I Have Become Accustomed To Rejection

Outstanding Submissions: 13

Rejections: 1, personal

Post Road has passed on a story of mine that has been rejected more times than I care to count. And its always the same rejection–we like your writing but we do not like this story. When am I going to take the hint? In the meantime, I take comfort in knowing Post Road is very impressed by my writing and looks forward to my next submission.

Let’s not make small talk today, friends. Instead, we shall talk about the two hours I’ve spent on my hair today. Last night, I went to the coop and indulged my very VERY secret hippie dippie tendencies. I don’t like to admit this but I do prefer to eat organic when I am at home. I am fat healthy, okay? At home. Where I can hide it. I got some sad looking tomatoes because the organic produce up here is pathetic. Also, I buy hippie product so I got some very expensive organic shampoo and conditioner (super sexy bottles) and lavender oil and a significant quantity of Vitamin D. I could have held a fucking drum circle.

Today, I rubbed lavender oil into my scalp and did some incantations and meditated deeply. Then I washed my hair with this tea tree hippie shampoo and conditioner (which smells fantastic. When my scalp reached optimum tingle as per the instructions on the bottle, I started dancing in the shower. I literally started dancing because I felt like something important was happening. Also, I was listening to New York State of Mind by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys and Garth Brooks and really, who wouldn’t dance under such circumstances? Then I put another kind of conditioner on my hair just to make sure all my bases were covered and then I applied some Carol’s Daughter product (also expensive and organic) and now, my hair smells great and looks bouncy and shiny and I am poor. I feel good about it though. Hair is so important, friends. Hair is way more important than money. I’m off to the casino now with friends.

PS: I do not use hippie house cleaning products. When it comes to scrubbing toilets and such I want industrial germ killing stuff that might give me a fatal disease or a significant tumor in my abdomen that grows hair and/or teeth.

Outstanding Submissions: 14

There has been very little writing news as of late. It’s making me crazy.

Don’t judge me for what I’m about to say.

I’m going to be honest about how very depressing it is to not have been nominated for Best of Web 2010 or had any of my writing selected for inclusion. I’m so happy (genuinely) for all the writers whose work has been recognized and that recognition is well-deserved. Feeling sulky is not about begrudging others their accolades. It’s all about me. This is a blog, after all. I also realize that such recognition is not the point of writing at all, but I keep it real and there’s a part of me that is wracked with self-doubt. I feel mediocre. I feel very very mediocre.  Not one story was good enough?  I kind of think my Pindeldyboz story is some of my strongest work. I cannot be the only writer feeling this way this week.  I mean, it sucks to not have a date to the prom, right? I’ll continue to try harder but I am disappointed and finding it hard to rebound.

In even more depressing news, my hair is falling out, like REALLY falling out in frightening clumps (though no bald spots, just lots of hair falling out. I’m afraid to brush my hair, wash my hair, relax my hair, or even look at my hair), and Dr. Google hasn’t helped in figuring out what’s going on and the nearest dermatologist is like Green Bay,  and I have always had thick luxurious hair so this is pretty much a real fucking bummer. My hair was the only thing I ever felt good about and now I have like no hair left. NO HAIR. I’ve tried vinegar rinse, coal tar, I’m taking 5 vitamins a day.  I’m quietly freaking out. I mean, I am REALLY freaking about this. Is it stress? Poor eating habits? A very serious disease that will kill me? Am I DYING? I hope not.

I have a thing up at The Rumpus about the men at my gym.

I got a job.

My problems are silly but…. MY HAIR!

Outstanding Submissions: 12

Rejections: 2, personal

I received very snappy rejections from NY Tyrant (no but the story had great moments) and The Nashville Review (not quite right but send more). I can live with this.

If you have an impossible, unrequited infatuation for someone and you are over the age of 16, is crush still the appropriate terminology?

I was a semi-finalist in the Rose Metal Press Chapbook competition. Considering my fellow semi-finalists and finalists, I am really quite thrilled. This was a genuine and much-needed surprise.

I recommend a song for the Wigleaf winter playlist. There are also really interesting recommendations from writers like Lauren Becker, Kirsty Logan, Elizabeth Ellen, Angi Becker Smith and Jim Ruland among others.

