Heights and Depths

December 31st, 2007

Last night I put up a video diary entry about my day, but I just took it down because it showed my plumber and I didn’t have her permission to broadcast her all over YouTube. Here’s a synopsis of the  movie, though, in case you’re interested in following the ensuing comments.

Yesterday began in a rather glamorous way. I received copies of the Portuguese edition of my memoir Fun Home in the mail. Then the UPS guy brought a box of fancy truffles from my lecture agent. These were all kinds of weird flavors like dark chocolate with ginger, wasabi, and black sesame seeds. Then things suddenly took a turn for the prosaic when the plumber arrived to auger out my clogged drains. There was all this cool noisy footage of her working the snake down into the black sludge. Then we cut away briefly to my cat, who is grooming her nether regions. I ask her how much she thinks the plumber will cost. The last shot is of my bill, for $380.