SHE WROTE: Let Him Eat Ding Dongs

I searched for that damn sock, too. The problem is, my laundry room is in my closet (because that’s where it makes the most sense) and once I’d searched the washer, the dryer, and the floor, I began to wonder if it hadn’t migrated into the mess that is my wardrobe. I could just see a filmy stocking cooing to his argyle, only to suck it into the twisted mass of wreckage that is my “clothes to be sorted and hung up later.” Then he says he did it on purpose. I’m doing this turkey’s laundry (because I’m his hostess, not because I’m a girl) and he gaslights me with one sock.

He doesn’t deserve me.

Which is probably what he’d tell you, too. In a different tone of voice.

And I did so have coffee AND a coffee maker, but did he ask me to set it up the night before even though he knows I don’t do mornings? Nooooooooo.

And then I come back to the blog and everybody’s talking about chocolate and do I have any? No, because Bob took the booksigning gifts upstairs with him. Sigh.

So last night I found My Name is Earl on the Tivo (he laughed, all was good), and then I was desperate for something else to entertain him so I tried the first episode of Coupling (British version, hysterical) which lasted about five minutes because he couldn’t take the laugh track, and then I put in Hopscotch. This is an old Walter Matthau movie about a CIA agent who gets put out to pasture and decides not to go. I love this movie, but watching it with Bob brought out the flaws, not because he said anything, he’s very polite, but because I’m hyper-alert whenever he’s around. And basically, the seventies were a very differently paced decade. As in, slow.

But Hopscotch has many good things about it, not the least of which is that it’s a funny revenge plot, and it has Matthau and Glenda Jackson and Ned Beatty and Sam Waterston, so character again, folks. Basically, you stick with this movie because you like Walter. But I also like the mechanics of the plot, the carefully thought out revenge scenario. Except, as Bob always says, everything goes according to plan until the LC/DC or whatever that is, which is when you actually start to put the plan into action, but in Hopscotch, nothing goes wrong until the end. Things should go wrong all the way through so the protagonists have to scramble to stay alive. But even so, I like Hopscotch, and I love How To Steal A Million which I keep swearing I’m going to make Bob watch, so I said, “This is what I want for the third book. I want a caper plot.” And he said, “Okay,” and then because he’s Bob he started to take it apart and really get into it, so I think I get a caper plot for Book 3 (aka the hotel book).

Then today, we did Cincinnati. Our escort was Kathy, and she was a real trooper considering what she had to put up with, staring with Bob whining when I told him candy corn was not a vegetable. Then we had an argument about whether I’d ever taken Exit 4 off the interstate (“Did not.” “Did, too.” “Did not.” “Did, too.”) until she yelled, “Children!” and then I said, “He started it,” which did not make me seem more mature, I now realize. And during the live TV interview we did, the interviewer who was great said, “You should see these two during the commercial breaks. It’s like brother and sister, punching each other.” So the good news is, we’ve gotten past the “Are you married?” stuff, and now we’re into “Will you grow up, PLEASE?”

We may have been on the road too long.

Then a great radio interview with Sharon and Mark that’ll be on a podcast and Bob’s going to find out when and how and get that info to you, and then we came back here and crashed because we were wiped out and then we did one of my fave bookstores, Jo Beth here in Cincy, where Annette did her usual SPLENDID job and the best people came out and I talked too long AGAIN. I’m going to give Bob a hook and let him just drag me off because I was even standing to one side and I still did it. But it was truly great and if I wasn’t brain-fried, I’d talk more about it, but I’m staring into space here. Blankly.

There is other stuff that needs to be said, but really, there’s just a big echoing space between my ears at this point. (Don’t say it, Bob.)

Oh, and we didn’t muddle through DLD, we intuitively discovered our process as we explored the possibilities inherent in the narrative. I did love this in Bob’s blog: “One thing you're going to see much more of is gender differences and conflict. And reconciliation and understanding.” Because that’s pretty much the story of March for Jenny and Bob. Aside from the fact that he’s TRYING to drive me crazy (one sock? what is he, twelve?) we’re doing pretty good here.

Really must go to bed now. We have to leave again in nine hours and eight of those have to be spent sleeping.

One sock. Jeez.