Yesterday, I screamed downtown to get up with my friend Jo, who was making an appearance at the local bookstore. Since it was Shop Locally Saturday or whatever, she'd been asked to hang at the bookstore in the afternoon as kind of a draw: Come to our bookstore and meet local authors! Then buy a bunch of books and get the hell out. That kind of thing.
Before I went there, I just happened to find myself in Sephora, where I bought something for Ned's niece, and possibly something for myself. (My Aunt Kathy finds it physically impossible to purchase a gift for something without then getting something for herself, as well. You'll often hear, "And I bought one for me, too!")
Aunt Kathy, with the earrings and necklace she also bought herself. Poor mom got bupkis.
The point is, what I got for myself was four chubby sticks, which sounds a lot dirtier than it is. They're a big fat lip pencil, by Clinque, and they're sheer and light and wonderful. Sephora was selling four of them for $19.
Was beside self.
After that exciting purchase, I stormed into the bookstore to find Jo at a table with my friend The Poet, and a man. Naturally, I entered talking. That should be my epitaph. She entered talking. She left the same way.
"Look what I got!" I bellowed, plopping into my chair. I whipped out my chubby sticks, which again, not that dirty.
"Ooo! Are those from Clinique?" asked Jo, who despite being a celebrated author is as shallow as me.
"Yes!" I said, getting each one out so we could admire it. I looked at the man at the table and figured him for not being a cross-dresser, so I said, "Look, I know you don't know from Clinique Chubby Sticks." I framed my Carmel Curve lips with my hands. "But these lipsticks are the shit, Bub. They really are."
I went on like that for, oh, another five minutes before I finally found the wherewithal to ask the man at our table what he did. Turns out he just wrote another book of poetry, about cats.
So, okay, cool. A poet. Like my friend, The Poet.
Later, I got home and told Ned about my afternoon. "Wait," said Ned. "What was the guy's name you sat with?"
"Fred? Fred Chappell!" I was impressed with myself for remembering.
"June. He was North Carolina's poet laureate for years. I would've been so nervous and starstruck," he said, wide-eyed.
Oh.
Fuck.
...Fucccccck.
Fuck.
What if he writes a poem about Clinique Chubby Sticks, though? It'd be like I'm his muse.
Yeah.
