Editor’s note: as you read to the end, possibly the single most exciting thing that has happened to Liz Tracy in the past five years will be revealed. Lila Dominguez rulez.

I get to Barnes and Nobles an hour and a half before Chuck Klosterman’s reading is scheduled to begin. By then, half the seats of the fourth floor event area are already taken. I begin thumbing through the new softcover edition of Eating the Dinosaur, which was just released. It includes two additional chapters, which I find to be quite a marketing ploy to sell the same book twice. Within the next half hour all the seats fill up and a standing line has formed in the back of the room. The crowd is mostly 20 and 30 year olds with a few older folks peppered throughout.

He arrives on time. While a Barnes and Nobles manager introduces him to the audience and gives a brief run down of his accomplishments, Chuck awkwardly shuffles on the side of the room. He’s taller than I expected, fairly lean with a small, middle aged “paunch” around the belly. He’s dressed casually and looks a little— nervous? “I’d like to now welcome to the stage the most attractive person to grow up in North Dakota- Chuck Klosterman,” the Barnes and Nobles manager announces. “Thanks so much” he says, once he makes it to the mic. “But I’m not the most attractive person to come out of North Dakota—I mean, there’s Ed Schultz.” I look this up later and discover Mr. Schultz is neither attractive nor was raised in North Dakota—although he moved to Fargo as an adult later.