As the first week of our relationship (or whatever it was) progressed, Danielle and I formed a routine. Even though most people think routines are boring, I’ve always liked the predictable nature of them. Knowing what the day had in store for me gave me a sense of confidence, and as unpredictable as Danielle could be, even she seemed to settle into a routine for herself.
Every morning, I got up while Danielle slept in. I worked from 8:00 to 5:00, and she danced a lunch shift for a few hours until maybe 2:00. She could usually convince a guy during her shift to buy her a meal (I wasn’t wild about that part of her job, but I guess she needed to eat). She’d hang around the apartment until I got home, and then we’d go out for a quick dinner. Danielle would leave for work around 8:00, and I’d go to bed. Then I’d sleep until about 2:00, get up, and then pretend to be asleep waiting up for her on the couch. Danielle thought it was cute that I tried to wait up for her. She would take her bath (I was never invited), and we’d fall asleep sometime around 4:00, and then I’d get up at 6:00 while she slept in.
I enjoyed living in sin with Danielle, especially since I had never lived in sin with a woman (or anybody) before. I had committed sin (if that’s how you look at it), but I had never lived in sin. In fact, I had never committed that much sin (if that’s how you look at it) so frequently and so consistently in all of my life. I didn’t really look at it as sin. I looked at it with more of a “It’s about time!” attitude. Things were moving more quickly than I was usually comfortable with, but my enjoyment of living in sin overrode my normal caution.
Despite our routine and our living in sin, I was still paranoid. I had a fear of what Danielle had called “crazy shit” in her life. Danielle hadn’t told me what that “crazy shit” was, and I had an active imagination, so every night when Danielle left for work, I deadbolted the door from the inside so that she (and any “crazy shit” friends she might have with her) couldn’t get in, even with her key. I knew I was running the risk of pissing off Danielle if she ever returned home early or if I overslept, and I really didn’t want her to know I was paranoid, but I could always say that securing the deadbolt was a habit. Even though she would have been pissed, Danielle would believe it. She knew I was a man of habits. She might not have known that I was paranoid.
There were some unanswered questions with Danielle, some of which might have been related to her “crazy shit.” When we had met in the laundry room, she had been living with somebody, but she wouldn’t tell me anything about this roommate, male or female, platonic or romantic. She wouldn’t tell me why she had moved out. She didn’t tell me why she had switched from a red sports car to a black sports car (but that was my fault because I had never asked). I thought it was weird how we had just happened to meet in the library that day. When I thought about her job, I thought of a lot more questions, but a part of me (the part that liked living in sin) refused to dwell too much on those questions.
As proud as I was to have a hot live-in girlfriend, I hadn’t told any of my friends about her. They knew about the hot chick that I met in the laundry room. They knew about the panties. I hadn’t told them about meeting her again in the library, or going on a date, or living in sin with her. My plan was to keep Danielle separate from the hot chick in the laundry room. Everybody thought the hot chick in the laundry room had been weird. Danielle didn’t come across as weird when she wore the glasses and ordinary clothes. My friends would be surprised that I had a live-in girlfriend, but they didn’t need to know she was the woman I had met in the laundry room.
On the Thursday evening of our first week together, we went out for a quick meal after I returned home from work. A cold front had finally moved in, so Danielle grabbed her badass leather jacket, which contradicted her otherwise literary appearance: thick glasses, hair pulled back, and my paperback copy of Sense and Sensibility.
“You’re wearing that?” I asked, pointing to the leather jacket.
Danielle suddenly got defensive. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s badass,” I said. “Your badass jacket overpowers your literary look. It’ll confuse people.”
“Does it confuse you?” Danielle asked, hand on hip.
“Kind of.”
“I can be badass and literary,” Danielle said. “I think I’ll put on black heels too.”
But she didn’t. Danielle clutched the novel as we left our apartment. “I think I’m going to get some trashy romance books the next time we go to the library.”
“You’re not going to finish that?” I said, pointing to Sense and Sensibility.
Danielle made a fart sound with her lips and hit my shoulder with the book. “I want a trashy romance.”
“With a long-haired hunk on the cover.”
“No, a short-haired lean, mean hunk,” she said. “But people won’t think I’m smart if I carry a trashy romance around. So I’m stuck with this when we go out.” She held up Sense and Sensibility and flashed an open-mouthed goofy smile.
It was moments like this that made me appreciate Danielle.
*****
Every romantic comedy seems to have a montage where the couple enjoys a series of happy snapshot scenes together. The couple holds hands, walks in the park, or goes to museums. The montage has numerous quick amusing scenes set to bouncy music of the time period. Our routine that first week was our montage. Danielle and I were having our series of happy moments in our fledgling relationship.
But in every romantic comedy, the montage is brief. And after the montage, there’s always a challenge (or a bunch of challenges) that threaten to destroy the relationship. In the movies the couple can usually overcome those challenges and make their relationship even stronger. In real life, however, these challenges usually crush the relationship. I knew those challenges were coming, but I wasn’t sure what those challenges would be. I just knew that they were approaching.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: The Bluff.
And to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here.
If these were my hands, there would have been two extended middle fingers. I always had a tough time with typewriters. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When actors/actresses or singers write stuff that’s outside their professional expertise, you never know what’s going to happen. Most celebrities simply write (or hire somebody else to write) memoirs. Others write children’s books (which has always struck me as bizarre). And when Tom Hanks had a chance to write an opinion piece for The New York Times, Tom Hanks chose to write about… typewriters.
