Update: I originally wrote this last night, I’ve rewritten the last two paragraphs because they were essentially unreadable. Now, I’m going to watch Revolver.
Kim decided to go see a movie with ‘the girls’ this evening, so Abby was left with me. She was fussy at first, but by the time I had her diaper changed, the car loaded, and the baby Bjorn adjusted, she was pretty much conked out. We met her uncle Brian at Starbucks, she woke up to eat and all that, and then he left and we went to Borders, because it’s her favorite.
I found the Orson Scott Card book I was looking for, “Characters and Viewpoint” and Abby got to ride around in her Bjorn. She really enjoys that thing, it settles her right down. That is, until I try to pull her out.
Oddly, the attendant told me that I was the second person wearing a baby (bjorn) who asked him where the books on writing were.
I was thinking about the odds of it. In the same day, two people wearing a baby went to the same Borders and asked the same employee where the “writing” section was. Maybe there’s someone else out there who looked at his daughter, who held her, who kissed her face, and said to himself, “Self…I can’t keep leaving her. There’s got to be a better way to live.” And if he does exist, I’d love to meet him. I’d love to talk to him over a cup of coffee, to figure out what he thinks about writing, and art and music, family and manhood, to see how similar we are.
He may exist, but I’d like to posit another possible reality…What if, in the future, I invent a time machine. I go back in time to get the last copy of a discontinued first edition of an important writing book. Since my future self was wearing a baby, it must have been a very near-future me. And if I was willing to risk Abby in a dangerous and untried time travel machine, the book must be extremely important. Despite my future-self knowing where the writing books were, I’d have to ask that attendant about it, to set the ball in motion…And that’s why I have to take Abby, so the attendant makes the connection and makes that comment to now-me, so now-me will know that the other guy is really future-me, and understand what I need me to do! If that’s the case, I need to go get started on my time machine right now!