I enjoy cooking. I do. I like having a reason to cook, making a list of the ingredients I’ll need, going to the store and buying those ingredients, seeing which of those ingredients have any coupons I can apply, and so on. It has to be said, however, that the cooking doesn’t always go the way it’s supposed to. Usually it’s not a problem because I’m either cooking for just me, or for me and one other person who cares about me and really doesn’t care what I cook or how it turns out. Where I have absolutely no confidence is in my ability to cook food that actually looks good. Good enough to serve to others, perhaps in a dinner party type of setting. I just don’t know how to present the food, how to serve it, what to serve it in, and ultimately how to make it look like more than a sad green salad and a pot of soup, for instance.

Last weekend's book signing at King's English Bookshop was significant for a few reasons. First, Utah is cold, so the weekend was memorable in and of itself and left me (and my coat) wondering how we ever used to handle cold weather on the regular.

As a writer of memoirs, I mention a lof of people in the course of my writing. As a no-name author, I've been able to do this with very few of these people even knowing they are mentioned. I have a very small readership, see.

You know that episode of Friends when Chandler and Monica take Erica on a tour of NYC and Chandler comes back to their apartment all decked out in touristy garb and declares, "New York is awesome!" He explains, "I've been to these places before, but I've never really seen them, you know." Now isn't that always the way.