meeting Roz Chast, SAME

Last week cartoonist Roz Chast delivered a lecture and slideshow in my little concert hall. When she arrived for the sound and tech check, I was ready with the most recent New Yorker, arrived just that day. I didn't even know if any of her cartoons were in it, and apologized, because a usually check the cartoons first. But I passed the mail carrier on my way out the door and hadn't had time to look through.

"There are two kinds of people in the world," she said. "the people who look through the cartoons first, and liars."

She was very gracious about signing my copies, and when she looked around for a surface and didn't find one, just plopped down on the floor. 

As we were wrapping up the sound and tech check, she was explaining that there was some something wrong with the connection with the power cable, and sometimes it seems like it's plugged in but it's not actually charging. 

That reminded me of Eli's troubles, so I said, "My son had an incident where some something was wrong with his laptop, a few years ago, when he was studying abroad in Thailand. One day he fired up the power and a whole swarm of ants came pouring out of the machine! They'd made a nest inside it!"

"No," Roz said. "No. That was a movie? That couldn't be REAL LIFE?!"

"Yes! Real life!"

"Oh. My. God. Oh, God. What a horror!"

"I know!"

"That reminds me," she said. "I saw one of those click bait articles about a woman who had a cockroach IN HER SKULL." Then she did a full body shudder.

"Oh!" I said, "I think I saw that one, but I didn't click."

"I clicked! I clicked! And I wish I hadn't!"

"Didn't it crawl up her nose?! Wouldn't you feel that? Was she asleep?!"

Ms. Chast shuddered again, and said, "I blocked all the rest out. I can't remember. Let's talk about something else."

Me, giant, with tiny Liz, Roz Chast SAME, and Serni

I've lived in the Pacific Northwest for more than half my life now, but lived in Connecticut as a child. Roz Chast has all the vocal and expressive quirks of a Jewish woman from New York, which was surprisingly wonderful and comforting to see and hear. I have just one friend who is from NYC, and she talks in just the same way, and had similarly eccentric parents who'd also escaped from Europe prior to WWII, just like Roz Chast's. I hadn't fully realized that my friend is part of a tribe, the same one that Ms. Chast described with endearing but brutal honesty. 

And that got me to wondering about transplants and tribes and homes we didn't know we were missing.

Often I scoot out of the concert hall to head home as soon as I know we're rolling and all is well. But I stayed for the whole talk, and was glad I did. Highlight of the year so far.