Little City

I had a reading on Saturday morning at Little City Books in Hoboken.

Just a few folks, but a nice mix of babies, toddlers and slightly bigger kids.

Like most authors, I have to recruit my own friends and family in order to have enough people in the audience to make a baseball team. Even the signage basically said, "Hey, some author is going to be here."

So it's not like they had to hire extra security for crowd control or anything.

But it's a way for an indie bookstore and a modestly known author to promote each other on Facebook and maybe draw a few folks into the store on a Saturday morning or have them linger an extra twenty minutes if they're already there.

For me it's simply a kid fix. I wouldn't even care if it were someone else's books. It makes me happy to hang out with energetic little kids who tumble around on the floor and don't sit still and wander over to slobber on you while you're reading. Never under-estimate the healing powers of baby slobber.

It also makes me happy to be with parents who are thoughtful enough to bring their children to a bookstore on a Saturday morning, and with people who are passionate enough and crazy enough to run a bookstore.

We should all spend more of our short time on Earth hanging out with positive people instead of a-holes, right? If I've learned one thing in life....

As it happens, Fin and Ella came all the way from Pennsylvania. I'm not exactly sure what the actual term is for my mother's sister's husband's sister's daughter's kids, but let's call them my sixteenth cousins twice removed. It is always fun to see them. 

We hung out afterwards at the local pizzeria.

There are much worse ways to begin a weekend.