It has to be tough for a celebrity to write an opinion piece for the New York Times. If Hanks had written about Benghazi, or health care, or the NSA (which he jokes about once), then he probably would have alienated a bunch of people who disagree with him. Maybe Hanks was wise to write about the clacking of typewriters. Even if I disagree with him about typewriters (I despise them), I can’t get morally outraged at his opinion of typewriters, and I won’t boycott his movies over it.
The way Tom Hanks reminisces about the typewriter makes me wonder if he ever had to use one. He’s a little older than me, so it’s possible. There’s a difference between using a typewriter for the heck of it (as he describes) and having to use one. I’m guessing (with no proof to back this up) that if Hanks had ever had to use a typewriter, then he wouldn’t be so fond of them.
Because of the horrors (yes, that’s an exaggeration) of using a typewriter, typing a final copy was my least favorite part of the writing process, but that changed in 1986 when I received (as a gift) my first word processor. Printing a final copy suddenly became the easiest part of the writing process, and I never used a typewriter again. I don’t miss them, and I don’t feel any nostalgia for the clacking.
The typewriter op-ed in The New York Times is well-written (if Tom Hanks actually wrote it). But I don’t hear Tom Hanks’ voice when I read it (and I know what Tom Hanks sounds like). When Alec Baldwin writes an angry tweet, I can hear Alec Baldwin’s voice. When I read the transcripts of President Obama’s speeches, I can hear our president’s voice. The words usually match what we expect. But the Tom Hanks piece doesn’t sound like the Tom Hanks I used to know (as in “was familiar with”).
I remember when Tom Hanks was a comedian. Now it seems like he wants to be an elder statesman, and sometimes he can sound kind of pompous. Yes, his op-ed had a few humorous lines, but I didn’t hear Tom Hanks’ voice in my head. I heard the slow, dull drone of an NPR newsreader as I read his piece. It hurts my feelings that Tom Hanks writes like an NPR newsreader.
Typewriters don’t sound like NPR newsreaders. Typewriters sound like pundits on Fox News arguing about (insert political topic of your choice). I bet if Tom Hanks realized that typewriters sound like Fox News pundits, then he’d abandon his typewriter collection. I really don’t want to crush Tom Hanks’ passion. I’m just trying to make points about writing style and typewriters.
Sometimes people can get carried away with their nostalgia. Where others see the past as a simpler time, I think of television with only three channels and cars with no air conditioning. While Tom Hanks gets nostalgic over typewriters, I get nightmares over them (major exaggeration). But I have to congratulate Tom Hanks. He wrote an op-ed that probably didn’t offend anybody, and that might be a rarity for The New York Times.
The way things are going, Amazon may soon start paying its customers to read books just to put libraries out of business.
Amazon has a lot of enemies. Brick & mortar book stores, unions, and some technology companies (like Apple) seem to hate Amazon. But Amazon has one very important ally, the President of the United States.
President Obama ticked off some of his supporters last week when he visited an Amazon distribution center in Tennessee. I know he ticked them off because I heard some of these Obama supporters complain (okay, it was only two people, but still…). These were people who had never complained about President Obama before, but they were so angry at him for saying good things about Amazon that they couldn’t even find a way to blame it on Republicans.
It’s a bipartisan thing. A couple Republicans I know were so angry at Amazon for letting President Obama use the warehouse as a photo-op that they vowed to start shopping at brick & mortar bookstores. Even book buying is becoming political.
Last month the U.S. Justice Department won its case against Apple (colluding with book publishers to keep the price of ebooks up in order to try to compete with Amazon), and now the case is in its remedy (punishment) phase. President Obama visits Amazon at the same time that the Justice Department is beating up on some of Amazon’s major competitors? Maybe the real collusion wasn’t between Apple and the book publishers. And maybe I’m a delusional guy who needs to stick to writing serials about women that I’ve met in laundry rooms and libraries.
Amazon ticks off a lot of people. Amazon ticks off other book dealers by setting prices so low that other stores (except maybe places like Overstock) can compete. The working conditions at the Amazon distribution centers are supposedly deplorable, and that ticks people off. Also, the company loses money almost every year and yet its stock continues to rise, showing that its investors are either incredibly far-sighted or they are repeating the same mistakes that cause stock market crashes every decade (I’m not sure which choice is the correct one).
Now Jeff Bezos (owner of Amazon) is purchasing The Washington Post and has said that printed newspapers will no longer exist (with a few exceptions, like in luxury hotels) in 20 years. Observers might wonder why he would buy something that won’t exist in 20 years. Then again, if Jeff Bezos can revolutionize the book publishing business by not making money, it makes sense that he’d get involved in newspapers, a business that already doesn’t make any money. Maybe Jeff Bezos will buy an airline next.
Despite all this, I like Amazon. I like purchasing books cheap. I enjoy the free Amazon app where I can still purchase books on my phone without buying a Kindle. I like writing my own ebooks that hardly anybody reads (I don’t like the part about hardly anybody reading my ebooks, but that’s how it goes). I also know that Amazon can’t sustain its current business practices (book prices will probably go up, but working conditions will probably remain deplorable).
Even though Amazon seems to have the upper hand right now, trends change very quickly. Consumers are fickle, especially when low prices start to skyrocket. Amazon’s competition might get crushed in the near future, but if/when Amazon double crosses its buyers (and it’s probably going to happen), a new company will emerge to undercut Amazon. And if that new company allows me to buy books cheap, I’ll be a new temporarily loyal customer.
