Version 2.0

I was at Borders today trying to kill time as well as procrastinating on gettin' my ass in gear to work on the next novel. Unfortunately, I was also at Borders on Saturday and Thursday doing the same exact thing. My mind rebelled at thinking "How To Be Good is already paperback? Phwar, I remember buying it when it came out in hardback as if it were yesterday" for the 3rd time this week. Instead, it treated me to a bit of insanity.

I went to the magazine section to read the latest Rolling Stone, and Pete Yorn was on the cover of some other music rag. "Hmmm," I thought, "I remember L.A. Chick mentioning she liked Pete Yorn. L.A. Chick used to be a singer, and now she's an entertainment lawyer. Pete Yorn dumped Winona Ryder shortly after Winona was arrested for shoplifting. And in Silicon Valley, clients date their transactional lawyers all the time. And L.A. Chick appeared to be a sucker for a guy who's musically inclined. Oh my God, what if L.A. Chick is dating Pete Yorn? I can't compete with that! Oh wait, I think it was John Frusciante she said she liked." I was so frazzled after that I bought Fever Pitch even though I had already owned it at one point (lent it to a friend who never read it, now languishing in some box in Orange County).

So even though I'm trying to take the "worrying won't change anything attitude," I say fuggit for now, I'm going to worry and run all the horrible permutations of the call through my head.

Scenario 2:
After making some headway on opening boxes, arranging my CD collection, setting up the entertainment system, I'll pick up my nifty Bang and Olufson phone and dial her digits. The phone will ring, I'll hear the click of the phone being picked up.

"Hi L.A. Chick. It's Marty Stark. We met earlier this year. I'm living in L.A. now. I was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime this weekend."
"Oh hey! Marty, how are you doing? Hold on." I hear a small click, and her voice is less distorted by background noise. "Had to get you off speaker. It's good to hear from you. Look, I'm busy this weekend. My boyfriend and I are spending the long Memorial Day weekend at Nice Coastal Resort By the Pacific."
"Oh. Ok."
"But hey, let's do lunch sometime. Seriously."
"Sure, yeah, lunch."
"How about Random Day Next Week."
"Sounds, uh, sure, yeah."
"Great! See ya then."
"Yeah."
[Click]