People We Meet 2.0

I enjoy meeting new people.  I periodically like to throw myself into situations where I don’t know anyone.   I usually choose venues where I can be around people with similar interests.  You won’t find me hanging out at a bar but you might find me wandering around an art festival or book fair.  Last fall, I went to a writer’s workshop about publishing and hoped to meet fellow writers. 

I happened to "meet" two people during the afternoon workshop session when the moderator released us for a break.   He said, “Be back in 15 minutes” but what they must have heard was, “Ready, set …complain!”   They sounded worse than kids forced to eat a plate of liver with sides of beets and broccoli.   Yet, this was a meal they didn’t have to keep eating.  At any moment they could have excused themselves.  Was it the registration fee that held them in place?  I made the mistake of turning around to look at these sad souls.  They locked eyes with mine and assumed that I too was a part of their struggle.   

They were an interesting pair.  He was thin with light-brown, 1970’s David Cassidy hair.  He wore 80’s styled jeans and a washed-out t-shirt.  A scowl seemed etched into his crypt-like face.  She too, was stuck somewhere in time.  Her blouse had pink and blue flowers and her skirt was long and light blue.  Her thin, bottle blond hair with grey roots was trying to hold on long enough to crumple about her shoulders.  Some middle-age women are cute and plump with a distinct style- always announcing their arrival.  She was not one of them.   Her face was red, accentuated by stubbornness and bewilderment.

For some reason, I was more amused than annoyed by them.   I was having such a fabulous time that it hadn’t occurred to me that others weren’t.  The man and woman were so in sync that I wrongly assumed they were a couple.  When one paused the other began, quite effortlessly.  They didn’t like the breakout sessions focusing on specific genres like fiction or memoirs.  And the workshop should only focus on specific steps to getting published.   The last speaker, a successful author and editor, asked if we were really ready to publish.  To this they took high offense. She once told a writer that there were only 10 good pages that should be kept out of the 80 page document that had been written.  To that, the man said, “What does that have to do with getting published?”   I'm thinking it had everything to do with publishing but I smiled anyway.  The woman couldn’t wait to add, “Yeah, and they assume that everyone here is a writer! Not everyone wants to write a book.”    I guess she failed to read the first sentence of the promo for the workshop: Our popular annual seminar provides writers with the information they need to publish their work in print or e-book format in today's changing digital landscape. 

At some point, I broke in and asked the woman, “Oh, so what are you working on and what are you trying to do?’  I wanted to hear about this great artistic expression that will change the world.  She said that she wasn’t sure.  A while ago she started a blog and posted 6 times but then she got busy trying to help her husband with his business so she hadn’t been able to get back to it.  I looked to her sidekick and thought surely he must have something to offer but he too had nothing.  I nodded as if I understood while backing away.  I reminded them of the break because now I really needed one.  They stayed.

As I turned, I could hear the woman once more…”And you know what else?...” 

Note:  After receiving feedback from my writing group and a few more revisions, I decided to repost People We Meet which was originally posted on November 2013.