No one ever accused me of being punctual. Or succint.

I just looked at the blog for the first time and days and – as I do frequently – wondered why I even bother with the pretense of having one.  I’ve said it a time or seven, but I believe the falling away from blogging in general can be attributed to the apostasy that is Facebook.  I’ve seriously thought about deleting mine for that very reason.  That and also this fabulous post Jenny Hope wrote when she decided to take a break from hers.  I’m GUILTY, Jenny.  Just plain guilty.  Not certain what route I’ll go with that yet.  Let’s just say I’m still prayerfully mulling.

The lack of writing is certainly not for lack of material.  This week has been pretty darn exciting, actually!  There’s been some work going on behind the scenes on the book.  I finished copy edits this week and the next step will to get my final proof sometime in the beginning of November.   That, my friends, is shriek worthy. 

I have to pause here and give a shout to my peeps at David C. Cook.  Because I never dreamed I would ever have a published book, I never really gave much thought to the personalities of editors and graphic artists and marketing pros, etc., etc.   I can promise you that I never would have expected to find a group of people who are any more hysterical or kind or understanding or encouraging or Jesus-loving than the team at Cook.  They have been flat out GOOD to me – a greenhorn who knows nothing of what she is doing. 

To properly illustrate my point, a couple of weeks ago I got an email from Amy (the Marketing Mgr.) setting a time and date for us to go over the plan for promoting the book.  I’m still flabbergasted over the thoughts of it.  I guess I thought they would just stick it on a shelf and hope you would buy it.  They have plans for making that happen!  Plans!  Plans that I’m dying to hear!  I put the info in my phone calendar and eagerly looked forward to the day because, well,  this experience?  I’m savoring it.  Just in case it’s the first and only time. 

I should further clarify that Amy told me to expect her call at 10 am mountain time.  

Now, to fully understand how that information messed with me you would have to go back four years to when we moved from the Eastern to Central time zone – henceforth known as Fast Time (EST) and Slow Time (CST).   To complicate matters even more, we live very close to the time zone line which means some people/businesses  go by Fast time even though they live in Slow.  I can not tell you how many times I showed up an hour late to an appointment in Fast Time because I couldn’t get it in my head how to convert between the two or I didn’t ask whether a time I’d been given was Fast or Slow.  It still makes my head want to spin off my neck.

Back to the phone appointment.  I knew Mountain Time was an hour off us but I couldn’t get it into my head in what direction so without any educated basis whatsoever I decided I needed to be in my office (that still freaks me out to say) by 9 AM because I’m used to adjusting according to Fast Time when in fact I am Mountain Time’s Fast Time. 

Can you imagine what it’s like to live inside my head?

Anyway, I rushed like a fool that morning not even properly finishing my hair in order to be in my comfy chair on time.  I got there at 8:55 AM.  9 AM comes and goes.  No call.  That’s when I started thinking about the mountain time thing and the light slowly dawned that it was only 8 AM in Amy’s world.  Therefore, I had two more hours.

Idiot moment #1. 

Wait for it.

I went back home to do a little something more to my hair. { It was bad, y’all.}  Went back to the church, studied a while and started getting excited again as 11 AM approached.  That would be 10 AM Slow Slow Time. 11 came and 11 went.  No phone call.

I drummed my fingers on the desk not altogether sure what to do.  If she forgot me then that was cool but do I look like an overzealous, lame, newbie nerd if I email and say, ‘Dear Amy….  Ummm, yeah, hi.  I’ve totally not been waiting since you were still in bed this morning for you to call me.  NO.  Absolutely not.  But, are you?  Going to call me that is?  BECAUSE I’M AN OVERZEALOUS, LAME, NEWBIE.  I hope you don’t think I’m weird.  I just seems that way because I’m savoring.  Savoring every moment.   It’s really okay if you don’t have time to call me today.  If it is more convenient for you then just give me that whole cable guy ‘will be there between the hours of 8 and 5’ and I will happily stare at my phone until you ring it.  Have I mentioned I’m lame?  And overzealous?   Love,  Lisa.” 

Clearly that wasn’t the best option so I decided to email my bff forever Susan who is my developmental editor.  I’m all nonchalantly saying, “Hey, what’s up?  How are you?   BTW,  is Amy in the office today?  We have a phone appointment and I haven’t heard from her.  No big.  Just wonderin’.  Haven’t been waiting by the phone since 7 AM Slow Slow time.  No, not me.”

Susan replies and says, “Ummm.  You are pretty much an idiot.”  Okay, she didn’t really say that but I felt her thinking it.  “You’re appointment with Amy is NEXT Wednesday.”

{In case you missed it, that was Idiot Moment 2.}

Well, of course it is!  I knew that!   Thanks for checking and, if you don’t mind, could you please never tell anyone about this little email exchange?  Because that would just make it official that I’m an OVERZEALOUS, LAME, NEWBIE NERD.

What’s so bad is that I totally DID know that  the date was the 14th but I had put it in my phone for the 7th.  Since I live and die by that calendar, it never occurred to me to, you know, VERIFY that I was in the correct week before I worried about the  Time Zone.   So essentially, I was 1 week and 2 hours early for the appointment which now that I think of it makes me very proud.  I’m never early for anything. 

Do y’all realize that I never even intended on telling you this whole convoluted tale and yet here we are?   And it took me approximately 1 hour to arrive at the end of this post.  To make it not feel like such a colossal waste, let’s say I started it in 8:30 Fast Time and ended it at 7:30 Slow.  

See if you can figure that one out…

Love, 
Lisa