There are people out there in the world that I adore… people who have supported the Texas Rollergirls and Flat Track Roller Derby from the get-go. Awesome people who understand the value of skating as fast as possible and the beauty of knocking other girls down.

Wayne Hurlbert is one of those people.

He writes Wayne’s Derby World, a blog about all things Derby.

He’s also a recognized authority on search engine optimization (SEO) and online marketing. Like a Rollergirl, he’s got his own alter-ego: the upstanding professional.

On Thursday, January 25 at 7:00 p.m. CST, Wayne and I will be on his show on BlogTalkRadio chatting about ROLLERGIRL, the wildfire growth of Flat Track Derby, DIY marketing, and whatever else strikes our fancy.

So crack open an Internet browser and a beer, put up your feet, and listen to us talk Derby.

Wayne’s Super Official Grown-Up Bio:
Wayne Hurlbert combines proven search engine optimization experience for blogs and websites, with enhanced website marketing tactics. Wayne has helped many businesses achieve vastly improved search engine rankings and gain greater internet revenue and profits from their websites. By helping others succeed, we all succeed in the ultimate win win combination.

Wayne is also a well known business blog consultant. His award winning Blog Business World and popular roller derby blog known as Wayne’s Derby World are pioneer blogs in their genres. Wayne advises business people and shares advice on how the power of blogs can enhance their business success.

Wayne Hurlbert’s articles on SEO, blogging, ethics, public relations, and marketing have appeared on well known SEO and internet marketing sites including SEO Chat and WebProNews. His articles have appeared an many other blogs and websites all over the internet. Wayne is in demand as an SEO, blogging, and marketing consultant and speaker. His advice on business blogs is sought by leading companies worldwide. Wayne also hosts the weekly internet radio program Blog Business Success.

I have a carefully calibrated system for book management.

There’s the pile of work-related books that I re-read every 12 to 18 months: The Elements of Style; The Deluxe Transitive Vampire; Eats, Shoots & Leaves...

There are several bookshelves’ worth of reference materials for my some-day mystery novels: books on crime scene investigation and how to build suspense…

I have a row of just-in-case-I-need-an-idea books: the Random House Word Menu; a book of cliches and their origins by Betty Kirkpatrick; Extreme Encounters, which chronicles what would happen if I were to somehow be bitten by a piranha or caught up in a tornado; The Action Hero’s Handbook; and Tricks of the Trade for Kids with advice for pulling practical jokes.

There are two bookshelves in the house that hold novels and non-fiction that I’ve yet to read, but fully intend to get to really, really soon.

And in every other available space, are my “inspiration books” – giant coffe table books that could double as a weapon and tiny little things that would fit in a back pocket – on retro Roadside America attractions, vintage menu design, Hollywood starlets and LA morgue photos from the ‘50s, pulp fiction covers, rock posters, Las Vegas, tattoo flash, tikis, and a comprehensive collection of Duran Duran tour programs from the ‘80s, the ‘90s, and 2005.

And then there’s the discard pile. A precariously stacked tower of books I’ve read and don’t intend to re-visit, not necessarily because they’re weren’t good, but because I don’t have the overflow room necessary to hold on to every book I’ve enjoyed. Much as it pains me, I have to say goodbye to the four Dick Francis paperbacks and the second installment of John Dunning’s cop-turned-book dealer Cliff Janeway (whom I loved so much I wanted to forget I read the book so I could read it for the first time all over again). I added the latest Elizabeth George to the pile with a satisfied “harumph;” I’m a long-time fan of her British mysteries, but she’s been fucking with some of my favorite literary characters, and I’m not having it.

Meanwhile, D the B has been hoarding old books in two giant plastic storage bins in our shed, a mish-mash of out-of-date technical books, graphic novels, and science fiction paperbacks that have either fallen out of favor or were read with such enthusiasm, they can’t be re-visited.

Yesterday, blowing off all the things we were supposed to do and ignoring the cold drizzle that made Austin look dreary, we headed to Half Price Books to sell our junk and come home with treasures. Approximately two hours and a $68 store credit later, I had a shopping cart full of new, used goodies:

The Geographer’s Library by Jon Fasman
Publisher’s Weekly: “A young reporter is caught up in a deadly centuries-long treasure hunt… a thriller steeped in arcane lore and exotic history.” It was an impulse purchase ‘cause it screamed at me from an endcap.

