I’ve had a very busy day. Ophelia is in Virginia with her father, riding horses and finding crawfish in the creek, and I’ve been preparing for our trip to Europe. I made sure our passports were still valid, applied for a travel credit card at the bank so I wouldn’t be charged for credit card transactions, asked about the best way to exchange dollars for forints and pounds (take money out of the ATM, evidently), and tried to figure out how to get telephone service in Hungary and England. I think I’ll be taking an unlocked cell phone and buying minutes, which means I won’t have my BlackBerry (the new one, since the old one stopped working two weeks ago, taking everything with it: contacts, texts, emails). It will be difficult being without a smartphone for five weeks, but at least I’ll have my computer, and I’ll have wifi in Debrecen, London, and Budapest. The plan for Europe looks something like this: Ophelia and I will be flying Swissair to Budapest, but going almost immediately to Debrecen, where she will stay with her grandparents. I will be flying Wizzair from Debrecen to London, where I will be staying with friends for a week and doing research. Then back to Debrecen, and on to Budapest to meet the wonderful Catherynne Valente for a writer’s vacation. We will be writing in Budapest for two weeks. Then I will meet up with Ophelia and bring her back to Boston. At that point, her Hungarian will probably be better than mine!

But before any of that can happen, I have all sorts of things to do. Administrative things, first of all, but also I have to get as far into the novel as I can. My writing group meets on June 3rd, and I’ve promised them about 10,000 words. Which I have written, but not completely revised. So it’s down to New York again next weekend, but I think that will be the last trip before Budapest. I write all this to explain that since I’ve been running around today, instead of writing a blog post, I’m going to post some photographs I received last night.

Remember the photoshoot during ICFA? Well, while I was in Florida working with Walker1812 Photography, I made a list of additional photos that I particularly liked, and would like to see edited. I received some of them last night, and I thought I would post my absolute favorite, and then an example of each of the outfits we used during the photoshoot. So here you go, this is my favorite of all.

And here are examples of the three outfits.

The hardest thing about the photoshoot, for me, was overcoming my own anxiety about it. After all, I’m not a model. What I am, most days, is that geeky high school student–at least, that’s how I still think of myself, even though I look almost nothing like her anymore. I still expect to see her in the mirror. And so I think I was probably more self-conscious than I should have been. But you know what? It was so much fun! If I ever have an opportunity to do something like this again, I certainly will. And next time, I’ll be better at it.

I just have to post one more of the pictures, because this is one of my favorites as well.

Eventually, I’ll post all the photos on the press page. There are more of them coming, as well as some special projects that I’ll post once I receive them. I’m very lucky to be able to do such interesting things . . .

And now, back to work! Because I go to Europe in three weeks, and there’s still so much to get done!

Photos by Jesse Walker