Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

So Krissie and I are in Brisbane in a B&B and it’s quirky and bizarre and really fun and has the best kitchen ever.

Not that we’re cooking but it’s really amazing. And lots of balconies.

And birds that make strange sounds and a fabulous view of the Brisbane skyline.

In other words, it’s a B&B that doesn’t hate us.

We spent the day at the Queensland University of Technology with the best people and were way too indiscreet so that’ll come back to haunt us, but we had a great time anyway. Glen Thomas is a fantastic host and his students, our fellow writers, were wonderful, and a good time was had by all, especially by Krissie, who was outrageous in Australia, not an easy thing to be. Also, I think she’s moving here. I think Australia is great but Krissie is in love with the entire country.

Then we went out and ate Greek food with fabulous people like Kate and Sandra and Elle

And Louise (the blonde to the right) who makes fabulous Pavlova and is a wonderful potter

so she made Krissie and I mugs, and mine looked like Glen

and a good dinner was had by all.

Really, come to Brisbane. It’s lovely.

It’s very odd being out of the country right before a book launch. I get up in the middle of the night (because that’s when I’m waking up anyway) to answer business e-mail, say yes or no to appearances, generally find out what’s stirring before Agnes hits the shelves on the 21st. Jen and John and Mollie and Meg and of course Bob are doing everything. Which is evidently working well because:

Booklist has named AGNES & THE HIT MAN among the Top 10 in Romance Fiction for the year, covering the period of time since the last September 15th issue to the one due out in a few weeks.

Top 10 Romance Fiction by Booklist

Adieu, My Love. By Lynn M. Turner. Avalon.

Agnes and the Hitman. By Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. St. Martin*s.

Billionaires Prefer Blondes. By Suzanne Enoch. Avon.

A Distant Magic. Mary Jo Putney. Del Rey.

The Landlord’s Black-Eyed Daughter. By Mary Ellen Davis. Five Star.

Let’s Misbehave. By Lisa Plumley. Zebra.

Rough and Ready. By Sandra Hill. Berkley Sensation.

Soul Song. By Marjorie M. Liu. Dorchester.

Tempting. Susan Mallery. HQN.

Virgin River. By Robyn Carr. MIRA.

Oh, and everybody who bought a copy of Agnes today at the conference bought the first ones in the world: it’s not due out in the States until the 21st. Feel smug.

I taught all day, the seminar Bob and I usually tag team on, but I did it ALL BY MYSELF. Bored people to tears, but they sat there like champs from 9AM to 4:30. I’d have thrown something at me, but Australians are so lovely. Meanwhile, Krissie got to see the opera house and go shopping again. Still, I got to spend the day with terrific people so I win.

Then I went upstairs and slept like a rock for three hours before I went downstairs where the private Harlequin party was already an hour old. Here it is:

Anne Gracie and Stuart MacDonald: You can feel the power:

The winners of the costume competition, judged by Stuart (power, I’m telling you):

Glen Thomas of QUT, Anne Gracie, and Linda Plumley, who took Krissie to the Opera House. I didn’t get to go, but it’s all right, I’LL JUST SIT HERE IN THE DARK ALL ALONE:

Krissie bonding with Stuart, serious power:

The party in full swing (and full drag):

Krissie in full swing (and full drag):

And as with everything else in wonderful Australia, everybody had a very good time.

The shoes in Australia are fabulous.

We meant to go see the Opera House and do serious sightseeing but we stopped by the mall across the bridge first and sort of lost our grip. I bought $75 of kangeroo jerky (big family who need gifts) and a stack of t-shirts (ditto) and great shoes.

And then jet lag hit us both and we tottered back to the hotel, so as tourists we suck, but as shoppers we rule. Then out to dinner with the loveliest people from Harlequin Australia, and I am now desperately in love with Stuart Macdonald, a passion that began when he left the warmest welcoming message on my answering machine. We met and i said, “You and me, Stuart,” but fortunately nothing much bothers him including dinner with forty romance writers, probably because he’s the director of Harlequin Australia/New Zealand/Singapore/Fiji/and many other Faraway Places with Strange Sounding Names that I am now dying to visit. I think he’s the director. I miss on the details sometimes.

