Getting To No

I have a hard time turning people down.

It's why I was the Asperger kid's best (and only) friend in elementary school. Why I learned to drink hard at an early age. Why I wound up going to graduate school, sort of, and why providence alone kept me from catching something gross or getting killed.in the Looking for Mr. Goodbar blur when I dropped out. It's also why I wound up marrying my Richard Gere.

2010, though, was going to be my Selfish Summer. Of the two old ladies whose beck-and-call I've been at for thirteen years, one went round the bend; the other died. I had no job, an easy book to write, and Richard "Goodbar" Gere kicked to the curb. I would disappear into the woods of Maine and come out a published author, all psychically rested and rejubified.

(It's not a word. Don't bother googling. I made it up.)

But then Things started to Happen.

And no matter how Selfish you're intent on being, you can't say no to one of your best friends when they tell her that she has to have her tits off. You can't say no to Richard Gere when he asks you to participate in your divorce. You can't say no to the summer camp that raised you (or, actually, taught you how to raise yourself), or to the now-diabetic cat who's been your friend for sixteen years (he was there through all the Goodbar years; he just might talk). You can't say no to your dead mother's dog whose ear's infected, or to your car that shit the bed on 95. You can't say no to family that comes to visit. And you sure as shit can't say no to one of your best friends when she goes back to work with her new, smaller tits and gets laid off.

Now here's a pop quiz for you: It's the end of August. All you've done for yourself all summer is shoot pool. The book's only 3/4 written, you're risking your last chance to be a published author, and you are feeling neither rested nor rejubified. (Still not a word. But go ahead and look it up. I bet it brings you right back meta-here...) When your sister and brother-in-law remind you of your promise back in April that you'd babysit while they go to Foxboro for opening-day -- as you've done for every home game since your niece was born six years ago (which is how she earned the nickname Football Buddy), but somehow managed to forget about till now -- do you:

A.  Immediately begin making arrangements to kennel the stank-ear dog and diabetic cat for that weekend, so they can both get the care they need while you go down and tend to Football Buddy.

B. Immediately offer to jet down there to pick up Football Buddy between cat-shots and dog-ear-cleanings, and have her as your guest in Maine for the weekend.

C. Immediately figure out a stepped-up work schedule to start making up for soon-to-be-lost time.

or...

D. Burst into tears and wail "Writing is really hard, and I never get any time to do it, and if I don't sell this book I'm going to have to work at Wal-Mart, so why won't everyone leave me alone?"

I, personally, think B. is the most selfless option.

But nobody said this was supposed to be a selfless summer, after all.

I think Mrs. Reagan would be proud. 

P.S. I really am knuckling down on the bookwork. I really don't want to work at Wal-Mart, after all. It's why I haven't been around here much these days. I'll be done by mid-September -- October 1st at the drop-dead latest -- and when it's done I've got a couple yeses lined up as rewards. One I promise to tell you about when it happens... 

But the Hershey's Miniature is just for me.