Everything is Illuminated

Today was a full day and I just got home after having left the house at 6:40 this morning so as you can imagine I am very tired. Especially because I nervously awoke every few hours in fear I would sleep in, starting at 2:30am. I also have some kind of wicked cough.

But there are a lot of things I am excited about and though many of them are minor, I am excited just the same. For example, we got a new refrigerator because of that problem where our old one froze everything. Then we fixed it but didn't have the hearts to tell our landpeople. So we have a brand new, energy efficient, slightly smaller fridge with a separate door for the freezer. The stuff dreams are made of. Also, I carpool now with the other VISTA who lives in South Philly. This makes me feel good about my role as a human on this earth. It also saves me money and lets me enjoy the nice few on the way to work and back 2-3 days a week. Plus, VISTA bonding time.

Today, four other VISTAs and myself went to Harrisburg to an EITC forum. At around 10am we got an email from a VISTA who didn't come telling us that Jonathan Safran Foer would be speaking at the Free Library of Philadelphia this evening. This is important because we read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in Book Club and I believe it is the one book we have unanimously really liked. I like telling people that Book Club is the best thing I have going for me right now, because I think it is funny to think of a book club as the best thing someone has going for them at a single moment. But the truth is, it is a sort of self-contained perfect little capsule in the middle of what feels like my otherwise haphazardly led life. It provides me with a great deal of entertainment and a social outlet unlike any I usually experience these days (as in, post-college).

We skipped out on the last portion of the conference because it'd have been useless to us anyway. We read essays from the Sedaris book to eachother on the way home. Three of us got to the library at 6pm to meet our fourth. Doors opened at 6:45 and the talk started at 7:30. I expected a line, and I'm sure there was one, but we wouldn't know because we beat it inside. We were as close as we could be in the auditorium, which was the second row since the first was reserved for who-knows-what-sort-of-important people.

He spoke on his new book, Eating Animals. Before the discussion, I decided to buy one of his books in case the opportunity arose for him to sign it. I got Everything is Illuminated since I already have a copy of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and because the new book was only in hardcover and therefore $13 more and I wasn't all that certain I would even want to read a book on vegetarianism. I don't need to be convinced. It was a decision I would regret.

The talk was really great. He is very well-spoken and intelligent and personable. What was even better was that he led it in a question-answer discussion rather than a lecture. It was an open dialogue about his book and about eating animals. I was very impressed with his disclaimer at the beginning. He's not talking about the morality of eating animals or trying to tell people what they shouldn't eat. It was more of a stating of facts that presumably every American could agree on. "We don't want our meat tortured before its death" and "We don't want our meat pumped so full of hormones that it's affecting the way antibiotics work." Of course, my inclination towards a veg-lifestyle is pretty damn biased.

After the hour-and-a-half long discussion, I decided I may as well get this book signed, since I had bought it and all. So I get at the end of this very long line, which I estimate to have been about 200 people long. I remain at the end and then eventually become third from the end. What I'm trying to say is, I waited a really long time. And I spent the entire time trying to figure out this confliction of who to have the book made out to. Certainly not myself; it would be ridiculous to wait two hours to have a book made out to me. Now if someone else gave be a book with a signature in it, that would be great, but I think half the point of waiting in a line to get a book signed is then giving it to someone you love. I certainly love a lot of people, but I couldn't think of a single one who would necessarily love this gift who I should be giving great presents to. What made it more difficult was that I hadn't read the book, so it would be sort of rude to give the book as a gift, I figured. There are at least five people I would love to give a signed copy of the JSF book I've read. "I loved this book and I think you will love it too." Bam, a great and personal gift. So I thought about the people I know who have some sort of link to what I know about the book based on having seen the movie several times. Jewish, of Eastern European descent, interested in heritage, etc. In the end, I decided to just have him sign the thing. I'd have gotten out of the line if I hadn't waited so long. But I also wanted to talk to him at that point, even if only to tell him about my dilemma or about book club. I honestly think all this overthinking is directly related to all the reading I've been doing about Salinger's Glass family.

So I met Jonathan Safran Foer and, in the end, he questioned my choice and I caved and he made it out to me. I was totally sweating because I had psyched myself out for however long and we said "like the state" in unison, his a question and mine a preempted statement. Then I walked two and a half miles home from the library since I had been sitting most of the day and the weather was nice. Matt met me for the last bit and I relayed my story, losing my voice.