We are headed out to Colorado to see Noah's baby sister get married. She was seven years old when I met her, which is how old Indy is now, which will really mess with me if I let it. I have packed a hippie maxi dress from Target and a maxi skirt, also Target. I have a red dress with white polka dots to wear to the wedding, a 40's style shirtdress that isn't quite fancy enough for a wedding but it's what I got. I will bring a pair of jeans and a second maxi skirt from a boutique in California. I will bring a couple kimonos even though it will be too hot to wear them. I will not pack my turquoise ring, because Indy lost it, and I have started calling it 'my precious' as I wonder around the house again and again, hoping that maybe this time it will turn up. I adored that turquoise ring like little else. To my own disdain, I have capitulated and ordered a copy of prominent daddy blogger Karl Ove Knausgaard's MY STRUGGLE, which I will take on the plane, along with my iphone and its playlist of songs by Charlie XCX and Bleachers and Springsteen. In my purse will be one Kind bar, Burt's Bees chapstick, and Dramamine. Noah and I are taking different planes for complicated reasons, so as soon as I am in my seat I will put my earbuds in, signifying LEAVE ME ALONE. I might even board the plane wearing them. Last time a guy tried to get chatty with me during boarding and then I had to be cold, which makes me guilty, which pretty much describes my every social interaction ever.
At the airport I will buy a copy of the New Yorker, because I can't get one here in town. Other things I can't get in town are 1) a good burrito, 2) a good smoothie and 3) anonymity.
The other night I dreamed 88 people had reviewed Angel Food on Amazon, and my dream-brain was like, see, I knew I didn't have to worry. I also dreamed a prominent mommy blogger plugged my book on her Facebook page and I took a screenshot of it and probably cried.
I feel very vulnerable about it all.
I should have left for work three minutes ago. Instead I am hunched at my desk drinking coffee out of the mug pictured above, a gift I treasure like a turquoise ring.
Dream on.
Have fun in Colorado and I hope you find your precious soon! Love the mug. :)
ReplyDeleteThat's MY mug. I want to wear a red and white polka dotted 1940s shirtwaist dress. Alas, I always feel like I'm in costume when I try such things. Have fun up in the sky and in tall, tall Colorado. I received my copy of your book in the mail today and I just sat and held it in my hands and turned it over and over and stroked it in awe. It's like holding someone else's baby. You want to bite it a little bit because it's so beautiful and perfect and so very, very tangible. But then you also get that all-excited wiggly belly feeling that maybe one day you could have one of your very own. This metaphor ends, though, because I don't want another baby and I don't have to change your book's diapers. I guess I'm saying that I'm glad that I got to stand in the back of the birthing room and hold the camera while you did all the work and feeling vulnerable is perfectly understandable and pretty much why some of the rest of us (heretofore unnamed) have been standing around holding cameras while you have actually gone through with it. So, there's that. You've done it, it's out there, it has your fingerprints all over it and it's going to be glorious and painful and incriminating and worth every drop of sweat. You knew this, of course.
ReplyDeleteA town lacking a good burrito is suspect.
I was at Target yesterday and eyeballed four different maxi skirts. I love any and all bohemian dresses and also 40's style pretties. Turquoise is my jam. Your book is gonna be such a success, 88 reviews will be NOTHING one day. Happy travels! I hope you find a good burrito. xoxo PS that is also MY mug. : ))
ReplyDeleteYour book arrived! It was here when I got back from our travels abroad. I'm so excited for you! And for me that I get to read more of your wildly original storytelling. Vulnerability is a part of it all, don't work. Writing, putting your art out there, takes such courage. You are breathtaking. You will have reviews upon wonderful reviews. Enjoy the wedding and the family time and I'll see you on the other side.
ReplyDeleteThat should of course be "don't worry" not "don't work." I'm on my phone. Darn autocorrect!
ReplyDeleteBig hugs.
This book publicity thing is a temptress. I could obsess. My boyfriend gave me any anthology titled "Smoking, Drinking, Screwing." The idea being that fellow passengers would leave me alone if I pulled that out. Hahaha. Hope your trip was swell.
ReplyDelete