This weekend I have been up to my teeth in doing promotional stuff–stuff which of course I can’t discuss without further promoting the thing I’m promoting, even though I promised myself I wouldn’t just write about promotional stuff on this site.
So instead I will tell you about how I was on my way to this record fair on Saturday to visit Chris (who was selling records there, because he has a lot of records, and if he wanted to he could build himself a bunker out of records and sit inside it listening to more records while eating records, like that’s how many records) and see if he needed me to run and get change or a sandwich, because he doesn’t really eat records.
I passed a man on the sidewalk outside the building. He asked, “You going to the record fair?” Yes, I told him. Then he barked, “WELL, DON’T BOTHER. I BOUGHT ALL THE GOOD STUFF.”
And I rolled my eyes and I walked by and thought but I’m not buying records, you dunderdick and couldn’t help but feel a little indignant that he had to spit that little gob of hubris in my direction. Why couldn’t he keep his totally imaginary schadenfreude to himself? The only good response to a person like that is to travel twenty seconds backwards in time and tell him to shut up in advance.
I am glad it’s spring but I swear, this is the coldest time of the year for me, when the wind blows more and the building-controlled radiators run less, and the heady mix of bright sunlight and icy breeze makes me squinty and strangely exhausted. I’d tell you to wake me up in June, but I have so much to do between now and then, I’d better stay awake.
“The only good response to a person like that is to travel twenty seconds backwards in time and tell him to shut up in advance.”
That is the best sentence in the entire history of the written alphabet.
I once ran a race and one of the guys they hire to encourage the runners yelled out “You’re doing gre…Awww, who am I kidding. You lost.” I nearly turned around to kick him but didn’t want to finish dead last.
Congratulations on the book. Mom’s getting one for Mother’s Day because we actually ate some of those recipes growing up…She didn’t appreciate our comments but laughed at yours until she cried.
I’m going to second the power of this sentence.
“The only good response to a person like that is to travel twenty seconds backwards in time and tell him to shut up in advance.”
You’re like… a word sorcerer.
I, also, have been wondering if it would be possible to just close my eyes and wake up in June. This is probably related to the fact that I teach high school, though. Only 8 more weeks, and then I will have approximately 9 weeks to make myself forget about how hard it can be to wake up at 5 every morning, and also all the apathetic high school kids, and their mean parents, and the crabby co-workers, and the weekends spent planning and evenings spent correcting papers, so that I will be willing to do it all over again come August!
You know, I don’t know if I’ve ever thought of how many weeks there were in summer vacation! Is it really only nine weeks? Did we have more growing up? Is this Beach Boys’ “Endless Summer” theorem really so fundamentally flawed?
HI Wendy,
I already ordered “the thing you are promoting”. I can’t wait to slip into a pair of Depends and read it cover to cover.
And ditto on the “travel back…..” sentence. Where are my Depends when I need them?
Jane
So did Chris sell a lot of records? What kind of music are you both into?