I’m in New York, at the Hilton right near the HarperDome.  I flew in on Jet Blue, 5 1/2 hours from Long Beach airport, the only airport in the world that’s smaller than the planes.  Tomorrow I have an actual agenda. It has multiple parts.  Meeting, then meeting, then lunch, then meeting, then an introvert break during which I will chew over all the stupid things I said, then another meeting.  Then, hopefully, drinks with Stearns during which I will, as always, sound just a bit crazier than I really am.

Random hotel room thoughts, in no particular order, and bearing in mind that I’ve had a Knob Creek Manhattan, a Sam Adams, a room service Reuben sandwich and pineapple upside down cake with white chocolate mousse.

1) I love Jet Blue.

2) White chocolate?  No. Missing the whole point of chocolate.  It’s chocolate for people who don’t like chocolate. It’s the chocolate equivalent of near beer.  Dark chocolate is chocolate.  White chocolate is lard.

3) In the near future advertising will be participatory, peer-to-peer, not top down.  Here’s the evolution:  hard sell, soft sell, product placement, peer-to-peer then lifestyle placement.

4) See, white chocolate is one of those aged-out foodie fads. (It was the big thing what, 15 years ago?)   Foodies love anything that’s new.  They don’t always have much judgment, much taste, so they chase after whatever’s new equating “New” with “Good.”  This explains the great goat cheese obsession of a decade ago.  Goat cheese here, goat cheese there.  90% of it tasted like feet, but it was new on the scene, so suddenly you weren’t supposed to like Stilton or Camembert or Reblochon because we’d already done those while chevre was new and hard to pronounce.

5) I’m reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.  An example of why writers shouldn’t read books:  there’s always somebody better than you are.  And then you get bummed.

6) I forget what #6 was.

7) There’s never a magic bullet but people waste their lives looking for one.  Magic diet, magic therapy, magic plan for getting rich, magic revelation that will destroy Barack Obama.  People want to believe in magic.  Magic is for stories.  In real life you actually have to work at things, there’s no sudden cathartic moment that turns everything around on a dime.  Says the man who just succumbed to pineapple upside-down cake.

8- Yes, I’m aware that I hyphenated “upside-down” in one case and didn’t in the other.

9) My great fear in meetings is that I will not recognize someone I’ve met like six times.  It goes without saying that I won’t remember names.  If you have a two syllable name I’ve already forgotten the first syllable before you say the second.  I don’t think this makes me a jerk.  I think it’s just quirky.

10) In April I’m going on a book tour in England.  Take that, Meg Cabot, you and your big deal Asian book tour.  

11) It bothers me that I know I’m probably going to like living in SoCal.  There’s something wrong with people who actually like Southern California.

12) I thought of a scene that’s too gross to actually use in LIES.  Not just too gross for Scandinavians, too gross for Americans.  Sin City gross.  And it’s something I could only use in one of the GONE books.  Which means it will be lost forever.

13) When I told my wife about #12 she said, “Sometimes it bothers me that I’m married to you.”  Not the first time she’s said that.

14) I asked a guy who really knows whether it made any sense that My Space, Facebook and Twitter are worth billions of dollars.  He said, “Nope.”  I think he’s right.

15) Okay, my wife and kids just called and now I’m sleepy.