June 19, 2002

Today is the day to listen to what you consider to be a very underrated song, like "Mandocello," for instance.

Crap. I missed "American Idol." Somebody fill me in. I can tell you about John Leguizamo's show "Sexaholix." Trade.

The tenses in this story are a roller-coaster ride of unpredictability. It's not that I don't realize this. I am just lazy.

8

Hmm. Maybe before we discuss George Foreman's reunion with his former lover and equal in all things intelligence, unattractiveness and obnoxiousness, Lillibet, we ought to get up to speed on what the other people (so far) in George's life are up to. For clarification. As we know, so far, George, the most brilliant writer in the world, at 24, is suffering from writer's block for the first time in his life. And at the same time, people around him, even people who have never written before, people that he has found extraordinarily beneath him in intellect and basic wit, are finding inspiration.

1. His sister Meredith, of course, was working on a novel with the help of her editor-friend Ginger Thompson. Ginger was seeing this work as definite Oprah material. (For the record, the author of this story has read and enjoyed some Oprah books and is not passing judgment upon them at all.) And of course, neither did Meredith or Ginger. Meredith was just hoping to earn some money for a new washer and dryer. And to show up her brother George, of course.

2. Henry Geflen, George's mentor-type person from his university, was in the midst of working on a new thesis. Over the years, due to his mediocre teaching and shoddy personality, the college drew nearer to firing him, and thus he was working on this thesis with no grant money. Now that's dedication. This thesis would eventually be published, make him famous in small nerdy scholastic circles, bring him tenure and earn him the professorial equivalent of a trophy wife (in other words, a middle-aged woman named Carol. Geflen would be getting no hot freshman chicks, that's for sure.) Also, the school would be so blown away that they would actually consider mentioning him by name in their catalogue.

3. So far George's sweet elderly father, Barry (at least that's what we're calling him today) had not progressed much since his letter to the sports section of his town paper. However, eventually, at his daughter's prodding, he would write an essay about hockey in the 1950's that would be published in a small but respectable sports literary journal.

But that's not all...

4. George's brother Tom received an email informing him that somebody had a crush on him, and all he needed to do was write out the names of people whom he thought might have a crush on him, and he would discover who the secret crusher was. Tom, being a simple mechanic (No, not simple because he is a mechanic, he simply happens to be simple and a mechanic) went through this whole process. Could it be Annmarie from high school? Or maybe that next-door neighbor, Therese. Was it possible that that woman on the bus had...? Tom realized how ridiculous he was and stopped and looked at all the names and reminisced. He reminisced so hard that he actually wrote down the names and stories of these women. This would turn out to be no big deal (although had he tried, it could have possibly been accepted on one of those fun Internet literary sites) but it was the first time that Tom had voluntarily put pen to paper, perhaps in his entire life.

5. George's mother, after 40 years of submitting, finally had a joke accepted by Readers Digest. She was thrilled. As well she should be.

6. George's next-door neighbor got a think piece published in "Vanity Fair." Her story, both personal and literary, are unremarkable, but it is just another example of people close to George (even in literal proximity) were finding success with writing.

And there are more but you're probably getting the idea by now.

Back to George. He stepped off the bus to see Lillibet waiting impatiently at the restaurant. It was warmer than he anticipated and sweat rolled down his pale back beneath his red T-shirt. His thighs chafed each other beneath his ill-fitting khaki's.

"This had better be good," Lillibet thought, as she saw George lumber towards the restaurant. She thought of her current boy-genius-boy-toy, Sven (always in rotation, they were. It was amazing that she could find all these good-looking, charming, and talented men), and wondered what she ever saw in George.