2005-10-13 || 8:10 p.m.

|| this sort of thing, i am certain, will be my undoing. ||

did you happen to listen to joan didion on "fresh air" tonight talking about her memoir? it is one of the greatest most heartwrenching things i have ever listened to. the heaviness in her voice alone. i was listening to it while driving in my car, the heater on very high, and i kept crumpling up and crying a little at the stop signs on my way to a reading. she was talking about her husband's shoes and how she couldn't throw them away in the event he, who recently died, were to come back when i turned off the radio and got out of my car. i walked two blocks in my new clicky-clack shoes trying to figure out whether i was feeling for what joan didion said or i was just nervous because i was going to a reading by myself with the hopes of talking to the reading organizer, who is a friend of my writerly agent. i click-clacked up to the window of the restaurant it was being held at and had that problem of trying very hard not to look like an orphan outside the window of a restaurant where a reading was taking place, but i was stuck: people are sitting at tables and eating. because it is a restaurant. where is the sea of fold-out chairs i can hide in until i work up the courage, hopefully with the help of a glass of wine, to talk to aformentioned writerly fellow? there were none to speak of. does this mean i have to sit down and order dinner to attend the reading? i walked two doors back down and called poor ezra to see if he would meet me, but the karma of my never calling anyone back kicked in at that moment, and i left a very pathetic message that shamed even me. sorry, ezra. i decided to walk by the restaurant one more time to see if some room had been cleared or a stage had been erected or a microphone stand had been placed in a corner. because this is very important that i talk to this guy. but no, there were just people eating. a man looking at me with an expression i took as recognition of my sad sad orphanly attempts at scoping the place out. so i kept walking again, past the restaurant and across the street and back toward my car so that i could get a good from-across-the-street view, in case i could see something from a little far away, in case in the time it took me to cross the crosswalk there would be some sign of an event.

[this is what i was afraid of: 1. walking in and closing the door behind me, but there's a bell on the door so everyone would look up to see who was coming in. 2. waiting for a host/hostess to meet me at the 'please wait to be seated' sign and my having to ask him/her whether there's a reading tonight. his/her slightly scoffing expression as he/she says yes, would you like a table. 3. having to sit at a table with no intention of ordering anything for i have no money except for the two dollars (which is earmarked for bus fare tomorrow, actually) suggested as payment on a flyer outside. 4. sitting down and fiddling with my long alien hands, which i tend to do when nervous, and trying to figure out whether i could sneak outside and run home without anyone noticing my exit. realizing i have long alien hands and trying very hard to hide them in my pockets. realizing i am indoors and should take off my coat but that would involve standing up and i certainly could not do such a thing. 5. throwing up. 6. dropping dead at my table and my hair catching on fire from the candle just at my left.]

this is why i kept walking, got into my car, listened to joan didion break down and cry a little bit, cried a little bit with joan didion, and drove home.

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