As much as I liked (or was infatuated with) Danielle, I was reluctant to hand over a set of keys. It was a matter of trust. I knew that a couple should probably work out their trust issues before they start spending the night together, but I also knew that people sometimes did things out of order. Danielle and I had been with each other two nights in a row. She said we were living together. I hadn’t argued with her about it (whether or not I should have argued is a separate issue). I had to hand over keys. Even worse, I had to leave her alone inside the apartment.
On Monday morning, she slept in while I got up at my regular time. Just before I left, I stared at my second set of keys sitting on the side table where Danielle couldn’t miss them. She had my work phone number if she needed to call me, but she had said she wouldn’t bother me at work. I thought “bother” was an odd choice of word. Even though it didn’t feel right, I left her asleep and alone in my apartment, and an uncomfortable nagging gnawed at me the entire day.
Mondays were usually my most productive day at work. I was normally well-rested. I had fresh ideas. I had a higher tolerance for co-workers. But because of Danielle and the keys, I couldn’t concentrate on my job. My work load piled up. When I called the apartment, nobody answered, and I started to get paranoid. I didn’t want to leave for lunch and check up on Danielle (and my apartment) because I was behind schedule. I made simple mistakes that (luckily) my co-workers caught.
Even my boss (a good one) asked if I was feeling okay. If the boss was asking questions, then I knew I wasn’t on the top of my game. I was proud that my boss rarely had to ask me questions. Now I was on my boss’s radar. I didn’t want to be on my boss’s radar. Danielle was a walking distraction when she was in public; now she was distracting me when she wasn’t even around me. Somehow I got through the day without being fired (or reprimanded).
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I returned to my apartment that evening. Part of me thought my place would be empty, but I knew that was irrational. Danielle hated my furniture (with good reason), and the only thing valuable I had was my comic book collection, and I couldn’t see Danielle (or anybody) stealing/selling it. Maybe there would be a wild party going on with a bunch of her topless dancer friends gyrating around. Throw in a pillow fight, and I wouldn’t mind the disruption in my routine. On the other hand, I had this paranoia that I’d be greeted by an angry ex-boyfriend who wanted to punch me out. Danielle had talked about “crazy shit” in her life, and even though she hadn’t gone into details, “crazy shit” could include violent ex-boyfriends.
As I walked up the steps to my second floor apartment, I looked and listened for signs of danger or anything else unusual. There was no loud music blasting from the apartment. The door was shut. Everything seemed normal. But when I unlocked the door….
“Holy shi… !” exclaimed.
I felt like I had stepped into the wrong apartment. My television, which used to rest on a small table in the corner, had been replaced by an entertainment center that encompassed the entire wall. Framed paintings covered the remaining walls. Two new couches and a recliner crowded the living room along with a dark wood coffee table. The carpet was spotless.
Danielle sat on the couch, her feet propped up on the coffee table. She had an exhibitionist/librarian fusion look, her hair pulled back, glasses on, tight t-shirt, and really high shorts. Out of all of her looks so far, this one was my favorite. She had been reading (or pretending to read) Sense and Sensibility, but when she saw me, she tossed the book aside and got up to give me a long hug. A wave of relief calmed me down.
“How do you like it?” she said, standing up with perfect posture and her chest out. I wasn’t sure if she was talking about her appearance or the apartment.
“Great!” I said, to cover both possibilities. “But where is all my furniture?” I asked. I kind of felt bad asking her. Here I was with a hot girlfriend who just made my apartment presentable, and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
“Storage,” she said, and she put a key and a card in my hand. “I wouldn’t throw it away.”
“My books?” I asked, pointing to the entertainment center which covered the wall where my bookshelves used to be.
“Spare bedroom,” she said.
“You went in there?” I almost felt violated, but I also knew I was being overdramatic. Of course, she would go in there. She lived here now. Her name wasn’t on the lease, but she lived here. I just hoped she hadn’t gone through all my books and comics too thoroughly.
“I found your porn,” she said (which meant she had gone through my books and comics thoroughly).
I looked down because there really was no good response.
“I didn’t throw it out,” she said. “But don’t ask me to watch it with you. And don’t ask me to do stuff that you see.”
I nodded. Her conditions weren’t ideal, but they were reasonable.
“Look around,” Danielle said, pointing to the walls and the entertainment center. Taking my hand, she led me to the kitchen and opened up the pantry. The cans were stacked neatly. The cabinets were more organized. The counter was cleared. She pulled the silverware drawer open, and nothing scurried away. I finally understood the point she was making.
“No roaches,” I said.
Danielle beamed. “I had a guy come out. I told you I could do it.”
“We need to celebrate,” I said. “Where do you want to go?”
“I have to work early,” she said. “I missed my lunch shift, so I’m going in early tonight.”
“You work lunches?” I said. I didn’t know this.
“Peak times,” she said. “Tonight will probably suck until 9:00, but you never know. Maybe a dumbass with a big wallet will come in.”
I was disappointed that she was going to work so soon after I had returned. “Maybe I can go to Nero’s for a little bit, hang out for a few minutes.” It was a weeknight, so I wouldn’t stay long.
“No!” she said. “I mean it.”
“Okay,” I said. It wasn’t a big deal to me.
“I’m serious. You can’t go there.”
I was surprised at how vehement she was. “So… you really don’t want me to go?”
“It’ll make things weird,” Danielle said, then she paused. “I lost… a boyfriend that way. He wanted me to quit, and when I didn’t, he called me names when he got mad at me.”
“Okay,” I said again. “I get it.”
“I’m not a slut just because I work there!”
“I know. I wasn’t thinking that.” Geez, I thought, that came out of nowhere.
There was a long pause. I didn’t know what else to say. Danielle glared at me, her eyes now red and unblinking.
