Reason Number 8: Floriduh

What a great vacation, though I don't think I'll be eating at Chili's again anytime soon.  Especially since everyone on their waitstaff is on meth and/or is infected with impetigo.

But whatevz, it's cool.  Their fajitas are better than some.

While we were waiting for our flight at Laguardia, some crazy with a kid asked us to watch his bag, which was large and plastic (as in: a jumbo-sized garbage bag) and full of burger king, diapers, and windbreakers.  I was so stunned that someone actually had the nerve to ask me the question no one dares ask at an airport because there are instructions against asking this question blaring from the loudspeakers every five seconds that I just nodded and hoped nothing would explode, or that if it did explode, it would be a small explosion, like a roman candle or a bottle rocket, pretty and unobtrusive, killing no one, providing only pleasure, like snacktime and freedom.

Anyways, I just got back and I have the final MFA rundown.

Ins:

Columbia

New School

Montana

Outs:

Iowa

Texas

Washington

Waitlisted:

NYU

I'm pretty okay with everything.  In fact, I'm more than okay.

Reason Number 2: Redux Mariah Effing Carey Whut

As random as this may be for anyone reading this blog who doesn't know me, I've got to say that Mariah Carey's self-titled first album is enough to part the clouds in my overcast horizon any day.
Heart-rending, cataclysmic soul-transcending ballads collide against fast-paced morsels of early 90's girl rap, the phrasing at times indecipherable, at times introspective, all the while interspersed with healthy doses of true wisdom. Re: love really does take time, as any thinking person knows all too well.

I just realized there is no Reason Number 2

In which case, I don't know what to tell you.

I can think of a few viable substitutes, such as: fur coats, Lanvin's Spring Collection, the possibility of invisibilities, and learning a foreign language. You can always get better at speaking Arabic, or understanding the Earth's Geological Mysteries.

All of the above devoid of a self-harming gesture of any sort. Not even a scratch.

Reason Number 7: Memoirs?

You know, maybe writing a memoir isn't such a bad idea after all. Only if it contains a colon followed by a qualifier (A Memoir being the the most poignant, and My Story being a close second) and is called something like: "Gathering Moss: A Memoir" or "Flailing Sycamores: A True Story of Grave Loss." "Magic Johnson: My Life" isn't so bad either. I mean, being 24 and not a professional athlete with a t-cell-obliterating virus, I feel like I don't have as much license to do such a thing as, say, a 50-year-old HImalayan sexual predator or an aging ex-model with a busted septum, inferior bone density, and a broken heart. I have some skeletons in the closet, I suppose (HA! No pun intended), so it's possible I could totally probably make it work, or at least embellish it to my liking. Literary lies=okay by me! A bad, fake memoir is still better than lots of things, like: The Tyra Banks Show, 311, and Urban Outfitters.

I really am kidding, though. I think for now I'll stick with hedgehog rape and Mall Sex. Until I become a drug trafficker for LA-based gangs and/or go to rehab (again).

Flossie killed the mouse we thought was a rat yesterday. RCD gave her a delicious fish-tasting treat for her kill, and she savored every delectable morsel of blood, sea, and victory.

So that's another thing to be thankful for. Actually, two things: (1) my cat, although developmentally disabled, can still kill things like a normal cat, and (2) as far as I know, the rat problem is of no import anymore. Hooray!

In other news, after fifteen years of hating bacon, I like it again. Quite a lot, actually.

Reason Number 6: A rat infestation is better than a snake infestation (or AIDS!)

I hope we have a panther infestation on the day I get my Columbia rejection letter!  That'll put things into perspective.

Whatevz, I eat rats like you for breakfast!  With Irish oatmeal and clover honey!

Reason Number 5: Not Having To Move To Iowa

I got my first rejection letter!  From the Iowa Writer's Workshop.  I would say I'm devastated, but at least I don't have to deal with snow-covered cornfields, friendly Midwestern folk, or back pocket-less Bongo jeans for the next two years.  Because, you know, that's exactly what it would be like.

