Ideas to Reality

I learned about Lindy West's book talk in October via her Instagram. Lindy West is my favorite writer and has been for eight years. I've never laughed so hard reading essays, thought so deeply reading tweets. I set an honest-to-god alarm to go off when the tickets went on sale. I invited Lo. Then I invited Tira, who said "okay" and invited her gf as well.

I had a single ticket sent to my apartment. Monday I planned to arrive at the venue an hour before start so I could ensure four (good) seats together. Traffic was worse than anticipated, so I only arrived half an hour early. I was shocked to find only about fifteen women milling around and tons of empty seaties. I checked in to get my hardcover book. The nice lady couldn't find my name but finally announced, "Oh, you were in a section for paper tickets. You're the only one who had a physical ticket sent to you via mail." I needed the hard ticket for scrapbooking.

I sat down in the fourth row and my friends came soon after. This is what we did with our nights. We got four books, we spent an hour. Lo & I walked down the big event space hill to a French bistro and I got a cheese plate. It all happened because it was an idea, and the idea came to fruition. When I posted the pictures on Insta, several friends DM'd to say they were jealous. I wish I had invited more folks! More folks whose evenings/lives would have been altered by an idea.

The most powerful idea West shared with us (for me) was that sometimes it seems things will never change, or only get worse. But remember cigarettes in bars? When that legislation was presented even she (a non-smoker) rallied against it. "Cigarettes are part of bars! You can't tell us what to do! Even if it passes, we will revolt!" But look, after ten minutes, no one cared. Now if you were to see someone smoking in a bar you'd grow deeply concerned, maybe even scared. It would be uncanny.