I had a campus interview at a mid-sized Midwestern University. The faculty made me feel at ease and things went really well I think but that could also be delusion talking. I really enjoyed the day and the people I met. I did the best I possibly could. I could be happy there.

I spent Saturday in Chicago and last night I had dinner with Tadd Adcox and Rebekah Silverman, editors of Artifice Magazine and Tim Jones-Yelvington. I was, of course, super nervous becauze I’m a spaz but ended up having a grand time. It was the first time I’ve relaxed in weeks. They were very… urban and sophisticated but also very smart and witty and kind. I felt like a hick a little bit. I wore big hoop earrings. I like big hoop earrings. We went to an Argentinian steakhouse called Folklore that was super trendy. The bathrooms were gorgeous and immaculate. There were NO ugly people in that restaurant. It was like a central meeting place for beautiful thin people wearing black clothing, perfect makeup and expensive shoes. The hipster quotient was high. I was wearing black and expensive shoes. The food was fantastic. Massive quantities of meat were eaten with this magical topping that involved a shocking amount of garlic. I drank a delicious Mojito. It was  the most delicious concoction ever in a glass with lots of party favors like ice, mint and lime. If all alcohol tasted that good, I would drink regularly. It was very exciting to meet new people and have great conversations. I felt like an adult. I also learned about a Russian Orthodox church, an evil condo building, saw a beautiful apartment and commiserated about unreliable printers. Can’t wait to do it again.

Several of you have asked how you might help with Haiti. I would like to do a fundraiser for Edna and Hans. If you’re interested in participating, please feel free to send any amount you wish, via PayPal, to rgay74 at gmail dot com. This is an option if you’re interested in donating to a family who can and will benefit directly and use all of your contribution immediately. All contributions will go directly to Hans and Edna to help them begin to rebuild their lives. Feel free to share this information with others who want to do something more personal than contribute to a major charity (which is also an excellent alternative). I’m going to kick in $150 but any amount would help. The US dollar goes a long way in Haiti.

Just so I can stay true to the purpose of this blog, I have not had any rejections. I don’t really care if I get any rejections. Everything about my life feels so trivial right now. I feel selfish and lucky and guilty that I get to live what is a really amazing life and so many others don’t. I am starting to think Haiti is like a prison and only a lucky few escape and I am the child of two such lucky escapees only one of those escapees is insane and has chosen to return to the asylum (she says to her father).  I need to find a way past this because there’s so much that is amazing about Haiti, really there is but right now, it is hard to hold onto those good things and it is pretty hard to imagine a future for that place. I selected the story for this week’s Smokelong Quarterly, The Strain of Collusion by xTx. It is a story I love and that moved me a great deal. I hope you love it as much as I do.  I use the word “that” too much. I use too many commas. I use the words “I think” too much. I do think too much. I have opinions I am not afraid to share.

My brother J is visiting my parents this week and holding a corporate retreat at their golf club. He is the real bon vivant of the family, the middle child, the loud boisterous one who makes his presence known, and pretty much everyone who ever meets him either loves him or hates him.  He’s awesome and exactly what the doctor ordered. When he got there on Saturday, he instantly cheered my parents up. They called me via conference call and I heard my dad laugh for the first time in a week. My dad had been sulky because there were no commercial flights into PAP and he was getting antsy. He has since, of course, found a way to run into the fire. This is why my brother makes my parents laugh:

Yes, my brother wore that outfit. He appeared in public in said outfit, and he wasn’t being like, ironic. We are very different. Sorry ladies, he is married.

My mom called me today and told me to call Edna who had gotten out of bed and was at the office with Hans and Clifford because they plan to go everywhere together now. I didn’t want to call, not because it was an inconvenience but because I didn’t know what to say to a woman who had just lost two children, and was homeless and surrounded by chaos. It’s one thing to talk about Edna’s family and to try in some small way to tell her story but it is another thing entirely to talk to her. I was afraid of saying the wrong thing, of my French not being clear enough to convey the depths of my sadness over her loss, and also, I was afraid of intruding on her grief which is such a personal thing. I have no real way of understanding what it means to lose a child and moreover what it means to have lived through a catastrophe of such massive proportions and then be forced to continue to live so close to the geography of one’s grief. I know nothing at all. I am a silly girl.  My mother being my mother, said, “You will know what to say.” and that was that. When she makes these kinds of requests, it is not a question of if but when.

