Sooo…we had dinner with Dan Kennedy (OMFG)

That went a little differently than I had planned.

A LOT DIFFERENTLY.

First, Dane and I went to Ten01 for happy hour. That place is just…oh…MURDER. But the food was really good and we shared some truffle fries and I drank two glasses of champagne and pear brandy garnished with a salted almond. These made me immediately drunk. And also immediately the sort of person I never wanted to be.

Around 6:45 we ran to Powells and up the stairs and really, no one should ever make writers run, because it almost killed me and we kind of BURST into the reading room expecting it to be totally packed but instead this happened.

Which gave us an idea..

and a glimpse into the future. Maybe.

Next thing we knew the room was filling up with people and Kevin Sampsell and his friend Barb came up to us and introduced themselves and proceeded to tell us calmly, like it was not going to give us both a stroke, that we were all of us going to go out after the reading with Dan Kennedy.

And then I have no idea what happened because all of a sudden the universe collapsed in on itself and I realized that we had probably just broken reality and also that I hadn’t showered. In two days.

So the reading happened and Dan (I can call him Dan now!) was very funny and sardonic and everything and he graciously signed our printed out McSweeney’s story and then we all left to go to The Ringside. With Dan Kennedy. He came too.

DID I MENTION THAT?

At The Ringside we were all squished into a booth and ordering (thank JESUS) cocktails and you know, just shootin’ the shit and then my blog post was mentioned. The one yesterday about Dan Kennedy who, I don’t know if I have told you, WAS SITTING AT THE TABLE WITH US.

Guess what happened next? GUESS. He whipped out his iPhone and with only a little prompting from me which in my brain went “No,no you should really read it, I won’t mind, honestly” but in actuality I think it may have come out like, “I don’t care that you are exhausted and away from home for forever and you couldn’t give two figs about my stupid blog, so READ IT.”

And then he did.

Outloud.

He read the blog I wrote about maybe touching his penis out loud and so for the next hour I was very very careful to avoid eye contact which resulted in me taking every conversation right across the lines that should never be crossed. I think I said something about um, dog on girl action and maybe used a racial epithet because restraining myself in any way causes me to “act out”.

When we were all leaving the restaurant - with Dan Kennedy who was still with us - we shook hands and Dan leaned in to me and said very somberly, “I want to cover you in diamonds and take you away from all this dirt and poverty“.

Isn’t that just like him?