Meg's Diary

CANADA, JOKES, ELLA/HELLBOY, and THE SECRET PLAN

Helloooo! I know it's been a while since I posted. I do have an excuse though: I've been laid low by jet lag.

I HATE that.

Although I discovered the secret to avoiding jet lag while you're away: no caffeine. Which helps for getting to sleep at night, but isn't so helpful for waking up (the no caffeine thing, I mean). If I get up before 11AM these days, it's a miracle.

Which was REALLY a problem the morning they held the Sun Run outside my hotel room window here in Vancouver (at 6AM). Nice. I wasn't in a bad mood that day or anything (note sarcasm). Which also happened to be the morning after the Canucks won in triple overtime, so quite a few Vancouverites came out to celebrate–again, beneath my hotel room.

Still, I was sad when the Canucks lost—in overtime–a few nights later.

Canada, for those of you who have never been here, is SO GREAT. Really. Vancouver is BEAUTIFUL, with the mountains and the water and the big fluffy white clouds. I got to see ALL of it thanks to “Miss Smithers”-author Susan Juby, who took me to Cloud Nine, the REVOLVING RESTAURANT, my first night in town.

Yes! A revolving restaurant! It ruled! The food was really good, too.

I had a blast at my signing in Vancouver (also the one I had before it in Naperville IL). And I had a great time hanging out with Susan Juby's knitting club afterwards. I have never been to a knitting club meeting before, especially one held in a bar.

But everyone was very nice to me in spite of the fact that I don't knit.

In fact, I haven't met a single unpleasant Canadian my whole trip–except maybe the few who emailed me the other day, upset at my joke about how I did a signing in Toronto once, and I didn't see them there. I don't think they got that it was a joke. They wanted to inform me that there are 31 million people in Canada, and they wouldn't all fit in Chapters Indigo (the bookstore at which the signing was held).

See, what these readers didn't get is that I can only go to bookstores I'm INVITED to, and so far only one Canadian bookstore has ASKED me to come–not counting the one in Toronto—so I was using humor as a DEFENSE MECHANISM to hide my great hurt over this fact. People often use humor as a defense mechanism (see later part of this blog, re: the movie Hellboy: the title characters does this A LOT) and are often ridiculed because of it.

No biggie, though. I'm used to it.

Actually, I feel like I was a pretty good sport about the whole thing, considering the fact that only ONE store in the ENTIRE COUNTRY was interested in hosting a signing for me. I mean, that kind of thing might make a less well-adjusted author cry. Me? I just made a joke about it.

Which apparently offended some people.

But that's the thing about having a sense of humor…not everybody thinks what YOU think is funny is actually all that funny. For instance, I think South Park—“Don't be ignorant”–is HILARIOUS.

But I know there are people out there who hate South Park. And that's OK, because there's stuff I hate that other people LOVE. I was going to cite examples of stuff I HATE that other people love (tomatoes, eggplant, Algebra, etc) but I know it will just make people mad. Because I know everybody's got their own opinion on what's funny and what's not.

But, you know, just for instance—ER. Hollywood Squares. Any book or movie where the love interest dies. That sort of thing—I know there are people out there who LOVE that stuff. And that's OK.

Anyway, it's just that, about the Where Were You thing? Yeah, that was humor as a DEFENSE MECHANISM. OK?

Phew. I'm glad we got that straightened out. It was bothering me.

Moving on, while I was in Canada I ordered a bacon cheeseburger and it came with CANADIAN bacon on it, which in America is sort of only a breakfast food.

But I tried it and it was DELICIOUS and that's how I'm having my bacon cheeseburgers from now on.

Anyway, I owe a LOT of people thanks right now, especially all the people who ran booksignings for me (THANK YOU) this past month, and also all those who wrote in to offer advice to me over my ghost problem. So THANK YOU, you've helped allay my fears GREATLY. I especially liked the girls who gave me the bag of ginger snaps (for Mary, my resident ghost) at my signing. Hilarious–THANKS!