I called the office (we have VoIP there and by the grace of someone other than God it WORKS). When Edna came to the phone I could barely hear her. Her voice… the tone of it is something I have never in my life heard. It was so horrible. There was a hollowness to it, a profound emptiness, like there was no life left in her. I told her how sorry I was for her loss, that my thoughts are with her, that I would do anything I could to help. She began talking, slowly at first, and then the words were rushing furiously. She told me that she was the one who made it to her home first, around 9 pm. She told me that the children were still alive when she got there, that she talked to them, that Alex and Immacula called for her, and she told them she loved them and she screamed and she tried to lift enormous blocks of concrete but she could not get to them. When others finally came, they pulled Clifford free and then he directed them to where his brother was and later they found Immacula. Edna said she will never forget the horror of standing there speaking to her trapped children, that she still hears their voices and sees their bodies. She said she didn’t know how something like this could happen to her and that her children were so young, that they knew nothing of life. And then she started saying, “It’s hard,” over and over again.  As she spoke, I finally understood that there are some things from which someone cannot recover. The horror of this is very fresh for Edna but I honestly do not know how she has the strength to make it from one breath to the next. I felt so small and helpless because to say things will get better would have been ridiculous. It would have been an insult for me to say those words to Edna so for an hour, I listened. My mother was right. I did know what to say. Unfortunately, it was not nearly enough.

The media has, in recent days, made much of the evils of the Haitian elite. I will not sit here and say that the Haitian elite are without their faults but the notion that the Haitian elite treat the rest of the country without regard is really quite offensive. I’ve read articles that say the elite (for lack of a better term) just step over the poor and don’t even know how to communicate with them because of the language barrier (French vs. Creole). There are few Haitians, from any class who do not speak Creole. Even the Americans in Haiti learn Creole quite quickly. The reality in Haiti, as in many Third World countries, is that the rich and the working poor could not exist without one another. Without the elite, what little economy Haiti has would not exist. There would be no jobs. There would be nothing at all. Without the working poor, nothing would get done. Everyone in Haiti is pretty clear on the reality that we all need each other.

There are many Haitian elite who are classist and behave abhorrently. Exploitation does take place and it is unacceptable that so much wealth is concentrated in the hands of so few. At the same time, is that concentration of wealth unique to Haiti? I don’t think so. The primary difference in terms of wealth distribution between the US and Haiti is that here in the US we have a middle class.  There are also many among the upper class who are mindful of the importance of respecting all Haitians, and who treat those who work for them equitably. In Haiti, the average household functions with the crucial support of many domestic employees–maids, nannies, gardeners, chauffeurs, caretakers and more. These people become part of your family, often for generations. The elite help their employees build homes, pay for their childrens’ educations. This is not something that deserves special attention. It’s the least one could do but I say this to simply point out that the media really has no understanding of Haiti and how the society works (for better or worse).   It is really shortsighted to assume that the Haitian elite (not to be confused with the government which is another issue entirely) is as corrupt, exploitative and unfeeling as the media would have you believe.

On to more important matters.

Hans and Edna have worked for my family for nearly ten years. Edna started as a housekeeper then became the manager of my mom’s gas station and now is an office manager at my dad’s company. Hans is the right hand man. There is nothing he doesn’t do. He is a chauffeur and facilitator. He is a protector. He is a supervisor at my dad’s company, keeping track of the heavy equipment and fuel. He is fiercely loyal and protective not only of my parents but my brothers and I. When my brother and my cousin were 16, they wanted to take a car for a joyride in PAP. They thought driving in PAP would be the same as driving in the States. Hans jumped in front of the car and refused to let them leave without him driving because he knew that two diaspora boys driving around in PAP aimlessly was a recipe for disaster. Both Edna and Hans are extremely intelligent.  Had they been afforded the privilege of being born in the US, they would have become anything they wanted.

