Shortly before I went on vacation, I was in Cincinatti at the Dianne Castell/Lori Foster Reader & Writer event.  I attended the first one two years ago and had plans to go last year, but the baby bratlet had other plans…like trying to be born a little ahead of schedule.  Since I didn’t want to forever be known as the author that went into labor at Lori & Dianne’s reader thing, I decided not to go.

But I did go this year.  As did the baby bratlet.  She was passed around quite a bit, and I think she met more people than I did.  Of course, this isn’t a big surprise.  I don’t mingle much.  I’m not shy–I just usually prefer to observe than join in.  Then there’s the fact that I have a very weird sense of humor and I’m pretty blunt, so a lot of people who don’t know me don’t always know how to take me.  (My husband would say in very small doses…. *G*)

Because of these things, I tend to either stay to myself and just sort of hang around the people I already know~less risk of pissing somebody off that way and while if I’m setting out to make somebody mad, I don’t care if they get ticked, I don’t like to piss people off unintentionally.  At least not when I’m supposed to be behaving.

 At least, that is how it should work… in theory…but my theory didn’t take a few things into considertion.  Like my habit of taking mental detours and be unaware when people talk to me.  Like my habit of walking around looking mad at the world.  If you ask my husband, he’ll tell those two things are pretty much my norm.  I’m not mad at the world, but when I’m thinking about something, I probably look that way.  My mental detours happen–a lot.  Often to the point that I can be involved in a conversation and then my mind drifts off.  And if we aren’t in a conversation…hmmmmm….people probably need to ring a bell and make sure I’m looking at them, otherwise I’m likely to not even realize I’m being spoken to.

And unfortunately, when I’m preoccupied my mental detours tend to happen pretty often.  

Chances are that I took some of my mental trips the weekend in Cincinnati because I managed to offend a couple of people. A couple of people thought I was ignoring them and I would like to offer a public apology and say that wasn’t intentional.  I don’t consciously ignore readers and I wouldn’t ever consciously be rude to them–even the annoying guy who asked me a signing if I had hands on experience with the stuff I wrote about.  And that one?  I really, really wanted to be rude.

I suspect I’ll continue to keep to myself or with people I know for the most part, just because I’m more comfortable that way but I’m going to attempt (please note I said attempt…dunno if I’ll succeed) to me a little more aware of what’s around me instead of what’s in my head.

This behaving thing is tricky.  I dunno if I’ll ever get it all worked out.