A Place of Safety (Chief Inspector Barnaby Mystery) by Caroline Graham
My latest TV obsession is Midsomer Murders, and Graham’s books are the basis for the series. I don’t usually like books written in the third person (which, as D the B wisely points out, is an arbitrary limitation to put on my reading), but I’m going to give her books a shot because I love the characters so much.

I’m addicted to the show, but as the Internet teaches us over and over again, for anything we love, there’s someone out there who loves it more. Exhibit A: The Midsomer Murders fan site.

A Taschen book on Edward Hopper by Rolf G. Renner
Taschen’s books are so lovely, and the noirish quality of Edward Hopper’s work just grabs my collar and won’t let go. I need to learn more about him and his paintings. I picked up and put down (twice) a 600-page biography of Hopper to go along with this skinny little book of his paintings, but decided there was no way I could commit to reading a 7-lb. biography right now. I did find this cool Hopper scrapbook online. And if you’re not familiar with his name, I bet you’ve seen his painting Nighthawks.

Decider by Dick Francis
Hard cover. $2. Like eating potato chips. Super fun, no intellectual requirements. Dick Francis is a former steeplechase jockey, and almost all of his mysteries are set in the world of horse racing. The mysteries are well put-together, but its his jockey protagonists – stand-up guys who love women and aren’t afraid to throw or take a punch – that keep me coming back for more.

The Jane Austen Book Club: A Novel by Karen Joy Fowler
I love books about books, and this one received gushing, glowing reviews. Now that I’m over my envy, I’m ready to read it.

Publisher’s Weekly: “Fowler’s fifth novel… features her trademark sly wit, quirky characters and digressive storytelling, but with a difference: this one is book club-ready, complete with mock-serious “questions for discussion” posed by the characters themselves. The plot here is deceptively slim: five women and one enigmatic man meet on a monthly basis to discuss the novels of Jane Austen, one at a time.”

My plan is to read this book, then work my way through Austen’s novels. How long you think that will take?!

Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro
Oh! I have to admit, I was originally sucked in by the cover. It’s a perfect repro of an ad in a women’s magazine from the ‘50s. But the story sounded really sweet and girly, so I gave in…

And then I came home and got caught in the vortex of learning about Kathleen Tessaro and was overcome with the desire to have her second book, so I ordered her other novel Innocence and A Guide to Elegance by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux which is central to the plot of Elegance. I’m such a sucker!

Now i’m sad because the weekend is almost over, and I’ve spent zero time lying on the couch with my new purchases. I’ve read the first two chapters of The Geographer’s Library, and I’m hooked. I learned a new word already: alembic. It’s a sort of still used in distillation and alchemy. It was invented by Islamic alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan around 800 AD. [Learn more on Wikipedia.] If I’m inferring things correctly, the alembic in the book is going to be important somehow.

That’s it! No more typing for me. I have a few more Sunday night chores, then I must see what kind of predicament the reporter Paul Tomm has gotten himself into in The Geographer’s Library...

Poor D the B! I’ve been a roller coaster girl this week:

“Wheeeeee! (arms overhead, smile splitting my face, hair blowing in the breeze as I fly down the hill with reckless abandon)... I just got a voicemail from my mom and dad and they really like the ending of my book.“

“Damn it! Crap! DAMN. IT. (furrowed brow, tone of voice only dogs and very small children can hear)... my HTML is broken again and I still don’t know where I’m having my book signing in [insert random city name] and I don’t know what to wear to the Whammy Awards and we still need to sweep the floor…“

But then I got the call. It was from Allison at BookPeople to talk about my signing on February 20. In the course of the conversation she said something like, “We have your poster in front of the information desk and so many people are asking about it.”

Poster?

Turns out she was referring to this:

D the B and I went to BookPeople to see it last night. It’s huge and glossy and parked in front of the Information Desk, directly in front of the entrance doors.

I spazzed out. Totally.

I’m pretty sure I jumped up and down a little bit, and we were ignoring the incoming traffic – lots of readers at BookPeople on a Saturday night – to take photos.

I’ve been dreaming about being published since I wrote my first story: a one-sentence tale – complete with crayon illustration – that my dad had hanging in a frame on the wall of his office.

Wheeeeeeeee!

