Fari Falaki craned her neck to catch a glimpse of her 14-year-old son waiting somewhere outside. "We got here at 9," said Falaki. "He had to already go five or six or 10 blocks to get on line." Falaki and her husband came to the United States from Iran as students in 1975, and now live in Columbus, Ohio. They were all visiting New York this week while her husband was on business, and she and her son had decided to try their luck at the signing. "I'd like to get a picture with him," said Falaki of Clinton. It would be a half-hour before booming announcements informed her that no picture taking would be allowed, except by the hordes of television press who had passes. "I can see he's a very nice person," Falaki said of Clinton. "And I heard he can speak with different dialects to different people."

Kimberly Tillipman, who works at UBS bank and had driven into the city from Elizabeth, N.J., arrived in line at about 3:30 a.m. With her was one of her triplet sisters, with whom she will turn 33 on Thursday, and four other friends. "I thought he was a good president," said Tillipman, "and I thought he was good-looking." She said that she'd made friends in her eight hours in line. "We've shared water and ponchos and umbrellas and chairs," she said. Sort of like a Dead concert, with a lot more Secret Service and a lot less weed.

Next to the bouncers Benjamin and Calvin was the comparatively Lilliputian actor Kim Jonathan Mills, 50. He was at the signing on a break from shooting the new Nicole Kidman movie, "The Interpreter," in which he plays a U.N. delegate from Norway. Mills, who has been with the New York City Opera and had bit parts in "Moonstruck" and Woody Allen's "Celebrity," said that Clinton would be the second president he's met. "I did see JFK in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1960," he said. When asked what he wanted to say to the 40th president, Mills said, "I am going to plead with him to please run for mayor of New York City."

"Once you are in the next zone, you may not leave the line for any reason!" hollered one of the guards to the people in the unmoving line who honestly didn't look any closer to the "next zone" than they had been a half hour ago.

Maki Tomikawa, a civil servant in her 30s who had taken the day off from work, didn't care about any zones, or about having been on her feet since 4 a.m. "I am going to ask him to come to Japan," she said excitedly. Tomikawa, who had moved to New York from Osaka in May, looked as if she were in line to meet Justin Timberlake or something. "I love him because he is smart and he's a great person and he's handsome," she said, smiling. Her two male companions laughed at her and she blushed. Clutching her copy of "My Life," Tomikawa was unembarrassed to admit that she was going straight for the dirty -- or not so dirty -- bits. "I want to read about the scandal!" she said. "I know it's not his fault. He is a human being. Nobody can stop loving somebody," she said. Loving -- is that what they're calling it these days?

Behind her was a 14-year-old in braces who was grasping her copy of "My Life" with almost as much enthusiasm as Tomikawa and wearing a button that said "Play It Again, Bill: World Book Tour 2004." It featured a photograph of Clinton blowing the sax. The 14-year-old, whose father, George, asked that she not be named, said that though she had been 11 when Clinton left office, she grew up knowing "that he was one of the greatest presidents we'd seen in a long time." The girl said she'd been too young to really understand the ins and outs of Clinton's impeachment, and her father said: "We did our best to edit at home, which was hard when every other word for six months was" -- and here he covered his daughter's ears -- "oral sex." George, an engineer from New Jersey, had to take the day off work. "But I think if she wanted to come, that's important," he said, looking fondly at his daughter. "He was a good example. And moments like this can inspire a kid."

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