Spread

Count it down.

I got a tarot reading in the summer of 2008, and the psychic said I'd start to pull my shit together in about three or four years. At the time, I wondered what would take me so long. But here it is, three-and-a-half years later, and while I've still got plenty that I stress over and that I'm sad about, and things I can't get quite right, I'm cuddled up on my couch on New Year's Eve pretty content. I even made the effort today to "fix" my mailbox, once again smashed into by the plowtrucks (I assume), before the new year begins, as a show of good faith to 2012.

So, sure, some of my shit may be only duct-taped together, but I'll go to bed tonight, after watching the split-screen ball drop, pretty content and with a Lions/Packers game to watch tomorrow, and chili to make, and a list of things to do after that which actually fit in with what I like and am good at. So that'll do.

Conversation?

Fun tweets from someone who thinks I'm someone I'm not.

@Chobsky the author of perks Of Being a Wall flower !

@chbosky i feel 12x smarter every time i finish a conversation with you plz write more i can read your novels over and over again =]

@Chbosky i think u are my favorite person 2talk 2 bkuz ur so freaking intriguing &crazy intellectual =]

@chbosky ur so amazing &blow my mind when i read ur brilliance how bout u mak me look a lil more like a mentally retarded chimpanzee eh? Ha

Anybody clicking on my Twitter link and coming to Spread to learn more about a successful (male) YA author is going to be sadly disappointed. All this chit-chat about going to the dentist and grading papers. Though I wonder: would I want to make anybody reading my stuff feel like a mentally retarded chimpanzee? Is that a goal of some writers?

Might as well search “words.”

How frustrating is it that the story by Lydia Davis I want to find online is called "Story"? Google has no idea I actually *am* being specific.

The worry room.

At my local hospital, the room where you wait to be called in for your yearly mammogram is the same room where you wait for your person while they're in surgery. It's a tough place, so many people so worried. I wasn't there long, but did watch one man get called into a private room for a report from the surgeon. (The volunteer who led him there was really savvy about complimenting his laptop, getting him from asking her questions she wouldn't know the answers to yet, and keeping his mind elsewhere until he heard the word.) And then he came out and called his daughter: mom's okay, make sure those dishes are done when I get home. I didn't mean to be spying, but it's clear you're next to people in an important moment for them and for someone they love. I couldn't help listening.

And every person who comes to the door draws all the attention. My mammogram lady called my name and I stood up and headed over to her. Every single person in the room, together, said to me, "You dropped your hat." I had.

Not just the guy next to me or the old woman across. The whole room was so ready for someone to come to them that attentions were just that on edge, I think. I picked up my hat and said, "Thanks, everybody."

I left when it was over, but part of me wanted to head back there, and sit with them and wait to see when people finally got to exhale. To get to hear the next person call home and tell their own kids to clean up the house because everything is fine.

Give me a better hint.

My fortune cookie last night contained three – three! – fortunes.

1. A pleasant surprise is in store for you soon.
2. You will enjoy doing something different this coming weekend.
3. You will soon be confronted ("confronted"?) with unlimited opportunities.

I don't know how the multiple-fortune magic works. Do all three apply, and if so, do they all apply to the same moment? I will be surprised and confronted and enjoy something this weekend? Bring it.

But until then, so begins the season when I take out the trash only every other week cause baby it's cold outside.

The trace.

Just went to log into my school webthingy place to look up a section number so I could turn in my book order. For some reason, I typed "m" as the first letter of my login, which it isn't, and Chrome suggested filling in the rest for me as, "My deer came back!" I *wish* that was my login name.