for the Shomi action romance line and I riffed on an in-joke, suggesting that Amish Erotica might be that one thing. He took the ball and ran with it and while we couldn't put it in the daily video, hopefully we'll get some of that video up once we get home.

After that panel, we headed for the lobby to shoot interviews with Hank Phillippi Ryan, Gennita Low, and Kayla Perrin. It's hard to do a great interview when you're having too much fun! We'll also have good clips of those up after the post-conference editing stage.

We headed back to the panels with Hank for a Media & Marketing panel. I was the hapless author in the "bad interviewer" media interview roleplay. Marianne (for those of you who don't know, she's a TV producer in real life!) interviewed me, asking me questions like, "What's it like to write porn?" and "Have you met Fabio?" so that I could show how to turn bad questions into good answers. Much fun. I actually learned so much in this panel I stayed for the second half as an audience member. Hank's amazing. Any chance you have to catch one of her workshops, I recommend it.

Anyhoo, Marianne and I had to miss the Dorchester Publisher Spotlight in order to get to our *next* panels on time. It's too bad, because I like to think of it as sort of an annual tradition. Where all the Dorchester authors who are at the conference attend the spotlight and sit in the back together waiting to find out whose names will be mentioned and whose book covers will be featured.

Marianne was captain of the two Young Adult genre panels and she asked me to sit on one of them as an adult writer whose material skews towards a younger audience. The diversity of the panel was incredible (multicultural, Christian, vampires & werewolves, descendents of the Roman gods in high school, you name it). Best of all, Melissa Marr caught up with Marianne at some point to say how much she and her daughter had enjoyed her books. Marianne is still beaming.

The panels finally ended and we moved into Party Prep Mode for the Faery Ball. Marianne had an unbelieveable costume on, complete with shoulder-length gloves, coral reef tiara, and a literally "scalloped" bodice. I was going to go as krill in pink and white but I figured nobody would get it. I should mention that it was sort of funny to see the fairies mingling with the speakeasy girls from the midnight Speakeasy Party. I could go on and on. Party here, party there. But that's RT, is it not? Where else can you pitch a book to an industry professional wearing a blue wig and a tulle ballgown? More later... Locked and loaded, Liz Maverick

Rebels of Romance Video Blog Romantic Times Convention Day 1 from Miss Media Productions on Vimeo.

The Romantic Times Convention, Day 1, Part II

Good news. Marianne now has underwear. And no thanks to the City of Pittsburgh. I'm not kidding you when I say that the local mall had a Tall Girl store and a Big Girls store but no Scrawny Girl store. She had to resort to the offerings at the local Rite-Aid. Good times, I tell you. Good times.

So what was I talking about before this? Oh, the Intergallactic Bar & Girl. Marianne and I stopped in to watch the trivia contest in process and grabbed a couple of free Bellinis. After, Colby Hodge, Marianne and I went to grab a sandwich; we stuck Colby with the check and ran out after the three of us gabbed so long we were running late for our next shoot. (Hey, Colby! The next one's on me!)

Back up in the room, we morphed into our night gear for the Hollywood party. I was sporting a black satin 50's-ish halter dress and Marianne had on an amazing corset and skirt. Some of the costumes were really incredible. There were retro dresses and prom dresses and half-naked guys, if you can call that a costume. Marianne and I mugged it up posing for the fake paparazzi and dancing to "Brick House." Marianne says dancing in stillettos and gown is way trickier than with combat boots at the goth club. Liz says get over it, you should see my platform boots. :) More later... Locked and loaded, Liz Maverick.

The Romantic Times Convention, Day 1, Part I

Marianne and I arrived at the conference hotel on Tuesday. We're the official videographers of this year's conference so we have a lot of work to do. I drove to Pittsburgh with a minivan load of fellow writers, our producer Morgan Doremus' filming equipment, and a ridiculous amount of luggage. The usual hijinks ensued. (How's that for a summary? But the journey's not the point, in spite of what the swamis say. This week it's all about the destination.) Marianne flew in and we checked in and unpacked, at which point...

Marianne realized she forgot her underwear. I'm still laughing. It's all so glamorous, isn't it? And that's before the part where I mention that the hotel is under renovation and they seem to have run out of rooms with two beds so we're sharing a king. It's like The Odd Couple in here. Except with a lot more glitter and feathers. I can only imagine the horror of five hundred women waking up this morning (Wednesday) and realizing the hotel had not installed full-length mirrors in their rooms.

In any case, we rolled out of said bed at a reasonable hour to spackle and shellack and took our traditional "Today's Day Outfit Is..." pictures. Sadly, Marianne forgot her camera cord so no shot from this morning...we'll use mine tomorrow. We headed down to interview Jade Lee and Judi McCoy for the reel (they are so much fun!), grabbed some very necessary Joe (Maverick = Triple Skinny Venti Latte, Mancusi = Skinny Vanilla Venti Latte) and then hung out in the lobby with the Ellora's Cave girls for a little rowdy talk.

Next up, filming at the Intergalactic Bar & Grill. It's supposed to be a doozy. More later... Locked and loaded, Liz Maverick

BOOK EXPO AMERICA, NEW YORK

The infamous Book Expo America slideshow...complete with parrot!