The Holy Glow of a Tight Ship

"Thank God for talkers. I grew up at the knee of front-porch talkers...I owe those storytellers, all of them, because without them I would have no skills, no foundation, no accent, no voice."

--Rick Bragg, Somebody Told Me

 Today was the first time I had to show an outline of the new book to the production manager. To the right of his desk is a picture of a group of Monks seated around a table, and the one on the end is flashing the peace sign at the camera. Above his desk is a photo of him and the Dalai Lama. I knew he was Buddhist, but I had no idea he was, "that hard core." His response was "I get around." Next to the window overlooking his desk is a framed photo of Johnny Cash, and a harmonica Johnny Cash threw to him in a 1970s performance. We talked a little about the last book -- mostly from a production perspective (fonts and such) -- but I felt compelled to acknowledge, "I was pretty bitter then." (You could judge that book by its cover -- it seemed harsh and angry...like I was.) He shrugged his shoulders and good-naturedly said, "ehhh, karma."

I got down all the timeline details -- everything has to go to the press on August 16th in order for the books to arrive in late September; he has to style the first live column next week to establish style and layout; it'll be 6x9 and 320 pages. I have to shop for a cover artist, and this time I get to have pictures (if I want them). We also talked about electronic delivery methods and kindles and iPods and iPads and all I heard about that was "blah blah blah Ginger."

To be honest, all I could really think about was how long it's going to take me to grow out this currently unfortunate haircut for a presentable jacket photo.... Then I spent some more time thinking about what I'd wear to the signing. I ripped this out of Vogue, but it's entirely possible it'll be out of style by October. [I can't explain that splash of light. But when I sent it out as a text (inadvertently) to every single person in my BlackBerry last night, one of my Ex-es responded that it was probably "just the holy glow emanating from my 'tight ship.'" ]

And I think we have our "dedication page."

About an Hour

I see here (dimly) that I got my bifocals prescription back in August. You may notice (from all the typos), I haven't gotten around to getting that prescription filled yet... For a lotta reasons.

First: I'm still in denial. I just look above, or below, the rims of my current glasses, and I can still kinda see.

Second: I cannot stand the thought of picking out new frames, which I will likely have to have, because the lenses on my current glasses aren't big enough to support bifocals. I hate big glasses.

In college, I wore contacts more often than not until I came down with an eroded cornea and had to wear a patch over my right eye until it healed. I was geeky to start with, and the pirate look didn't improve things any. It was also the worst possible term to not be able to read. I was already struggling to keep up in my Hitler and Nazi Germany class, and after my friends burned out on leading me around, somebody in Student Life had to assign a workstudy student to read "The Psychopathic God" to me. Out loud. After that whole ordeal, I got new glasses, and as soon as I wore them into Cowan the first time, PhilStowers stood up and screamed "Sally Jesse Raphael! Sally Jesse Raphael!" I'm still scarred. I just saw his name on LinkedIn the other day when I hooked up with my friend Bob-O, and the first thing that popped into my head was Phil screaming in the dining hall. I swear to God, my glasses looked NOTHING like hers. Maybe he was making fun of my hair instead.

Third, I finally remembered to go to the eye doctor partly because LensCrafters sent me a reminder (they're not my eye doctor, but I do get the prescriptions filled there because obviously that "glasses in about an hour" is a real priority for me. A month later.) They also sent a $100 buck coupon. I couldn't really read it -- cause I need bifocals and all -- but I put it on the fridge as a reminder, where my Mom noticed it expired the day after I saw the doc. I'm not a coupon gal, but I'm also not a gal who'd throw away $100 bucks.

Fourth, everyone I know who has bifocals has had a hard time adjusting. And by "hard time adjusting," I mean, they fall down; they get crippling headaches; that kinda thing. No good can come of that.

So here I sit. Constantly misinterpreting everything I see in print. For example, I thought my friend Pam was going to "Meditation" tomorrow and it sounded like a serene day off. She's not, she's in MEDIATION tomorrow, for a client. I thought the Mayor of Chicago was suddenly very pro-Dairy when he declared some sort of "Butter Zone" today. But he didn't; it's a BUFFER zone.

And none of that's as bad as the mistakes I was making writing an article last week that related to lfucgUK -- though I think dropping the G might've been a typo and not a vision problem -- but it coulda just as easily been a Freudian slip.

Just glad I work in print and not radio.