There’s not a lot of good choices for balloons for a 14 year old boy. I knew he
was past Batman and My Little Pony just isn’t his thing. So last week I got my son a 4 foot wide balloon
with two koala’s hugging..oh, and it played “You Gotta Have Friends” in squeaky
voices when you tapped it. It was just
too weird to pass up.
So, this damn balloon started singing as I walked it down the cereal
isle of the grocery store, then as I stuck it in the car, and
as I tried to stuff it in the closest. And
incidentally I’ve been humming “You’ve Got to Have Friends” for a week now. And because I’m sometimes a little too reflective
for my own good I’ve been thinking about friends…and how yes, I’ve gotta have
them.
When I got two Florida two years ago I said goodbye to some
of the best friends I’ve had in my life: smart women who think deeply, laugh
loudly and understand the joys of tiramisu and chocolate hot lava cake. I got here and found quickly that in this
tiny Southern beach town there would be no Kirsten or Karisa or Jessica clones. People here were REALLY different.
I started hanging out with Lisa, a home school mom. We had kids the same age, but she
wasn’t like my friends. I mean, she has a PICK UP TRUCK. And not just that….I found out she didn’t
vote for OBAMA (either time!!) But in spite of the fact that she probably had never eaten arugula
goat cheese pizza like all my girl friends up North or gone to a John Kerry rally,
I really liked being with her, and so (perhaps like the unlikely Fox and the Hound pair of Disney fame)
our friendship grew, blooming from our our mutual bewilderment overour maturing
teenage boys and our love to laugh at ourselves. Okay. Maybe I was making
friends.
About the time I met Lisa, I met Tim Baker at a local First
Friday event. He was selling his action-thriller
books. Now remember, I just came from
too cool Madison, where writers wouldn't dare sell their books at open air
markets. I was in the processing of self
publishing I Look Better in Binary
and I was feeling awfully insecure about it.
Afterall wasn’t self publishing for people who couldn’t get an agent? So, though this sweet guy, with his long pony
tail and Hawaiian shirt seemed like a very nice fellow and presumably knew a
lot more about Led Zeppelin than I ever would, I was hesitant to connect. Certainly he was not friendship material.
Fast forward to Halloween of this year. At this point I had decided to embrace this
whole self publishing thing (only I was calling myself an indie publishing. Yes, way
cooler). I had just released the first book
in my Hungry Ghost series, Food for a Hungry
Ghost. My marketing efforts were beginning to pay off and I got a little feature in the paper.
A day after the article ran I got a message from ArmandRosamilia, a guy who’s profile picture could have passed for “Motorcycle Tough
Guy #4” in the credits of every action movie you’ve ever seen. He told me he was a horror writer who was
looking to connect with other writers.
Now, I may not have ever hung out with any tough guy movie
extras or zombie writers with wild goatees, but remember I was now hanging out with a woman with a pick-up truck. At this point hanging out with indie authors didn’t seem so bad.
It turns out Armand was best friends with Tim Baker (you
know, the Led Zeppelin, pony tail guy). The
three of us got to talking and I realized in spite of our obvious differences (eg.
they don’t eat arugula goat cheese pizza OR love to shop at TJ Maxx) we had a
lot of common goals and we started selling our books together.
So the week before Christmas, I sat outside all weekend and pedaled my book with these two unlikely characters. And though we weren’t eating tiramisu and discussing good places to have our hair done, I was having fun.
Tim, Armand and I have toured the area selling our books at ChangeJar Books, Nerdz Comics, Kokomo’s café…really any venue that will tolerate
three authors with a very twisted sense of humor. And now we have a name for ourselves “Ghosts,
Ghouls and Gumshoes”. Pretty darn cool.
So, when that koala-balloon-that-will-never-die floats into the
living room tonight and starts shrilly reminding me “You Gotta Have Friends” I
can say proudly, “Hey freaky balloon, you know what? I’ve got friends. They may not be experts on puff
pastries or fine red wine
…but they really do make me laugh.
