People who need people . . .

About 75 people showed up to last night's book release. 50 books were sold and signed.

Thank you to Greg and Gina for all your help, and I'm sorry I forgot to thank you publicly last night. I should've also thanked my dad, who reminded me that I'd forgotten to thank anyone. He's read DMR many too many times.

Thank you also to Noelle for hosting the event at Fuller Craft. It was a much classier affair than my first novel's release which was held at George's Cafe in Brockton. Both were a lot of fun, but this one felt more literary.

We went through two trays of little roller wrap sandwich thingies, one tray of day-old cheese and fruit (it was free), a tray of grilled vegetables, a hummus and olive and pita thing from Whole Foods (thank you Dennis for your discount and skilled hands), and a raw veggie and bread bowl dressing receptacle platter.

Dennis gathered up the leftovers at the end. He plans on making a massive amount of "tres delicious" soup (he pronounces the s on tres for some reason). According to him, using day-old grilled vegetables is the secret to really great soup. I find this hard to believe but look forward to tasting whatever he ends up with. Unfortunately, it won't really matter what I think. Dennis doesn't take my food opinions seriously—my sense of smell disappeared at some point during 2006 (no cool story behind this; it just vanished).

I read the first sixteen pages of DMR, the part where John is introduced to all the Individuals he'll be working with (yes, the capital I is intentional). People seemed to enjoy it. They laughed at the right places and applauded at the conclusion, despite the general offensiveness of the last lines I read: "Most people would pay a hundred dollars for the opportunity to watch a retard fling meat sauce into their bosses hair. I paid only two." I think the fact that I introduced John as a bad character before I read probably softened the impact.

People from just about every portion of my life attended. One of my elementary school teachers was there, friends from various periods showed up, along with employers, coworkers, family members, a Walnut Hill writing student, a dude from my writing group (who told me some cool things about Walt Whitman's marketing tactics) and a few extraordinarily kind and loyal people I met through the readings I gave for my first novel back in 2003.

I hope everyone had a great time. Thank you all for coming out and supporting DMR's Road Trip. Gas prices are very high. This is the worst summer in the history of the world for a 16,000-mile book tour. Mahhh!