BEA Spotlight: The People

I was very happy to get the chance to go to BEA this year. I went way back in 2010 - aka Pre-Kid Years - when I was in full blogging mode, and I fully intended on making it a yearly trip. Then the hubby and I decided to have some babies and that sort of took over my life between two miscarriages and then two pregnancies resulting in two small, needy children. Now the youngest is one and I'm ready to get back into the swing of things, and lucky me, BEA was in Chicago, a mere one hour drive (assuming no traffic) from where I live.

And even luckier me, I was finally going to meet some of my long-time blogging buddies: the awesome Jill of Rhapsody in Books and the equally awesome Sandy of (the blog formerly known as) You've Gotta Read This. Both of these women rock my world, and I was so happy to finally meet them after years of online stalking blogging romance friendship.

I also was lucky enough to meet up with Candace of Beth Fish Reads and Sheila of Book Journey, and I briefly saw Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness, Florinda of 3R's Blog, and a handful of other bloggers that I'm not going to name because I just know I'm forgetting people.

For the first time, my real life people and my online people met. A fellow English teacher from my college, Jenny, came with me to BEA and meshed perfectly with the bloggers. Jenny and I also attended BookCon on Saturday. After three days of BEA and one day of BookCon, the two of us have reading material for the next five years. Posts on the books forthcoming.

I, sadly, took no pictures of this inspiring meeting of the minds. One picture I did get, however, is the following:

Believe it or not, that is my freshman year roommate Ann, a person I have not seen or had any contact with since 1998 when I left Illinois Wesleyan University to attend DePaul University after only a semester. That's right people NINETEEN NINETY EIGHT. Otherwise known as the last century. I remember quite a bit about our time together - she was (and is) a kind and interesting person - but what I remember the most is her passion for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her creativity, both of which I very much appreciated then and now.

Our BEA meeting was quite random: I was coming back to the floor after my second book drop in the car, happily eating a banana, when the lovely woman holding open the door for me suddenly said, "Trisha?!?". Strange coincidence I tell you.

Speaking of bananas, I had an incident with a banana on Friday. I always carry one in my purse - I'm a mom - and it accidentally fell on the bathroom floor. The peeling was still perfectly in tact but I just couldn't bring myself to keep and eat the in-my-mind-disgustingly-tainted banana, so I threw it away. Many people I have told this story to said they would have peeled and eaten it. You?

Now I've told you a bit about the people I was privileged enough to spend some time with at BEA, so over the next week or so, I'll regale you with the books!