Okay, so I’m having this reading tomorrow at Barnes & Noble. It’s my first public appearance as a haiku author, and while I have some idea of what I’m going to do, or at least how to fake it, I’m still kind of freaking out and nervous and excited and proud and brimming with all sorts of emotions about the whole thing.
And E.S. isn’t coming.
He says he’s “on overnight call” at the “hospital” and has to stay there to “take care of” his 17 “patients” who are “mentally ill.”
This all sounds like hogwash to me. His priorities are obviously drastically misplaced.
So my question to you is: how should I punish him?
Punishment? The answer is so obvious, I’m surprised you even ask–though I do wonder for how long you could actually withhold sex….
By acting mentally ill enough for more than 17 people?
You’ve just used scare quotes. Surely he (and the rest of us) have been punished enough.
That would be punishment for Faustus not E.S.
You could punish him by giving him a private reading…
Continue to be his boyfriend.
Whipped cream and handcuffs,nuff said
After the reading, tell him that you were hit on by countless hot men and that, because they were your readers, you couldn’t reject their dinner offers. Proceed to “meet” with “fans” for “dinner” for the next 7 days.
Post naked pictures of him here on your blog.
Make him the subject of your next haiku book.
Give him a box of chocolates and a home cooked meal. Unless you can’t cook, in which case buy him one.
You mean, make him the subject of another haiku book?
Buy him one of our “God hates divorce” t-shirts and make him wear it to your next signing.
Compose several new works of Haiku on the subject of his faults and then read them at Barnes & Noble. Make sure you’re videotaped doing this.
Hope it goes well!!
Make us proud.
Just be grateful.
The last thing you need is your nearest and dearest giving you a cogent and accurate analysis of your performance on the way home in the taxi.
Lauren: I wuz robbed.
Make him read my blog.
Jeffrey, I was going to suggest the same thing–seeing as how E.S. made the same threat last year….
I think that you should start randomly signing his possessions for, oh, the next six or seven months.
I discovered your blog via Gothamist and have enjoyed using it to distract myself from my work for days now. Also, it’s pretty. Good luck with your book!
Roy
Great job tonight and a full house. And you outed E.S. It has not been a good month for anonymity in the Faustus household.
Congrats
An entertaining reading, indeed. The one-time book marketer in me greatly admired your blend of “sampling” (from the new book), “preview” (an entertaining passage from your next bestseller), and “brand establishment” (displaying the wit, insight, theatricality, command of language, and generally irresistable charm of “Joel Derfner,” an author who would be FABULOUS with Oprah.)
As for “punishing” the Significant Other, I’ll shake my grey locks and give you a word of warning from my own 14 years of experience: no matter what you do, he’ll know you don’t really mean it. This is one of the lesser-known (if more helpful) ways in which love makes us all blind.
I can’t believe that no one answered the punishment question with “Sleep with your dog’s veternarian.”