just another heartache on my list

I'm super sleepy, but I think my day was a success! I drove up to Cedar Rapids to hang out with some old family friends and give a talk at the Cedar Rapids Public Library, which was super fun. So I spent the morning getting ready, printing off handouts, printing maps (since I wasn't sure I'd have data service where I needed it to find my way to Cedar Rapids), eating, etc. before taking off around 12:30. I stopped for diesel on the way out of town and ran into the office manager for the convenience store I used to work at (not really surprising, since the office faces the diesel pump on the side of the building) -- hard to believe that her kid, who was twelve when I started working there, is now twenty-six and has a four-year-old. Craziness.

Anyway, the drive to Cedar Rapids was long (almost four hours) but uneventful. I went the longer way to avoid the deadly combo of road construction cutting swathes of the shorter route down to one lane + a ramp closure in Iowa City + Obama's visit to the town where I would have gotten onto the interstate, but the longer way was v. nice; the roads were good all the way, and if I had had more time I would have stopped at the "American Gothic" house (although the last time my mom and I tried to find it, it appeared that someone was living there, which kind of took the shine off it).

Once I got to Cedar Rapids, I saw Carol and Gene (my parents' friends from when I was little; Carol was the town librarian and turned a blind eye to my romance reading habits) and their daughter Jan, who is the reason why I chose to play the flute even though my embouchure sucks. I also met Jan's husband Mark, who wasn't sure I actually existed since he's met the rest of my family several times but has never met me, and their three kids -- four-year-old twins and a two-and-a-half year old, which is madness. They had also invited over a woman I didn't remember, since she graduated from my high school in 1983, but my mom was her 4-H club leader, so that means we go way back.

We didn't get to hang out at the apartment all that long, since I had left later than I intended, and so we all packed up and drove across town to the library, which is temporarily located in several storefronts of a mall because the catastrophic floods of 2008 ravaged the original library and they're still in the process of rebuilding it. Not to say that Cedar Rapids was as catastrophic as Katrina, particularly in terms of loss of life, but the city was pretty devastated and things are just now starting to come back (case in point: Jan works for a major museum there that is just reopening its permanent space this summer). But the library was quite nice, and the staff were super friendly - they'd apparently ordered several of my books, and all of them are checked out, which was awesome news!

As I expected, about four people whom I didn't know showed up, but between them, my entourage, and my library host, there were about ten people, which I thought was totally respectable. The talk went well and was really fun, and I signed books after, so I'm glad I did it. After I wrapped up, we all went to a restaurant called Leonardo's, which was awesomely kitsch (red booths, lamps made out of flower planters, an entranceway wall covered in black rocks, etc.) and caught up some more. But the kids needed to sleep and I needed to get back on the road for my three-hour drive home, so we wrapped up around 9:15. And my drive home was utterly uneventful, and I didn't fall asleep or hit a deer, so the trip was a success!

Now, though, I must sleep; I think I'm decorating graves with my mom tomorrow, so sleeping is imperative. Goodnight!