Highlights & What I Learned at Wicked 2014

1. People in the book community who've never read my work or even seen me on FB are still somehow able to recognize me and will say things like, "Oh! You're Jenn Cooksey! You're the shark chick!"

2. No matter how loud you yell or annunciate, there's a 99% probability rate that Tara Sivec and I will still confuse words like drink for things that don't sound anything like it. For example; drain and train, or, um...brown sugar. 

3. No fault and zero liability clauses in regard to attending book signings should probably be written into prenuptial agreements. 

4. There're so many wonderfully talented and amazing authors out there that if I keep falling in love with them when I meet them like I did this weekend, I'm gonna need a bigger boat. Er...bookcase.

5. Drunk foreigners shouting cheesecake amid other slurred phrases will induce Buffy to have sudden onset asthma attacks even though she doesn't have asthma. 

6. I REALLY need to start wearing waterproof mascara because tears brought on by laughter or sentiment are inevitable at events like this, and mascara dripping into your eyes...well, that shit fuckin' hurts, you know?

7. No matter where you are, a member of the Sivec family will stalk--I mean find you, but you'll be cool with it because they genuinely make you feel like you're family.

8. If you put your freshly shaven legs in the Atlantic Ocean, it'll burn just as much as it does when you do it in the Pacific Ocean.

9. Dawn Robertson might be more into My Little Pony than my girls were back when they were all still under the age of 10, and can rock a kimono, MLP underoos, and tube socks like no one's business.

10. Vibrator races are real. And witnessing them should be on every self-respecting person's bucket list.

11. If you don't wake up at 1:30 in the morning on a Sunday to party with your drunk neighbors, there's a good chance they'll leave a calling card in the form of a penis shoved under your door.

12. There will never be enough time to meet, talk to, and hang out with all the people you want to. (Like you, Tiffany King, Adam Kunz and Amanda Jason, C.C. Wood, Jasinda and Jack Wilder, Aleatha Romig, Jillian Dodd, Laurel Curtis, R.K. Lilley, and Kendall Gray. Not to mention all the fucking amazing volunteers, bloggers, and readers who came out.)

13. A full grown man can easily be caveman-tossed over a woman's shoulder and carried onto a stage when free books are on the line.

14. Even grown-ass adult women can get giddy over rubber duckies and will wear a unicorn headband proudly in public.

15. If I'm asked to pose for a picture with a "flat dom.", my first impulse will be to spank my own ass with a stranger's face, and I also apparently won't hesitate or question biting someone's nipple ring, faux or not, if a camera is involved in any way.

16. Signings make a girl parched so it's best to pretend you were a Girl Scout and be prepared in whatever way you can be; i.e., have on hand at all times The. Most. Fucking Awesome (and now tax deductible). Unicorn Flask. EVER.

17. You know you have phenomenal fans when they love and know you well enough to give you more than 2 hours to come up with something special to write in a book and then sit down with you and flip through said book looking for a good quote to use when after 3 hours have gone by and you STILL haven't been able to make a damned decision. Oh and they bring you licorice.

18. 20,000+ women and I don't even know how many men would give their eyeteeth to be me in the below picture even though I clearly haven't learned the lesson that I CANNOT get away with making the duck face. Seriously, do the planet a favor and set up an intervention or tackle me to the ground the next time it looks like I'm about to pucker for a camera instead of saying cheese, regardless of whose boobs I have my hands on.

19. You know your event organizer is badass when she stays up until 5:30 in the morning to make sure everything is taken care of, and her volunteers work their asses off to help make the event a smashing success instead of taking even a small break to get the books from their fave authors signed.

20. I have one of the most loving and supportive families a person could ever dream of.