More thanks are due to the readers who gave me such fabulous gifts and letters of support at my various book events this past month–Stacey and Ashley for the All American Rejects and 10 Things I Hate About You CDs; Daphne for the great letter; Sarah, Heidi, Jennifer and Daphne (again) for the other great letter; Anne and Heather for the hilarious homemade door hanger, and the book The Body of Christopher Creed (I haven't read it yet, but it's on the To Be Read pile); Coral for Firebirds (also on the TBR pile); and anyone else whom I might have forgotten (did I remember the girl who gave me the papier mache Fat Louie???? And the one who gave me the handmade necklace???? So very cool, both of them.)

See, I told you I suck. I was really trying to keep track of it all, too. But it's hard when you're on the road and every two days you have to stuff everything in a suitcase and fly for like six hours or whatever just to unpack somewhere else for two days. I don't know how musicians do this 200 plus days of the year.

Anyway, I had a smidgeon of downtime between signings and conferences and stuff today, so I went to a double feature of Ella Enchanted and Hellboy. Actually they were playing at two different theaters, so I had to RUN to get to Hellboy, but I was in time and everything.

I thought Anne Hathaway was great in Ella. I loved it when she sang Someone to Love! Was that really her singing? Because if so, she's got a great voice. If you want to see cute pictures from Ella Enchanted and Princess Diaries 2, the movie, go to Anne's website, www.anne-hathaway.com.

Disney's releasing the PD2 trailer some time next month. FYI, my screen credit for the movie will read BASED ON THE CHARACTERS BY MEG CABOT, not Based on the Book By, because the 2nd movie really doesn't have anything at all to do with my books. They're just using my characters. Kind of the way some of you use my characters when you write Fan Fiction. Only Disney pays more than you do, I've noticed.

JOKE!!!! OK??? THAT WAS A JOKE.

Seriously, I have nothing against Fan Fiction, I myself used to write it.

Anyway, Hellboy–oh my God, I LOVE Hellboy. PLEASE tell me there'll be a Hellboy 2, because this movie was so, so good. I was a huge Beauty and the Beast fan (yeah, the TV series, and yeah, and I'm not ashamed to admit it) but I thought Ron Perlman was even better as Hellboy.

Maybe that's because Hellboy has more of a sense of humor than the poor Beast did. Although I guess the Beast didn't have much to laugh about, living under the subway and all.

But this raises–yet again–the problematic question of: Why are fictional mutants so often hotter than real life guys? This is just wrong. But really, Hellboy and Wolverine are way hotter to me than Orlando Bloom. Except when he's Legolas. Then he's hot too. What is UP with that?

Oh, and what is up with the rumors about someone ELSE dying on The OC? And not to give anything away ***Spoiler alert—stop reading here if you don't want to know: But what's up with this FIRE I keep hearing about? And the Cohens' house burning down? This better not be true. Again, if Sandy dies, I'm out. End of spoiler***

I didn't watch ER this week because who needs the aggravation?
In Canada, on the Food Channel, they have WAY better shows than we do, by the way. There's this show called French Leave about this chef who takes his family to live in France, and they all just want to eat junk food and he keeps trying to make them traditional French food, and it's HILARIOUS. Why don't we have that show here? It's not fair.

I also thought I should let you know that Phase 1 of the SECRET PLAN, to be launched next month, is done. We're on to PHASE TWO now. I really think you guys are going to like it. At least, I hope so. I'll post HERE when the plan goes into action, so you can all participate. I imagine it will be somewhere around May 20th, so keep your schedule clear, and stay tuned.

OK, well, I actually have to go write a book or something now. Seriously, I ran into a big glitch with Mediator 6. I can't tell you what it is, but it's going to involve a lot of work I didn't expect.

Let this be a lesson to you all you aspiring authors: No book is ever finished until it's on the bookshelves in your local bookstore.

On a brighter note, I should have all the new covers for the re-released versions of Mediator 1-5 soon, and they are going to ROCK. I'll post them soon.

Well, that's it for now. In the words of Hellboy: “Didn't I kill you already?”

JOKE!!! THAT'S A JOKE!!!!!!!

More later…

Much love,

Meg

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