My intention was to stop by Fluid Pudding and spout whatevers at least twice each week during November. But then I started coughing and sneezing and oomph my stomach and something about antibiotics and steroids and a bruised rib and here we are on November 29th. It’s Howie Mandel’s birthday and what have I done?
Well, I enjoyed how a subtitle lag can change the vibe of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
I felt a little uncomfortable with the placement of this gingerbread board’s spreader.
I thought about the time when I asked the Gradient app to name my celebrity look-alike.
I also got quite a bit of work done, but I can’t show a photo because of copyright laws and my unwillingness to spend time in jail before Christmas. (After Christmas is fine.) But wait! I do have a photo that was taken on a work trip I took back in 1998…
Imagine ‘going back in time’ music playing right now. Mine has a harp in it and sounds a little like this:
In 1998, I was 28 years old and working as an associate developmental editor on a pharmacology book. The (cranky and scattered) author of the book had missed several deadlines, and I told her that the only way we were going to get things to the printer on time was if I sat with her for a weekend and we came up with a plan for every missing component of the manuscript.
On a Friday afternoon, I rented a car, drove to her town, checked into my hotel room, and threw up. I wasn’t sick, I was just tied in knots knowing that the pressure was on and I needed to spend the weekend being bold and assertive with an unhappy woman who was old enough to be my grandmother.
On Saturday morning I drove to her office at the university, and after we made small talk for a few minutes I pulled the manuscript out of my bag and told her we were going to go chapter by chapter to address the missing parts. For the first chapter in the book, I needed her to approve a photo of a syringe. I showed her the photo, and she said she didn’t like it.
She then pulled a piece of paper and a pencil out of her drawer, and thirty seconds later handed me something that looked like this.
Me (in my mind): You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.
Me (out loud): I’ll have this rendered by an artist to match the style of the other illustrations.
I spent the rest of the day being yelled at—but also constantly interrupted so she could tell me weird stories about her son (incarcerated) and her mother (dead). It was such a worthless and stressful day. When I went back on Sunday morning to finish up, she showed up an hour late and told me she wanted me to finish the rest of the chapters on my own. I told her that we didn’t have much more to get through, and that I marked each page that had missing parts to save us some time. I handed the manuscript to her.
This photograph was taken less than ten seconds later.
In silence, I got down on the floor, picked up all of the pages she had thrown at me, gathered my stuff, walked to my car, drove to a gas station, bought a pack of cigarettes, and performed an activity that I’ve perfected over the years. It’s called Driving and Crying, and it has nothing to do with a Southern rock band from Atlanta.
Did you know I’ve switched over to Substack?
You can subscribe if you want.
It’s free.
It will always be free.