vaccinating my legacy

A public appearance for me is like a shot.

It is painful and subject to much preliminary dread.

When I was a child I was infamous for my desire so much to avoid needles that I required dentists to work on me without anesthetic and when I was in the hospital, almost dead, when I was 13, I more than once refused a shot that would have at least taken the edge off the pain. Call it phobic, if you will. I have gotten better...and although I still do not like needles, I can just grit my teeth and bear it.

But readings and signing, still a time of dread. I know the necessity of them, I know it full well. I am just not, of a nature, someone who enjoys the spotlight. I have had to learn to adapt parts of my self to that mode, but I resent it. It brings out the insecure kid in me, who has to, on that fulcrumed point of adrenaline, either stand and fight - or flee. Haven't fled yet, before a read, although there are many stories of me vanishing immediately after a read. It's probably the one time in my life when I wish I had taken to drink to numb myself.

Once I know I am to appear, I try to not think about it until I am in a tranquil space, then I do a flurry of activity to decide what to read. Selection is important, and difficult, as my catalog is a little absurdly large (13,000 give or take a few dozen, I hear).

This Barnes and Noble signing/reading on the 22nd of April is problematic. I am more comfortable reading than signing...I can disconnect from an audience (ever see me read? note my fondness for sunglasses, or the way I will focus on one person in the room...it was easier when I was married...I was expected to focus on my wife)...I can't from people who engage me in conversation, not without seeming and being rude, and I don't like being rude. I remember being accused of it, more than once, as a teenager, when it was actually shyness, not arrogance, that kept me from engaging (it gave those wanting to pull practical jokes on me a great source of amusement, which didn't exactly help me come out of that at all. I've got some great stories about people making phone calls to me, pretending to be others, or sending girls letters signed with my name, for a laugh. We were a cruel little microcosm.)

But, I digress (I know, EJ., that does seem to be a common word with me...). Part of what confounds me about this appearance is I am promoting two books that do not have my best audience poems for reading...and even with that disclaimer, there are over 700 poems in play if I limit myself to just these. Pick ten from 700. Now.

Another part is that they will try to have me seated. I hate sitting. I will have to negotiate for a lectern to sign books on.

::sigh:: Negotiate.

I hate negotiating. It brings out the competitor in me, and he's a guy I like to keep locked up about six sub-basements and a hot acid moat away. I don't like him, never have. He steps on people, he presumes what he wants is as important or moreso than what others want, which isn't true. I've already gotten just about everything out of this life I am going to get - less than I want, but more than I deserve.

All I fight for now is the happiness of my children and control of my legacy. The creation of the viral memoirs plan helped the latter, immensely. If I am going to have to go through with my sons the alienation I have gone through with my daughter, I am not sure I want to stick around for the former. Indeed, it seems that Peri is much happier with me gone than present.

And you want me to get worked up over two hours standing in the corner of a bookstore while people walk by, their eyes averted, wondering who the funny man is?

Well, you got your wish. And I cringe, a month before, thinking of the needle. Knowing the inevitability of the adrenaline, and that guy in the dungeon picking the locks, to escape for a few hours. Because I have to let him out, to vaccinate my legacy.