my reading in cambridge

I will blog about my reading at Cambridge. Before the reading I ate at "Buddha Delight" with my friend. "Buddha Delight" is a dirty vegetarian Chinese restaurant in Chinatown in Boston. My friend ordered something that looked both clean and dirty. I ordered something that looked calm and dirty. Three people who looked a little dirty came in and sat at an adjacent table and one of them ordered Coke. The Coke looked very clean but I knew it was probably the dirtiest thing in the restaurant.

At the bookstore a man shook my hand and went to the podium and read an essay about my books. He said something about the book covers. So far he didn't talk shit about me yet. I was glad. He quoted Nietszche in my favor. He talked about my blog. Then he began to say something that sounded like he was talking shit about my writing. I felt confused. He continued to talk shit about my writing then said something like, "But you won't," which changed all the previous shit-talking into complete and unqualified praise. "Oh, good," I thought. The man was about fifty-five or sixty years old I think. "I am very glad that person likes my books, because he is around sixty years old and is a small person and he looks nice, he doesn't look like an asshole, he looks like he has felt loneliness and depression before but isn't dramatic but just nice and calm," I thought nervously.

I read The Moose and the Gerbil and the Confused Manatee. I read The Existentially Fucked Megamouth Shark. I read an excerpt from EEEEE EEE EEEE. "I am finished," I said. I sat in a chair. I said, "Where is the host? Now what?" An old man in the audience not the host said, "Take questions." I went back to the podium. People asked me questions.

After the reading my friend I and went to American Apparel and stood there for a very long time. Outside Asians stared at me because I was Asian. "Asians have pride," my friend said. I stared at the Asians with the indifference of the universe but they continued to stare at me with racial pride because focusing on abstract categorizations of human beings is an effective tool against existential despair. "All the white people here are obese," I said. "Am I obese," my friend said. John Updike called my cell phone. "Hi," I said. "I fell down, I need your help," John Updike said. I hung up. "John Updike fell down, should we go help him?" I said to my friend. "Okay," she said. We went to John Updike's house. He was hitting golf balls in the front yard. "I thought you fell down," I said.

John Updike swung his golf club around over his head a lot of times. He let go. The golf club went on the roof of his mansion. "I'm okay," he said. "I'm just depressed. I don't know. I just need to play some golf. Or something. I just need to go swimming I think. I feel better after I swim. And get my crotch rubbed by my gardener, Yolanda. Don't be an ass about it. My wife knows. It's the same as cutting my hair or washing my feet. What's the difference between my crotch and my feet? Do you want me to prove it's the same in a 10,000 word essay in The New York Times? I can't. I won't do that. My literary agent wouldn't allow it. Knopf wouldn't allow it. The parent company of Knopf wouldn't allow The New York Times to publish it. Barnes and Noble wouldn't allow Knopf to allow The New York Times to publish it because Rupert Murdoch wouldn't allow them to allow that. It would alienate 99% of my readership. Did you know I am a raw vegan and that I attended seven Leftover Crack concerts last year wearing $10,000 retail value of make-up and prosthetics each time? You don't. No one does. It would alienate 99% of my readership. Did you know I keep forty manatees in an underground water tank below my mansion and that twice a week I ride a submarine with a machine gun-equipped turret on top of it inside the tank and shoot at the manatees aiming for their backsides with bullets coated with SARS from close-range and then nurse them back to health but only 50% health so that each time their level-of-health is halved to relieve boredom? You don't know. You don't know how fucked I am. You think I'm just this person who isn't even fucked. No. I am fucked. I am very fucked."