It was an off day. I was feeling scattered and unproductive. Didn’t feel like writing, was unfocused when it came to marketing … so I spent most of the day doing absolutely nothing online. I sent twitter messages to Ann Curry (because she’s one of the few Today Show hosts who is not only on Twitter, but who’ll sometimes respond) to complain about the Today Show’s story on Michelle Obama’s clothes & to ask how the reporters feel about those stories, and sent some emails.

Oh - and I printed work letters for Ian because he was busy and needed help, and I (desperately) needed something to do.

But then!

Just after noon, I got a call on my cell phone from a number I didn’t know. A 773 area code. I answered.

MAN: Hello. I’m looking for Kristen…Teh-set-see?

ME: Tsetsi (pr. TEHT-see). Yes.

MAN: I’m an associate editor at Harpo, and we received a copy of Homefront. [HOLY CRAP THEY STILL HAVE IT! I SENT IT OVER A YEAR AGO!] We’re putting together a segment for Oprah’s Book Club about authors who have chosen to self-publish and think Homefront might make a good addition to Oprah’s Book Club. We’ll have several self-published authors participating and would like to know if this is something you’d be interested in, would be able to be here for.

ME: (OHMYGOD!!!!) Sure. Yeah.

MAN: Okay. What you’ll need to do, in that case, is just get in touch with the Chief Editor [spells name for me], who’ll do a brief interview to determine whether you’ll work out as a candidate for the show. You can call anytime between now and Friday. [gives me the phone number]

ME: Okay. Thanks.

[hang up]

HYPERVENTILATE HYPERVENTILATE

I immediately dialed Ian’s number, but he didn’t answer, so I called my dad.

ME: I just got a call from Harpo Studios! They’re doing a segment on self-published authors and they called me to see if I want to be a part of it! [trying to breathe] Me! I mean, wow. I mean, not that it’ll actually happen, because I still have to do this interview thing, but it could happen…!

[I'm not a fan of this many exclamation points, but they must be used here to communicate my absolute excitement. What a relevant topic! With so many people self-publishing lately - even Wil Wheaton! - she's totally current and holy hell what timing on my part to have contacted Harpo again yesterday with an email to the Book Club editor!!!]

My dad was excited for me and said he’d let me get off the phone so I could call more people.

I called Ian.

He, too, was excited, and asked if I’d called the Chief Editor yet. I said I hadn’t - I’d actually thought about waiting until the next day because I was so nervous I didn’t want to sound like a gibbering, drooling idiot. “Call him and call me back!” Ian said, so I did. I called.

I heard this:

“Thank you for calling Lincoln Park Zooooo! We are open 356 days a year. Admission is free!”

I hung up.

I dialed the number that initially called mine, and the voicemail picked up. “Hi, this is so and so. I’m not available, but leave a message.”

I recognized the name.

I called Ian.

“It was a joke,” I said. Clueless.

“Huh?” he said.

“It was just an April Fool’s joke.” Pause. Ohhhh… “Were you part of it?”

“What?”

“It was a joke. Was that you? Did you do that?”

(laughing) “Yeah.”

Before hanging up and throwing the phone, I said, “That’s not cool.”

And then, like a truly gullible twit who would actually believe Oprah would not only run a segment on self-published novelists, but who would call me and invite me to be on the show, I cried, as they say, like a baby.

This is not something I’m comfortable admitting. But man, did I cryyyyyyyyy…. I ACTUALLY believed it. I was SO DAMN EXCITED. I’d been working toward something like this for four years - who was I to think all that work wouldn’t, in some freak way, pay off? I mean, it has to happen to SOMEONE - why not me?

I emailed Ian (he carries a blackberry) and told him not to come home for a while. “If you’re close to home, try to delay it,” I wrote.

He called me, and I couldn’t even talk. In fact, I held the phone away from my face and was flailing my arms in some kind of weirdo display and said to the air, “I just can’t talk right now!”

“Okaybye,” he said.

In his defense, he did not mean to be cruel. I know him, and I know he meant only to play a joke. To get me just excited enough to say “You ass!” and laugh when it was all over.

He could not have expected me to not be skeptical and guess something might have been amiss when, on April Fool’s Day, the name of the Chief Editor at the zoo’s number, “Harry Lyons,” was spelled out for me.

In my defense, the guy who called pronounced the name “Lee-ons.”

The publishing path is filled with many things - April Fool’s jokes not the least of them - that learn ya real good, over time, to not get too excited. Hope is good and anticipation is fun, but it’s best not to make any phone calls until you’re signing something–or sitting in that studio. Don’t call ANYONE if it’s April 1.

P.S. Don’t be too hard on Ian. He got a lot of “Your husband sucks!” comments when this originally happened, and he feels properly apologetic. He’s also very afraid of this year’s April Fool’s Day.