"Good morning, Wonder," I said. "I'm happy to see you."
"Have you been up all night, working on that book?" she said.
"Not that book," I said. "It's called Out of the Blue, and no, I've been wrestling with a decision regarding the end of the world as we know it."
"Right," she said and if she seemed to be less than sympathetic it's because that's exactly what she was less than, and before you judge, let me assure you she has a right. It isn't easy living with The Genome.
I aspire to be a rational, level-headed--if that's the term--adult. I make reasonable plans that outline the proper steps. So far so good, but then when the curtain goes up I forget all my lines. No amount of cajoling can motivate me to leave the wings to strut across the stage playing my part. I don't trust myself to do the right thing and, this is the worst part, I don't trust the advice of anyone else. I don't suppose you've had the experience yourself?
"I want to hand the thing over to my agent," I said, "before I get around to it, I change my mind; I want to publish it myself, keeping all control, you know." I was silent for a moment musing on something I'd heard somewhere. Probably in a song. "It's like that mountain," I said at last.
"Mountain?" she said.
"You know," I said, "First there was a mountain, then there was no mountain, then there was. That mountain."
"Donovan," she said or at least that's what it sounded like to me. I believe it's one of the prehistoric eras but I'm not sure about it. You may be more familiar with the term.
"Between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first notion," she said, "all the interim is like a hideous dream and the state of man like to a little kingdom suffers an insurrection."
"I couldn't have put it better myself," I said "but why are you talking like that?"
"Shakespeare," she said, and then added, "Julius Caesar."
Well, it's always hard to know what to say when someone hands you lines like those. First Donovan and now Shakespeare and Julius Caesar! I began to wonder if she'd taken my meds instead of hers. It's the same problem I have trying to respond to the Muse and the Saint pre-coffee. But I responded in the best way I knew how on the spur of the moment.
"Your first guess is usually the correct one," I said, "so I'd guess Shakespeare. Sounds more like his stuff than something Caesar would say."
"In Hamlet, he described it as like the poor cat in the adage."
"Then I'm sure it was Shakespeare," I said, "we read Hamlet in Norbert Kier's class in high school and I'm pretty certain he wrote it. Shakespeare I mean, not Mr. Kier."
"I know who wrote it," she said. "It was in the play Julius Caesar."
I mused through a few moments of silence, wondering why she kept referring to me as Julius Caesar. I finally decided to go with this, "You know, Wonder, I think you're on to something. I seem to remember someone else saying something similar. Something about the spirit being willing but the feet were cold."
"Jesus Christ," she said.
"Ms. Wonder!" I said. "Language!. You may have ancestors who dumped palace waste into the Winter Canal and polluted the River Neva but my ears are not garbage cans."
"May I make a suggestion?" she said and I'm sure you can imagine the relief I felt that she was about to offer help.
"Do," I said.
"You might consider writing an email to yourself with a detailed explanation of your logical and reasonable thought processes. Then, in the future, when you feel unsure of your next step, you can refer to the email and know that you are getting sound advice."
"Send an email into the future addressed to me?" I said.
"Precisely," she said.
"Ms. Wonder!" I said with not a little enthusiasm. "You are one of a kind. You do know everything no matter how much you deny it."
"Not at all," she said. "I'm happy to help in any way I can."
"You know at least as much as Shakespeare," I said, "and he seemed to hear all the gossip. Thank you immensely."
"Not at all," she said.