i'm a loser, baby

so i went to the salon of shame instead of gloria steinem. i knew i would. i just liked to think that i might decide otherwise. unfortunately, it was a bust. it's usually standing room only and packed with people itching to read. i distinctly recall someone had to be booted off stage last time for going on too long and not giving other people a shot. this time it was the opposite problem. there were exactly two readers, one of whom was yours truly. of course, i am always thrilled to get a shot at the limelight, but would've liked to have more of an actual show.

they were nice enough to give everybody their money back though, so that was cool. i felt bad though because my friend karen had wanted to hear this talk on parallel universes next door at town hall if the g.s. thing didn't pan out. i felt like i led her astray. but at least we had a few laughs, and i had a shirley temple and a little of karen's husband josh's calamari. and i figure if i hadn't been there, they'd have only had one reader and that really would have been sad.

last night i read from my journal about misadventures with various radio djs when i was in high school. so the weirdest thing that happened was this dude came up to me after the show and said, 'tyx' was that 94 tyx? and i'm stunned that someone recognized the radio station, so i say, how did you know? and he says, i'm from mississippi. you must be from jackson, right? and i say, around there, yeah. he says he's from choctaw county somewhere (i've no clue where that is). but he assures me that he doesn't know any of the people i wrote about. of course, i imagine he would have recognized one of the dj's names if i hadn't used initials in my journal, so i'm glad i did.

i figured i'd be anonymous all the way up here in seattle, but lo and behold, who'd have thunk a home boy would be in the audience? made me feel a little paranoid about being so open with my humiliating stories. not enough to stop, mind you, but a little paranoid nonetheless.