It’s three in the afternoon and I’m sitting at the Chicago airport again, now waiting for my flight to Seattle.  I’ve got a couple more hours before we board and I’ve eaten a bacon cheese hamburger and drunk a diet coke in hopes of trying to calm my stomach.  Maybe oatmeal would have been better.  I ordered oatmeal this morning from room service but was too busy, too tired and a little too stressed to actually make myself sit down and eat it.  So coffee it was until now.

Speaking’s getting harder. 

I’m finding it takes more energy and more courage and more everything to pull off what I once did rather easily.  I think I’m tired.  No, I know I’m tired.  Maybe that’s what made Bozeman so fun.  I didn’t have to give a speech.  Instead I hung out with Kari and her friends and family and just relaxed.   But then it was easy to relax when Kari and her husband Collin, and Kari’s friend Lori Dawkins (and her husband Dale) did all the work.  It was nice to be spoiled like that.  Usually the only time I get spoiled is when my surfer guy’s around so being pampered in Bozeman was a treat.

Newport, RI was also a treat, though, just in a different way.  It’s such an amazing place to visit and I couldn’t get enough of the history, the water, the boats, the mansions.  My only wish is that I’d had more time there.  Well that and the company of Ty Gurney.  I would have loved to have gone on one of the ghost tours with him.  It would have been cold at night (I was freezing during the day!) but fun and romantic because I would have clung to him like mad.

The only real negative to crisp cold Newport is the fact that I looked 100.   I’d forgotten how wrinkled I get in cold weather. 

Then this morning I spoke, and you know, despite having notes and things to say, I was really really nervous.  I had butterflies the size of pigeons beating around my insides.  I don’t know why, either.  Maybe I’m getting too serious in my talks.  Maybe I’m sharing too much about my life.  Maybe I’m just not entertaining anymore. 

Clearly it’s time to stay home and write. 

Or time to stay home and sleep.

Or time to get on a plane and go to Hawaii.

Oh yeah.  I’m doing that Thursday this week.

Okay, it felt an awful like a first date, and in a way it was.  We met on the internet six months ago.  I read something she wrote, then sent an email in reply.  She answered and then soon we were MySpace friends.  I began to send her books.  She began to send Bella candles and soaps.  We posted comments and messages on each other’s pages and even though we had the other person’s cell number, we never picked up the phone.

It was a cyber relationship.  And it worked.  But now we were going to meet and just as the plane touched down in Bozeman (after a brief stop over in Butte) I found myself wishing I hadn’t packed my make up bag, wanting lipstick and a hair brush as though I needed somehow to make a great first impression on Kari.

Walking towards baggage claim I got butterflies.  What was I doing here?  I don’t even know her.  She might not even want me at her house….

I spotted her then, approximately at the same time she spotted me.  “You’re here,” Kari said laughing. 

“You’re little,” I said as Kari wasn’t much more than a half inch to an inch taller than me. 

“You’re shorter than you look in your website photos,” she answered.  We hugged.  Awkwardly.

We waited for my luggage and then headed for her car in the parking lot.   The Bozeman airport is small, the parking lot literally across a narrow lane from the airport entrance.  We reached her car in maybe a minute.   Loaded my luggage.  Kari reminded me about my seatbelt.  I said, right, thanks mom.

We kept smiling as we talked.  I’m here.  You’re here.  This is kind of weird.  But it’s awesome.  Weird and awesome and it turns out Kari’s husband has spent the last few days cleaning to get the house sparkling for me.  I even got new pillows.  I’m not sure if she went ahead and bought new towels.  Apparently there was discussion that Jane needed nice towels.

Like a perfect media escort, Kari drove me to the Barnes & Noble in Bozeman and then across town to the Borders where I signed stock.  Both stores had a ton of my books and in B&N Kari and I kept giggling that we were on our first date.  It felt like it.  I mean, I’d only met her 6 months ago and we’d never even talked on the phone but here I was, going to Happy Hour at her 86 year old grandmother’s home in half an hour with her family, then drinks and dinner with ten of her best friends.

Fortunately Kari has an incredible family and a great laugh.  When she laughs you have to laugh.  And she likes to laugh.  Her entire face lights up and she sounds so damn happy that you’re happy, too.

If you’re on MySpace make Kari your friend.  She’s awesome.  Smart, funny, kind and soulful–and best of all, she’ll take you home and feed you dinner and make you part of the family.

When Kari dropped me off at the airport at 7 am, I felt like I mattered and knew that no matter where I go, I will always have a second home in Bozeman.

It’s nearly nine o’clock at night and I’m sitting in yet another airport waiting for yet another delayed flight.  Until five minutes ago I had a window seat but somehow, miraculously, on an oversold flight someone was able to find a last minute aisle seat in the emergency row.  Praise God and Hallelujah.  I’m an aisle seat girl:  you see, I pee every 25-35 minutes when we’re in the air and people don’t like getting up to let me by that often.  And I will get up that often.  I don’t know why.  But it’s who I am and what I do and I’m not going to be transformed now.

So here I am, at Newark, waiting for my flight to Tampa.  I’m on a show tomorrow morning and it’s going to be an early morning after a late night.  Our plane now won’t touch down in Tampa until close to one in the morning and then I’ve got to wait for my bags before heading to hotel.

For those who wonder:  no, I’m not flying first class (although I wish I was) and yes, the hotels are great when my publisher’s travel agent books the hotels but when I book them (like I did in NY) they’re more budget minded.

I’ll be meeting fellow 5 Spot author Kristin Harmel for dinner and drinks tomorrow night in St. Petersburg.  She’s from St. Petersburg and it’ll be so fun to finally sit down and have a proper chat with her.  Kristin Harmel writes great books and is one of the nicest women I know–and she’s so pretty and talented (Kristin is a very coold journalist who writes for People magazine) she doesn’t have to be nice but is anyway.  Kristin’s next book, The Art of French Kissing, comes out in February and I’ve got an arc of the book in my briefcase.  Kristin now has my editor Karen K and so I was able to beg an early copy while visiting Grand Central Publishing’s office on Tuesday.  I’ve been holding off reading until I get on the plane but as soon as I’m buckled into my seat I’m going to open the book and start reading. 

Now if you don’t read the 5 Spot books yet, you should.   They’re great books, entertaining and empowering fiction.  My good friend Liza Palmer has her next book out in January, and it’s got a killer title, Seeing Me Naked.  So make a early New Year’s Resolution now to read the new 5 Spot book every month.   That way you’ll get Liza in January, Kristin in Feb, (I don’t know who is March yet…I have to investigate), awesome Megan Crane is April and then my book, Alpha Mom, is in May.  2008 is going to be a great year.

Apparently they just announced my flight will be delayed another half hour to an hour.  Maybe it’s time I pulled out The Art of French Kissing now.