a tale of two book signings

    The famous authors I have met have all been men.

I wore deep red lipstick to meet David Sedaris at Avid, drove down my street at 1:30 in the morning to see him up close. I bought the book on Amazon, took advantage of the event’s chaos to get a ticket because I am a bad person. I missed him speaking because I was too busy being hungover in Atlanta, going to the Coke museum for the third and I swear to god last time.

    In line, I notice that he is wearing pajama pants and an Apple Watch. He is much smaller than his voice, that specific dry lilt he has that filled my ears on depressing Austin commutes.

    It is my turn and that familiar voice is asking my name. He asks me what I do and who I hate. I tell him I am becoming a teacher, and then tell him the truth, that there’s this girl in all my classes.  She just talks all the time and says the most obvious things just because she thinks something needs to fill up the space. (Deep down, I worry myself sick that I am this person for other people.) He draws a big wrinkly middle finger, reaching through the title page.

    And then—because it is almost 2 in the morning and there is a pile of burnt out sharpies on the table behind him and he’s had this conversation hundreds of times tonight—he writes “to hell with Lauren” instead of the girl’s name I gave him. This seems fitting and I almost tell him to leave it, but he reaches for a frog sticker and covers it up. He asks me if I drove or walked, and I tell him I’m parked out front. I got a good parking spot because it’s the middle of the night.

    Before that, I met BJ Novak at Book People in Austin. He was a writer on The Office, which is, and I will fight you on this, the best show in the history of television. He wrote a book of short stories that made me laugh through my bathtub tears, and he’s here to promote the children’s book he wrote.

    All the kids sit up front and just die laughing as he reads. He tells us he workshopped his book on his friends’ kids. I realize that it is their The Office.

    They have a ticket system for the signing too, add groups to the line that stretches to the second floor. Waiting is too much for me. Seeing someone I love is too much for me. Everything is too much for me on this day and the months building to it. That morning, I’d hyperventilated my way through my first psychiatrist appointment, not telling him the full truth. I am raw, my nerves buzzing with anxiety beneath my shaking skin.

    And then I am at the table. BJ has icy blue eyes, talks to each one of us about our lives in 30 seconds. He asks me what I do. I tell him I am in school to be a librarian. He tells me he used to be obsessed with the idea of being a librarian, even had a stamp like libraries use. I try to feel comforted by this.

    In my car, I take out this little spiral notebook that my dad makes me write gas prices in. I write down everything my hero said to me. I know that I should feel elated, should be calling my bf to tell him so he’ll be jealous. I just feel bad that I don’t feel happy, I just feel like I don’t live up to this whole experience. I cry harder than I maybe ever have before, alone in my car, unable to drive away from the building I know BJ is still in.

    I take my first Klonopin that night, show up to work still stoned the next morning, tell everyone what a gift it was to see BJ Novak, how happy it made me.  

When I drop out of school that December, one of the things that makes it so hard is that I don’t want what I told Ryan from The Office to be a lie, to lose that connection, that chemistry we had when he told me about his library stamp.