Before & After the Carnegie Library Reading

I had a fantastic reading at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh at 2 p.m. today. The crowd was warm and gracious and interested, which allowed me to open up and get into character for the various voices I needed to put on, while reading. I started out with the Pushcart-nominated "Essential Wreckage," a story about Lincoln's death and his spirit's temporary exile to the battlefield of Blakely, Alabama--the last official battle of the Civil War, which was going on just as Grant and Lee were at Appomattox. It was also fought five days before Lincoln was shot. I also read two of the shorter, more humorous stories from American Soma, called "Tonight...and beyond!" and "A Salesman Reborn". I then read "The Fascinator," which will appear at Necessary Fiction in November. After I learned everyone was happy to hear one more story in the final 20 minutes, I ended with "The Fountain"--you know, the one involving the fountain of youth accidently discovered in the scummy toilet of a dive bar.

Both Bun and I totally forgot to take pictures of the actual reading, so we've got before and after shots here, along with some photos of the house (remember the gas meter that I painted yellow and stenciled with bees? That's here, too.) And, we start out with Bun dressing, while Jasper Johns paces behind him. Laundry baskets? Check. Pile of clothes on the Queen Anne Chair? Check.

This was an after picture, yet the look has nothing to do with the Big Azz Margarita mentioned below.

The garden, kids. Just part of it. She grows every year.

Ha! The gas meter. No sedate green for me...instead, a butter yellow with bee stencils (in honor of the bees coming to our hobby farm in May).

Home Sweet Home, but with 2 of 3 newly painted front porch posts, done by Yours Truly. How brightly they shine.

My $3.99 Ollie's Bargain Barn roses. My, how they've grown.

Yeah, we're still looking for my cell phone. It'll turn up.

This was after the reading but, believe it or not, before Mad Mex's so-called "Big Azz" margarita: