Yesterday

Square Books called yesterday to let me know that my Peter Falk memoir had come in: it's the next selection in the Megan book club! Well, I had a doctor's appointment later that afternoon, so I moseyed to town a little early and ran into Shadan on the sidwalk... she's one of the excellent booksellers at Square Books, and let me emphasize that she wasn't even at work. She was just on the sidewalk in the middle of town, and she stopped to remind me that she and I like a lot of the same books, to which I replied that indeed we do. So she told me about a book she thought I would really enjoy: THE BLIND OWL by Sadegh Hedayat, and she even described in detail where I would find it in the shop, like a human GPS! This was just a friendly gesture on her part, I had caught her outside of work - now, that's what I call a bookseller! And she didn't even know about my owl problem. So I went to the bookstore, and the book was just where she had said it would be, and I read on the back cover that it is "a haunting tale of loss and spiritual degradation," or, as I call it, "The Bill Boyle Seal of Approval." In fact, if I knew anything about Venn diagrams, or what they are, I could show you how a certain subset of books perfectly overlaps in the preferences of Bill, Shadan, and myself. But the adventures of the day were just beginning! Off I went to the doctor. The nurse who took my blood pressure recorded the results on a piece of paper, and as she did so, she said, "Wow, this pen is great. I wonder where I stole it from." That's an exact quotation! So I said, "What kind of pen is it? I'm always on the lookout for a good pen!" And she looked at the side of the pen and read from it the brand name "EnerGel." And that is what is so damn weird, I tell you! Just ONE DAY EARLIER, I had "posted" a chapter of my serialzed novel SOUR BLUEBERRIES, in which one of the protagonists similarly uses a pen that does not belong to him, is amazed by its high quality, and discovers that it goes by the brand name EnerGel! WHAT! I conclude by assuring you that I am no paid shill for the EnerGel corporation, it is just a weird thing that happened.