countdown

Okay, campers, listen up.

I'm just kidding.

I'm the one who should be listening up. In 23 hours or so the booksigning for which I have waited months and months, my whole life in some ways, will be taking place. I'm sure it will be totally mundane and ordinary to the manager and the employees, "Yo, lady, when are you going to be done?" but to me and my loyal family and friends, it's an extraordinary event. I am going to try and remember every excruciating detail I can. It's sort of like waiting for a birthday or waiting for Christmas. How can the reality possibly meet the anticipation?

It's hard to bear down and squeeze enjoyment out of the tube of life. We often concentrate on getting through a bad experience, just count to ten and then count to ten again and then try something else, etc. We get pretty good at bludgeoning through things, enduring unpleasantness, gritting our teeth. But we're not so good at liking everything, enjoying everything to the max. I guess they call it smelling the coffee, though I don't consider coffee smelling to be any great fun.

I ordered a cake today at, well, Hanna--Hanna--[choke], you know where I mean. The experience started off normally and morphed into existentialism. The kid taking my order gave me one price--$15.99 and I could see clearly on the computer in front of him another price-- $14.99. "Doesn't it say $14.99 right there?" He pondered this. "hmmm. You're right. I guess maybe the price came down." "That's good," I said.

Here's where we veer off. He tells me that they now offer fillings in the cakes. Strawberry, chocolate, bavarian creme. That will add to the price, won't it, I ask. "I don't know if it does," he says. "Well, if there's no charge, I'll take bavarian creme." The kid is not going to be there tomorrow when I pick it up so I asked him how I will know if it has bavarian creme inside it and he said there probably wouldn't be any way for me to. He thought maybe he could make a mark on the outside of the box and I agreed this was a good idea. It will be a little like an espionage novel when I show up and start twirling the box around to see if there is a mark on it. What if there are several marks on it? Marks not related to the filling? I'm just asking.

Right now I can either clean the bathroom or do crossword puzzles before falling asleep. Yeah, like this is a choice.

A bientot

becky
p.s. I was so thrilled to hear from my former student Jon and not one bit surprised that his story won a prize. I used to laugh so hard in that class it didn't seem right that I should get paid for it.