Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Janus

We just found out yesterday that we got approved for our mortgage. So...yay! Hooray for debt!

No, but seriously, we are very happy. We've always been fiscally responsible and we haven't exactly been living in the fast lane, but still, when you have bank people going through your history with a fine-toothed comb, even the most conservative of spenders and savers tends to get a little damp-palmed. (I know that my personal financial history was just about as boring and by-the-rules as you could hope, but I kept getting paranoid that they were going to find out that someone had stolen my identity and had maxed out twenty credit cards that I didn't know I even had on jet ski equipment or something. SO MANY JET SKIS.) Anyway, we've been approved, so that's good.

Life has been very busy and exciting lately. Aside from this House Thing and the Book Thing various other Things, there's a lot going on and most of it's pretty good, but I'm going to hold onto some of these topics until they're a little more fleshed out. But for now, let me point you in two directions: forward and back.

FORWARD: Last week? Or maybe it was the week before, I can't even remember--I got an e-mail from the Hachette Speakers Bureau asking if I was interested in joining their roster of speakers. I said, huh? whuzza? snrf? which I'm sure was very impressive (my oratorical skills are unparalleled under any circumstances, certainly) because I don't know what a Speakers Bureau is and therefore didn't know what they were talking about. But after a very nice phone call from a guy named Blair, now I do.

The Hachette Speakers Bureau is an agency under the umbrella of the Hachette Book Group (of which Grand Central Publishing, my publisher, is one imprint) that basically manages certain authors for speaking events. After ascertaining that I was interested (I was) and after I filled out a survey about myself and topics that I can talk about at some length, and I now have a page on their speaker site and am available to come talk about stuff in your town. What kind of stuff? Well, you read this blog, right? You tell me. Want me to come to your med school/college/Rotary Club/quilting bee and talk about, oh, say, the changing role of social media in medicine? You should e-mail the Hachette Speakers Bureau and try to work something out! Or, you can e-mail me and I will forward the e-mail to them. Technology!

BACKWARD: You guys seem to enjoy the pictures from the Way Back Machine, so here's another one--actually a paired set, from December 31st, 2007.





Here's how I spent my New Year's Eve that year, setting up for a lap appy. Luckily I'm not much of a party person anyway so being in the OR was about as exciting as anything else I could have been doing.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:10 PM

    pregnant again??

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  2. No! (Gotta nip that one in the bud!)

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  3. Hey, I've spent a NYE like that! Except, I was the one under the knife. And it was earlier in the day on the eve. Shared my ginger ale with the nurses that night.

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  4. Also: yay, house!

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  5. Anonymous11:40 AM

    As long as you are going to be in Iowa City, you should have your agent contact Iowa Public Radio. It would be a really great venue to talk about your book. I believe they have studios in both Iowa City and Ames.
    Michelle in Iowa

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  6. Hi Michelle!

    I'm so excited about the book but I'm trying to decide if I should buy hardcover or Kindle. Are there pix in the book? I love the ScutMonkey comics and wasn't sure if there were any in This Won't Hurt a Bit.

    Thanks and congrats/best wishes for the house and the book!
    Julie

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  7. No pics in the book, unfortunately! I love the Kindle myself (well, the Kindle app on the iPad) so I can understand feeling torn--I'm willing to bet that the reading experience will be roughly the same, although the book jacket looks fairly fabulous so if you're into that kind of thing, maybe you'd prefer the hard copy.

    Thanks so much, either way!

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