So, it appears that it has been about a month since I last blogged. It also appears that this is somewhat of a pattern. But there is a reason, my friends. I always have reasons.

I haven’t blogged much is that I’ve been busy writing. That’s the whole explanation.* It turns out there’s only so much I can write before I start shooting off bolts of electricity and laughing like a maniac.** So sometimes I have to make EXECUTIVE DECISIONS in order to stay in optimum running condition. I have no idea if I’m going to blog again tomorrow or two months from now, but I am certainly going to MAKE AN EFFORT to come here more often, because I obviously have THINGS TO TELL YOU. And I’ve missed you. I mean, I’m on Twitter all day long, but still. I can’t really get my ramble on there.

Today, I am going to show you a picture.

This picture is one of the very first—if not the first—picture of me and my (then future) agent, Daphne Unfeasbile.*** It was a long journey from roommate to agent. It took many years. That journey began at a table at a place called “The Scrounge.” That was the actual name of the fast food dining option/meeting place in the student center of our university. I was in the theater group, as were J. Krimble and Daphne, and we spent many, many hours at The Scrounge. Shortly before graduating, Daphne and I happened to be sitting together. I mentioned that I planned on getting a student work permit and going to England as soon as I graduated. Daphne said that she planned on doing the same thing. We decided there and then, in about five minutes, that we might as well live there together.

That was it. That ONE conversation in The Scrounge changed everything. Several months later, we were in London, where we took this picture. It was connected to a letter we were jointly writing to our friend J. Krimble, explaining what we were up to.**** The words “Exhibit D” are written on the back in Daphne’s writing, so we made some mention of it in the letter and I guess. This was sort of pre-social networking, pre-wireless internet, pre-affordable laptops, so we had no computers with us. ***** We also didn’t have cell phones, and our apartment didn’t have cable, so we had a TV with four or five channels. Basically, our contact with others was limited to ACTUAL HUMAN CONTACT. Which mostly meant each other.

THE EXPLANATION

TIME: Approximately eight weeks after leaving college mid-1990s.

SETTING: The kitchen of our apartment in Kilburn, London. We shared a room in the front of the house. The owner of the apartment had the middle bedroom, and some mysterious and kind of hot tattooed guy lived in the back. I remember talking to him exactly once, when he was borrowing some mustard.

SPECIFICS: Daphne is wielding what is obviously a knife. I am wielding either an electric can opener or an electric knife sharpener. I really don’t think that kitchen had a knife sharpener. I think we only had that one knife . . . which does, when you think about it, actually make a case for the knife sharpener, because you’d have to keep it sharp if that was the only one. But still, I am going to go for can opener.

CIRCUMSTANCES: I genuinely cannot remember what SPECIFICALLY caused us to take this photo, but I definitely remember taking it. I can tell you that we were REALLY, REALLY broke. Our major activities, as I remember them, were mooching for free food and looking for spare change, so this really could have been any night at home for us. Also, this apartment was either the most or least safe of any I have ever lived in. The door had this series of three locks that were more or less impossible to open. We tried for weeks to figure out the system and never quite worked it out, so we discovered that the easiest way to get into our room was to crawl over the trash cans and into the front window. That’s usually what we did. So I guess that we decided to do a kind of tribute to the window-crawling thing, except in the kitchen. Or we might have been drunk. Honestly, I have no idea.

EVEN MORE CIRCUMSTANCES: I should also explain our jobs. I had two. During the day, I was a waitress in the financial district, and at night, I was a bartender in Piccadilly. Daphne got a fancy office job as a receptionist in a theater. In fact, it was the theater where Riverdance was playing. Do you know Riverdance? It’s the Irish step dance show where people hop in place for seventeen hours. This was the summer when Riverdance was THE HOTTEST TICKET IN LONDON. Seriously. Riverdance was in the news EVERY FRICKIN DAY.

