I forget the actual name of this motel, but if you’re ever in Grants Pass and need to spend the night, drive down 6^th Street until you see a bear playing a bright blue bass. This is the best motel ever (except, perhaps, the Fernwood motel in Big Sur, but that is in a class of its own.)

My mother and I are road-tripping back down to California together. Her family (my grandpa, aunts/uncles) live in Santa Rosa, north of the bay, so we’re going to stay with them this weekend and spend Father’s Day with my last living grandparent. Meanwhile, my actual dad gets the best Father’s Day present he could ask for… a quiet house to himself in Washington.

My brother is still technically there, but he gets up at five a.m. and leaves to make organic sandwiches in Bellevue everyday. If you ever need an organic sandwich in Bellevue, go to Homegrown and tell ’em Audrey Greathouse sent you. You’ll probably be in Bellevue anyways, since the Barnes and Noble at Bellevue’s Crossroads Mall currently has a stash of signed copies of The Neverland Wars and you know you want one of those.

Mom and I should make it to San Jose, gods willing, Monday afternoon. Home sweet home on the day of the solstice! My Mom will finally get to see my house, my lemon tree, my magician…it’ll be great.

I kind of fell off the blogging wagon after book release because  POST-PARTUM BOOK RELEASE DEPRESSION. I didn’t have plans for “after book release.” Book release was all that mattered. Book release felt like the end of the world. Making plans for my life past the point of book release would have been like scheduling a coffee date after the rapture.

In retrospect, I should have taken better care of myself in the weeks leading up to (and following) book release… but what’s new? I’m learning. It’s all good. I’m definitely on an upswing now. About two weeks after my Washington book tour ended and I flew back home… I got on a plane and flew back up to Washington again for three reasons:

1) Barnes and Noble invited me to be a featured author at their Bellevue Crossroads store for B-Fest, their national Teen Book Festival. How could I turn that down? The signing went beautifully, and I have an open invitation to schedule another signing when I’m in town again. It feels so great to sign and sell books in-person. As I mentioned, they still have a small stash of signed copies, too.

2) ONCE was happening the same weekend. A short, beautiful music festival at Chumleyland on Camano Island was exactly what I needed, especially since it was organized by my favorite dark cabaret / punk folk, super-artist-inspiration, Jason Webley. I dragged my dear beloved Margaret with me, and we both had the time of our lives. No phones or cameras were allowed, so the entire thing was a great exercise in unplugging and experiencing the wilderness with other people.

3) My homegirl Allyson graduated from the University of Washington. I work hard to make my writing work, but she works harder to make her life work. She is perhaps the single-most driven and determined individual I know. I had to show up to her graduation party and play some Super Smash Brothers with her, right?

So that’s my life in a nutshell at the moment. I’m hoping that once I get home on Monday my calendar will stay travel-free long enough for me to finally get into a good routine EDITING THE NEVERLAND WARS II and give me a chance to figure out how to exist in the culturally desolate city of San Jose (if anyone knows awesome things to do in the south bay, I’m all ears in the comments)

Carry on and be happy, my friends!