January 14th, 1937, Saint Mark’s Place, Manhattan, Maggie’s diary continues:

M. working last night on resume of Spanish War for feature section.* So, I read Education and The Good Life by Bertrand Russell.  M. has read it, too, and we both enjoyed it; all about bringing up babies,Russell agrees with Bartlett.  Today to Dr.   Nurse triumphant. She said nobody who looked as well as I could have baby within month.  Read Mencken, American Language. Stopped at Hearn’s for Italian Vermouth at 97cents.  M. suggests note to read B. Russsell again next year.

*My grandfather, Marcus Duffield, was the World Affairs Writer for the Herald Tribune.

And what was her granddaughter, Suzanne, doing in Brattleboro, VT January 14th, 2010?

Today I got in my car with a big green bottle of Kombucha and drove three hours to Portland, Maine for Lisa Lorimer’s signing of Dealing With the Tough Stuff at Longfellow Books. First we ate fresh halibut at David’s Restaurant, where our waitress had super-short hair that looked blown by a strong wind from behind and black nailpolish, and she decided just exactly what we wanted even if we happened to order something different.  Meg Donahue, the YA novelist was there and the writer, Dulcie Y. Witman  and Sue Strasenburg, who owns one of the largest woman-owned business in New England and her husband, Paul and Meg’s mother and Meg’s brother Pat Donahue, a green real estate developer (who got green before green was big).  We all blew over to Longfellow Books where Lisa did a fabulous talk about growing a multi-million dollar business, and I talked about what it was like to edit the book. The house was full, and Lisa signed her book Dealing With the Tough Stuff which sold like hot cakes. The bookstore owner was madly in love with the book and is telling all his indie friends.

Afterward, we went miles and miles and miles out to Dulcie’s house in the middle of nowhere, where the stars were so close I could reach out and touch them.  Meg, Lisa, Dulcie, and I lounged around on couches, drinking wine and eating truffles and talking about the LWord and Flannery O’Conner and how successful the book signing was.  We almost ran smack out of books!!!   Oooooh, we love spreading the love of reading around.  Off to bed!!! See you tmw everybody, Suzanne.