When you go on stage with 2000+ readers who chant how much they love you and you do this week after week and make them all want to come back... that's when you turn into and ESFP for two hours.
Not an extrovert? Have you not heard where he does most of his writing? Like at parties? Does that sound INxx to you?;)
But I'm sure he does sometimes need that IxF time to get deeper into things as well...
But that's an occasional thing.
As I've stated first, it's ENTP above all. With the unending Ne function of exploration and testing new ideas at forefront.
Unconvinced or don't trust me? Use that google page and tell me where it took you.
But you don't have to, I'd know, I often test as one too.
At Freightliner we had to take a similar test. I scored exactly even across all four categories, which the instructor said meant "creative/open/something-something."
If you ever get to Colorado Springs, I'll take you on a whirlwind tour of Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak. If you get to stay longer, I'll take you to the top of Pikes Peak (14,110 ft) and get your a world famous high-altitude donut (the recipe doesn't work at the base of the mountain).
I completely believe you about the Imodium. That would be awful.
I once opened an (unlocked) connecting door in a hotel room in Australia in a 'this must be the bathroom...' way. There was a naked chinese man lying on a bed who screamed and ran at me with a glass in his hand. I sat on my bed listening to him piling up things against the door and thought exactly the same. NO connecting doors.
That hotel should have had deep fried ravioli on the menu, the one food St. Louis is famous for. Damn I am disappointed for you. Who knew the life of a writer was almost identical to the life of a focus group moderator, travel-wise.
I’m curious as to what danger lurks on that seemingly innocuous street. What has the doorman seen that prompts him to warn guests of the street like some kind of cloaked sage from a grim fairy tale?
To share and relate, when my family heads down to The gulf side of Florida to work our continued concession stand season after Ohio’s has completed, fast food and gas station meals (or left overs from the stand) are your meals. My Uncle knows every little dive, donut shack or family rib joint by heart at each spot we stay. It’s nothing but hotels for months. Once, waking up at just the right time, I was drinking coffee on the baloney of whatever hotel we were at and was able to see a space shuttle launch. The most fun I ever had was meeting up with locals to go swamp buggy-ing down in the Everglades. The sun setting was movie-esque and the colors were vibrant purples, blues, oranges—yellows— colors this Ohio girl only sees muted in the skies here. We stayed in rented mobile homes, fished for mullet for dinner and had drinks in the tiki hut after serving up the most effing seafood I’ve ever seen in my life fly out of our stand. Watching GIANT grouper come off fishing boats was like being at the Natural History Museum in Pittsburgh. Beautiful colors or red. Had the best damn crab cakes ever at the warf. Man— rockstar life of a concession stand family is cool. Rascal Flatts played the festival that year— they had dinner from us, but they were kindah grumpy and complained about the quality of people in the Everglades. I loved it.
Hahaa! You might really like it! You would have a lot to write about, for sure. Florida’s a trip and you would really enjoy Uncle Randy. Carnie’s work the rides and games. Then, there’s a name for the people working rides— those are “ride jocks.” We own concession stands that are separate from the show folks. Show people travel with whatever company is hired to come in with the company that has all the rides, games, and some concessions. My Grandpa and Uncle’s all built the trailers from the ground up. Mom and I helped to paint them— she did the sign lettering and we printed shirts for our workers. We actually had trailers in the shape of onions built with fiberglass. Those houses fried veggies. Eventually, they were cut in half— and added to the front of square trailers. We had one that was in the shape of a strawberry and Uncle Mike owns a giant lemon to make shakes out of. Another Uncle owns a Medieval Fair in my area.
Come join us! Take a break! “One of us! One of us!” Egg and Sassy can hang out! Florida is WILD!!!
Kerri -- take this seriously, please -- what you're describing seems so perfect for the van-life culture. With Nomadland and the lock-down people seem drawn to this peripatetic lifestyle. The novel 'Geek Love' touches on it in backstory. The novel 'The Night Circus' does also, but you could set a novel in that lifestyle and make a big hit. No pressure, but you're kind of sitting on a goldmine.
Too long. (really, the events are a blast, it's the need to regroup quickly for the next flight that sucks. the real gift of room service waiters is that they'll tell you super unflattering stories about more-famous people who've been under the same stress and acted badly. i live on such stories. and big hotels used to feature an 'author's suite' so you knew you were sharing a bed with Jonathan Franzen and Amy Sedaris.)
When I worked as a sculptor we did installs over the Christmas period. We'd get to a shopping centre and we'd set up these big grotto scenes and construct massive Christmas trees and hang giant presents from ceilings.
We'd work through the night like elves.
In the morning, we'd have breakfast before going to bed. We'd wake to eat curry or pasta or steak or fish. Then we'd work through the night again. We'd only see airports or vans before working in an entirely different empty mall.