I like how rejection letters always insist on how much talent you have, how the admissions staff LOOOOVED reading your manuscript, but how there were just so many applicants, and they can only choose X of them.  When what they should be saying is: 

"Your writing is just not to our taste, and there were so many more commercially viable candidates in your place, some of whom have affiliations with our alumni, and it was really hard to choose between a heartrending story about overcoming cancer written by an ex-con paratrooper whose older brother is Dave Eggers and the hilarious rehab novella written by an orphan from Taipei who doesn't know any of our faculty but who is Flannery O'Connor's great-great-transgendered grandchild.  We're sorry.  Try again next year!!!"

I'm going to go stick my head in a toilet full of whiskey and blood.  <3

Reason Number 4: Really, really bad jokes

And not even like "What's the hardest thing about Rollerblading? 

Two nights ago, taking a break from reading my Medieval Bestiary (which is the best book ever, and I will discuss it at length in my next post), I decided to google "bad jokes."  After a really hard day of contemplation and being on hold while calling Spirit Airlines and realizing you can't speak Spanish anymore and rejection letter fears and mean stares from girls on the subway who hate the knee-high lace-up boots you bought at Camper last fall (just because they look like they're hard to take off at night, which is downright st00pid because they zip up the side),  all you really need are some racist, misogynistic, lawyer child molester priest jokes to make everything disappear, to make you feel like those girls on the subway were actually talking about how hot you look in your boots, and how you're the best writer/seamstress/singer-songwriter/Blue Man Group member in the world, etc.                 

While seeking bad jokes and concocting a turkey sausage/farfalle pasta combination, I came across this website, which is about as funny as Ray Romano's gallbladder.  I have no idea who made up this site, but they are obviously very bad at speaking English.

Here's an example of one of the "political jokes" on the site:

-Why do govern personnel from the minister have no right to look through the windows in the morning?

-Because they will have nothing else to do in the evening!

Here's one called "Intimate Place":

A couple goes to an intimate place.  She says to him:

"Do you want me do take my panties off or to spit out my gum?"

Reason Number 3: Strawberry Rhubard Jam On Sale For 75 Cents at Marshalls in Harlem

Yes, the title is so true I could kill a kitten.  And by kill a kitten I mean love kittens, because who wouldn't, except of course for the most abhorrent kitten haters on the planet.  

I went to Harlem last night to (a) visit a dear friend and (b) make tuna salad (without mayonnaise, obviously) and decided to adventure to the Marshall's on 125th Street before settling down for fish and greenery.  Unlike Target and The Supermarket, Marshall's is usually a poorly-lit cesspool of last season's fleece-lined boots and mysterious, half-empty shampoo bottles.  But this time, to my surprise, I came across wonderful things: strange sculptures of gospel choirs and Easter bonnets and enormous bejeweled jester heads to hang on your door (c-r-e-e-p-y), in addition to intriguing jams on sale for less than a dollar!  You can't even find erasers at the motherfucking DOLLAR STORE for under a dollar.

It was totally worth every beleaguered, end-of-the-long-day foot drag along the dull linoleum floor.

DANCE DANCE HIBERNATION

Other seventh grade girls were squirrels, but in spite of prenatal gel caps and acorn pancakes I could never grow a tail.  I gnawed the edges of magazines decrying fashion's turn toward feral, prodded my nipples and wished there were more.  I stared from the ground, offering sodden sandwiches, cups of birdseed they ignored to leap sycamores and pluck glow-in-the-dark fleas from furry undersides, smoking pinecones, braiding.  Avoiding shaving, I sought oversize mohair sweaters, to hide my opposable thumbs.   I chased them from the mall to the playground, set out pink lipstick tubes and audiocassettes and sequined training bras, twizzlers, tampons, high-heeled shoes, painted nails, waiting--desperate--as they sneered at my smooth legs and gigantic brain.