Although I was loaded down with my own magazines and paperbacks on the airplane last weekend, I flipped through the free United Airlines Hemisperes magazine in the seat pocket in front of me during that boring lull just before landing… that no-man’s-land in which the flight attendants instructed me to turn off “all electronic devices,” lest my hilarious episode of The Office on my completely self-contained iPod turned the plane into a fireball of destruction.

Despite my sarcasm here, my life was enriched – yes! enriched – by turning the pages of the freebie. Go figure.

First, I learned about an artist who’s work I’m now dying to see in person: Koo Schadler. She’s a 1984 grad of Tufts University who traveled through Europe post-graduation, before settling in California for a while, where she learned how to paint with egg tempera at the College of Marin – which I used to overlook from my apartment window when I lived in Kentfield, CA.

What’s egg tempera? Water, egg yolk, and pigments mixed together to make fast-drying paint that was often used in the Middle Ages. The colors are layered over each other. Unvarnished, they look like pastels; with varnish, the colors are deeper and richer. [Wikipeda on egg tempera; Society of Tempera Painters]

Anyway, back to Koo Schadler. She now lives in New Hampshire, where she paints and creates silverpoint drawings.

Ah! Another art term I didn’t know.

Silverpoint was the medium artists used before the ubiquitous graphite pencil. It’s literally silver on the page: a piece of sterling or pure silver wire is drawn across smooth paper that’s coated with a thin layer of a paste that preps the paper for drawing, usually acrylic gesso, rabbit gesso, or goache. The texture (known as tooth) of the paper grabs at the silver, adhering it to the paper as its point is moved across the surface. Eventually, the drawings tarnish and the owners are happy because it’s obvious that it’s a true silverpoint drawing.

Um. Wow! Who knew? I love the idea of a drawing made of silver. It seems so decadent and delicate and beautiful.

You can see gorgeous examples of Koo Schadler’s work in her portfolio. I’m hoping to get my butt to one of her exhibitions in 2007.

Next, I found a completely useful and enticing list of things every well-stocked home bar should include in the article “Raising the Bar” by Bill Marsano.

Apparently, if I was cool, I would call my bar set-up a batterie de zinc. (Chefs’ tools are the batterie de cuisine and the bistro French for “bar” is zinc, so voila!).

For your educational purposes, the ideal batterie de zinc:

• Cocktail shaker – 12 oz., heavy glass, Boston shaker is the ideal
• A wire strainer – Hawthorn is recommended. Avoid long handles; they just get in the way
• Long skinny bar spoons
• A muddler to crush mint leaves and fruit – article author’s note: he uses a 10th century New York City cop’s billy club. Neat!
• A jigger with a pony (1 oz.) on one side and a jigger (1.5 oz.) on the other
• A zester for citrus peels
• A dependable corkscrew
• Plain glassware with heavy bottoms: short rocks, tall high-ball, stemmed martini, and champagne flute

As I type this, I’m enjoying a sense memory of the Roy’s Hawaiian Martini I enjoyed on New Year’s Eve… Skyy Vodka, Malibu Rum, Stolichnaya Vanil, sugar, and fresh pineapple. Mmmmmm.

OK. This last bit is a nice quote, not from the airline magazine, but from The New York Times [“A Princeton Maverick Succumbs to a Cultural Shift” by Julie Bosman; 1/3/07], in an otherwise heartbreaking article about a 26-year-old independent bookstore in Princeton, NJ that’s closing down in March (blame TV, chain stores, our go-go lifestyles).

The quote is from Logan Fox, the owner of Micawber Books.

’’I don’t want to sound corny about it,’’ Mr. Fox said. ’’But there is something transformative about the book.’‘

Yes! There is something really special about a book that feels just right in my hands. And I love that I can find a crappy old, torn, mistreated copy of my favorite book Jane Eyre anywhere and when I open it, I’m on the English moors with Jane. Doesn’t matter if the corners are torn, or if there are notes scribbled in the margins, or if the ugly cover illustration is faded, or if there are coffee rings on the pages… the ideas are all there. And the ability for the words to whisk me away to another place is intact.

I know some people think that books as gifts are boring. I think books are the best thing you can give someone. A book can be a vacation, an adventure, a learning experience, a tear-jerker, a great laugh… and once you’ve read it, it’s in your heart, like a secret or a true love.

If the first week of January is any indication, 2007 is going to be a humdinger.