“The only way this works is if you stay away from Nero’s. Promise!”
“Okay, I promise to stay away from Nero’s.” That seemed easy enough to do. It really wasn’t a big deal to me, but Danielle was upset, and I didn’t like it when Danielle was upset. But once I reassured her that I wouldn’t go to Nero’s, she calmed down. It also helped that I didn’t tell her to calm down. Telling somebody to calm down rarely gets them to calm down.
Whatever relationship Danielle and I had, the rules were becoming clear. Let her pick the furniture. Don’t lie to her. Let her go to work when she wanted. Don’t ask her to watch porn. Also very important, don’t go to where Danielle worked. I could live with these conditions. There was no doubt in my mind that I was getting the better part of the deal. But I also knew that in a relationship that could change very quickly.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: The Montage.
And to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here.
I just finished this novel. I enjoyed it, but I don’t know if the author is a jerk or not.
One great thing (out of many) about being a writer is the relative anonymity. If other kinds of celebrities (actors/actresses, singers, athletes) get caught being a jerk, the celebrity-obsessed world knows about it. If a famous writer gets caught being a jerk, people (usually) don’t hear about it or don’t care.
Margo Rabb wrote a piece in the New York Times (called Fallen Idols) where she discusses how disappointed she was when she learned about how “repugnant” her favorite author was in his personal life. I’m not surprised that Margo Rabb’s favorite author is a “jerk” (also a term used in the article, and in my opinion, the guy was more “repugnant” than “jerk.”). I’m surprised that a writer for the New York Times would be surprised that her favorite author is a jerk.
What world has she been living in?
Without even doing research, I can think of several ways that authors are jerks (without even delving into their personal lives). Jonah Lehrer got caught plagiarizing and now he has a book deal where he writes about how he felt when he was plagiarizing (he says he threw up). James Frey got caught lying in his memoir A Million Little Pieces. That would have been okay (who tells the truth in a memoir?), but then he apologized and got lectured to on Oprah. Even if he wasn’t a jerk, he looked like one on that episode.
Some authors write positive reviews for their own books (and negative reviews of their rivals’ books). Some pay fake critics for positive reviews. Some have their fans cyber-stalk critics who have given them bad reviews.
Even authors who are no longer with us might have been jerks. Last summer when Gore Vidal passed, readers praised him for his wit when he insulted other authors. Some thought he was witty; I thought he was being a jerk. It didn’t stop me from reading a couple of his books, though. Maybe some of Dorothy Parker’s victims deserved being insulted (I don’t know, I wasn’t around), but she sounds like she was being a jerk-ette. It didn’t stop me from reading some of her poetry.
If authors can be jerks when it comes to their writing, I’d hate to know about their personal lives (as Margo Rabb found out). There’s going to be a bunch of adultery, abandonment, lying, thievery, drug use, drug dealing, (occasional) murder, and lots of other bad stuff… you know, because writers are human. But a lot of times we don’t know about these personal aspects of authors’ lives because they’re writers. The general public (usually) doesn’t care about them.
My first personal experience with a jerk author came in a college fiction writing class my sophomore year. One of the students had already had a couple stories published in literary journals/reviews. The instructor used this student as an example of what we could do if we worked hard. Then the student/author announced that the only reason he was taking this class was because he needed the credit for his major. The rest of us raised eyebrows at each other and made faces. One other student explained that the only reason any student was taking the class was for the college credit. The instructor didn’t seem too pleased, but sometimes you have to handle a jerk by acting like a jerk.
To be fair to the jerk author, he toned it down later in the semester and actually made helpful, insightful comments on other people’s stories. Sometimes authors, just like anybody else, don’t make good first impressions.
I’ve had two other personal experiences with (kind of famous) authors. One had just been called a prick by a disgruntled fan (maybe the fan was disgruntled because the author had just been a prick; I’m not sure which caused what). The “prick” author was actually pleasant and talkative to me. The other author (a minor celebrity who had just written a book) hit on my wife. Hitting on somebody at a book signing is kind of a jerk thing for an author to do, but I was proud. Now when I see that minor (as in “not major”) celebrity on television, I always say, “That guy hit on my wife.”
*****
I don’t know if my favorite author is a jerk. First of all, I don’t really have a favorite author, but since that’s a cop-out, I’ll say my favorite author is Bernard Cornwall. He’s a hack (meaning that he writes the same novel over and over and they come out about once a year). I’ve seen his face on the book jackets, but I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him on the streets. I don’t know anything about his personal life. I’ve never run a search engine on him. I don’t care if he’s a jerk. I’m not going to stop reading his books because he’s a jerk (if he is one); I’ll stop reading his books because he writes the same one over and over again.
Maybe that’s his way of being a jerk.
She wrote in her profile that she loves reading Kurt Vonnegut books and taking walks on the beach, but guys only looked at her picture.
I have nothing against online dating. If online dating had been around when I was single, I would have taken advantage of it. Back in the 1990s, we had the personals in the back of the newspaper. The personals were great because if I messed up a date (which I usually did), nobody I knew would find out about it later. I had some interesting experiences with the personals (maybe not as interesting as the girlfriend I met in an apartment laundry room, but still pretty interesting).
Sometimes introverted readers can feel left out of the dating scene, but a couple of literary websites (not Dysfunctional Literacy) have their own personals section (here and here for examples). Potential daters take profile pictures while they’re holding books, and they can try to match up with readers of similar tastes. I’m a bit jealous. I never had literary personals, but I dated several women who liked to read. Dating somebody who likes to read because you’re the kind of person who also likes to read sounds great in theory. But I’ve lived through this. It doesn’t usually work. Here’s why:
1. Reading is not usually a date activity.
Reading is different from a lot of hobbies. If two people like biking, they might enjoy biking together on a date. Reading is not a social activity. For some, it’s what they do because they don’t like hanging around people. For others, it’s what they do when there’s nothing else to do. Either way, reading is something people do when they’re not being social. Most people don’t read together on a date. They might stare at their own phones on a date, but they won’t actually read books on their dates. Even I didn’t do that.
2. Reading is not (usually) a shared experience.
Even if a couple wants to try reading together on a date, this can be a negative experience. Every reader goes at his/her own pace. When a group watches a movie, everybody shares the experience at the same time. When a couple goes to dinner, the two people share the same experience at the same time.
Reading is different. Unless a couple is listening to an audio, the couple will read at different pace. One person wants quiet. The other person wants background noise. One makes comments about the book. The other wants the commenter to shut up. Readers might want to discuss the book after they’re done (or at scheduled intervals during the reading process), but most readers don’t want ongoing discussions (“Did you catch the typo on page 45?”) and interruptions (“You wanna see my book mark?”).
3. Book tastes are different.
Just because two people like to read doesn’t mean they like to read the same books. One of my literary girlfriends in college read Susan Sontag while I was reading a Mickey Spillane book. She made several contemptuous remarks about the quality of literature I had chosen (in my defense, I think I had just finished reading The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper for an American Lit class, and I just needed an easy book with a high body count).
Women who read Susan Sontag look down upon guys who read Mickey Spillane, and I don’t like snide comments about the books I choose. You can make fun of my face, or make fun of my car, or make fun of my mom, but don’t make fun of the books I read.
4. A jerk who reads can be as bad as a jerk who doesn’t read.
Studies may show that people who read fiction are more empathetic than people who don’t read fiction, but those studies may themselves be fiction (I don’t always trust studies, even if I want to believe them). Some of the most obnoxious people I’ve met are book store cashiers, but to be fair, I’ve never seen a book cashier actually read a book. It might be like the fast food employee who won’t touch the food they cook. I’ve met a lot of jerks who read books. I might even be one of the jerks who reads books.
5. Readers can lie like everybody else.
Dating websites are known for untruthful profiles. There’s probably just as much lying on the literary personals as there is on an average site (no proof whatsoever to back up my baseless assertion). After all, readers tend to be decent writers, and writers embellish. Therefore, it makes sense that there would be some lying (or embellishing) on the literary dating site. I hope the profiles are at least well-written. I hate being lied to by illiterates. I really hate falling for the lies told (or written) by illiterates.
*****
I like to read. My wife likes to read. We very rarely talk to each other about what we read (but we do talk about other things). That might be why our literary relationship works. I might be (and probably am) wrong about reading and dating (I’m married to my wife, but I’m not married to my opinion of literary online dating). For my five reasons it can go wrong, there may be ten reasons why it’s great.
I just hope (right or wrong) I don’t have to go through that literary dating experience again. Thankfully, it’s for others to decide if it works or not.
The first thing Danielle said in the morning was, “Coffee.”
It had been a great night with some rough moments. Danielle took up 3/4ths of the bed and had hogged all the sheets. I was a light sleeper so every time she had moved, I became alert. My paperback copy of Animal Farm had been ruined (don’t ask how), and I had a hangover-like headache even though I didn’t drink. I knew what had caused it, though, and I wasn’t complaining.
Danielle was in even worse shape. She didn’t budge. It might not have been from anything we’d done; she had spent Saturday night dancing at the club while I had been asleep, so I had simply been better rested. But still, I felt good about things. Even as I stumbled around the bedroom, tripping over her thick-heeled shoes, she didn’t move. After I had showered and returned to the bedroom to put on clothes, she was in the same position, but her eyes were open, barely. I could tell she was watching me.
That’s when she had said, “Coffee.” And she closed her eyes again.
I wasn’t a regular coffee drinker, so I had to run (or walk quickly) to a fast food place across the street from my apartment complex. It was a good time to think.
I really hoped that this hadn’t been a one-night stand. I’ve always been against the one-night-stand. I had several friends who were proponents of the one-nighter. They appreciated the lack of attachment that went with it. I wasn’t morally superior in my distaste for the one-nighter; I just thought it was impractical. It took time and effort (and maybe incredible luck) to find a woman who would spend the night and do more than rest her head on my shoulder. To me, it was stupid to start the whole process over and over again. In college, I’d had several debates about this (not in any classes, though), but I don’t think the arguments changed anybody’s minds.
When I returned to the bedroom with two large coffees, Danielle was still in bed, curled facing the door. I sat on the edge of the bed and gave her one coffee. She propped herself up, took the coffee, sipped it, set it down on the side table, and gestured for my other coffee. I gave that to her, and she sipped that one too and kept it. Then she said, “Give me an hour.”
I lamely pointed at the second coffee. “But that was… I was going to…okay.”
I decided it would be easier just to go back to the fast food place. So I left, bought two more coffees, and plotted out the rest of the hour. It was late morning, and the sports station was running pre-football analysis. I tried to read the newspaper (this was in the early 1990s), grumbled about a few things, and made breakfast when the coffees kicked in. I could have bought breakfast from the fast food place, but I liked mine better, and the smell of eggs and bacon and toast might wake Danielle up more quickly than something greasy in a bag. By the time I had finished cooking, the hour had passed, so I knocked lightly and opened my bedroom door.
Danielle sat up and rubbed her temple. “That was my first book report in bed,” she said.
I noticed she was wearing my Johnny Quest t-shirt, a rare Johnny Quest t-shirt. I had mixed feelings about this. I was elated that she was wearing my t-shirt. She looked a lot better in it than I did, especially with the contrast of her brown skin against the white fabric of the shirt, but I was a bit uncomfortable with her going through my dresser like that already. I hadn’t had time to evacuate some stuff that I didn’t want her to see.
“If I remember, you started it,” I said.
She fell sideways onto her pillow and buried her head into it.
I sat down next to her again. “I hate to mention this,” I said, “but you failed your book report, the factual part, at least.”
Danielle remained on her side but lifted her legs onto my lap. “That wasn’t fair. You asked at a bad time,” she said, which was true.
“You asked me about Animal Farm at a bad time,” I said, which was also true.
“Just wait until tonight,” she said, and pulled herself back up, resting her feet on my lap.
Yes! There would be a tonight! I wasn’t sure what Danielle and I had, but it wasn’t a one-night stand. An emotional burden had been lifted, but now I wasn’t sure about how to handle the rest of the day. I didn’t want to seem needy by asking if she was going to hang around all day, but I didn’t want to seem callous by asking her when she was going to leave.
“You have plans today?” I asked.
“The game starts at 12:00,” she said. Our local football team had an away game, and she was a fan, maybe more so than me. “There’s a sports bar I know about. They have lots of TVs, and the foods supposed to be good… if you want to go.”
“Yeah,” I said. We still had a couple hours. “I made some breakfast.” I stroked Danielle’s leg a little bit and left.
Sure enough, Danielle joined me in the kitchen. Even though her hair was a tangled mess that flopped over part of her face, I could still see red eyes and the hint of crust in her nose. Crust? It was our first morning together, and I had noticed what she would think of as an imperfection. I thought her nose crust was endearing. I wondered if she made loud noises when she went to the bathroom. That wouldn’t be so endearing. Then I wondered if we were taking things too quickly. If we were, it was too late to change that now.
I had expected Danielle to compliment me on a breakfast masterpiece. Instead, she inspected the plate I gave her.
“Have roaches been on this?” Danielle asked.
“I pulled these from the middle,” I said. I figured if roaches were in my cabinet, only the top dishes would affected.
“What about these?” she said, holding the silverware. I squeezed some dish soap on them and ran them through hot water and gave them back.
“I can’t move into a place with roaches,” she said as she ate standing up. “I’ll get somebody to come out tomorrow.”
Move in?
“The owners say they’re going to deal with the roaches,” I said. “They don’t want me to call anybody.”
“What are they gonna do?” she said. “They’re not gonna throw us out,” she said.
Us?
“They might hold my security deposit,” I said.
“So?” she said. “Threaten to sue them. We pay a lot to live here. There shouldn’t be roaches.”
We?
A part of me wanted to argue with her about whether or not I/we should call my/our own independent exterminator, but I was locked in on something even more important. Just a few minutes ago, I had been worried about Danielle being nothing more than a one-night stand. Now she was talking about moving in with me. I didn’t just have myself a literary girlfriend. I had myself a live-in literary girlfriend, and I wasn’t sure if I even had a choice in the matter.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: Keys to the Relationship.
And to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here.
I read this once (voluntarily). I don’t think I could do it again.
As I get older, I find myself getting more patient in some areas and less patient in others. I don’t get as angry in traffic jams as I used to. I am much better at avoiding pointless political arguing (I pretend to be tolerant of others’ ideas, but I’m not; I just don’t argue). But I’m becoming less patient with books. I find myself putting down books that I would have finished (or actually did finish) 30 years ago. I don’t know if I’m losing the ability to concentrate or if I’m just losing interest.
To give you an idea what I’m talking about, below are three books that I’ve tried reading recently and failed:
A Clockwork Orange– by Anthony Burgess
I was looking forward to reading this. I haven’t seen the movie in 30 years, and I only remember a few scenes. I was really interested in the story, and I started to read the novel, and… and… Nadsat? I have to learn Nadsat?
I appreciate the time that the author put in to create a new slang language, but I don’t have the energy to figure it out. I don’t even pay attention to text lingo. I still type out “Haha” instead of LOL (and I actually will laugh out loud sometimes). Maybe 30 years ago, I would have had the patience to figure out the Nadsat, but I don’t even feel like learning real languages people around me speak.
30 years ago, I probably could have read A Clockwork Orange, but not anymore.
*****
The Brothers Karamazov– by Fydor Dostoyevsky
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
I know this includes two books, but I count them as one because I have the same problems with both of them.
I must have some old guy’s reading impairment when it comes to long Russian names. Sometimes the letters in long Russian names start to move around, and it gives me a headache. For all I know, the word “dyslexia” could have come from a Russian name except it’s not long enough. I’m not making fun of long Russian names; I’m making fun of my inability to read them anymore.
25 years ago I almost read The Brothers Karamazov. It was work, but I nearly finished it (I read it too slowly and then academic stuff got in the way). 25 years ago I read Crime and Punishment. It was easier than The Brothers Karamazov, and I finished it. 20 years ago I almost read War and Peace. I would have finished War and Peace if it hadn’t been over 500 pages long.
500 pages has almost always been my limit. After 500 pages, I’m ready for the story to be over. I’ve read some of Leo Tolstoy’s short stories (and they’re actually short). I can get through Russian names when there are only two or three of them and the story is short. But I can’t get through over 500 pages with dozens of Russian names.
There was a time when I could have read long Russian novels with lots of Russian names. 25 years ago, I almost did it. But now? I’m pretty sure I can’t read a long Russian novel anymore.
*****
The Iliad by Homer… if he really existed
I’ve read two versions of The Iliad. The first was a prose translation that I read for fun (in 6th grade… yet I didn’t get beat up by my peers). To be honest, I wouldn’t have understood it if I hadn’t been familiar with the old Classics Illustrated comic book. The second version was a translation in verse that I had to read in college. I read it… only because my grade depended on it. But I did it.
The problem with The Iliad is that there’s too much killing. I normally don’t have a problem with killing in literature (I read sword & sorcery after all). But in The Iliad, it’s page after page of who slew whom and who got slain by whom (though whom usually got the worst of the deal). It’s overkill. Take out all the who-killed-whom (Homer and his editor probably argued about that all the time, but it’s clear Homer never saw his editor’s point of view), and maybe I’d read it again.
There was a time when I could read The Iliad in verse. I know because I did it. But I looked at that translation recently, and I don’t think I could read it again.
******
I know that as we get older our tastes change, but I wasn’t expecting my tolerance for literature to decline like this. I thought it would get easier (to an extent) as I aged. I also figure I’m not the only one going through this. If you’re going through the same thing, what books (or kinds of books) can’t you read anymore?
The book report is NOT about Atlas Shrugged. I promise!
Danielle had mentioned that she wanted to take a bath, and she had said it so nonchalantly that it didn’t feel awkward. I was hoping for an invitation, but I knew not to ask. Things seemed to be going my way, and I didn’t want to blow it by saying something smarmy. Sometimes in romance, it’s best to play not to lose.
“The guest bathroom is cleaner,” I said, and pointed to the bathroom down the hall.
But Danielle was looking past me. “We have company.”
I turned and saw two roaches on the wall behind me. Big roaches, not thick enough to be outside roaches, but large enough to have been well-fed. Ugh, I was out of bug spray.
“You gonna use a shoe this time?” Danielle suggested.
I looked around the room and felt myself gritting my teeth. “My shoes are in the bedroom.” I glanced at the thick black heels Danielle was wearing.
“No,” she said.
I grabbed a hardcover copy of Atlas Shrugged from my bookshelf.
“That’s more like it,” Danielle said.
I slammed Atlas Shrugged against the wall with such a thud I worried about the pictures hanging from my neighbor’s wall. The book left two splotches, but I didn’t see any bodies drop. I checked the back and saw two roach corpses stuck to the book jacket.
“Now they’ll never find out who John Galt was,” I said.
“I hope you’re not keeping the book,” Danielle said.
I slid the book jacket off and threw it in the waste basket. Then I slipped the book back onto the shelf. I pointed to the title on the binding.
“Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged?” Danielle asked.
“Nope.”
Danielle shrugged and grabbed a hardcover of War and Peace and tucked it under her arm. More likely it was for roaches than enlightenment.
As she reached down for the bag, I asked, “Can I get your jacket?”
“Thank you,” she said. Danielle pulled it off and handed it to me, but all I saw was clingy blue t-shirt, and I concentrated on her badass leather jacket instead. I was pretty sure she was back to no bra, but I didn’t want to get busted like I had in the laundry room. I believed I had the right to check out Danielle’s bra status. She had chosen to come to my apartment braless in a tight t-shirt (if she was indeed bra-less). If I stared at her, that would be her fault. But I didn’t. When I played not to lose, I went all out.
“Nice jacket,” I said. Then I pointed to the bathroom. “All I’ve got is regular soap and shampoo in there.”
“I always bring my bubbles with me,” she said, nodding toward the gym bag.
Then she gave me a quick kiss, not like the playful one she had granted me earlier. She told me she was going to take about a half hour. She asked me to bring her the iced tea (which I did). She told me to wait for her in the bedroom. And she told me not to fall asleep this time.
Then she took her gym bag and War and Peace and closed the guest bathroom door, leaving me to myself and my thoughts.
BEGINNING OF LONG INTERNAL MONOLOGUE!!
I’ve never done well with uncertainty. I wasn’t sure what kind of boundaries that Danielle and I had with each other. If a woman is taking a bubble bath in a guy’s apartment and tells him to stay awake in the bedroom, the guy can probably expect that great things will happen after the bath. But Danielle and I still had communication issues. We got along pretty well, but we hadn’t figured each other out yet. The worst mistake I could make was to expect what I thought was about to happen when she was planning on something different.
Maybe Danielle didn’t want to do what I thought we were going to do. She might have just been really tired and wanted to sleep next to a guy she trusted. It had happened once in college, and it had been torture, and that college girl had been nothing like Danielle. Cuddling with Danielle without the possibility of doing what I thought we were going to do would be a nightmare. I’d go through with it and pretend to enjoy it, but it would be tough. Cuddling. Whatever happened, I prayed it would not be cuddling.
And if Danielle planned on more than just cuddling, I had another issue to deal with. There had been a few times in my adult life when I turned down what I thought was about to happen, and I always knew the next morning that I had made the right choice. Now I wasn’t so sure. Danielle and I had been on only one date. If she was already prepared to do what I thought we were about to do, then maybe she had already done what we were about to do with a bunch of other people after only one date. Women who did what she did for a living (dancing at clubs) had reputations. Even though Danielle dressed provocatively and made scenes in public, I didn’t get the sense that she was really the type that I was worried about. But like I say, people can rationalize anything. I knew I might have been talking myself into a very bad situation.
Danielle was going to be done with her bath soon (hopefully). So I made a decision. I knew that if I had the opportunity to do what I thought we were going to do and I turned it down, I would regret it, maybe forever. I knew that. So I decided if things worked out the way I thought they were going to work out, I wouldn’t do anything to stop it. I felt a lot better after thinking about this.
END OF INTERNAL MONOLOGUE!
Lying in bed waiting for a hot chick to finish her bubble bath can feel like an eternity. I didn’t want to just sit there and wait. I had already hung up her jacket (wooden hanger), drank the iced tea, cleaned up roach splotches, and used the bathroom. I decided what to wear in bed (t-shirt/shorts combo so I didn’t seem like I was expecting anything). After that, my options were limited. I wanted to do (or appear like I was doing) something productive. And what did I always do while I was waiting? I read a book.
The Conan book I had been reading earlier was entertaining, but it was difficult to explain Conan’s appeal to a woman unfamiliar with the sword & sorcery genre. I decided instead on something thin but classic. I grabbed my paperback edition of Animal Farm. I propped up my pillow and turned on my reading lamp.
(After what seemed like a long wait) Danielle waltzed into the bedroom wearing a white t-shirt that barely went past her thighs. This was a mixed-signal sender. If she had slinked into the room with lingerie and crawled on all fours onto the bed, I would have known what to do. If she had walked in with pink pajamas, I would have groaned at the horror of all-night cuddling, but I would have at least known. The long white t-shirt could go either way. If there was nothing underneath it, I was gold, but there was no polite way to find out if there was anything underneath. And I was the guy who had owned her panties for a month.
Danielle dived onto the bed, demonstrating again that she was definitely bra-less. That was a good sign. She tucked herself underneath the sheets and slid next to me but didn’t brush up. There was a distinct border between us. That was a bad sign.
“So,” she said. “Did you want a minute to finish the chapter?”
Ugh! I couldn’t believe I still had the book open. That was a bad sign on my part. I slammed the book shut.
“I’m done.” But I was too cautious to close the gap between us.
“What are you reading?” she asked slowly.
I showed her the cover, but I could feel our energy slipping away. She had been revved up, but we were losing momentum, and I couldn’t get myself to take the initiative. Playing to lose was backfiring on me.
“Are you really reading this, or are you pretending?” she asked.
I couldn’t believe we were talking about this. “I’ve actually read this before, but I was fake reading when you came in.”
Danielle moved just a little closer and made direct eye contact. “I don’t believe you,” she said slowly. “I don’t think you’ve ever read this book before.”
“I have,” I said.
“I think you’re lying to me,” she said very quietly.
“I’m not,” I said, puzzled.
“I hate it when guys lie to me,” she whispered. “Prove to me that you’re telling the truth.”
“How?” I asked.
She giggled and slid a hand underneath my shirt and against my stomach. “Tell me what it’s about.”
Then she moved her hand just a little bit. I’d read Animal Farm several times. I really had. I was almost an expert. But I swear at that moment, I couldn’t remember a thing.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: Book Report Grades.
And to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here.
It’s easy to forget that J.K. Rowling was an unknown author when she wrote this.
Literary news doesn’t usually get covered by the mainstream media. If one author cheats on his/her spouse, it doesn’t make news. If an author has a wardrobe malfunction at an awards ceremony, nobody reports it. To most people, the literary world is kind of (or very) boring. Occasionally, an author will get caught plagiarizing. Sometimes two authors get in a public spat (like Philip Roth and Elizabeth Gilbert over whether or not writing is torture). But literary figures don’t normally catch the general public’s interest.
When unknown author Robert Galbraith got outed as J.K. Rowling’s pseudonym last week, that made the news. Outlets that usually ignore literary stuff reported the revelation. It helps that everybody knows J.K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books. It also helps that she’s attractive. But while it’s nice that a literary figure can make news, there might be a down side (but not for J.K. Rowling).
There are a lot of unknown mystery authors (I don’t know how many, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lot) who have their own mystery series. However, there is a limited number of potential mystery genre readers out there. All those readers grabbing Galbraith/Rowling’s The Cuckoo’s Calling will now read one fewer book by somebody else, and one of those fewer books could be a mystery novel by an unknown author. If I were one of those unknown mystery authors, I might be kind of ticked off.
I’m not saying it’s not fair. There’s no such thing as fair in the publishing business. I’m just saying I’d be frustrated, especially if I didn’t think The Cuckoo’s Calling deserved so much attention (based on quality).
This just shows how difficult it is for an unknown author to get book sales. The Cuckoo’s Calling sold around 1500 copies before Galbraith/Rowling got outed. That’s not bad for an unknown author, but an author can’t live off of that. Even a J.K. Rowling book doesn’t sell unless everybody knows it’s a J.K. Rowling book.
Some of these unknown authors were probably selling more books in their debut novels than Robert Galbraith. If I were one of those unknown mystery authors who had outsold Robert Galbraith before he/she was outed, I’d be proud. I’d brag about it. I’d tell all my friends (and anybody who would pretend to listen) that I had outsold J.K. Rowling’s book before everybody found out it was J.K. Rowling’s book.
That’s just me. I’m an unknown, but I don’t write mysteries (not yet), and I didn’t outsell Robert Galbraith (not even with my non-mysteries) before he got outed.
*****
Other authors might try to see if they can get outed with their own pseudonyms. Maybe Stephen King can write a romantic comedy under a different name and see if anybody catches him. Maybe Tom Clancy can write a 100 page story horror/fantasy. Maybe James Patterson can write a… a… never mind; that guy already tries to write in every genre. Still, it would be interesting to see what they could do to get more media attention.
But please, no wardrobe malfunctions.
Dysfunctional Literacy 