On Wednesday evening I had the pleasure of seeing Jeannette Walls, the author of the mega-bestselling memoir The Glass Castle, talk about her new book, Half Broke Horses, which is just in stores this week. Before she spoke, I was invited backstage along with members of the Clinton Book Shop book club to meet her; the store was sponsoring the event. We all had read The Glass Castle and thus dropped into a conversation with Jeannette almost at mid-sentence. Each of us had different parts of the book that had resonated with us, and, though I knew none of these other women, I found myself chatting with them like we were old friends with our only bond being a book we all had read. As we shared our observations, I tried to imagine what it must be like for Jeannette to have moments like this all the time when people are talking about your work, which actually is your life.

Last week I did something that I have not done in 13 years: I pretty much unplugged. I went on vacation to the Outer Banks, and while I checked email occasionally, I vowed to myself that I really was going to get away without my laptop connected to me like the mouse was a version of an umbilical cord. Now for humor, if you saw the car you would not have believed this. We had four laptops, a desktop and a printer for three people. I kid you not. Let's just say that having those with me was like dragging a security blanket, and for the record, I only take credit for one desktop and one laptop!