As y’all know, I got a big box of advance copies of my book on January 3, and I’m not ashamed to tell you, I was giddy. Giggly. Ecstatic. And, probably, annoying.

On Thursday, January 4, my issue of DerbyGal magazine showed up. This issue-the first-includes the editor’s interview with me and an embarrassingly large (but oh-so-flattering) photo of me – and lots of action shots and team photos of our fantastic Texas Rollergirls. Again, I was tickled pink.

But by Friday, there was a dark cloud sliding into my sunny Texas sky, in the form of Dad’s chest pains. I’ll cut to the chase to save you some anxiety: my dad is fine. F-I-N-E. But he did have a mild heart attack, and I did rush to Pennsylvania to make sure-with my own eyes-that he truly was OK. And yes, he was.

By the time I got to the airport on Saturday morning, I’d stopped crying and was armed with plenty of entertainment for the airplane ride, courtesy of D the B. In my canvas bookbag from Follett’s Intellectual Property, I had:

- my tasty new video iPod, loaded with an episode of The Office (the one in which Jim-I love Jim!-pops Dwight’s exercise ball with a pair of scissors; the pilot and first episode of Law & Order (starring Chris Noth as Mike Logan… sigh); Wedding Crashers; and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

- an orange and a Quaker Oatmeal-To-Go Banana Bread-flavored breakfast square

- DerbyGal and Mental_Floss magazines

- the Wednesday New York Times crossword puzzle, with the answer key taped inside the fold, just in case I got stuck

- Reflex, a steeplechase/photography mystery novel by Dick Francis

- Catch a Falling Spy by Len Deighton, a swingin’ suburbanites-turned-international-spies novel from the ‘60s (originally published in England under the title Twinkle Twinkle Little Spy)

I have terrible flying karma, but my experience on United to Washington, D.C.-and then on to Harrisburg-was blessedly uneventful. Worth mentioning, however, are some of the characters who joined me at the airport at 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning:

- a bodacious brunette in a black leather pleated mini skirt; white knee socks on shapely legs, ending in 4-inch black, blindingly shiny, patent-leather platform pumps; black leather jacket; frequently- and coquettishly-tossed long wavy hair. That girl could strut.

- a thoroughly discomfited family at the x-ray screening machine: dad in a gimme trucker hat, mom in a J.Lo.-wannabe velour track suit, 11-ish daughter clutching a powder blue and white teddy bear to her chest and eyeing everyone suspiciously through her glasses over the bear’s head. They’d lost one of their boarding passes between check-in and x-ray. Not good. The TSA agents and the family frantically searched all of their belongings, but while I was there, it appeared that they searched in vain.

- a Sexy Librarian flight attendant in crisp white blouse, black pencil skirt, and black pointy pumps with her hair in a prim topknot, off-set by rhinestone-encrusted cat-eye spectacles and hot pink lipstick. Meeeeoooow.

I watched The Office, read Reflex, ate my snacks, and soon, I was looking out the tiny plane window at the rolling hills and mile after mile of pine trees in rural PA. My parents house was typical loving chaos when I arrived, my 8-year-old neice Pepper, 6-year-old nephew Levi, my brother TJ, Mom, and Dad all talking at once and squeezing in as many hugs as possible. So, I had a lovely weekend, hanging out with my family, sharing copies of Rollergirl with them, and basking in the glow of their excitement. We made jokes about taking it easy on Dad ”’cause he just had a heart attack” and he milked it for sympathy.

On Sunday evening, I got a voicemail from Eight Track: “Mel! It’s Eight. I’m lying in bed, flipping through my new issue of Penthouse. When I got to page 21, there you were! Just thought you’d like to know. Bye.”

Put yourself in my place. It’s after 11:00 on a Sunday night in rural Pennsylvania, and I’d just learned I was in Penthouse magazine. What’s a girl with a straight-as-an-arrow family in a think-straight conservative community supposed to do with that?!

I immediately called D the B, and sent a text message to my pal Peter who was visiting his family in Florida. Then I went to the Penthouse Web site to see when the issue would hit newsstands (‘cause Ms. Eight Track is a subscriber and got her issue early!). Visiting the Penthouse site didn’t yield any information about the February issue of the magazine, but I did learn that they have lots of naked boobies on their home page, just rightthere, not even behind any are-you-over-18? barrier.

