POLICE SKETCH ARTIST
Can you tell me what the perp looked like?
He was tall, I guess. He smelled like grapefruit. He was wearing shoes. It all happened so fast.
Can you tell me if the perp had blue or brown eyes?
He had hairy arms. Citrussy. Wearing pants, I think.
Did he have any facial hair? A beard or a goatee?
I don’t remember. He was wearing sunglasses. Or maybe regular glasses. Or possibly contacts.
Does this look like him?
No.
Jennifer apologized profusely for getting home late last night when I was babysitting (i.e. dozing/watching Strangers with Candy), and she hoped that the late night didn’t “disturb my Monday.” But I am an unemployed writer, spending my Monday between my blog and the erotica novel I am editing for money. How can this perfect world be disturbed? She said to enjoy it while it lasts.
Now that I am finally sending out some of my work, I am surprised that my fragile ego can handle rejection. Because the rejection letters from lit journals and magazines haven’t been completely crushing me, I wonder why I didn’t start sending out my stories earlier. Here is the cover letter I sent to McSweeney’s a month ago, and their rejection letter that arrived in my mailbox today:
MY LETTER
Dear Mr. McSweeney,
I am writing with a romantic inquiry.
I am certain that my extraordinary first novel, entitled The Existential Diet, will be published to great acclaim. Furthermore I assure you that not only am I a gifted writer, I am also an attractive woman in my mid 20’s and I know that my face will light up the book jacket. However I fear that my future publisher will select a shade of pink or teal to color said book jacket. Because my novel explores weight (gain and loss), celebrities (blonde and brunette), and love affairs (lesbian and otherwise), and because I happen to be young, carefree, and good-looking, I suspect that I will be unfairly targeted as a writer of so-called Chick Lit.
I have thought deeply about this matter, in between counting calories and writing in my diary, and I have come up with a solution to my problem. When I assessed the romantic status of popular Chick Lit authors, I found that they, much like their books’ heroines, are unlucky in love. I came to the conclusion that if I were to become lucky in love, then perhaps my debut novel would be treated with a more literary, earth-toned amount of respect.
Mr. McSweeney, I am not proposing marriage, or even an exclusive commitment. I am looking for a relationship somewhere between flirty office emails and spooning to sleep on a nightly basis, something befitting your reputation as a gentleman and mine as a talented and physically stunning young author. The advantages of this arrangement will by no means be one-sided. I ask you to think of the attention you will get, walking into your next literary salon with me grafted firmly to your side.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter. I will patiently await your response, to be mailed to me at your leisure in the enclosed self-addressed stamped envelope, sprayed liberally with my perfume.
Sincerely,
Wistar Watts
REJECTION LETTER
Dear Witstar Watts Murray,
Many thanks for your recent submission ‘The Existential Diet!’
Unfortunately, due to the large amount of manuscripts we receive and small amount we can annually publish, we are unable to take your work further.
Mr. McSweeney’s was tempted by your romantic proposition but alas, he is already taken.
Again, thanking you for letting us read your writing.
Kind regards,
X
I took a writing class this summer with Lisa Russ Spaar at UVA (namedrop!), and one day she brought in a blue 80s ankle boot and told us to write a scene or a poem about it. So I wrote about a Peace Corps volunteer’s more fashionable sister. Last night when I saw my mom at a cocktail party at a nursing home, she said that maybe my sister Margaret shouldn’t see my blog because of my blue boot story. Granted, Margaret is extremely well dressed and likes to shop, but she is not the sister in the story. Margaret was far from my mind when I wrote that story. For one, I could not see Margaret in those blue boots. They just wouldn’t work on her wide-set feet. For two, Margaret studies Geography and she is way more globally aware than I am. The other day Darren pointed toward the mountains and asked “What’s in that direction?” All I could think about was walking in that direction until you wrapped around the earth and arrived back where you started. I could not mentally remove myself from the small plot of land where I was standing in my swimsuit. Anyway, I don’t think either sister in the story is very sympathetic, whereas Margaret and I are both really awesome and humanitarian. So take that, Mom.
When I was a kid, I fell in love with a book called The Grim Reaper’s Book of Days which chronicled extraordinary and gruesome historical deaths in great detail for every day of the year, including your birthday. Tonight StumbleUpon showed me this Wikipedia site about unusual deaths. These lists favor ironical, horrific, comic, and bizarre accidental deaths. I find them fascinating, because I don’t have enough to worry about. If I died tomorrow, I would probably make the list. “Blogger blogs about dying and bites it the day after her post.” Maybe I won’t leave the house.
“2002: Richard Sumner, a British artist suffering from schizophrenia, disappeared and was not located again until three years later when his skeleton was discovered handcuffed to a tree in a remote forest in Wales. Police investigators determined the death was a suicide, with Sumner securing himself in the handcuffs and throwing the keys out of reach.”
This Vanity Fair article will make you sick to your stomach. If you stare at the photograph of Kevin Federline, Pete Wentz, Steve Aoki, Benji Madden, Cisco Adler, and Joel Madden long enough, you will definitely lose your breakfast.
Last night I had a nightmare that I couldn’t finish my shopping at a Super Wal-Mart. Every time I thought I could check out, I thought of something I needed at the other side of the store. Then a bunch of assholes were in front of me in line. Then I needed a special kind of milk. Then I saw some broccoli on sale. It took me hours to get out of there. The climactic part of the dream, the part that woke me up in a cold sweat, was when I realized the day after the shopping trip that I had left all my groceries in the hot car.
Shit, maybe I should have gone out tonight after all.
I’m so pissed that when I Google my name, my blog does not appear. What does appear is a page that has haunted me since college – “WISTAR DESTROYS EVOLUTION.” Darren says that sometimes it takes more than 24 hours for a new web page to show up in searches. Someday I hope to beat the Wistar rat (link is awesome for word “odontoblast”) in Google rankings.