I finished the FAFSA! I finished the FAFSA! Dinner was an hour late because I made Rob sit down with me as soon as he got home and get the parts we had to do together done RIGHT THAT MINUTE, but now it is DONE! I’m glad that the school warned us repeatedly ahead of time that the Expected Family Contribution number would be More Than You Can Possibly Imagine Paying Without Selling Everything You Own. One counselor made little fluttery motions with her hands and referred to it as The Magical Fairyland Number. Another called it a “fake number.”
I read a book recently that I want to recommend:
(image from Amazon.com)
Crosstalk, by Connie Willis. I wish I had made a note of how many pages I suffered through at the beginning, persevering only because Paul had recommended the book to me and I wanted to give it a fair shot. The first section is just a woman being CONSTANTLY PESTERED AND INTERRUPTED, by people and by texts and by phone calls, and it made me feel squirmy and as if I couldn’t breathe. Then there was a plot shift and I was suddenly ALL IN, and STAYED all in even though that interruptive style persists to some extent throughout the book. It was the sort of book I kept being very eager to get back to reading, and I find those are fairly rare. I suggest reading it without reading the flap or finding out anything about it first, to increase the fun of it.
Oh, do you remember the exciting story of our stolen credit card number, the packages arriving at my house but with someone else’s name on them, and then The Mysterious Car Suddenly Parked Across the Street? And how our theory was that the person who took our credit card number might be LOCAL (the name on the package is unusual, and is listed in the phone book with an address just 25 minutes away) (though it would be pretty dim to use one’s own actual name), like maybe a local clerk or someone who put a skimmer on a local gas station pump or whatever? And that although the packages had to be shipped to the address on the credit card, he’d been able to use his own email address, and so had access to tracking info from UPS, and so knew when to sit outside our house to snag the packages? And so then we were KICKING ourselves for not taking down the license plate number?
WELL! Yesterday, THE CAR WAS BACK. I sprang into the action I’d planned while lying awake kicking myself: I sneaked out the side door (not visible from where the car was parked), stealthily crept around the back of my house and up the OTHER side of the house, so that I had a good view of the back of the car but they would not necessarily see ME, depending on how intensive a stake-out they were doing (but I suspected they were keeping an eye out only for the UPS truck). I used the zoom lens and took several clear pictures of the license plate as well as of the entire car. Like a SECRET AGENT! And then I skittered back around the house and safely inside, locking the door immediately and then trembling mightily for like an hour while wondering if I’d be more of a FEDORA-wearing agent or more of a WIG-wearing agent.
Meanwhile I commenced A STAKE-OUT OF MY OWN. Here was my plan. STEP ONE! I would keep an eye out for UPS. STEP TWO! When UPS delivered the packages, I would NOT go out and get them! STEP THREE! When the perp crept snakelike from his car and walked snakelike up the driveway to collect the packages, I would PHOTOGRAPH HIM through the window! STEP FOUR! I would take, like, three powerful tranquilizers and drive to the police station and report the whole thing! It was scary, but I was ON THE CASE!
So then I waited for hours. Every time I had to pee, I was worried I would miss the whole thing. Then Paul came home, and he walked like an ACTUAL secret agent right up to the car and looked inside, and there was no one in there. “A car seat, and a bunch of crumbs,” he reported, agent-style.
Shortly after that, a woman came walking up the street, walked to the car, got in and drove away. So. Er. Evidently I spent all afternoon spying on and photographing a car that had absolutely nothing to do with our credit card. And UPS never came. We don’t know why she was parked there for five hours. Perhaps SHE HERSELF is a secret agent!
I vote TEAM WIG…and maybe you ought to consider a career in private eye-ing?
STORY ARC! How will it resolve?? We await the next chapter, Agent Swistle!
I can envision an ENTIRE SERIES, Sue Grafton style, about Secret Agent Swistle and her sleuthing. You are hilarious and relatable and I would eagerly read Every Single Word.
I also vote Team Wig.
And YAY FAFSA!!!! Congrats on slaying that particular monster!
She’s having an affair a block over. It’s new, so the whole shebang (punny) takes longer than the wham bam it will soon become.
Ooh, I like this theory!
Wig, definitely.
I vote for Special Agent Swistle Series! I love all your writing, but I couldn’t wait to find out what happened. Hilarious, engrossing, and completely relateable!
Connie Willis is one of those writers whose books are a slow build but the payoff is always worth it.
I am loving the Secret Agent stories. Do you listen to podcasts? Oh No Ross & Carrie had a GREAT secret agent caper on their show yesterday. I hesitate to recommend it because it was probably their best episode ever and it would stink to start at the top and go downhill in your listening experience, but…it was so good.
OH MY GOODNESS, I LOVE Connie Willis and I didn’t know she had a new book! Have you read any of her other stuff? It is amazingly engrossing. I highly recommend The Doomsday Book, for starters, and then Blackout and All Clear, but all the others in between are fantastic, too. Read them, do!
YES. The one that most mesmerized me was Passage.
Seconded on Connie Willis. The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog are excellent. I have been carrying around copies of Blackout and All Clear on my To Read list for years. The right moment will present itself though and I will know I waited for a good reason.
Haha I was hanging on every word!! Ok alternate theory: she IS the identity thief, but has a friend (or affair! Shebang, love it) nearby and she passed the time waiting for the UPS truck there bc its more comfortable/it’s more fun. Despite the package being “out for delivery” they never got to that delivery / it was delayed. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!
Omg I’m so enthralled in the secret agent saga.
What was that woman doing then??
Connie Willis is the BEST. My favorite is To Say Nothing of the Dog. It should be a movie.
Maybe the woman is having an affair WITH the UPS man and that is why neither showed up today.
I CAN’T BELIEVE I MISSED A CONNIE WILLIS BOOK SPUTTER
This is going to be my election day present, for absolutely sure. Thank you so much, Swistle.
I may not comment every time you post – but every time you post I make sure I read every single word at least twice. Today, with the whole spy twist, was EPIC!!
Fedora all the way! Glad to have the recommendation for Crosstalk, because I go hot and cold on Connie Willis. Loved Passage and To Say Nothing of the Dog, but hated Blackout and All Clear (if I read the word ‘discrepancy’ one more time I would have lit the book on fire).
The “look how often we get interrupted, mostly because of CELL PHONES” theme in Crosstalk can be…quite irritating. And I am not at all sure about the Fantasy Rescue Man concept as presented. But, I still found I was drawn back to WANTING TO READ IT.
Who in your neighborhood is having an affair? Pick the third way…wig with fedora…and come back with details on the mysterious woman.
That is the BEST story.
This is my new favorite story. Ever.
Yay FAFSA! I am ridiculously proud of you and Rob!!
xox