The next morning, Mom and I were on a mission. But who would know where to find nudie mags in my hometown community? There was only one man for the job: my Uncle John. In the ‘70s, he was the first guy on the block to have a full bar and pinball machine in his downstairs, wood-paneled, shag-carpeted rec room. Now he owns a store in the local mall that sells cigarettes, beef jerky, and lottery tickets. He’s definitely a guy who knows a guy. He’s an upstanding citizen, but he rubs elbows with all walks.

He pointed us to a mini-market in the next town over, but before I could get my hands on a copy, my buddy Peter came through. He was a bit embarrassed to buy Penthouse at the airport, but in the name of friendship, he persevered and called me with a report.

Peter: I got Penthouse, but I’m too embarrassed to read it here in the airport.

Me: Well… go in the bathroom to open it.

Peter: No, Mel! That’s even worse.

Me: OK. I’ll get a copy at the airport tomorrow. But if you change your mind and open it, call me.

Ten minutes later, Peter called me back. He’d hidden his Penthouse inside a copy of Scientific American. Bless his heart, he described every photo and read every word of the little article to me.

That night, my parents and I decided to try the mini-market around the corner from their house… a last-ditch attempt to see the magazine together before I left Tuesday morning to return to Austin.

My dad is totally a dad. He’s the dad who always picked us up on time after school dances. He gives great advice. He tells the corniest of corny jokes. He has silver fringe of hair and a friendly smile; he is the picture of trustworthiness. Except on Monday night. It was really cold in eastern Pennsylvania, so he wore a black knit hat to protect his mostly-bald noggin. It gave him the mien of a longshoreman.

Mom and I waited in the car while he went in for our porn. “Oh, no!” my mom gasped, watching through the window. “He’s talking to the girl at the counter. Why? Why is he talking to her?”

He came out empty-handed and relayed their conversation:

Dad: Is this the only magazine rack you have? You don’t have what I’m looking for.

Clerk: Well, what magazine do you want?

Dad: Penthouse.

Clerk: (pregnant pause) Yeah, well… we don’t sell that crap here.

Dad: Well… it’s not for me.

Clerk: (pregnant pause and scowl) Yeah, well. We still don’t sell that crap here.

I told Dad he should have said he needed it ‘cause his daughter was in it.

At the airport the next morning, I was finally able to get my hands on my very own copy. Now you can see it for yourself.|

And should you desire your own copy of the magazine-which I recommend because the glossy paper makes the Texas Rollergirls and me look airbrush-perfect in our photos-may you have an easier time getting your hands on a copy than I did.

I got a big ol’ box from Simon & Schuster today with 15 copies of Rollergirl: Totally True Tales From the Track inside.

Before I opened the box and held a copy in my hands, I’d yet to see the back cover and spine. It was pretty exciting to finally see my name on the spine and imagine it on the shelves of regular people—people not related to me by blood or some other social responsibility. Giddy is the word that comes to mind.

Box o’ books	Back cover	Spine

{Click on the photo to get a larger version.}

So D the B and I went out for a celebratory lunch. (Don’t get too excited! We only went to Subway, where the soda fountain was out of order and in my book-induced mental fog, I accidentally bought grape-flavored Daisani water, instead of plain. I think “eeeeeu” and “very disappointed” sum up my feelings about the grape water.)

Now I’m back in front of the computer, listening to Matthew Sweet’sGirlfriend and having a terrible time concentrating on what I should be doing. I want to daydream about my book tour and map out the awesome places I’ll eat (carefully selected from RoadFood and Sandwiches That You Will Like) and obsessively email my awesome marketing team at Simon & Schuster to see if they have any other good news for me today.

If you know me – or you’ve read my myspace page or sneak previews of my book – you know I’ve got a lot to say. And now I have a new platform: BLOG*JAM!

Watch this space for news on my book tour (In February and March, I might be coming to see Y-O-U), roller derby gossip, rants on fashion, celebrity bashing, and just about anything else that a) turns me into a fist of rage or b) makes me do the happy dance in my office.

I’m also looking forward to writing blogs I’m calling “The Author’s Cut.” They’re all the tasty goodies that were edited out of the book but really need to be shared with the Derby nation.

Got questions about Flat Track Derby, developing a Rollergirl persona, or anything else? Drop me a line, and I’ll do my best to get you an answer that will be at least amusing, and – possibly – helpful.