They have three children–Immacula (14), Clifford, (16) and Alex (9). Clifford is a bit of a trouble-maker but he is a charming boy, taller than his father. He is their only surviving child. Immacula was a beautiful girl, tall, slender, sassy, adored by her father. Alex was witty and ridiculously smart and the cutest boy you ever did see. Though his parents adore all their children, Hans and Edna could not help but let it show once in a while that Alex was their favorite.  Immacula died instantly, crushed by her home. Alex’s legs were crushed but he survived the initial earthquake. Hans paid someone to break down an obstructing wall so he could free his children. Hans carried Alex through the streets looking for medical help but could not find any. His youngest child died in his arms. He had to bury his children himself. He laid them to rest together in a shallow grave. Edna is inconsolable. She can barely sit up and has not spoken since the earthquake. Hans is trying to be strong. He is a man of such character and resolve that he went to work after burying his children. This morning, my dad told him, “We cannot take away your sorrow but we will help you rebuild and we will try to help you through this.” Hans said, “I know, Ingénieur.” For the past three mornings, he goes to my parents’ apartment which is uninhabitable but has food. He only takes a little each day because he, Edna and Clifford are living with so many other people (at a relatives home) who would steal his food if he brought too much. He doesn’t share where he’s getting this food from. This morning he also said, “My life is over.” To know that something like this can happen to people who are so loving and good is unbearable. These stories need to be told.

Hans, Edna, Clifford, Immacula and Alex at the Hotel Montana for dinner with my family in June 2008

Alex and Immacula June 2008

I have been overwhelmed and humbled by the support and friendship I’ve received over the past two days. Thank you. PANK is donating all our proceeds from sales of our first chapbook and PANK 4 to the American Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières between now and 2/13/10. Go here to get some great reading and do a good thing.

I have heard from old friends, acquaintances, exes, that’s the overwhelming part. I’m humbled because even people I’ve treated poorly when I was young and/or stupid have been kind enough to ask how me and my family are doing. My parents have experienced much of the same–almost everyone my father has ever worked with has gotten in touch with him. It’s kind of crazy to see how widely the story of the earthquake is being reported and how strongly people are reacting to the catastrophe.

Everyone asks me how I’m doing and I say I’m fine. I say I’m fine because really, what else is there to say? I cannot overstate how lucky my family and I are. We have suffered some great losses and I do not mean to minimize that but it is almost embarrassing to say I’m having a hard time when I think of the people in Port-au-Prince, both my family who are safe but traumatized and grieving and the unfathomable millions who are without shelter, food, water or hope. However bad you think the situation in Haiti is, whatever you think you’ve seen on the news, multiply that by a thousand. What’s even more disheartening is to know that in a day or two, all hell is going to break loose.

I am fine but I just cannot comprehend how something like this could happen in a country that could so little afford such a calamity. I have never been a woman of strong faith but I must admit that what little faith I had has been completely shattered and I’m not even remotely interested in entertaining any discussion about it.  I look at what happened in Haiti, I look at people like Pat Robertson (not even worth our time, right?) and Rush Limbaugh (human excrement) and the guys at Perkins tonight who were openly making jokes about the earthquake and I think surely there is no God.

I am fine but I feel numb because it is all so overwhelming. Watching CNN is overwhelming. To know the country well enough to understand how desperate and impossible the situation is, overwhelms me. Anderson Cooper is sexy. He is going to marry me, I think.

The Haitian government is an international embarrassment from top to bottom. Yes, I said it.  It has to be said. The president has given two weak, sad little interviews and has barely shown his face. We’ve seen every other official but the supposed leader of the country. I understand that he is overwhelmed. I cannot begin to imagine what it is like to be in his shoes, but to to do nothing, to not address the people, to not try and coordinate with US and UN officials or at the very least, authorize them to take control so the bottlenecks at the airport can improve is… unspeakable.  It is such an outrage and I am shocked that the media is not reporting on this angle of the “story.”

