Too Much Day

Not enough night. I'm zonked, so I can't write the scintillating post you've come to expect...ahem!

I committed myself to be in two places at once: the Chuck Palahniuk reading and a business meeting with my more or less only freelance clients.

Hate it when that happens. The two were in walking distance, so I tried my best to be in both places.

Result: I missed the reading, which was the real reason to go. I wrote my only-ever fan letter in 2004 and got an embarrassment of gag gifts and whatnot with enough examples of Chuck's John Hancock to set me up for identity fraud.

But, as it happens, I got some before shots, when people were filing in an hour in advance, already lined up for autographs.

You know, every time I go to a literary event, it's asses and elbows. Granted, the only other 'literary event' I've ever been to was David Sedaris, but still.

Waiting, I met a woman I swear is straight out of one of Chuck's anecdotes about strangers and their stories.

I mean, really, there's stuff that happened just today I'm filtering out of my blogging life, and I have so few readers it might as well be private.

This woman (not my companion, the 70-something one)seemed to despair she was the only woman over 70 at this reading. Got into me and my friend's horoscope, Chuck's horoscope, her marginal acting career, abusive parents, her own addictive personality, her son who committed suicide, the first affair she had in her fifty year marriage (and still married), etc.

I don't have a lot of boundaries, but an acute reader would notice my mentioning a friend right next to a note about filtering stuff out of my blog. It's not like it's a secret, it's just that I don't know how she'd take it if I mentioned her in a psudeo-public way. We basically just met as far as in person goes, and given some of the weird shit I've encountered in a very brief re-introduction to the single world, I don't want to be someone else's weird shit.

Or not badly weird, at least. I think she's sussed out that I'm not really 'normal.'

My companion (NOT the 70+) chickened out on the full line until 1:00 am, so I dropped her at her car a bit after 11:00 and came back. With her copy of Lullaby to inscribe. She asked me to have him sign 'something gross' (yes, I know, pay dirt, meet a girl who likes gross stuff!), but I forgot that. Chuck signed her book with a 'good luck on the outside' and a 'PRISON LIBRARY COPY' stamp.

Hope she'll forgive me, it's not gross...