I pulled into Houston Thursday, August 20, a little later than planned, with just enough time to change clothes and drive over to Domy Books. The Domy event itself was good, though not nearly as well-attended as the Austin Book People event the night before. Kinda surprising when you think about what a strong connection there is between those who evacuated from New Orleans to Houston… but then Houston isn’t nearly the book town that Austin is.

Domy is a cool store, reminding me a bit of Chicago’s famous Quimby’s, with a nice collection of art comix, zines, and assorted detritus of underground culture. And the store employees were really sweet: they were all over the book’s production design, admiring the colors, the jacket design, and all the other crap I spent months agonizing over (as well as bringing in whiz-bang designer Charlie Orr to tie it all together for me.)

The presentation took part in a beautiful backyard patio where cicadas chirped and people sipped drinks. What made it all remarkable, however, was that C-SPAN’s BookTV was there filming the whole thing! A crew of five, a director, the whole nine yards. It was really cool; I just wish there had been a crowd more like Book People’s. Though the presentation itself went off without a hitch, there was no life to the Q&A session. Thank Rao for my ol’ pal Scott Gilbert, the only person to actually ask a question. I tried to draw the answer out as long as possible, but I cut it short after that as it was clear no one else was motivated.

After signing the rest of Domy’s stock I was totally beat and drove directly back to the hotel. Before completely collapsing, I soaked a bit in the jacuzzi and caught up on the day’s baseball scores via ESPN. First thing Friday morning was a phone interview for Bob Abdelman’s Mr. Media podcast. With my old pal Chris Oarr I had a great Tex-Mex breakfast of chilaquiles, tortillas, and refried beans, enough to last me all the way to New Orleans — a five-plus-hour drive…