The Man From Milwaukee

(Five days later on the sofa, watching Grey’s Anatomy, which I never ever watch – but, no joke, it is incidentally on after Top Gear, which incidentally motivated me immensely. Especially because the star in the reasonably priced car – some delightful young man who won X-Factor or something – noting a lot of television references here, yea? Well, it’s just a testament of our time and my television-myth reared generation – and this young man seemed to have the best time ever. So here it goes:)

Anyway – so we are at this conference with those clever internet people and there are of course organised social outing. The term they use is ‘Networking Party’ which is really just code for: there is a tab on the bar, have yourselves a grand ole time. Which is why Work-Buddy (whom I have to ask whether she would mind me using her real name because this is getting ludicrous) and I are swinging our hoofs across the bridge into the wild Sydney nightlife – where there are five people sitting in a closed group because we are too early.
The venue is nice though. One of those fashionable little cocktail bars where the cool people mingle and shmingle; with gorgeous girls walking around serving us “winebeerandhouspirits” because we wear the little yellow armbands you have to show to get free drinks. As it slowly fills up an astonishing fact comes to the fore: One is allowed to smoke in this place. Yes, you heard that right. One may light and enjoy a cigarette indoors.
And thank God for that – because if there was no smoking in this delightfully pretentious harbour viewing cocktail bar, I would not be about to have the life-changing conversation I am about to have.

Cue Life-Changing Conversation:

“May I have a cigarette?”
It’s the man from Milwaukee. Remember, the one who told me all about Google changing it’s algorithm in the conference lecture earlier. And, as I am a generous spirit, he may have a cigarette. While I'm rolling my own he smoothly steers the conversation onto the next topic.
“Are you married?”
“No,” I say (completely oblivious that there is a life-changing conversation going on), “but I might as well be.”
The man from Milwaukee has a displeased kind of face now.
“Why? Are you looking to make out?”
See, I am great at communicating. Subtle, sensitive and with plenty of style.
“I’m between wives at the moment,” the man from Milwaukee says without blinking an eye. “I thought you might like a house.”
Now, how likely is it to truly find an instant spiritual kin at what is technically classed as a work event? Not overly. However, it was what happened.
For the next half hour, over many guava-vodkas and red wines, the man from Milwaukee and I exchanged drunken witticisms.

(Before I get to the point here, let me pay my utmost respects to the man from Milwaukee and also his hairy friend who joined us later. You - Gentlemen - are the most hilarious and interesting random strangers to cross my path in a long, long time. Let me tell you, the excellence of this evening was such that an imprompty duett performance of The Aristocrats is the last thing I can recall before stumbling into the cosy room I shared with Work-Buddy. I salut you, troups, a class act indeed.)

Back to the life-changing conversation now:
“So what do you really want to do?” asks the man from Milwaukee.

(Isn’t it great how people always assume – and most often rightly so – that whatever you do to pay the rent is not something we enjoy doing? Doesn’t say something about the respect we allegedly have for all the people employed in sensible office jobs? I’m not saying that he didn’t have a point. I’m not employed in my ideal occupation; I would be very sad if say a year from now I would still be writing about horses running in large circles in the English country side. )
So I say to the man from Milwaukee, I say:
“I really would like to write books.”
“You’re not doing something silly like trying to get a publisher to buy your book, are ya?”
He could not be more patronising if he actually was my father.
“Actually, I’m being silly trying to get an agent to be silly and try to get a publisher to buy my book.”
See, I’ve got a plan, man from Milwaukee, and it’s a darn good and well-thought out one.
“Don’t do that,” he snaps. “Publish it on Lulu. Haven’t they taught you anything at university?”

End Life-Changing Conversation.

And just like that, potentially, my luck is changed.
See, when I check this thing out later, this Lulu business, it turns out the man from Milwaukee may have been drunk but not full of it. Lulu does in fact exist and one can publish ones book on demand over the internet. And yes, they put them on Amazon. Now, the man from Milwaukee reckons that of you get about forty people to buy your book within the first week of it coming out, it will be placed on the best seller list on Amazon.
Which is why I, thanks to the pearls of wisdom presented to me without any warning, believe that if I surrender my technophobia to the higher purpose of my stellar career, could launch a twitter and facebook campaign to end all campaigns and actually get my first novel out there.
This, by the way, is not the novel – that would taken too long and I would probably get distracted. This is more the making of. The making of getting me into the reasonably priced car. There’s a grammatically correct sentence for you.

The novel that will go on Lulu is a little something I prepared earlier. Beautiful one of my hilarious, clever and deeply satiric masterpieces; which was rejected in last years Vogel Awards. Hopefully they now see the error of their ways. Hehe. Big and arrogant words for someone who has to do her own marketing. (But hey, it’s DIY Or Die for the independent maker of things.)
The plan is to give the novel the once, twice or thrice over and make it into one suave, kick-ass piece of writing, then input the bastard into the world wide webster and start blowing my own horn as if my life depended on it. Which it does, at least the life that I would like to lead.

(You gotta wonder what the problem is? That we have too little opportunity to get a really dreamy life situation, namely a great job we love; or that our world has degenerated in a way that makes your life synonymous with your work? Or, haha, if we do have just ridiculously high expectations and are not satisfied with just having a job and live outside of it. It’s because we want meaning, don’t we. And if what we spend most of our time doing has no meaning, which is sadly going to the jobs which pay the bills, then our life in general does not have meaning. Therefore we must strive to live of some kind of noble activity, or one we really enjoy (but it can’t be menial like accountancy and copywriting), in order to have what we can proudly – this being the operative word, proudly – call a happy and meaningful life. What bollocks.)