poltergeist or angel of virtue?

so here i sit, adoring how cute my little computer looks propped on a trunk next to my typewriter, when i hear hell's fury in the background.

see, i do very little without background noise. it used to be music. now it is mostly hgtv. anyway, the tv starts this crazy rasping and it looks like scratchies. and suddenly i fear for this.

i ponder: is there, in fact, truth to the idea that demons could try to reach me through my beloved television set?

and then i realize that this poltergeist actually interrupted kathy griffin's my life on the d list. i suppose i had invited as many irritating, narcissistic demons as one actually gets through television. 

bless you, interrupted cable connection.

violated

i guess i should have seen it coming. i mean, when i think of david sedaris, sensitive and uplifting aren't quite the first two terms that come to mind. but when i heard he was coming to boise to promote his new book, i knew i had to check it out.

so, today after class, i unknowingly headed off to my local Hastings (an incredibly unlikely place for a new york times best selling author to show up, but i'm not complaining). i picked up a copy of the newest book. i laughed at the reading. after all, making coffee out of water from an arrangement of wildflowers is unceasingly humorous. i find david sedaris's voice oddly soothing--perhaps because i have grown so accustomed to listening to it on This American Life? whatever reason for this comfort, i felt i had made a great decision for my evening.

i have never tried to get a book signed before (i'm usually cranky by the time they get to signings), but i had this delusional idea that it may have actually gone quickly, so i got in line. for two and a half hours. this is in addition to the forty-five minutes spent standing during the reading (not that i--and my feet!--am/are complaining). luckily i had my dear friend jana, my cousin jake, and his beautiful wife rachel to keep me company.

i finally got to the front of the line, with pained feet and emotinal fatigue, and realized i didn't really have anything to say. no worries, david took it from there. staring relentlessly at my chest, he simply said, "Rebecca, what nice breasts you have."

"what?" i reply incredulously

"well, i mean, i'm no expert or anything" (in case you don't know, david sedaris is gay) "but you have seriously nice breasts."

he has still failed to look at my face once.

i instantly turned bright red. at this point in time, jake and rachel started cracking up. everyone in line can tell how obviously uncomfortable this comment has made me, so they all start laughing. i don't think i had ever been this mortified in my life... until he started writing this astute observation on the title page of my book.

"please," i plead, "please don't write that in my book."

"rebecca," he said, "they won't be nice forever..."

and so it is. eternally preserved for my grandchildren to lovingly cherish generations down the road. i don't think i have ever experienced such a mixture of mortification, flattery, and hilarity.

only in dreams

i am really trying not to say things like "man, i can't wait until we have money so that we can buy a house" or "i really wish that we had money so that we could hire bobby flay to come prepare all of our meals." that's not to say i don't have those thoughts--i do (and you're lying if you say that you don't have them... or you're just a really good person). i usually take those moments to reflect on all the wonderful things in my life, because they are certainly plentiful.


but today i have reached my threshold, and it is time for public coveting. i'm just going to say it: i cannot wait until discount toilet paper is no longer the norm in our home. i fantasize of fancy, soft toilet paper with teddy bear embossing slowly infiltrating all of my normal storage areas, accumulating under the bathroom sink, stacking in the closet, somehow finding its way into my backpack and purse.

let's be honest with each other here: there's no way anyone would ever do this with "super discount ultra-soft" (which in no way resembles actual softnesss). do you recognize the look in his eye? that, my friends is what we call pure joy.

dare to dream. dare to dream.