Things Aren't as They Seem

Not a bad day for not having slept much last night. Things were consistantly different than they seemed at first, in that special sleep-deprived way -- but not in a Twilight Zone way.

I worked finishing rings for another jeweler at the bench in the front window of her shop all afternoon. What was impressive about this is that I successfully did NOT lean outside and yell "Nice Ass...phalt!" to the guys trying to strike poses while displaying butt cleavage in the process of working on the sidewalk outside. Later in the day one grubby guy, whose suspenders had unfortunately popped off on one side while he was working, stumbled to the locked door with his fly unzipped and looked at me aggressively. I unlocked the door for him and thought he was going to ask to use the bathroom, but instead he whipped out a hundred dollar bill and bought some pearl earrings for his girlfriend for her birthday.

I was relieved to find I didn't have "the dropsies" today since yesterday I was clumsiness incarnate. Jade, who owns the jewelry shop, told me about a guy who, on the first day of a high profile designer job, hit a springy-handled scoop of tiny diamond baguettes on the edge of the karat scale, spraying them upwards. His coworkers spent the next half hour picking diamond lice out of his hair with tweezers.

After work I walked into a bookstore and picked up a book by Elinor Lipman that looked interesting... and then she walked in. The store suddenly filled up with people to see her. She was there for a reading and was introduced by a similar style of writer, Mameve Medwed (or Mascara Medwed, as I think when I see her). Elinor read a nice brief amount and was charming and entertaining and afterwards I was able to have a chat with her. It really was a good turnout for a night competing with a Sox/Yankees game, the finale of Lost and the American Idol pagentry. Go Cambridge! Elinor lives in western MA and I mentioned that my brother lived out her way and is the managing editor of the Massachusetts Review. Elinor said her first really great rejection note, the kind where an editor took a lot of time to type up thoughtful notes, was from the Mass Review. I told her Cory just randomly sent me rejection notes. I didn't even have to submit anything.

Today, however, Cory sent me the coolest present for my birthday. It was on the table with the mail when I came home. Look closely, it contains two kinds of screwdrivers, a bottle opener, and a couple kinds of wrenches. I promptly donned my bat belt and ran around the house with my superhero sidekicks (our two kittens). Sadly, I could not hang myself on my magnetic strip where I hang pliers. For some reason I found myself wishing it had a hidden knife, too. I blame glenn for this since as I fell asleep last night he was singing "abunakunasasoodesu" over and over in various tunes -- that's the complicated Japanese grammar he'd just learned to say: "It doesn't seem to be dangerous to me. . . ."