Two of hearts
Updated 2002-08-19 17:00:00
Just then, Ron Livingston pops his head into the office. Wow, looks great! Really scruffy and writer-y. I have a real spot in my heart for Office Space; it was so funny and true. Ron, you're all right by me. He apologizes for barging in, and says he just stopped by to use the Xerox machine. Courtney, who looks like she doesn't much care about Ron, asks if he's finished his second book. No, his "suicide note." Carrie laughs. Ron asks if she'd like a "save the date card." Carrie says, "Please." Courtney asks, annoyed, if they know each other. Carrie looks expectant as she shakes her curls "no." Carrie, meet Jack Berger; his novel was published last year. Carrie is all, "And your name is Berger?" Yeah, he never heard of you, either. Jack wrote a "hilarious comic novel that speaks to men the way [Carrie's] column speaks to women." Jack adds, "Except men don't buy hilarious comic novels, that's the flaw in the plan." Well, maybe not straight men. Somewhere in Paris, David Sedaris is laughing at this -- all the way to the bank. And the name of this book? "Half off, it's just...half off. Sometimes it's seventy-five cents in a box on Sixth Ave." Carrie laughs, "Next to the incense." I would have said, "On an old blanket." Courtney says that the two of them should talk, since Jack knows the deal -- "the parties, the signing, the reading, the tour." Carrie smiles beautifully. I love her rhinestone necklace.
Moments later, Jack and Carrie are sitting on a park bench. Oh man, I just thought of Jethro Tull. My bad. They eat McDonald's (note to MPK -- enough already). Carrie slurps on a shake, and Jack tosses fries to the pigeons. He says he's "hitting them" more than feeding them. He pretends to type (a gesture I and many of my writer friends make) and mock-narrates, "Did the man have a little repressed anger in him, the woman wondered? Or did he just hate pigeons?" Carrie says she's "tripping over the word 'repressed.'" Jack says he's "not really bitter, [he's] just trying it on for size." Okay, that's a non sequitur. His lines are to provide character insight. We get it: He's a clever, witty, maybe bitter writer. Check. Carrie says she thinks bitter "fits." He goes on to say that it's "a little tight in the crotch." Carrie blush-blanches, swivels her neck, and says she can't believe he said "crotch" to her. After all, they just met. He offers, "Long in the sleeve?" She admits that it's not as funny as "tight in the crotch." ["Then she admits that she shouldn't write a column about sex, because she's such a damn prude that the word 'crotch' gives her a wig. Shut up, Carrie. God." -- Sars] Jack teases her for having a strawberry shake, and asks if it would be weird if she came with to pick up his dry cleaning. She says it would be weird for him to send her for his dry cleaning. He stands up and offers her his hand, and she kvells over the gesture.