\n

However, it was not all joy. As I was sorting through the books for sale I came across one of mine. A Van Full of Girls. I was astonished to find it because so few were sold, and almost all to friends, family and acquaintances. With mixed feelings I flipped through it, saw that I had actually signed if for Gemma, a dear friend, and decorated it with stickers, drawings and celebratory thoughts. As I was looking at this and thinking about what an asshole Gemma actually was, an icy voice spoke down to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, to come across your own book at a used book fair! How sad!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was, of course, Canadian literary legend Margaret Atwood, who lives in the same neighbourhood as we do and with whom I \u201cenjoy\u201d a \u201crelationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: Oh, it’s you. Kind of surprised you survived that winter.<\/p>\n

Margaret: As Chekov said, \u201c ???? ?? ????????, ????????? ?? ??? ????? ??? ?????.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: Never took you for a Star Trek fan. Thought you were way too pretentious for that.<\/p>\n

Margaret: Of course you did, my poor thing.<\/p>\n

Me: And do you have to wear a cape? Is it enshrined in the constitution or something, or are you just trying to distract people from your hair?<\/p>\n

Margaret: Oh, look. I found another copy of your book.<\/p>\n

Me: NO WAY!!<\/p>\n

Margaret: It looks like Colin– to whom you had written a very wordy, messy and somewhat incoherent message on the title page– is no longer interested in having your book in his house.<\/p>\n

Me: Colin is a dick.<\/p>\n

Margaret: Of course he is, of course he is. And who do we have here?<\/p>\n

Me: Jones, come here, stay away from the scary lady! She’s Vampiro!!<\/p>\n

Jones: Do you know Bigfoot?<\/p>\n

Margaret: I make hotdog and kale soup for him all the time! Oh, he’s a great chap!<\/p>\n

Jones: I want hotdog soup with Bigfoot!!<\/p>\n

Margaret: Well, one day I’ll have you and Bigfoot over and we will have some soup, okay?<\/p>\n

Me: Jones, come here! Jones! Don’t be tricked by her! She’s a liar! She devours little boys!<\/p>\n

Rachelle: Miss Atwood, I just want to say that it’s a real honour to meet you, and that we are all very, very grateful for the beautiful gifts you have given to the world.<\/p>\n

Margaret: And so you are the long-suffering Rachelle? Oh my, how lovely you are! Such a refreshing contrast!<\/p>\n

Me: I’m right here, you know.<\/p>\n

Margaret: Yes, yes I do know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the weekend, Rachelle, Jones and I went to the Palmerston Mayfair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1302,6,1029,79,644,4500,3884,4843,1532,105,38,4844,293,4594],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7438"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7440,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7438\/revisions\/7440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}