The Perils of Book Tours, guest post by Jodi Meadows

PART ONE

Strategically placed buy link.

On January 29, I had a book come out. Months before, my agent said I should go to Boston — where she lives — and have my launch party there. I agreed that sounded like a fantastic plan.

It all started Tuesday morning. I was to get to the airport by 6:15AM, catch a 7:15 plane to Philadelphia and then Boston, and have a ridiculously fancy time at my launch party that evening.

Since this was January, I was a little worried about snow keeping me from getting (safely, and alive) across the mountain to the (tiny) Charlottesville airport. I also get travel anxiety. I set three alarms to go off early — like, 5AM early — so I could make sure I made it to the airport on time.

So of course I didn’t sleep. I kept checking the clock, the alarms, thinking about my flights in the morning, hoping it wouldn’t snow. The weather people hadn’t forecasted snow, but that doesn’t always mean anything. I was also worried about fog on the mountain. Fog snow fog snow oh my commas traveling tomorrow can I look like a grown up and my book is out eeeeee fog snow fog snow.

That’s not an exact transcript of my thoughts, but it’s pretty close. Just imagine that for several hours. When I should have been sleeping.

All of my alarms went off. I dragged myself into my clothes and grabbed my bag, which I’d smartly packed with everything the night before. Halfway to the car, I ran back to get my toothbrush.

Then I really had everything.

Getting to the airport was no problem. My husband dropped me off and I stood in the security line, waiting my turn to be scanned, wanded, and glared at. When I’d packed, I thought I’d been so smart, getting all of my stuff into one carry-on bag — but then I had to take out my liquids so they could be scrutinized, too. They came out. But would they go back in? Hmm.

“You’re only allowed one bag of liquids,” said the TSA lady.

Me: O____O But I’ve taken two several times and no one said anything. Is this rule new?

Her: No. You’re only allowed one bag of liquids. But . . . some of this looks like contact solution. We’ll see if they let it through.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Yes. Contact stuff. Exactly. They let me through — along with my contact solution — and I thought, “Well, I remembered my toothbrush at the last second and I’ve had a scolding by the TSA people. The rest of this trip should go juuuust fine.”

Then I sat at the gate and waited.

And waited.

Apparently there was a ground hold on planes in Philadelphia, so anyone heading to Boston after that would need to have their connecting flight pushed back.

Great. Great great. Fortunately I was getting into Boston plenty early. I had time. I headed over to the desk, got my connecting flight moved back an hour, and sat down again — next to an older gentleman who had trouble hearing the announcements so, from that point on, relied on me to yell in his ear.

And when we finally got on the plane, we were seat-mates! Yay? He asked why I was going to Boston.

Me: My second book is out today! I’m going to my launch party.

Him: Oh, what do you write about?

Me: Teenagers. Reincarnation. Dragons.

I gave him my card and the usual pitch for INCARNATE. Usually I get either intrigued or unsettled looks from people. This guy just asked, “Why don’t you write about adults?”

Me: Because I like writing about teenagers.

Him: You should write about old people.

Me: I’m happy writing what I write.

Him: You should come to Argentina and write about teenagers there. You could stay at my apartment.

Me: Oh look, electronic devices are allowed again! I have something very important to do with my headphones.

So that happened. We landed in Philadelphia and one of the other guys heading to Boston said our original flight had been delayed, so if we ran, we could all catch that instead of the next flight.

We ran.

The other guys were jerkfaces. They were super rude to the attendants when we arrived at the gate. Oh, I’m sure they thought they were clever with their jokes about the airline delaying and delaying and how we got this flight again because the airline was delaaaaayed, but the folks at the counter just gave them death looks and were really slow to help them. Meanwhile, I smiled and said thank you, and was back on my original flight very quickly.

We landed in Boston. I stopped for coffee, because good grief. I deserved some coffee. Then I pulled out the directions Agent Lauren had given me to get to her apartment.

Blue Line to Government Center. Then a bunch of other stuff. Okay. Okay. Blue Line. I could do this. I walked outside and found a bunch of bus stops. I wasn’t 100% sure how they were organized. There seemed to be some color coding involved. I stood near a blue sign. Because I wanted the Blue Line. Yep. I could do this.

A bus pulled up. Several people standing around me got on. Some didn’t, though. I panicked. Why weren’t they getting on the bus? Didn’t everyone want Blue Line to Government Center?

I didn’t get on the bus. I waited. Other busses were coming. Some had yellow on them. Some had blue. There were all sorts of colors and they didn’t seem to be obeying the colored signs I thought was the thing. I walked inside. Walked back outside. Another bus with something blue on it pulled up. I jumped on and asked the driver if this went to Government Center.

Him: Blue Line to Government Center!

Me: Yes, that’s what I want.

Him: Sit.

I sat. The bus pulled out. We seemed to move just around the airport, but I wasn’t sure. Everything was very large. My airport at home has five gates. I’m very good about finding my way around those five gates. Logan International has . . . considerably more. It’s a little intimidating.

The driver said, “Government Center girl! Get off!”

I got up. “We’re at Government Center?”

Him: No. Blue Line to Government Center.

He’d dropped me off somewhere that looked just like where I’d started. . . .