Weekly Wrap: Penn Station

I am deep into my second round of book edits, and I’ve been very busy helping to get things ready for THE LIAR’S DIARY Blog Day (which is Tuesday, January 29th), so I’m just going to give you a quick tour for the weekly wrap.

All of the public transportation I take funnels me through Penn Station.

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I go through these doors all the time. Cars and cabs used to be able to pull up to the doors, but no more. Now there are enormous cement barriers to keep vehicles a good distance away.

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Penn Station and Madison Square Garden are all in the same building, so if you time things just right, you can take a ride with a lot of drunken sports fans. This is not as bad as it sounds.

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The thing you have to know about NY is that people are actually really friendly, but there are a lot of people and most are in a hurry, so if you walk slowly or stop to ask someone a question, you are going to make about 500 people late. You do not want to do that.

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There are soldiers with automatic weapons everywhere in Penn Station. These guys are really nice and really bored so I always try to wave to them on my way to my favorite haunts.

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My favorite stop inside Penn Station is Penn Books. Whenever I go there and browse the Literary Fiction and Staff Recommended shelves, I wonder if there’s enough time in my life to get through all the books I want to read.

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I am not a health food nut, but I am totally addicted to the beet, celery and apple smoothie from this place. It stains your mouth a wicked red, so it’s something I’ll only get for the ride home.

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I love the live music at Penn but rarely stop. Do you remember the story of Joshua Bell playing at the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station? No one stopped for him either. (I’m told I quote this article too often, but it left such a big impression on me for a number of reasons. Read it if you get a chance.)

Okay, I should get back to my edits….

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Green-Hand, me, Bach-Boy in Paris this summer.

Oh! Before I call it a week, I just want to mention a strange something that happened to my son, Bach-Boy, who many of you know is not just a phenomenal little piano player but also scary-smart in math. [OOPS, HAD TO EDIT OUT SOME IDENTIFYING INFORMATION, SORRY] and now he attends a college math course two hours a week. Anyway, he was sitting in class at his normal public school when a letter was delivered to him from a very prestigious college. The letter noted an article in a newspaper that had mentioned him and said, ‘While it’s (WAY WAY!) early to think about college, we want you to consider our school and want you to know you can call anytime, etc. etc.’ When my son handed me the letter, which was of course all crinkled at the bottom of his backpack, we both just busted up laughing. Every day after school, Bach-Boy and I go on a walk together. That day, we talked about his excitement about the release of DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, 2 because, right now, that’s way cooler to him than going to college.

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Thank you to this week’s guest, Dan Passamaneck, and to everyone who played here. And thanks to those of you who linked to LitPark this week: Imagination in Flight, Rioter’s Roost, the Sun Sentinel, Ovations, The Split Infinitive, The Chucklehut, The Book Pirate, and Backspace at Publishers Marketplace. I appreciate those links!