Yammering

Sometimes in my eagerness to make personal connections in the book signing line my mind jumps to inaccurate conclusions, then reinforces them madly. All through Minnesota I kept meeting people who said they’d seen me when I visited Carleton College, and when the very first person said this, I immediately thought of the time I spoke at the Festival of Faith and Writing. And so every time someone said they saw me at Carleton, I spoke effusively of my time there, including how much fun I had sharing a panel with Joshilyn Jackson. The Carleton folks would look a little confused at this, but smiled politely anyway.

Then during the Michigan swing, folks started telling me they’d seen me at the Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing, and without pause I’d yammer like mad about all the Calvin alum I met in Minnesota, and we’d speculate happily on how they all came to wind up there.

Not until I’m all the way back home here in the little room over the garage do I figure out I’ve been conflating Carleton College of Northfield, Minnesota, with Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

So: Carleton, Calvin, I meant what I said, even if you all went home talking about how hopelessly confused that poor boy was.

Figured it out now.

I think.


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