I didn’t mention it, but when I was in Maine we went to a party. It was one of those ‘hey-pals-let’s-finish-those-leftovers!” kinds of parties. My friend Wynn calls it “Thanksgiving Rewind”. The hosts were good friends of my host. It was a nice enough party in a cool house with cool guests. Like really cool guests. Like no-offense-maine,-but-where-did-all-these-hipster-cool-people-come-from? cool.
What I’m trying to say is that they were cooler than me. Which isn’t hard to do, but I thought maybe in Maine, coming from the greater-chicagoland-area – i thought maybe that would give me some leverage. not so much.
Turned out I had met a couple of them before – the last time I went to Maine when I went to see entirely different people. There were people at this party who were from Brooklyn and from Berkeley and from Maine, of course.
I was feeling shy and tired so mostly I hung out with my nephew who was also feeling a little tired and shy. For a while we sat on the couch with a guy who looked just like this guy:
In fact, it was this guy.
Michael Chabon. Pulitzer prize winner, O.Henry award winner. He wrote The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Wonder Boys and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.
But he was just at this party with his wife and their kids, hanging out with their friends and for a brief moment sitting on a couch with me and my nephew.
And it’s silly now, to feel so excited to have not exactly met a writer I really, really admire. You’d think I’d be disappointed that I didn’t know who he was by face, but I’m not. I’m excited to know that he was just a nice guy at a little party in Maine playing with his kids and snuggling his wife and eating leftovers.
But now when that conversation comes up when people rattle off the famous people they’ve met, I might add this one to my list – right after the one I tell about meeting John Wayne on an elevator.
Another story for another day.