When I say I've been to Belfast, I mean I've seen the airport.
When I've been to Glasgow, I've been in a hotel.
I understand transience. It's not the same as travelling.
It's a blast when you're with a "band" because then you can commiserate and debrief. Doing that alone is... ugh. That's why I roped Chelsea Cain and Monica Drake into doing the "Adult Bedtime Stories" tour, so we could have that "band" experience.
That makes it a lot better, that’s for sure!! When we tour Florida, it’s a bunch of us— however, having to share a room with my Uncle—- the man used to sound like a chainsaw when he snored. 😖 I’m sure your company was better!
You wouldn't know who you'd be sharing a room with until you got there. Mostly, you'd share with someone you didn't even know and, one time, someone who couldn't speak the same language. It sounds crap but was actually pretty fun (looking back that is).
It's the closest I've come to being in an army. Only if the army was more concerned with the placement of baubles than being shot at.
The guys who ran the company were always really proud to say that they'd had ex-SAS lads work there and they found it too hard and quit. I find that hard to believe. It's probably just that they wanted to have some time with their families around Christmas rather than spend their nights lugging steel armatures for talking trees up still escalators.
It was an amazing workout though, I was in the best physical shape of my life after all that carrying.
That sounds fascinating. Plus the off-hours silence and stillness is very spooky. Was there a culture of cautionary tales? Things that went wrong, mythic or otherwise?
It was full of old boys warning you about it beforehand. Things like how much weight you'd lose and how you'd better eat lots before you start because you'd waste away. Turns out it was true because the pace was relentless and the time you had for eating was sparse.
Santa's elves must all be on over ten thousand calories a day.
Empty malls are spooky. Empty parking lots too. So when you've gotta upload stuff from one to the other it's very easy to freak out.
It's even more eerie when you're in the space alone. You're so used to being part of this team that, when you go off alone, you're SO alone. You go off for a pee and it could be the rapture or armageddon. Nothing is on, so you've gotta carry stuff up stairs or use the antiquated lifts that only other grunts like you use. There's no music. There's people on spider cranes and abseiling with all the crap you made though the year. If you break stuff, you've gotta try fix them with glue or expanding foam or cable ties or glitter. Always so much glitter.
Nobody was ever really hurt, health and safety was absolutely on your case. I've been shouted at plenty of times for walking near people without a hard-hat or not unspooling an electrical extension to its full length.
The closest I came to an accident was the time we knocked over some ladders. We were hanging lights and other Christmas crap and after a time you just get into a rhythm. So when you do, it throws you when there's a little boutique cart in the middle of a hallway selling about a hundred wigs all hung and piled on top of one another. The ladders could've missed but they didn't. Instead, they flung varying shades of synthetic hair in all directions like we'd just killed Cousin It. We tried to put it back but it's like trying to rearrange someone else's bed; they'd still know someone had slept there, the bears would probably have been mad.
When you are on these book tours you should space them out that way you get to enjoy the city you are in. Why travel if you can't see the people or the places. That would be no fun for me
Tell the publicist! The push is so the book lands on the New York Times list and gets special attention and placement in stores. That's why: city, city, city, city, city... For two weeks at least.
Chuck, I didn't realize you took so many pills. Do you feel this helps your creative process at all? Don't worry I'm not getting any ideas here, I'm curious though.
Only on tours because of the demand to be asleep in an instant. In a strange place. In a different time zone. In Boston, one fancy hotel has a "Judy Garland Suite" where she lived for a few days. It's a fine place to swill sleeping pills.
Central West End is niceLeft Bank Books is amazing! Feel bad that you didn’t have a chance to enjoy the area more. And sadly the doorman gave sage advice.
You wake up at Chicago. Or Baltimore. Or tomorrow is Philadelphia. Lose an hour, take some ambien, gain an hour. That's hectic.
Wouldn't you prefer atleast a day in each city? Hopefully the Metaverse can fix this issue, one could be able to holoport himself to both Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Milan during a slow Sunday afternoon.
Hah. I hate you. As a rep for Freightliner I'd be sent to dealerships to help with recall repair procedures, and 'Fight Club' was about that travel. Now it seems I've graduated to a fresh hell.
Chuck is officially unofficially ENTP, and I could not imagine otherwise...maybe INFJ or ISFP or esfp at times... but who isn't?
Extrovert, really?? I'd be surprised. And there's no way he's a Sensor. IN--.
When you go on stage with 2000+ readers who chant how much they love you and you do this week after week and make them all want to come back... that's when you turn into and ESFP for two hours.
Not an extrovert? Have you not heard where he does most of his writing? Like at parties? Does that sound INxx to you?;)
But I'm sure he does sometimes need that IxF time to get deeper into things as well...
But that's an occasional thing.
As I've stated first, it's ENTP above all. With the unending Ne function of exploration and testing new ideas at forefront.