The news coverage irritates me sometimes. Sanjay Gupta held a baby and changed the bandage on her head and then acted like he had resurrected her from the dead. The baby is 15 days old. I can’t even wrap my mind around the reality of all the motherless children in Haiti right now. CNN keeps going on about the prisoners fleeing the damaged prison as if there were other reasonable options. What were the prisoners supposed to do? Just sit around and… discipline themselves, wait for new guards to arrive? It’s just so stupid to act like it’s appalling that the prisoners left the broken prison. They say that an expert warned of the earthquake. So what? In a country like Haiti, that information is pretty useless. There was nothing that could have been done to prevent this given the ineffectiveness and corruption of the government. Some of the reporters keep on acting like Haiti is a normal place. The only saving grace is Anderson Cooper who has an infinite supply of tight little t-shirts, perfect blue eyes, clearly knows the country and loves the country and will probably marry me when this is all over. I am keeping my name but if you call me Mrs. Cooper I won’t be rude and correct you.

Attention makes me hugely uncomfortable, particularly given how far removed I am from any kind of suffering so really, truly, I am fine.

My great aunt and uncle died. They were married for 62 years. They were not distant relatives. I saw them often. They loved me unconditionally. They didn’t bother me about my tattoos, which for old school, conservative Haitians is some serious business. They gave me a couple looks at first but then life moved on because they love me. They were like grandparents to me.  They loved their children all of whom became great people, successful. They adored my father and his siblings. When my paternal grandmother came to the United States, my father and his siblings lived with my great aunt and uncle until their mother sent for them. When I was a kid, I would go to my great aunt’s art gallery in PAP and she would give me art and tell me about art and jewelry and my brother and I would run around the store and try to stab each other with wooden machetes and we would get stern looks and I would sit at the little cafe in the gallery and she would give me sandwiches and coke in a glass bottle which I thought was the most amazing thing. In the picture below, taken about a month ago, they are on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas which recently docked in Labadie, Haiti. The picture was taken in the before when Haiti had hope and things were looking up. My dad provided all the concrete for the new pier in Labadie and fancy people were on the ship attending a reception celebrating the opening of the pier and the maiden voyage of the ship.   My great aunt and uncle were so proud of my father. They said, “Look at what our son has done,” as they walked along the pier and once on the world’s largest cruise ship, they simply beamed.  They were in their 80s but they were super sassy and dignified and active. They lived a good life. They did not deserve this end. No one does.

My parents returned to the States for the week on Sunday and so when my mother called this afternoon, quite distressed, to tell me about the earthquake in Haiti, I was selfish. My first thought was, “Thank God my parents aren’t in that hellhole.” I know this is a horrible, self-involved thought but my parents spend half of every month in Haiti and I do not know what I would do if I had to be one of the thousands upon thousands of Haitian Americans who have spent the past several hours futilely trying to call Haiti to hear word of loved ones.

I was upset about the earthquake but I also had to teach from 7-9:30 pm and I am preparing for a campus visit and stressing about hearing from two schools who won’t be making decisions about campus visits until the end of the month and I’m working on my dissertation and I’m sore from a hellish workout and I’m having an unspeakable hair crisis and I’m in a dysfunctional relationship and I spent two hours in a conference call with my brothers talking about something that had nothing to do with the earthquake and I’m sulking about all these rejections. In the face of all that, I have to accept that my life is so fucking petty. I sit here and I blog and self-obsess about my first world problems while the world falls down.

I have a lot of family in Haiti–aunts, uncles, my maternal grandmother, cousins, a great aunt and uncle. Some of them we’ve heard from. Some of them we cannot reach. My great aunt and uncle’s home has collapsed and they cannot be found.  Our family’s business is in Haiti and the concrete plant has partially collapsed. We have 500 employees and it will be days before we know what has happened and to whom.  My parents’ apartment is in the Hotel Montana and the hotel has collapsed. We’re the lucky ones. We come and go at will. We have generators and laptops and satellites. We can, theoretically, rebuild.

