Last night, I signed at Books of Wonder with four people I actually genuinely like as both people and writers, and I am not just saying that: Coe Booth, David Levithan, E. Lockhart, and Maureen Johsnon. The event looked approximately like this:


From Left to Right, you have My Coat (with other people's coats), Coe, me, Maureen, David, and E. And then at the far right you have a sliver of a person. I do not know who that person is. So we all read briefly from our books (I read the 19-Katherines-in-19-sentences part of An Abundance of Katherines), and then David had put together this amazing mash-up, wherein he'd taken little snippets from all our books and made a new story. So we read that. Then afterwards, we signed some books:

Someone asked me if I got tired of signing books (I don't), and it occurred to me that the person who asked me that question might have been testing me. As I've mentioned on this blog before, I am always on the lookout for good asshole tests. (An asshole test is a simple investigative tool you can use to quickly determine with some level of certainty whether or not someone is a complete asshole.) And I'm pretty sure that anyone who DOES get tired of signing books, who feels anything but gratitude for the opportunity to sign their published books for people who like them, is an asshole. So anyway, I think it's an excellent asshole test, and we should all start using it when we go to book signings.

Looking back at that picture, I have an observation: I always look slightly deranged and/or drunk in photographs. It's something in the eyes, I think. For instance, look at my eyes in this picture with Sarah Dessen taken at NCTE:

Admittedly, I may have been shelacked when that picture was taken, but still: I look crazier than a shithouse rat. By the way, all the pictures in this blog entry are totally stolen! The first two are stolen from author Phil Bildner. I hope he forgives me! His recap of this event is great, incidentally. The picture with Sarah Dessen was stolen from Sarah Dessen herself. I may add more stolen photos as the day progresses.

By the way: Do you have any good Asshole Tests? Please share them.