Member-only story
The Published Good
People are always asking me, “Why are you not famous?” It happens to me all the time. Well, often enough that I’d mention it in passing. Like here.
A person will float, “Where’s your next book signing? Why haven’t you been on The Late Show? You’re the answer to a Jeopardy question, right?” (On this last one, I wanted to concur, but instead shot back, “That’s not it. You’ve got it all backwards, you ass. My name should be the question to the answer. Trebeck must be turning over in his grave.”)
But usually, I just disingenuously (if not cloyingly) smile back at them, nod my head in some unfathomable mystique, and walk on with some more-or-less new pep in my following steps. Lord knows I’ve had enough of these sycophants to last me until the meat cleaver of my maker comes home to make a final finish of me. I chalk it up to one more salutation for the road, and forget all the likelihoods that have led me to wherever “this” is. Have I not followed a strict code of like-or-be-disliked? Perhaps. But I am starting to doubt my instincts for ascertaining such insights into my own disorderly personality traits. An oddity in an ordinary land, I guess.
“Why don’t you Google me and call it a day?”
“Asshole.”
(This is a typical exchange between me and a well-wisher.)
