I want to read every article. I want to read all the “Faith and Doubt” stories, because I basically majored in doubt in college. I want to read the Sex and the City movie review wherein Anthony Lane compares the actresses to thoroughbred horses. I want to read the new Nabokov short story! I want to read the Annie Proulx short story that she awesomely named “Tits-up in a Ditch”! I want to read about how Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami found his road legs and his book-writing arm. I want to read about rapper Lil Wayne nailing his perfect pitch with Auto-Tune. I want to read the funny captions for the photo of an orca in a courtroom.
But here is the problem. And this is embarrassing for a writer to admit. In fact, admitting this will probably destroy my nascent writing career. The New Yorker has too many words. And, as a corollary, I only have one week to read it. And when you consider the pile of half-finished books on my bed-stand and my day job and my television set and my sleeping and my eating and my checking my email 100 times a day, I am actually a very busy girl.
So I’ll get through this exciting issue, but it might not be today, or tomorrow, or even the next time I am early to my therapy appointment. I might have to wait until I am strapped to an ambulance gurney or sent to solitary confinement. But mark my words, I will conquer this New Yorker of June 9 & 16, 2008. Okay, so I honestly just realized it’s a double issue. I feel way better now. Talk to me in two weeks and we can exchange orca lawyer jokes.