At least two million people are homeless on a tiny island with no infrastructure, no sewer system, no healthcare and now, no electricity and no telephone access. Based on scraps of information, word is that most buildings more than one story tall have collapsed. If they haven’t collapsed, they’ve likely sustained serious damage which cannot be safely assessed without international assistance. There are people lying in the streets broken and bleeding and they are calm because they know no help is coming. The streets are quiet because there are no ambulances. There is no searching. There is no rescue.  Their lives truly are in God’s hands. My cousins and I, both here and there, have been talking on Facebook of all things, exchanging scraps of information, trying to piece together the family tree between here and Port-au-Prince. We share links and we follow Twitter and refresh Google News every five minutes and try to reconcile with what has happened.

My father is bound and determined to find a way back onto the island to help with the rebuilding efforts and my mother, brothers and I are bound and determined to hide his passport.

Two days ago, Haitians were cautiously optimistic. All things being relative, things were looking up in Haiti. The Royal Caribbean pier in Labadie was finished in December and the Oasis of the Seas docked there on its maiden voyage. A couple of major hotel chains had announced plans to open hotels in Haiti. Bill Clinton in his role as Special UN Envoy to Haiti was helping to build international confidence in the island so as to revive the tourism industry. Now, no one knows what will happen.

Late this evening, my mom and I were talking about how the before and after pictures of the slums looked mostly the same. That is the real tragedy of Haiti. When a natural disaster strikes the developed world, you know somehow, some way, that that place will rebuild. I am skeptical that Haiti will be able to recover from this disaster. We simply do not have the means.  There is not enough aid in the world. Where will the aid workers stay if there are few buildings left standing in the capital? How will they function if there is no electricity or potable water? How will they work safely if the deforested mountains are falling down on their heads? How will they reach the devastated areas if the roads are impassable and there’s no way to remove the obstructing debris? The world would be better off finding a way to move everyone who’s still alive somewhere else to start over–find us a new Israel. If the earthquake was devastating, and it was, the attempts for Haitians to survive will be catastrophic as the food and fuel runs out. With no police force and a crippled UN force, chaos is going to reign.

Many Haitians like to say that the price we pay for the freedom we won two hundred years ago was to endure misery until the end of time. On days like today, I think that freedom wasn’t worth the price Haiti has paid.

God has forgotten or forsaken Haiti.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, tonight.

Outstanding submissions: 9

Rejections: 3, personal

The days grow darker, friends and the rejections continue to pile up.

In this week’s low  self-esteem chronicles, personal rejections from Potomac Review (we enjoyed this piece IT ISN’t RIGHT), Agriculture Reader (no, but please do query again if we do another issue) and NOO Journal (nice emotion, sneaky ending). I appreciate the personal responses, I do, but I’m at a bit of a loss with how to proceed. I feel like I have nothing good in the hopper. I’m hardly sending any work out even though I’m sitting on like 20 stories I could be submitting.  Je n’ai plus d’espoir. Je suis désolé, désolé, désolé. I am a broken record. I could use some good news. I want to be a good writer with good writing to send into the world. I am, perhaps, a bad writer.

I have taken quite ill this week. My nasal passages are completely swollen shut. My lips are extraordinarily chapped. My face is dry and sore.  I have a bit of a cough. I feel weak and shaky. I have no appetite. My tongue is swollen. I am the picture of… something unpleasant. Today at the gym while working out with my trainer, I felt so tired and gross, I thought, this is rock bottom.

And yet, I keep getting compliments, like last night, out at dinner with friends, one of them said, “Wow you look amazing tonight,” and I thought she was joking so I got quite huffy about it and then sheepish when I realized she was serious.  Something about my sickly pallor is quite lovely indeed.

I would say more but I’m working on my dissertation and still with the job search (which is fruitful but quite hectic) and personal writing and planning my spring semester class which, blessed be, only meets once a week! Were we to diagram the sentences in this post, a grammar teacher would probably have a psychotic break.

There’s a new season of The Bachelor. I wrote about the first episode.

There’s a new Funny Women column by Susan Schorn up at The Rumpus. Go, read, enjoy.

