Part of this I posted on threads. So you maybe saw it there. But there’s no reason to be there at all. And I wanted to talk about it more. The rest… Well, there’s the rest.
One of the ways you get yourself through the fucking torture of writing a book is you fantasize about seeing your book on a shelf in a store or holding the book in your hands. I had a lot of hotel fantasies. I mean, yes, that kind too. But I really just fucking love hotels. Airports too. I love taxis and trains. I love little shampoo bottles. I have a whole basket of them because I also have a fantasy of having a house with a guest bathroom. And a garden. But the shampoos are for the guest bathroom.
I know. Wild shit. One of the fantasies that I didn’t spend much time on because it was too insane to consider, was that I’d see someone reading my book in the wild. I’d take a picture of it. But it came out during a pandemic and I don’t have a subway to ride. So I saw other people’s pictures of my book on the subway. Still cool as shit, don’t get me wrong. Not quite the same.
Someone was reading my book in the pool when I moved in. I saw her in the pool reading a book. Her boyfriend was grilling. But that’s all I saw because you don’t look at girls in pools is one of those rules you learn early and it sticks. Then she sent me a DM saying something like, I know this is weird but did you just move into my building? Because I was reading your book in the pool. And my boyfriend said don’t make it weird.
So I made it less weird and asked her to help carry my mattress upstairs.
Cool as shit right? Figured that was the closest I’d get. Good enough. And I got a friend out of it. Sort of. We run into each other a lot because though she moved, we’re still in the same neighborhood. She once witnessed the worst Tinder date in history at the bar down the street. But I keep forgetting to get her number.
I saw someone reading it today, in a cafe where I’d gone to write. I didn’t see what she was reading at first. She kept looking at me and I checked my fly and I checked my nose. Typed some more. I’d look up again and catch her staring. Eventually she went back to her book. I went back to the sentence that was pissing me off. Then I got up for more caffeine I didn’t need and she’d gone to the bathroom and my book was on the table next to a half eaten muffin.
Fucking wild.
I thought about saying something. Then I decided I shouldn’t say anything. Then maybe I should. What would I want? Who knows. Too many ways it could be awkward. She could hate the book. She could’ve found it on the chair and was just reading it because her phone died. Who knows.
I tried to ignore her and she clearly decided I was not Lauren Hough. Maybe because I did shower this morning. Then I ordered a taco. And he called my name. She said, "I knew it.”
It was better than I thought.
She’d started dating someone from Amarillo. I keep running into people from Amarillo here. It makes me happy, to think there were lesbians in Amarillo, and some of us escaped. The girlfriend from Amarillo told her she should read my book, to get an idea of who she is. Which is among the coolest goddamn things I’ve heard, other versions of which include a lot of weird stories but to me, they mean that the book I wrote isn’t just a cult book or an Air Force book. But a someone from Amarillo book and a someone who grew up Mormon or Southern Baptist or Church of Christ or just had a weird childhood book or gay in the 90s or lived in DC or worked in clubs or worked blue collar shit jobs book. It means something to me. That maybe I did alright.
I signed the book for her girlfriend and I am looking forward to the wedding invitation. Then I sat in my car a while. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to run through every possible thing this feeling could be. Then I remember it’s joy. And it’s okay to feel it and let it last as long as I can.
I wrote something that made it a little easier for someone to connect. That’s pretty goddamn cool.
In the meantime:
I have to move. And if you’ve been tuning in at all to my whining about my building, or rather, the building management, you’ll know I’m not too upset about this prospect. The pool is still green is what I’m saying.
Woody’s become convinced this apartment is haunted. It’s not why I have to move. I have to move because they’re selling this piece of shit. It’ll be a high rise or a CVS, who cares. But in the meantime, they’re doing construction next door. And because he can’t see the source of the booms and the shouting, he’s gone with the obvious explanation, ghosts. It’s always interesting to trace his day by the mess he leaves in his wake. A cheese wrapper he found in a pocket. My blankets shoved to one side of the bed. We haven’t had a bread in bed incident in a while. But I haven’t bought bread in a while. Today I found his blue bunny in the bathtub. I don’t know if he was trying to protect the blue bunny from ghosts or if he slept in the tub to hide from ghosts. I doubt he’s mad enough at the bunny to sentence it to a bath.
A friend gave me the number of a realtor, another lesbian from Amarillo. My cousin who was my cool cousin in Austin, before I moved here, at which time, she moved to Oregon, that cousin is now back in Austin. So we’ve decided to solve both our problems, and most importantly Woody’s. We’re gonna find Woody and his blue bunny a house to rent, with a goddamn yard, and hopefully fewer ghosts.
Dealing with this shit is a goddamn nightmare, and I haven’t even started thinking about actually moving. But I think living alone is making me weird as shit. I’ve started saying insane things like I like being alone. I like that I enjoy my own company. But there’s a line between liking my own company, and writing manifestos about the post office and I don’t want to get anywhere near that line. I think too much about that year we don’t talk about, how I’d have fucking given anything for a goddamn hug. Roommates are generally a fucking shitshow. Someday I’ll tell you some roommate stories. This will be a shitshow at some point too. But we’re cousins. We’ve already yelled at one another about something, probably not the dishwasher, but many things, and still figured out how to be cousins ten minutes later. And Woody will have a yard and a porch, and more people in his house who love him, and his blue bunny.
The book was never just that book. I’m pretty much none of those things, not even American, though I did grow up Catholic so there’s that…. but your book still landed with me. That’s what a good book does. And it was a good book. And now there’s Woody, and the blue bunny and the ghosts, and that means something too. I hope he gets his yard.
The cafe exchange is truly incredible, I can only imagine the thrill as well as relate completely to the awkwardness. And while I’m sorry you’re gonna have to deal with the actual moving part of moving, I am very excited for you to be in a little house with a yard and family.