Dear Flea

In which I thank flea for her wonderful literary sense and general badassery and use an assload of footnotes. Also? Rambly and run-on?? Blame the red wine and David Foster Wallace.

Dear Flea -

Ok, so....I was wandering through your archives - but definitely not during work hours, oh NO! - and you mentioned Infinite Jest a couple of times. So I checked out the link and it looked interesting, and I put it on my mental wishlist. Later that night, I gave my 14YO her first driving lesson, and she did such a good job, I told her I'd take her anywhere she wanted for dinner. She chose Chuy's - a Mexican place - and since I NEVER get to eat Mexican food, I jumped on it. After cheese enchiladas and beer (Dr. Pepper for her, much to her chagrin), we went wandering around a couple of stores and then ended up at Barnes & Noble, where I asked the little book guy, "Hey - do you have Infinite Jest?"* He spouted off the author's name and told me to follow him, so I did and whoa! I BOUGHT THE DAMN BOOK.**

Anyway, later that nigt, I'm reading the book and kiddo's reading her book, (Virgin Suicides, which HOORAH, she found something to read, but YIKES, because of her problems with depression lately) and I'm thinking about my own book, "wow...this sure reads a lot like Broom of the System."*** A few minutes later, I get up to close the back door and turn off the living room light and make sure the front door is locked and all that jazz, and I flip the book over to check out the back (yes, I carry my book with me on breaks, what??) and I see that hey! this is the same guy who wrote Broom of the System. And now, I feel like I owe you a thank you note, for mentioning this book way back when, and inspiring me to check it out and reuniting me with someone who has turned out to be one of my favorite authors. I think of his writing like I think of going tubing - just relax, let it take you where it wants you to go.*****

Anyway - thanks for all the cool stuff you write.

Laura

*This actually sparked a whole conversation about books - good ones, bad ones, good writers (we both highly approve of Didion), writers we're not so sure about (Atwood's battin' about .500 with me - he hasn't read any Atwood, but has decided he must now), and books you shouldn't read right after a break-up (Play it as it Lays and anything that was your ex's favorite****)

**Crap...I had something funny here, but I will be fucked if I can remember it.

***I got this book when my mom was working at BookStop (which is now dead...sigh) and lovedlovedloved it. Loved the flow, loved the absurdity, loved it. So why in the hell did I give it away a couple of years ago?? I don't know. Am idiot.

****Fortunately, my ex hated reading fiction (14 YEARS, PEOPLE!!) so this was easy for me to avoid, as I have no interest in reading tech manuals or The Ultimate Sniper

*****My footnotes are all dicked up, aren't they? Anyway - this tubing analogy is sort of inaccurate for me, because tubing makes me anxious. Yes, The International Sport of Stoners makes me anxious and I end up with stone bruises and a rash on my upper arms from trying to control where the water takes me, convinced that I'll get left behind or something. However, when it comes to books, I have NO problem just letting the prose wash over me. Unless it's Hannibal, because dude?? that book sucked the root.