62. May 4th, 2010 Picture.

On Tuesday night, I headed to a lecture at the Boston Public Library by Nathaniel Philbrick.  He is the resident historian on Nantucket and wrote 'In The Heart of The Sea: Tragedy of The Whale Ship Essex'.  This book is truly amazing, and I gush and recommend it to anyone and everyone.  His lecture was on his new book, 'The Last Stand' which is about the Battle of Little Big Horn.  Nathaniel Philbrick spent 4 years researching this book, and spend every summer traveling through the west, stopping at every camp and battle site Custard was at.  I have no idea how he doesn't get SO overwhelmed by all the information he discovers.  Imagine deciding that you want to write about a certain event in history, where do you even begin?!  There is so much information out there, and so much unknown, it just blows my mind.  I guess since this is what he does for a living, he just takes it day by day and enjoys what he does.

After the lecture, we lined up to meet him and have him sign our books.   I was nervous in line, and running through potential things to say to him.  Any comment needed to be quick, since there was a long line, but I also wanted him to know just how much I love his books.  When it was my turn, I walked right up, handed him my beat up copy of 'In The Heart of The Sea' and professed my love for his writing.  I said that this book was one of my absolute favorites and I loved reading it.  The women selling books from Barnes and Noble were laughing and nodding their heads, saying I was right and it is fabulous.  He smiled and thanked me so much for reading his books, and all I could do was babble about how much I love his writing and how big of a fan I am.  Ratty was a few people behind me in line and when he got up front, he told Philbrick that I was the one that turned him on to his books.  Ratty even told the story about when he and I were at the beach last summer and Ratty was reading the extremely descriptive chapter on the effects and symptoms of severe dehydration.  Ratty was gasping for air and asking me for water.  I was like 'WHYYYYYY would you read that book at the  beach?  It is about being stranded in a life boat, under the sweltering sun with no food or water for NINETY TWO DAYS!  Whyyy is the BEACH the best place to read it?!'  Well Ratty shared this story with Philbrick and I think he liked it.  He probably thinks that I'm totally psychotic.

Anyways, here is my beautiful signed copy!  Totally worth any and all humiliation.