I just got back from travelling the distance between Canadaland and the Midwest. I had a great time. People fed me burgers and chicken wings. I had my own personal chauffeur and my chariot was a Kia Soul. I spent the 4th talking to two drunk guys about Canadian geography. I went to the zoo and refused to touch a shark. I ogled a bust of a ripped ancient Greek man at the museum. I bought Janet Evanovich’s new book at the US price. I ate a giant waffle at The Waffle House.

Life was good for two weeks.

One of the highlights of the whole trip was a Friday lunch with Lexi Ryan and Dhympna of Culinary Carnivale. The day started with me feeding Lexi Ryan strawberries with whipped cream and Hershey chocolate syrup, which she couldn’t complain about because a) it was an awesome breakfast, and b) she admitted to eating Oreos before making the drive to meet me. I gave her a book and some soap from Great Canadian Soap and we chatted about writing for a bit.

This was followed by a game of “Where the fuck is the goddamned bookstore?” in downtown Indianapolis, which was then followed by a game of “Where the fuck are you?” in the bookstore with Dhympna. Eventually we found one another and it was like the day before Christmas vacation with the gifts. Dhympna brought loot – food, a book, and even a penis shaped candle which we later burned in honour of Vintage Skarsgard’s flawless ass (no, not really, but that would have been something, wouldn’t it?) Once we were good and caffeinated we hit the bookstore.

I found this little gem, which has been added to my wishlist:

And Dhympna went into a frenzy when she found her hero with a nymphy fragrance.

We looked at all the ass and boobs on the covers, fondled many books, discussed titles with the words Greek, billionaire, sheik, secretary and bride in them. Lexi made sure her friend Emma Wildes’ books were front and centre on the shelf:

And set off Dhympna’s OCD so she had to rearrange the books so they looked pretty:

Lexi was my babysitter and in charge of not letting me go into total book frenzy. I walked away with something by Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Lexi bought a Harlequin anthology that she had been wanting (which she promptly lost …) I don’t know how she did it but Dhympna managed to walk away from a book about sex and royalty.

And now it was time to get lost for a second time. We made the mistake of asking the Hover Clerk at the bookstore how to get to the restaurant we had our hearts set on. Apparently he was an agent sent  by Saranna DeWylde to give us directions to her house, because I’m pretty sure we wandered into an entirely different state. Luckily Lexi had GPS-Fu and we didn’t get raped or mugged.

The food was great and so were the drinks, but this establishment’s claim to fame has to be the pictures of Scottish men in the bathroom. We all experienced the elation of sitting on the can only to discover Mel Gibson in Braveheart dress staring back at us:

Since we had all brought our E-Readers, Dhympna pulled hers out so Lexi and I could read an excerpt from Nicholas while she peed in the altar of Mel Gibson. Of course we had to talk about it afterwards and in doing so caught the attention of the table behind us. This would have been embarassing if Lexi didn’t overhear one of them compare True Blood to Harry Potter, which is just ten times more inappropriate than talking about two dicked heroes. We were so traumatized we had to seek out chocolate and we almost got to find out what happens when you stand between Lexi Ryan and an Oreo cheesecake.

Great day with some fabulous ladies and I can honestly say that the boobage between us could have kept the Titanic afloat. (Sara, we missed you!!!) I spent a little bit more time with Lexi Ryan and her family over the weekend and finally persuaded Lexi to let me buy her The Vampire Diaries (yay!). This is definitely a trip I would make again and beat the hell out of a cruise or a beach in the Caribbean.

In other news I got the contract for my next release signed and I’m looking forward to getting more info to share. For now it’s back to editing and writing so I’ll have more good news.