A · Tale · of · Two · Settees

this is really long and now that i know how to use lj-cut...


i finished a book.

yes i did.

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules.

(was the book's title).

its a collection of short stories.

david sedaris selected them and the book was published for a philanthropic organization in nyc (826nyc) that tutors underprivileged children.

i started children this summer and just finished the last story today.

i'm impressed with myself.

more often than not, i start books, but never finish them.

perhaps i get bored, perhaps i figure out what's going to happen, so its not worth it to finish. other times, i start another book and become more interested in that one, forgetting that i hadn't finished the previous one.

could you imagine if i was a surgeon or a coroner or a biology professor leading a class dissection with an attitude like that? well... could you?

(i know. that's precisely my point. it wouldn't.)

still haven't finished foucault's history of sexuality or cervantes' don quixote and i do like both.

really... i do.

and, one day, i will finish them.

i remember beginning history of sexuality about two years ago (or was it three?) around the time i started coming out. i was temping at the time and working in a very jockish office in glendale, surrounded by young photocopy salesmen interested in offering businesses "office solutions". in part, i think taking this book to work was a bit of a protest against my working environment (part gay pride and part "look at me you apish cretins, i can read a book."). that isn't to say i wasn't reading it for intellectual reasons either. certainly not. that is certainly not it at all.

it was hardly a protest, though, i can assure you. i can assure you, too, that i read this book somewhat secretly, holding it on my lap under the desk, so for all intents and purposes it looked like i was staring at something on my pants.

for all intents and purposes, this is what it looked like.

mostly, the fear came from the fact that i didn't know how anyone would respond to me reading at work. this was mostly my fear. but also--who knows?--maybe one of them would have thought i was reading a sexy book. one cannot have others thinking that one is reading a sexy book at work.

no.

one cannot.

(let others think one is reading a sexy book at work, that is.)

(speaking of office solutions, whenever someone says "office solution," "the ultimate solution" always comes to mind and i begin to imagine sales representatives trying to win someone over on the finer points of building an industrial-size crematorium behind the office and parking lot structure).

(speaking of trying to be secretive, reading a book in a secret sort of way is not a good way of preventing others from thinking that you're reading a sexy book. it is, in fact, the worst way of dealing with this situation).

one of the salesmen talked to me. i think he was trying to be friendly. he said he used to be a teacher. that meant we had something in common. he said he quit because the money was no good. he was right, of course. then again, if i was forced to sell copy machines for a living, i believe my first impulse would be to jump in front of oncoming traffic.

one day a man walked into the office and people started acting serious and began talking to him in a serious way. one salesman (the one that i liked (i never mentioned that i liked one of them, did i? well, i did. not in a sexy sort of a way. no. more out of admiration than anything. he was a rebel and he had a slight accent. (and i wouldn't go out on a limb and say i actually liked him. but if someone asked me, "who in this office do you like if you had to choose?" i would have pointed and said "him." (this is not liking. it is like liking, but certainly not liking.)))) tucked in his shirt, which was always out because he was a rebel. and one of the employees walked up to me (the one who wanted for us to have something in common) and said "do you know who that is? that is the president of the company."

i said "oh."

i tried to look impressed, but i wasn't.

the president was young. that was why i should have been impressed i think. also, he had come from the main office all the way in irwindale. but so what? i had come from la verne. anyway, it is impossible to have a main office in irwindale and be impressive. it simply cannot be done. one can be impressive if one has a main office downtown or in a coastal area, but one cannot be impressive in irwindale. this is because irwindale is unimpressive. some places are like that.

but, to make the man who wanted to have something in common with me happy, i said "oh." it was all i could say without lying.

one day the man with the untucked shirt that i liked in an arbitrary sort of way spoke to me. he said: "i'm going to have a cigarette if anybody asks." when he walked back in, he said: "we're going to need more candy for the bowl."

the reason why he said the latter statement was because there was a candy bowl on the reception desk and it was empty. it was empty because he ate the last candy. but i was a temp. why should i have to fill it?

rereading the previous paragraph, i have come to the conclusion that part of it is inaccurate. when i said "the reason why he said this was..." i was being somewhat innacurate. truth be told, i don't know the hidden reasons why he said "we're going to need more candy for the bowl." perhaps he was trying to be friendly, too. or, maybe he wanted me to say "yes, we will." that way, if i said "yes, we will," we would have been in agreement, and then we would have something in common in the same way that the man who used to be a teacher had something in common with me.

(in life, one of the ways people make friends is by finding things they have in common with others. this is just what people do.)

*****

i think i'm a bit sad, now.

finishing a book does this.

after finishing children, i started reading the publishing information on the first page. for instance, did you know that ruth lee-mui was responsible for the cover design? neither did i.

rarely do book designers get credited for their work (unless its a bit of artwork or something else they're responsible for). although, my name is listed on more than one red hen press books that i helped typeset. hooray for me!

i turned the book around and around and have flipped every page, trying to make sure that there wasn't anything that i missed. but, no. it's pretty much finished. time to go back on the shelf and gather dust.

poor book.