Strange Days Indeed

I was in the middle of doing laundry last night, and I look over, and there's this little blonde girl - maybe 20, 21 years old - sitting on the step inbetween two rows of machines, completely secluded from the outside world, and she's reading my book. I'm not kidding. I almost snapped my neck when I saw it the first time, and then confirmed, despite my blurry vision, that it was indeed my cover.

You see, yesterday was kind of a long one for me, first returning back to work after five days (my eyes still all puffy and bloodshot but I could manage the rest), then trying to get caught up on things but feeling overwhelmed, and then getting kind of a lame email at the end of the day, and well, it was all just kind of a downer.

Anyway, I had a cold, lonely walk home, taking the long route through the Tenderloin (had to stop by the photo lab on Polk and Sacramento) - which made it more brutal, and I was just bummed and wanted to get into bed and watch DVD's - the latest batch from Netflix arrived - but I had a few loads of laundry that needed to be done, so I went across the street, lost two bucks on a broken machine, was lectured to in Cantonese for several minutes by the owner, and was basically at wit's end, ready to lose it, when suddenly there she was, with my book.

It was one thing when the manuscript first arrived and I saw my name on it, it was another for two heroes of mine to say they really liked it, it was even another to see it propped up at certain bookstores, looking official. But to randomly see a complete stranger, a little blonde nectar at that, reading it, I mean fully engrossed, with a twisted little smile on her face, just took me all the way.

I thought about saying something. I should have. But I was tired, and flattered, and it would have just killed the moment to speak up.

So I'm telling you.