Unconvinced or don't trust me? Use that google page and tell me where it took you.
But you don't have to, I'd know, I often test as one too.
At Freightliner we had to take a similar test. I scored exactly even across all four categories, which the instructor said meant "creative/open/something-something."
What tour was this, do you remember?
If you ever get to Colorado Springs, I'll take you on a whirlwind tour of Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak. If you get to stay longer, I'll take you to the top of Pikes Peak (14,110 ft) and get your a world famous high-altitude donut (the recipe doesn't work at the base of the mountain).
I completely believe you about the Imodium. That would be awful.
I imagine this side of the curtain gets old quick and "There's no place like home." could soon become your mantra especially in these times.
My mantra is "No connecting doors!" Why would I want to hear every sound from the next room?
I once opened an (unlocked) connecting door in a hotel room in Australia in a 'this must be the bathroom...' way. There was a naked chinese man lying on a bed who screamed and ran at me with a glass in his hand. I sat on my bed listening to him piling up things against the door and thought exactly the same. NO connecting doors.
That hotel should have had deep fried ravioli on the menu, the one food St. Louis is famous for. Damn I am disappointed for you. Who knew the life of a writer was almost identical to the life of a focus group moderator, travel-wise.
A helpful hint? In noisy hotel rooms drag all the bedding into the bathtub. Sleep with ear plugs and the fan running.
I’m curious as to what danger lurks on that seemingly innocuous street. What has the doorman seen that prompts him to warn guests of the street like some kind of cloaked sage from a grim fairy tale?
My understanding is a lot of major US cities are like that.
Somewhere between magical and terrifying?
When you give ppl warning like that they tend to take you more seriously...
To share and relate, when my family heads down to The gulf side of Florida to work our continued concession stand season after Ohio’s has completed, fast food and gas station meals (or left overs from the stand) are your meals. My Uncle knows every little dive, donut shack or family rib joint by heart at each spot we stay. It’s nothing but hotels for months. Once, waking up at just the right time, I was drinking coffee on the baloney of whatever hotel we were at and was able to see a space shuttle launch. The most fun I ever had was meeting up with locals to go swamp buggy-ing down in the Everglades. The sun setting was movie-esque and the colors were vibrant purples, blues, oranges—yellows— colors this Ohio girl only sees muted in the skies here. We stayed in rented mobile homes, fished for mullet for dinner and had drinks in the tiki hut after serving up the most effing seafood I’ve ever seen in my life fly out of our stand. Watching GIANT grouper come off fishing boats was like being at the Natural History Museum in Pittsburgh. Beautiful colors or red. Had the best damn crab cakes ever at the warf. Man— rockstar life of a concession stand family is cool. Rascal Flatts played the festival that year— they had dinner from us, but they were kindah grumpy and complained about the quality of people in the Everglades. I loved it.
Damn, you make me want to chuck everything and become a carnie.
Hahaa! You might really like it! You would have a lot to write about, for sure. Florida’s a trip and you would really enjoy Uncle Randy. Carnie’s work the rides and games. Then, there’s a name for the people working rides— those are “ride jocks.” We own concession stands that are separate from the show folks. Show people travel with whatever company is hired to come in with the company that has all the rides, games, and some concessions. My Grandpa and Uncle’s all built the trailers from the ground up. Mom and I helped to paint them— she did the sign lettering and we printed shirts for our workers. We actually had trailers in the shape of onions built with fiberglass. Those houses fried veggies. Eventually, they were cut in half— and added to the front of square trailers. We had one that was in the shape of a strawberry and Uncle Mike owns a giant lemon to make shakes out of. Another Uncle owns a Medieval Fair in my area.
Come join us! Take a break! “One of us! One of us!” Egg and Sassy can hang out! Florida is WILD!!!
Kerri -- take this seriously, please -- what you're describing seems so perfect for the van-life culture. With Nomadland and the lock-down people seem drawn to this peripatetic lifestyle. The novel 'Geek Love' touches on it in backstory. The novel 'The Night Circus' does also, but you could set a novel in that lifestyle and make a big hit. No pressure, but you're kind of sitting on a goldmine.
What?! I’m listening and writing. Thank you!!!
Lol. Your setup and payoff of footnotes 4 and 5 was perfect.
Nothing is the same as it is outside looking in.
My god! That sounds...hardcore to say the least. How long is the average book tour?
Too long. (really, the events are a blast, it's the need to regroup quickly for the next flight that sucks. the real gift of room service waiters is that they'll tell you super unflattering stories about more-famous people who've been under the same stress and acted badly. i live on such stories. and big hotels used to feature an 'author's suite' so you knew you were sharing a bed with Jonathan Franzen and Amy Sedaris.)