The dinner was terrific and the people were even better, especially my minder, Alison, who kept a sharp eye out and kicked me whenever I was about to go face down in my broccoli (I forgive you, Anne).

Then Anne Gracie got up to do the Woman Fuzzy awards, which is why she and Linda have those pink things on their heads. I think. That’s Emma Darcy in the middle. Anne, who’s president of Australian Romance Writers, Emma who’s a legend, and Linda Brumley who survived writing an anthology with Krissie. Tough women. Uh, sheilas.

Then Alison said, “You must have a cab” when Krissie and I really started to droop, which is what everybody else had been saying, too, which just SHOWS you how terrific they are, especially since we’d been saying, “Oh, no, we’ve conquered jet lag” and then dropped in our salmon (me) and lamb (Krissie who has no problem eating baby animals). I’ve conquered jet leg so well that it’s 4AM Friday and I’m up typing this. Which means it’s early afternoon on Thurdays in the US, right? I’m so confused.

And I have just now decided that all my slides for tomorrow are ugly, so I must go change them all. Somewhere Bob is screaming, but then Bob is always screaming somewhere. And I have great shoes (the blue ones sparkle like Glinda shoes but you can’t tell from the pic):

We’re having a great time. Thank you, Australia.

I had a long post done with five photos, and then, in the midest of jet lag, managed to delete most of it. So I went to bed.

But now I’m up again and I can’t remember what I wrote about. Twenty-five hours of travel time. Krissie being outraged her card wasn’t in her camera so she could take pictures at LAX:

So she took my iPhone and got this of me, bleary-eyed, no make-up, after three hours of sleep the night before and a day of frantic cleaning, plus brunch at the iHop because Krissie loves iHops (so do I) and Vermont doesn’t have any.

Then we flew to Auckland by Air New Zealand which is a great airline, at least for this trip, and since I had the iPhone, I took this:

This is the rest of the post, the part i didn’t delete:

Then we arrived at the Auckland airport, motto “We don’t have to tell you what gate the plane is leaving from.” Beautiful airport but lousy about gate info. And from there we flew to Sydney which is amazingly beautiful with perfect weather, and checked into a hotel that is also amazing, and then had lunch with Alison Ahearne and gossiped about the industry and forgot our cameras, so Krissie made me promise I will always have some form of camera with me (the iPhone was back at the hotel recharging itself).

Then Krissie crashed and I came back to update the blog. Yes, I know this is boring, you trying catching three different flights and flying half way around the world. Interesting isn’t really an option; you just want to survive. But it was well worth it. Here’s the view from my hotel room:

And now I too am going to crash. Because as you can probably tell from this blog entry, there are no brain processes working for me at all at this point. Tomorrow I’ll do an entry with a theme or something. Whatever it is that makes a decent blog entry.

And since I’m with Anne “I want a picture of everything,” there will be pictures, too.

And then I took another picture of the view from my hotel room since it was dark. And beautiful.

And now it’s morning and I’m still bleary-eyed but we’re going to go walk all over Sydney anyway.

I know, this is an awful post. There’s no there there. It’s like the postcards your relatives send you when they’re on vacation. “And here’s Aunt Krissie, discovering she left one of the kids at home.” Sigh.

The conference starts on Friday. I should be hitting on cylinders by then. For right now, I’m alive and almost not jet-lagged but I have nothing of interest to report. Twenty-five hours of travel time. Add another ten onto that for Krissie (she had one hellacious layover in Cincy). It’s a miracle we’re still sentient. Oh, and it’s Thursday here but it’s Wednesday where we used to be. I don’t think about it much or my head will explode. But in many days, I will fly to LA in the evening and land in the morning of the same day. That’s when my head WILL explode.

See? I should not post when I’m jet-lagged.