I've been really caught up in my own life this past week. I made it back from my trip to Washington DC and my exploration within the Library of Congress just in time for a friends wedding and now I am getting ready to fly back to Bulgaria. What a busy summer.

Anyhow, I'd like to make it official. I'm in love with Truman Capote and his novel <em>In Cold Blood</em>. Yeah, I know it's a little late for this confession seeing as he wrote and published the book 50 years ago, he's no longer living and he was probably not straight but as luck would have it that's okay with me.

[caption id="attachment_3196" align="alignleft" width="239" caption="T. Capote via the LOC"]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/t-capote.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-3196" title="T. Capote" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/t-capote.jpg?w=239" alt="" width="239" height="300" /></a>[/caption]

Now don't get me wrong, I've<em> liked</em> Truman and his novel for a while. Heck, I taught the book this past year in 11th grade but my recent experience at the Library of Congress has changed all of this.  It has elevated my <em>like</em> of this man to <em>love</em>.  Things like this don't happen to me very often but it has. I can't stop thinking about him.

About how great he is. About how clever he is. About what bad handwriting he has.

<em>His handwriting</em> you may be asking yourself. Yes. His handwriting.<!--more-->

As luck would have it, the <a href="http://lccn.loc.gov/mm81047043">Library of Congress has a collection</a> of his papers, notes, interviews and drafts of the novel in their manuscript collection.  And I got to see it. No, actually it was better than this. I got to feel it, hold Truman's notebooks in my hands to try to make out his hand writing, and I got a glimpse at how Truman thought, wrote and asked questions.

Um, yeah. It was great. Really, really great. When the librarian brought me three boxes of the Truman Capote papers I just about died. I hadn't really thought about what it would be like to actually see his hand writing. To read the first page of the novel written in his note books. To hold the same notebook that Truman held when he was in Kansas investigating, reporting and covering the Clutter murders. Or to see as a whole the process, growth and development of the novel.

When I opened the first box my heart was racing and I felt like I might cry. These are Truman's papers!  These are <em>his </em>papers.  I also knew in this moment that this would not be everyone's reaction.  I knew that my choice to be an English major and later to pursue a masters degree in English Literature was being validated.  At the same time, this reaction was a little unexpected because I wasn't in love with Truman at this point. That came later.

More specifically it happened here. When I opened the cover of this notebook.

[caption id="attachment_3195" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="Capote&#039;s Notebook"]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/img_5875.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-3195" title="Capote's Notebook" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/img_5875.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" /></a>[/caption]

The notebook reads: Interview with Perry Smith. Perry is one of the two murders in the novel <em>In Cold Blood</em>. But just in case you don't know the novel, the crime or the back story. It's real. Perry Smith is a real man who murdered the Clutter family in rural Kansas in the 1950's. Truman becomes obsessed with the story and ends up traveling from New York City to Kansas to see what's going on for himself. Then he ends up in the right place at the right time and is able to interview Perry Smith along with other crucial players in the "Law &amp; Order" like nature of the crime.  This of course is pretty cool. But it's even cooler to read the primary documents written in Truman's own hand.

I think that I like Truman all the more for his notebooks and his bad handwriting.  But the teacher in me is just glad I don't have to regularly grade his written work.  Ha, ha.

Anyhow, now you know part of what I was up to when I was in Washington DC last week.

Oh and thanks to the Library of Congress for inviting me to the conference.  You really made my week. And then some.