2005-06-03 - 11:29 a.m.
I've been working this week on the 25th floor of an office building. It's foggy today and so when you look out the windows all you can see is fog. Looks like the whole building is flying at twenty-five thousand feet. The layout is typical of office buildings: an H with the two long parts connected by the middle part, which is the elevator part. So I can look out the big glass front windows, through the elevator part, into the other office. They're called London & Norfolk, Ltd. I don't know what they do but I'd like to think it's the importation of fine umbrellas or expensive butter cookies. And I've been kind of checking out their receptionist all week. Every time I hit the elevator button, standing there and waiting, I keep thinking she's going to notice me staring at her as she does her Excel and Word business, but she never does. She seems very quiet. She reminds me of Maggie Gyllenhaal in "The Secretary." I hope she doesn't do the nasty business, but she's very cute, I'd say.
I have a friend who's recently gotten very strong interest from a big-deal New York agent. This agency's represented Jack Kerouac. Right. And I wish my friend the best, even though he's made my life very difficult several times in the last three years. He's really smart and a talented writer. He writes kind of experimental fiction, stuff that sounds good to him and makes him laugh, lots of wordplay and double entendres and strangely chosen adjectives, that sort of thing. I've always thought he's trying to write like a 40-year-old but only has the life experience of a 27-year-old. Anyway, he'll for sure be a big deal in the writing world some day, and now it looks as if he just might be one sooner than later. I hope he does well. He's freaking out right now. He calls me around midnight and updates me on his plan to rent a bed and breakfast room for the next week so he can "deepen the meaning" before he sends his novel off to this agent. He's an only child.
I have two phone interviews next week. One's for a school in Savannah (I'm checking with my people but I think this may be a town in the American South) and one's in upstate New York. Phone interviews are usually fine but why don't we have video phones yet? Weren't we promised these in, like, Back to the Future III or somewhere? They're spending too much time on handheld everythings when what we need is video phones. Then, when somebody calls at eleven-thirty on a hungover Saturday and you answer you can't lie when they ask if they woke you up.
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