Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

At The King's English Bookshop, one of my favorite spots in the world. 

I've spent just about every free moment of the past five months writing, writing, writing, so my husband put his foot down and insisted that we get out of Dodge before school starts up next week. I waved my hand in the air and said, "whatever," so here we are, in Utah, visiting my husband's family. We used to live here, so our visits are a wonderful blur of social visits and meals with Tim's parents. I really do love SLC, but these days, I find it really hard to concentrate on anything other than my November first deadline and all of the details that have to get checked off before I can hit "send" on my manuscript. Tim is a thoughtful guy, so he carved out some time for me to write amidst our busy social schedule, and my equally thoughtful parents-in-law scheduled a massage for me. I however, was not thoughtful at all, for my suitcase was packed with a few pieces of clothing and a lot of books, research files, and Post-it flags.

As we landed, and I turned on my phone, I found one more way to ruin my husband's carefully laid vacation plans. I had the opportunity to chat with two of the more smart and talented people I know, radio host Celeste Headlee and cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman (author of Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined). Celeste wanted to talk about my Atlantic piece "The Perils of Giving Kids IQ Tests" and Scott's research in neuroscience and education during her week guest hosting NPR's Tell Me More. The lovely people at KUER in Salt Lake City were willing to play host for my end of the segment, so really, how could I refuse?

To their credit, Tim, my boys, and my in-laws have been tolerant of my intermittent attention to the world around me, mostly because my mother-in-law is a writer herself, and Tim was hard at work on his own piece for the Atlantic on "The Strange Phenomenon of Pentecostals Who Deny HIV Treatment." The boys were the lucky recipients of their grandparents' largesse where bookstores are concerned, and could have cared less what we were up to as long as we left them alone to read. Ben devoured the entire John Green oeuvre and Finnegan burned through a couple of books in Michael Scott's Alchemyst series. 

Our version of a vacation might not look quiet like your version of a vacation, but this week has been pretty near perfect for this family of readers and writers. I hope these last weeks of summer are the same for you. 

If you would like to hear how things went on NPR, click here.