Excellent 😁
When I worked as a sculptor we did installs over the Christmas period. We'd get to a shopping centre and we'd set up these big grotto scenes and construct massive Christmas trees and hang giant presents from ceilings.
We'd work through the night like elves.
In the morning, we'd have breakfast before going to bed. We'd wake to eat curry or pasta or steak or fish. Then we'd work through the night again. We'd only see airports or vans before working in an entirely different empty mall.
When I say I've been to Belfast, I mean I've seen the airport.
When I've been to Glasgow, I've been in a hotel.
I understand transience. It's not the same as travelling.
Still, pretty fun I bet.
It's a blast when you're with a "band" because then you can commiserate and debrief. Doing that alone is... ugh. That's why I roped Chelsea Cain and Monica Drake into doing the "Adult Bedtime Stories" tour, so we could have that "band" experience.
That makes it a lot better, that’s for sure!! When we tour Florida, it’s a bunch of us— however, having to share a room with my Uncle—- the man used to sound like a chainsaw when he snored. 😖 I’m sure your company was better!
You wouldn't know who you'd be sharing a room with until you got there. Mostly, you'd share with someone you didn't even know and, one time, someone who couldn't speak the same language. It sounds crap but was actually pretty fun (looking back that is).
It's the closest I've come to being in an army. Only if the army was more concerned with the placement of baubles than being shot at.
The guys who ran the company were always really proud to say that they'd had ex-SAS lads work there and they found it too hard and quit. I find that hard to believe. It's probably just that they wanted to have some time with their families around Christmas rather than spend their nights lugging steel armatures for talking trees up still escalators.
It was an amazing workout though, I was in the best physical shape of my life after all that carrying.
That sounds fascinating. Plus the off-hours silence and stillness is very spooky. Was there a culture of cautionary tales? Things that went wrong, mythic or otherwise?
It was full of old boys warning you about it beforehand. Things like how much weight you'd lose and how you'd better eat lots before you start because you'd waste away. Turns out it was true because the pace was relentless and the time you had for eating was sparse.
Santa's elves must all be on over ten thousand calories a day.
Empty malls are spooky. Empty parking lots too. So when you've gotta upload stuff from one to the other it's very easy to freak out.
It's even more eerie when you're in the space alone. You're so used to being part of this team that, when you go off alone, you're SO alone. You go off for a pee and it could be the rapture or armageddon. Nothing is on, so you've gotta carry stuff up stairs or use the antiquated lifts that only other grunts like you use. There's no music. There's people on spider cranes and abseiling with all the crap you made though the year. If you break stuff, you've gotta try fix them with glue or expanding foam or cable ties or glitter. Always so much glitter.
Nobody was ever really hurt, health and safety was absolutely on your case. I've been shouted at plenty of times for walking near people without a hard-hat or not unspooling an electrical extension to its full length.
The closest I came to an accident was the time we knocked over some ladders. We were hanging lights and other Christmas crap and after a time you just get into a rhythm. So when you do, it throws you when there's a little boutique cart in the middle of a hallway selling about a hundred wigs all hung and piled on top of one another. The ladders could've missed but they didn't. Instead, they flung varying shades of synthetic hair in all directions like we'd just killed Cousin It. We tried to put it back but it's like trying to rearrange someone else's bed; they'd still know someone had slept there, the bears would probably have been mad.
When you are on these book tours you should space them out that way you get to enjoy the city you are in. Why travel if you can't see the people or the places. That would be no fun for me
Tell the publicist! The push is so the book lands on the New York Times list and gets special attention and placement in stores. That's why: city, city, city, city, city... For two weeks at least.
WTF would you need Zolofts for? You the happiest guy I could imagine!
Pills are a travel thing. I'm usually happy, until I mess up "coffee maker." And tour can turn anyone into an ogre.
Chuck, I didn't realize you took so many pills. Do you feel this helps your creative process at all? Don't worry I'm not getting any ideas here, I'm curious though.
Only on tours because of the demand to be asleep in an instant. In a strange place. In a different time zone. In Boston, one fancy hotel has a "Judy Garland Suite" where she lived for a few days. It's a fine place to swill sleeping pills.
Central West End is niceLeft Bank Books is amazing! Feel bad that you didn’t have a chance to enjoy the area more. And sadly the doorman gave sage advice.
Left Bank is great. I love that store.
You wake up at Chicago. Or Baltimore. Or tomorrow is Philadelphia. Lose an hour, take some ambien, gain an hour. That's hectic.
Wouldn't you prefer atleast a day in each city? Hopefully the Metaverse can fix this issue, one could be able to holoport himself to both Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Milan during a slow Sunday afternoon.
Hah. I hate you. As a rep for Freightliner I'd be sent to dealerships to help with recall repair procedures, and 'Fight Club' was about that travel. Now it seems I've graduated to a fresh hell.
yes yes and yes