That's the public library in Baltimore, as snapped from the stone steps of the Catholic cathedral across the street this past Saturday (and a gorgeous spring Saturday it was). I was down there for the annual City Lit festival. Hardly my first time to Baltimore, but my first time ever to their library. A very cool old place. I read from In Hoboken in the Poe Room. The quote above at the top of this blog (as of this writing, anyway) is Poe in nature, but I don't often think of it because, of course, the context is Beatles. But indeed, you know, it's about Poe. And man you should have seen them kicking. Fortunately, the good folks of Baltimore didn't kick me, and I am appreciative to the generosity of my hosts and audience.Always an experience spending hours on I-95 south of Philadelphia. Many, many years ago, I used to make the 6-hour drive from Newport News, Virginia to New Jersey about once a month or so, to visit Kristina. I can do that drive in my sleep (and, probably, often did). This particular journey up and back was aided by David Sedaris on the ipod.
Back home, I'm quite ready to stop talking about In Hoboken and itching to start talking about the new novel...but I can't yet. Progress is steady, though. Slow, quite; but steady. Or steady-ish. More later.
Finally, we spent the non-Baltimore parts of the weekend with large chunks of my wife's family, who had flown in from England and Ireland for a family wedding. These are the Dennigans, and they're fantastic people. Daughter Fiona spent Sunday afternoon trying to wrap her head around the fact that she has 40-some cousins she's never met spread around the globe. An exciting and overwhelming thought. I'd always wished for a big family. Lacking that, I married into one.