We used our two jobs as a way of getting by. From my day job, we got the occasional bag of free food. Daphne would come into the pub on nights I was working, because there was really nothing else to do. On nights when I wasn’t working and we couldn’t take any more television, we’d go stand in the tech booth and watch Riverdance. We saw Riverdance A LOT that summer. We had unlimited tickets to the hottest show in town. And let me tell you, once you have seen Riverdance five or seven times, you have REALLY SEEN RIVERDANCE. Riverdance will start pounding in your head like a thousand tiny hammers.

There was also the night of the Riverdance closing party, where we showed up early to try to eat and drink as much as possible before the cast arrived. Daphne and I have jointly sworn not to ever discuss the details of what went on that night, but I can tell you that we were extremely successful in our mission. At one point, I know I was hiding under a set of stairs from one of the Riverdance drummers, who decided he wanted to move in with us for two weeks, and we might have said some inappropriate things to Michael Flatley***** about his hair . . . and then there was the cab ride home, which inspired the dedication of 13 Little Blue Envelopes. But I’ve already said too much.

ANYWAY, what I am trying to say is here is a photo of the two of us at the very start. We couldn’t have told you at the time where EXACTLY we were going to end up, but we knew we were going somewhere. After we moved back to America, we got an apartment together in New York. Daphne got a job at one of the biggest literary agencies in the city, and I started grad school at Columbia. Daphne climbed her way up, I wrote and wrote . . . it would take over ten years from the time that this photo was taken to get us to where we are today.

What’s the point of all of this? Well, first, I would like to give you some hope. Maybe you are in high school or in college, maybe you think to yourself, “Look at me. I am doomed.” Well, look at this picture. Does this look like a photo of a agent and an author? Does it? It does? Well, whatever. The path is often weird, that’s all I’m saying. Look at us and know you’ll be fine.

The second is that the old saying is true . . . your friends really are the most important thing you have. There are a hundred different instances I could name where Daphne has kept me going, or times that we’ve worked together to figure out the way home, or to find a window for a quick exit.

Plus, I think this photo is in many ways a HINT OF THINGS TO COME! There I am lunging for the camera with some unknown object, and there Daphne is, right with me, backing me up with a KNIFE! Which is what she is like as my AGENT! In fact, I think she should really post this on her official site. I think I should campaign her to do so, with the caption “I WILL CUT A %&*#@ FOR MY CLIENTS” written under it. I encourage you to drop her a line and make this suggestion.

So mainly what I am saying is KEEP THE PHOTOS. They may be useful someday.

* My last blog was republished on io9.com, and one commenter described me thusly: “YA girl-adventures author, posting on her monthly professional blog.” This has had me chuckling for weeks. I think “YA girl-adventures author” is supposed to be an insult, because, you know. Young adults. Girls. Who takes either of THOSE groups seriously? And then the idea that I do this monthly by DESIGN? Like, it’s a marketing plan? It brings a smile to my face every time.
** more than normal
*** Daphne is always referred to as such on this blog, but many of you already know that her name is Kate Schafer Testerman. But she is so used to being called Daphne that she will answer to it and even calls her blog “Ask Daphne”.
**** J. Krimble has displayed this photo on his fridge ever since receiving it. You’ll be hearing more about J. Krimble in the next few weeks, as I am PERFORMING HIS WEDDING CEREMONY on August 14th.
***** I know this will make this seem like this must have been taken in YE OLDE DINOSAUR TYMES, but all of those things have really come about—I mean in full, proper use—in the last ten years. And some might say we are STILL waiting for them to come about I full and proper use.
****** Michael Flatley would go on to create a show called FEET OF FLAMES, which should tell you all you need to know. And honestly, his hair is the ninth wonder of the world. If you met Michael Flatley after five glasses of free wine, you’d start talking about it too.

Posted: Sunday, July 25th, 2010 @ 1:08 pm
Categories: 13 Little Blue Envelopes, Daphne Unfeasible, London, bad ideas, contributions to society, improper dancing, life lessons, relationships.
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