Got a call at my desk from Yellow yesterday.
“Can you come back here?” he said.
I walked back to his cubicle expecting that I was going to get into trouble for putting in the wrong dates for something or miscalculating the number of LMUs we’ve installed.
I saw that he was surfing the internet.
Yellow: “So how does this thing with your agent work? How did it go?” (I’d mentioned in my e-mail about time off that I was taking last Friday off to work on my book because an agent was interested in it).
Me: She wants the whole thing, but I’ve gotta do edits first. If she likes it and thinks she can sell it, she’ll sign me. If she doesn’t, she won’t.
Yellow: So, like how much money can you make off something like that?
Me: Depends. Low end, 5K-20K. I’d like to make 40K, which is enough to pay off all my student loans and credit cards. If I’m really, really, lucky, the la-la land figure is six figures for book one with an option for book two.
Yellow: I’m soooo getting your resignation letter in a couple months.
Me: Uh. It’ll be a lot longer than a couple months. And then, I’d only leave it was six figures. Anything less, and I have to keep the desk jockey job.
Yellow: You know, I’m thinking about writing a book.
Me: I’m sure you are, Yellow.
Yellow: What? I totally knew you’d laught. So, you know all about this blog stuff, right?
Me: ??
Yellow: What are some good blogs to read? Tuff over there is looking for some love poems.
Me: Love poems? (????)
Yellow: Yea. He’s Italian. Love poems.
Me: Yellow, you’re asking the wrong person.
Yellow: But you know all about blogs (??). What’s a good blog? What do you read?
Me: (is he fishing to see if I’ll recommend mine?) I mostly read feminist and science fiction blogs.
Yellow: So, what’s a good one?
Me: (does he really think I’m going to recommend mine??) Well, there’s this one called Bitch Ph.D. She’s pretty cool.
Yellow: (covers his face with his hands) Oh, man, you would recommend a blog called that.
Me: Yup.
Yellow: Tuff! Hey, Tuff! Kameron says she doesn’t know of any love poetry blogs.
Tuff: That’s OK, I’ll google it.
Yellow: Google “love poetry.”
Tuff: Oh, yea. There are lots of love poetry blogs, I just know it.
Yellow: You know, Tuff, you can google all sorts of things.
Me: Yellow, did you actually call me back here for something work-related, or are you just bored?
Yellow: I’m just bored.
Me: OK, Yellow
I have a sneaking suspicion I may have been found out.