Now I'm Ready To Be Santa Or A Salesperson

Oh happy Day!! Our friends from UPS just arrived in the muddy driveway, and they brought some boxes with them. I was hoping for the sled with reindeer, but alas. And the boxes weren't wrapped with gorgeous paper and luscious ribbons. No such luck. The boxes were brown cardboard and they had white labels on them. There were four of them. And this is the good part: in the boxes were fresh, clean, new copies of my novella, Tulum. So at long last, finally I have copies of my book in my own hands. Let me say this. This is a good deal different from having them be a click away or having photographs of them. This book seems to me to be real and to exist in the material world.

What will I do with these lovely, new books I find so exciting? First, I will spend some time admiring them, holding them, feeling them and all of their wonderfulness. Smelling them, letting the pages slap each other. Riffling the pages musically. Reading from them at random. And I will also play the two dramatic, archetypical roles in the title of this post.

I will play Santa Clause, and I will write dedications in some of the books and give them as gifts. I will get some of them ready to be stuffed into stockings (forget you read this if you are one of those people). And I may wrap others in gaudy paper. How wonderful is that? I am neither fat nor jolly enough to fulfill this role perfectly, but do not fear. I will make a wonderful, jovial attempt at it.

And I will also play the role of salesperson. No, not Willie Loman. Nothing so full of angst. Not like Mr. Whipple. No. No grouchiness. This role is far simpler. It goes like this:

If you're near Chatham, or in Columbia County, New York and you want a soft cover copy of Tulum, you don't have to go online and click on things and make the postal service bring it to you. You are, of course, welcome to do that, and I love it when you do, but there's now a more personal alternative. You can email or telephone me, or most unusual, talk to me when you see me, and I will arrange to deliver to you from my ungloved hand directly into yours, gloved or not, copies of the book. I will even write in them or not, or dedicate them or not as you may wish. To do this and foster spontaneity, I will put some of these books in my car. That way I will have a few of them with me when you see me live and in person and the many doing mundane and often meaningless things that people do.

I will also reach out in the next few days to some booksellers in the area and see whether they are interested in taking a few copies of the book. That should happen this weekend. So that will be yet another way you can get this book before the Holidays.