Okay, my sincere apologies for the awful punnage in the title. I just couldn’t resist.

Today I got to see the fabulous Myra McEntire again, when she came to a branch of the Nashville Public Library to celebrate the launch of her new book, Timepiece. (My review is here, but if you don’t want to read a whole review, I’ll just save you some time. Timepiece rocks my world, and it should rock yours too.)

I saw Myra once before, which was an amazing experience. But this time was a bit more intimate. Her husband and kids were there. She brought cupcakes. We pulled our chairs into a circle and talked about all sorts of stuff, some of it related to the Hourglass world, and much of it…not. We discussed Kaleb and Lily and Michael and Emerson, to be sure, but also Vampire Diaries and dementia and 50…um, “Something” of “Something”…and whether or not we think Stephenie Meyer will ever write another book.

I have nothing much new to report from Myra and the Hourglass crew, since most of what she was allowed to reveal was already discussed at the last signing. Or when I interviewed her. Or was something she wasn’t supposed to say, but accidentally let slip. So I’m not going to break confidence and report it.

Sorry.

I am going to start a rumor that Myra’s next book is going to be about mermaids, based entirely on the fact that the cupcakes she brought were decorated with little cartoonish plastic sea creatures. I told her I was going to start this rumor, and she laughed at me, so I’ve decided to take this as confirmation that I am 100% CORRECT. You can take that to the bank.

Um, the third book is going to be called Infinityglass. At least that much is true.

But anyway, it was lots of fun. Myra held firm to her status as one of my absolute favorite authors/people I wish I could hang out with all the time. But I will settle for the occasional local author event.

And she signed my book in a fancy glittery Sharpie.

AND we re-took the picture my camera ate. So now I have proof that we have indeed met.

This event was also fun because I got to meet up with some other Southern bloggers again. I had met Shalena from Writer Quirk and Marla from Starting the Next Chapter at the last event, and today I had the pleasure of meeting Shannon from Stalking the Bookshelves.

I need to go to more events with Shannon. She introduced herself, then promptly pulled out a bag and started giving me presents. Seriously. This has never happened to me before. It was like meeting Santa, if Santa was tiny and female and gave out ARCs and swag.

So that was pretty rad.

LtR: Marla, Elizabeth (an avid reader), Shalena, Myra, Elizabeth's mom Debbie, Shannon, Me

After the signing (Myra and her family hurried out yelling something about Little League), Shannon, Shalena, Marla and I decided to go grab a late lunch/early dinner at Applebee’s before they all started their hour+ drives home and I braved my 15-minute drive.

And at Applebee’s, our waiter was Paul.

The worst. Waiter. Ever.

Okay, I’ve had bad service before. I’ve had waiters and waitresses who didn’t seem to care, who were rude, who were kind of dumb. I even had a racist waiter once, which was real pleasant.

But Paul…well, Paul was different.

First, it took Paul about half an hour to remember to stop by our table at all. So for the first 30 minutes of our Applebee’s experience, we couldn’t have told you that Paul was our waiter. Because he didn’t introduce himself.

Then once he did decide to stop by, he acted like he had just noticed us. No mention of the fact that it took him forever to come to our table.

I should probably mention that Applebee’s was mostly empty, and Paul had spent that 30 minutes waiting on the table right next to us. So I’m not sure how he didn’t see us. It was like we were rips.

(Sorry, that was an Hourglass joke, to tie into the Myra signing).

And when Paul introduced himself, we pretty quickly deduced that he was probably high. And I don’t mean high on life.

I could try to explain to you the wondrous shortcomings of Paul, but my narrative can’t do it justice. So I’m going to write a (bad) sonnet. (And a loose sonnet. Because I don’t feel like worrying about iambic pentameter.)

Longing for Paul

Oh Paul, how we longed for your service

While we sat and discussed YA fiction

and you disappeared into the kitchen.

Your long absences made us nervous.

Your eyes seemed clouded and glassy

Your mouth always slightly ajar

Your words were slurred and bizarre,

Had you been smoking some grass…y?

We thought it was odd when you’d take a long phone call,

Or only refill one of our drinks.

We were confused and nothing made sense.

It was all part of the experience of Paul.

As a waiter, quite frankly, you stink.

Hence your tip of only eighteen cents.

Ta-da! Obviously, if this blogging thing doesn’t work out, I have a very promising future in poetry.

Paul aside, it was a fun day. I love having such awesome blogging friends that live relatively close. And actually, Paul doesn’t have to be aside. Paul’s service was so bad, it was kind of hilarious.  And truthfully, Paul’s frequent mysterious absences gave us a lot more time to talk and laugh and get to know each other. Otherwise we would have left much sooner, to return home to husbands and children and responsibilities.

But we couldn’t because Paul was holding us hostage, and our moral fortitude was keeping us from dining and dashing.

So thanks, Paul. Thank you for making our Applebee’s experience extremely memorable, and for giving us something to look back on and laugh about. Extensively.

And of course, thanks to the person who brought us together in the first place, Myra McEntire. For writing two amazing books. For being hilarious and fabulous to the extent that you make people want to drive multiple hours to hang out with you. And for picking a location really close to that Applebee’s, so that we could discover Paul.