My Crazy Week, feat. Ann Patchett

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?

This week, my seven year old decided to stop sleeping. Coincidentally, this week tried to murder me. It was creative! It tried to murder me in different ways! There were highs and lows! There were some things that I had to talk to a lawyer about that I shan’t be talking about here, but rest assured, it wasn’t so that they could tell me that I’d won the lottery and were wondering in what denominations I would like the bills. Everything else was a delight, but did you know that if you pile too many delights on top of each other, on top of hard things, on top of no sleep, you become a zombie?

And so here I am, writing to you with a few highlights from zombie land.

On Tuesday, my dear friend Dan’s younger brother Matt (he’s a full adult, a husband and a parent, but when you know someone first as a younger brother, a younger brother they stay!) filmed a scene from his first movie at the bookstore. Before you ask, yes, they had permission to do so! No scabs. And wouldn’t you know that they needed someone to play a bookstore owner. I can’t show you pictures of them filming, but I can show you this, an envelope that contains a piece of paper saying that I did, in fact, agree to play myself. Every time I am in a movie (this is my third, not counting my appearance in the Magnetic Fields documentary) I am reminded of several things: 1. movie people have an AMAZING amount of tape. I felt so envious of everyone’s rolls of tape. 2. Making movies is slow and boring, with apologies to all my friends who are brilliant actors. I’m sure it’s not boring when you’re actually doing something. 3. Movie crews are attractive. As I said to one of my booksellers, the only gender on a movie crew is Carhartt, and everyone knows that Carhartt is always hot. Anyway, I spent the day absolutely beaming at Matt, who wrote, is directing, and starring in his own movie. What a feat! I can’t wait to tell all of you to watch the movie when it comes out.

On Wednesday, I did a double header. At 4pm, the extraordinarily brilliant Jon Klassen came to the store and talked to me about The Skull. The poor man was late because he went to the wrong location and so my children did a VERY loose 20 minutes of knock knock jokes. Personally, I loved it, but apologies to everyone walking down Montague Street yesterday who did NOT want to hear the same three jokes on repeat. Experimental comedy at its finest.

Then, after about an hour of emailing and one piece of carrot cake, I walked a block to our event with Ann Patchett. Here’s what I love about Ann: somehow, even though she’s on her book tour, she showed up with a thoughtful prezzie for me, a bracelet that she also owns, so when I wear it, I can have Patchett Power. I love that she is 100% aware of her own Patchett Power at all times. I love how good she is, as a person, as a writer, as a friend. She literally always knows best, and she’ll tell you. I worship her. I’m also twice her size, and did not want to squash her, but listen, she told me to sit on her lap and so I did and here is the photo that I am going to frame and put in my office.

And now it’s Thursday and I’m lazily bidding on some of Andre Leon Talley’s belongings before driving up to Lenox, MA for the Authors Guild Lit Festival. I still feel like a plastic bag, but now I’m a plastic bag with Patchett Power, which is at least 75% better than I was yesterday.

Also, if you like grief and humor, which I feel like you probably do if you read this newsletter, do I have the book for you—my friend Sloane Crosley’s new memoir, Grief is for People, which is out from FSG in February. It’s a book about her friend’s suicide, and it’s funny, because she is funny and so was he. Grief doesn’t delete everything else in life. I am loving every page. Preorder here.

I know my newsletter has been slow, but my brain is doing as much as it possibly can. Thank you for reading. Thank you for being here. I wish you all your very own version of Patchett Power.