Are you on Team Pam or Team Karen? (Note: If you are on Team Karen, I don't want to be friends anymore.)

REMINDER: Come see me read at Little Professor Books in Homewood, Alabama the day after Thanksgiving (Nov. 24th) at 1 PM.

FURTHERMORE: Via Claire Zulkey, it has come to my attention that there is apparently a real American whose real God-given name is Outerbridge Horsey. And people think my character names are a stretch.

I'm on my way to Nashville, Tennessee today to attend the National Conference of Teachers of English. And I was thinking about how my 11th grade self (who had to write a paper about Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye over the summer to raise his English grade from an F to a D) would feel about my speaking in front of a bunch of English teachers, so I decided to go back in time and have a conversation with my 11th grade self:

Me: Hey, John.

11th Grade Self: Hey, fatso. How the hell did you get so fat?

Me: Well, when you get older, you marry this really hot girl who cooks really well. Plus, it turns out you can't just keep eating hamburgers indefinitely.

11th Grade Self: Who's the girl?

Me: Sarah Urist.

11th Grade Self: We marry Sarah Urist?!

Me: Yeah.

11th Grade Self: Seriously?!

Me: Yeah.

11th Grade Self: And she's still hot?

Me: She's really, really hot.

11th Grade Self: That's so awesome! I can't believe such a fat bastard got Sarah Urist to marry him. Did she go blind or something?

Me: You know you're making fun of yourself.

11th Grade Self: Sorry. You're just--I mean, really fat. So what's up?

Me: When you grow up, you become a writer.

11th Grade Self: Cool.

Me: And then you get invited to attend a conference of English teachers.

11th Grade Self: For real?

Me: Yeah. And you have to talk to a bunch of English teachers, but you feel like kind of an imposter, because--you know.

11th Grade Self: Because we suck so bad at English?

Me: Actually, we dont suck at it, exactly. You just skip class all the time.

11th Grade Self: It's a morning class. I have a moral opposition to morning classes.

Me: That's a poor excuse.

11th Grade Self: And plus Holly Brown has that period free and I'm trying to get her to go out with me.

Me: Yeah. By the way, that doesn't work.

11th Grade Self: Bummer.

Me: 'Fraid not, bud. So what should I tell the English teachers? I mean, I feel ridiculous standing up there since I was, like, such a miserable person to have in class.

11th Grade Self: Tell them to schedule their classes for the afternoon.

Me: You're rather insolent.

11th Grade Self: Yeah, whatever. Hey, while you're here will you buy me some cigarettes?

Me: You know it's really freaking miserable when we finally have to quit smoking.

11th Grade Self: Yeah, but that's your problem.