DALLAS, FEBRUARY 25—One of my favorite things about being on the Boogie Wipes Tour is seeing longtime friends. Our host for the Dallas stop on our tour was Michael Sorrell, president of the HBC (historically black college), Paul Quinn College and Boogie Wipes aficionado. (“We use a lot of Boogie Wipes in our house,” he says.) Though everyone on campus calls him Prez, I met him nearly 30 years ago when he was dating a girl on my hall at Oberlin, and since old habits die hard, I just call him Mike.
That’s him introducing me at our reading. Can you tell he played basketball???
I gotta give props to Mike’s ace administrative assistant, Alejandra Ortega.
She organized our event at Oak Lawn Coffee, one of the hippest hangouts in Dallas, right down to moving the furniture around to create theatre-style seating. If there’s such a thing as artisanal coffee, here’s where to get it. To quote Kyle Macloughlin in Twin Peaks (and dating myself in the process), they’ve got a “damn fine cup of coffee.” Their pastries are pretty delish too.
Now, we’ve read for all kinds of people on our Boogie Wipes Tour—scientists, school teachers, working moms, stay-at-home moms, dads. But this was the first time I’d read in front of a crowd that was practically ALL dads.
Luckily, they laughed in all the right places! Whew!
But the icing on the proverbial cake was meeting up with writers Beth Teliho, author of Order of Seven (right), and blogger Jennifer Belden for lunch at Grand Luxe Cafe in the Galleria Mall.
That mall is so fancy, they even have an ice skating rink!
All righty! That’s all folks! Next up: Oklahoma! See you on the road!
