Last night was book club, which I'm making more of an effort to attend. So that people don't greet me at the door by fainting with shock at my sudden appearance. Well, the Dick Cheney costume doesn't help, I guess.
We were all supposed to read Dry by Augusten Burroughs. "Oh, I have that book already!" I said when it was chosen last month. Then yesterday morning I went to the shelf and found that the Augusten Burroughs book I hadn't been reading for book club was not actually Dry but Magical Thinking.
"Whoops!" I told everyone in a mass book club e-mail. "I read the wrong book!" I don't know why I said I'd read it, I guess because I never read the book club book. I just go and eat chips and drink wine and talk about lesbian porn. I mean real estate.
But then last night one woman sat down by me and said, "Oh, you read Magical Thinking, is that the one where he writes about advertising?"
I had no idea. (I hadn't read it.) I hadn't read anything this month! I read my son's lunch schedule and wrote a check so I wouldn't have to make him peanut butter sandwiches into 2009.
In the meantime, she was waiting for me to answer. "Okay, you got me," I said. "I didn't read the wrong book, or any book at all. I don't know why I said I did! Aren't I funny, with the lying! and now I'm going to eat this asparagus spear dipped in peanut sauce and you're going to look at me in confusion for a moment and then get up and avoid me for the rest of the night."
Then I drank a lot of $10 pink sparkling wine to dull the pain of my futile existence. I woke up at 2:30 a.m. with a throbbing headache, which I got rid of by yogically focusing on relaxing my brain.
I still don't know why I did it!