Rough transcript of phone conversation with my grandmother 90 minutes after I took Robitussin, reconstructed from notes I took while on the phone and thinking this could be a funny post.

Grandma: "How's your cold?"
Me: "It's okay.  I took Robitussin."
Grandma: "If you were here I could have given you Robitussin.  I have a whole bottle."
Me: "You probably have a different kind than what I took.  They have all different kinds."
Grandma: "I'm looking.  I have DM.  What does that mean?"
Me: "It's for dextromethorphan.  There are a bunch of ingredients and they mix them all up to make in confusing with all the different kinds.  Cough and cold.  Cold and chest congestion.  Cough and flu.  Flu and cough.  Cough and foot.  Arm and shoulder.  Cough, cold, and thirsty.  It's confusing.  I took CF."
Grandma: "I have something else in here too.  It's a cough syrup with codeine.  I don't remember getting this."
Me: "That sounds like it would be a prescription."
Grandma: "Yeah.  It says January 2005.  So a year ago.  I didn't even use it.  It's a whole bottle.  I'm glad I have this."
Me: "Why are you glad you have it?  You should probably throw it out."
Grandma: "I don't throw anything out."
Me: "It's probably not good anymore."
Grandma: "Eh, I'll leave it.  I have all sorts of things in here."
Me: "I'm sure you do."
Grandma: "I was just talking to your uncle.  I had this nice plant and it had grown to like a foot and a half and I came downstairs a few days ago and the leaves were all limp and it looks like it's dead."
Me: "Terrorists."
Grandma: "What?"
Me: "Maybe it was terrorists."
Grandma: "No, I think I gave it too much water."
Me: "Maybe.  Did you see the news thing about the ABC anchor who got hurt in Iraq?"
Grandma: "No, I didn't see it, I just got home."
Me: "Woodruff, on Channel 7."
Grandma: "Oh, he seems nice.  You know who I don't like?  That guy on CNN who's always on, what's his name?"
Me: "Anderson Cooper?"
Grandma: "Yeah.  He looks like a spoiled brat."
Me: "They like him because he shows emotion on TV."
Grandma: "I think he talks too fast.  And his name is all over the screen, on the top, flying back and forth.  And what's that number they put after his name all the time?  What does that mean?"
Me: "360?"
Grandma: "Yeah.  What is 360?"
Me: "It's the number of degrees in a circle.  It's like he's looking all around.  I don't know.  I guess it's stupid once you think about it."
Grandma: "Yeah.  And what did they do with the guy from before?"
Me: "Aaron Brown?"
Grandma: "Yeah.  I liked him.  I think they think he talked too slow.  I notice people on the news are talking faster and faster, and it's not just because I'm getting older.  I think they have to talk faster to get more news in a shorter time so they can have more commercials."
Me: "Maybe.  They fired Aaron Brown."
Grandma: "Oh, I feel terrible for him.  I liked him."

Comments

[Drew]

That's some conversation, I can't help but wonder if it would have lasted so long if it hadn't been for the Robitussin you had imbibed, more importantly, I wonder if grandma thought about trying her codeine cough syrup by minute two

Very nice post over at AL today. A lot better than the dog urine one.

Jeremy, I think you should try re-enabling comments on AL 1) to see how many people are still looking at the site (which is hard to tell from "hit" stats alone), and 2) to create more excitement through involvement for your upcoming book. I miss the old days when people would really go at each other in the comments section. That was a big part of what we (or at least I) enjoyed about reading AL.

[Jeremy]

I agree with you that the comments make the site better -- but my worry is this -- a lot of the e-mail I get to the Anonymous Lawyer account is from people who think I might be real, or who don't know, or who like the ambiguity. I'm pretty concerned that the moment I re-enable comments, every comment thread is going to look like this:

"Is he real? I think he's real."

"He's not real."

"No, I think he's real."

"No, he's not. Here's a link to an article."

"Oh. Shoot. I'm not reading anymore."

It's not that I'm trying to hide that it's fake -- it's all over this blog, and all over Google -- but there are people who like the site and are reading the site who don't know it's fiction, and making it absolutely clear on the site may spoil it for them, and lose readers instead of gaining them.

Obviously it's something I'll have to address as it gets closer to when the book comes out, because the book isn't pretending not to be fiction. It's a novel and it's labeled as such. If it wasn't, then I'd be even more of a hypocrite criticizing James Frey than I already am.... Back when there were comments enabled, I was consistently surprised with the reaction -- the more over-the-top I thought I was getting, the more people would write in saying this is what their life is like. Even now, when the character on the blog really has become much less subtle and more one-note (although hopefully that'll fix itself once the book is done and I can work more on the posts and not worry that I'm cannibalizing my material and ideas), the e-mails I get are bizarre sometimes with what real lawyers are saying happens at their real firms.

In any case, that's my worry with re-enabling comments, and it's not really a fair concern because it's just delaying the inevitable, when the people who still think it's real now will see the book and realize it's not... but I'm not sure how to resolve that.

That was a long-winded response. Sorry.

[Sanya]

See, that's what I don't get. Why would people stop reading if he's not real? It's the same thing with the James Frey crap. If it's written well, it shouldn't be a problem that it's not real. I always, always knew that AL wasn't real but I visited it every day without fail and even went through all the archives because I felt I was late and had missed so much and I loved it. It wasn't real but how did that matter? It was written so well that it felt real. That's what matters.