AITO HITS IT!

Well, Tuesday was ROCKED by both The Artist in the Office hitting the Earth's orbit, but also marking my first FORAY out into the world without a baby either inside my body or attached to the outside. HOLYCRAP! I felt a bit like a house cat that suddenly had been let out the back door into the WILDS of the backyard.

I left Gus and Graham for the book smelling offices of Penguin so I could make the 10:00am phone interview with the Morning Show. Angela, my AWESOME publicist, let me use her office. She warned me ahead of time that she had my illustrations up on her wall, so that I could either consider it flattering or creepy, whichever I chose. When I saw that I was up there with Kurt Vonnegut I decided that this was not only flattering, but an indicator that I had indeed ARRIVED.

Then it was time to head on over to WNYC. I listen to WNYC every single day so to enter its gates was akin to getting the GOLDEN TICKET and entering the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory. I got to sign in as a BIG TIME AUTHOR (BTA) and drop Brian Lehrer's name as if I was a mobster and he was a wad of bills.

It went great, by the way. Or at least I've been told that. I was too busy thinking I AM SITTING ACROSS FROM THE VOICE I LISTEN TO ALL THE TIME to know what I sounded like or what I was even saying. Some things you should know about Mr. Lehrer: he smiles at you the whole time in this kind way that makes you feel like "Hey, I'm okay!" The man can expand 20 minutes and cover not only the topic at hand and the phone calls that follow, but other random things like the history of my name and GUS' WILD ARRIVAL. Amazing!

I didn't have the guts to take a picture of BL, but I did get up the courage to take a picture of Matt, who hosted me and showed me where to go:

Every once in awhile I'll meet someone who is like a walking drawing of mine. Noria Jablonski was one. My own husband was another. Matt is yet one more. I embarrassed us both by asking if I could take this picture for the purpose of drawing him, which I still will do. I will embarrass him further by saying, doesn't he have the grooviest hair? Also, a total nice guy. Thanks, Matt!


Before I went home I stopped by the Union Square Barnes & Noble to see if the book really did exist and lo and behold:

Can you see it? Top shelf? YEEHAW! It exists! It really exists!

Then it was time to go home. A BIG thank you to the Morning Show and the folks at the Brian Lehrer show and all of you that listened. This cat had her day. It was awesome.