It took another week for life to settle back down to manageable proportions.
People at work eyed me with varying degrees of suspicion or approbation, and a couple of them mistook me for the kind of guy who knew twelve different ways to tie a scarf and whether that scarf clashed with their purse. My helpful tip that most accessories were just needless expenses met with disappointment.
At home, my bathroom sink went back to its glory days of accommodating two toothbrushes on its stone countertop, plus a whole host of hair products it took a better man than me to understand.
And that man sat with me and held my hand when I picked up the phone to finally call my parents.
The answering machine picked up, cheery. "Hi, you've reached the Jameses. We're not home, so leave a message. Have a great day!"
"Hey, Mom and Dad. It's, um-- It's me," I said. "Obviously. Unless you know somebody else who calls you Mom and Dad. Uh, anyway. I wanted to see if you guys were going to be around this weekend so I can come by for a bit. There's something really important that I want to talk to you about."
I paused and took a deep breath. Nate squeezed my hand. "Okay. Call me."
Cary Attwell lives in Seattle, Washington, where it rains and rains like the dickens, except when it doesn't. Ramble to or get rambled at about all kinds of nothing at the following:
Email:
[email protected]
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/caryattwell
Livejournal:
http://www.caryattwell.livejournal.com
To my disgustingly brilliant sister J, who went through every single draft of this book with me with patience, good humor and an eagle eye to put all eagles to shame, and kept challenging me to make it better.
To Mel, for reading the final draft over before I sicced it on everyone else and leaving me comments in the margins that made me laugh and laugh. (Go you!)
To Jen, who let me talk at her at length about the minutiae of the book for weeks on end over hotpot and board games, and inexplicably still seems to want to be friends with me.
To Julie Bozza, wonderful writer and all-around lovely human being, for talking me through the self-publishing process when I had no idea what I was doing.
To everyone who's ever encouraged me to write, for getting me here.
To my parents, for everything.