Outstanding Submissions: 11

Rejections: 1, personal

I was wondering who would deliver my first rejection of the year and when it would arrive. I was terribly terribly curious. I knew in my heart it would come from a magazine I love—a magazine where I desperately wanted to place my writing. I am so glad I have that kind of foresight. My first rejection has come from Redivider. It arrived on January 2. What can I say? Some rejections do hurt more than others. There is a bit of good news–they enjoyed the story (but it was a bad fit AGAIN), and they admire my writing and welcome future submissions. That’s great but oh I am sad. I love Redivider. I think my writing is a good fit for Redivider. I believe I can fly. There is a Santa Claus.

I have spent this weekend recovering from my MLA interviews and the various traumas encountered in Philadelphia. My flight out of Philly was canceled on 12/31 so instead of being back in freezing Houghton on New Year’s Eve but at least with someone I generally like, I was stuck, alone, in my hotel for another night. Fortunately, I had written a serious letter of complaint to the manager of the Loews so they let me stay for free for that extra night! I write really good letters, it must be said. I am effective with the epistolary approach. I spent NYE sulking. I cannot lie. I was not able to rise above the somber occasion. I tried to sleep. I bought Couples Retreat for $13.99 (OMFG). I watched TV but not Dick Clark or Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin or any of that stuff. I watched a lot of drama unfold between 1 and 4 am through the peephole in my hotel room door. Things I saw included girls in tight dresses stumbling about in impossibly high heels having some adorably stupid conversations; two boys wearing white shirts and skinny black ties fighting RIGHT OUTSIDE MY DOOR breaking beer bottles over each others heads; lots of jawing back and forth and the exchange of very serious words (You don’t know me, son! NO, You don’t know ME, son!); the drunk stumbly girls trying to pull the boys apart; the hotel staff largely ignoring the rumble; people saying Happy New Years to their invisible friends; drunk sloppy people making out and otherwise fornicating.

It really sucks (but awesomely) to have a room right off of the elevator banks. I got no sleep so by the time I checked out at 4:30, I was exhausted and ready to cry. Fortunately, I held it together.  I went outside, flagged a cab down, and the cabbie was all, “Please pay me in cash,” and that was irritating but I had to get to the airport for my 5:50 flight so I acquiesced. At the airport, I checked in, got patted down quite intensely, and was so relieved when the plane actually took off, I offered up a brief prayer of gratitude. On the second flight, from Detroit to Green Bay, the plane was so tiny I could not stand upright. I was like a behemoth in that mofo. Being 6′3″ is overrated. Also, I have shrunk an inch. I used to be 6′4″. I’m pretty sad about that inch. I don’t know where I left it.  Anyway. After arriving in Green Bay, I had to drive home, which took about 3 1/2 hours and when I got home I found that the Christmas rain had frozen into a shell of ice that was covered with a new layer of snow and I looked around and slipped around and I was so happy. My friend was waiting for me with a cold Diet Cherry Pepsi and I was able to quickly forget how depressing the 2009 holidays were for me. I am the queen of first world problems. I mean really, this is what I have to complain about? Thank goodness for perspective.

I saw It’s Complicated and it was a smart, wonderful, mature movie. I haven’t laughed that much at a movie in some time.

I have a very short story in the new issue of DIAGRAM.

There is a new issue of Emprise Review.

Erin Fitzgerald put together an awesome list of stories that eerily mirrors a similar list I would put together.

I have no rejections to write about today. The stories I have out and about are lingering in a state of inertia. I want to hear good news about these stories. I want them to find love. We all want to find love, even our words.

I started this blog.

I turned 35 and did not freak out. I dated a couple dudes who let me boss them around which is convenient in that I am, well, bossy and a control freak and romantically I am more compatible with folks who are okay with that. Future spouse, whoever you are, take note!

Things started out pretty slow. I was in a bit of a funk but I was writing. In March or April, I decided to start submitting work again after a very long hiatus from the literary publishing scene where hiatus means that I felt misunderstood and found other ways to publish my writing and learned how to become a better writer and less of a baby. The break was good for me. Since March or April, I made 230 submissions. A quarter of those were accepted for publication. I’m pretty proud of that. I wrote two short story collections which I hope will find homes in 2010. I’m proud of how my writing continues to improve. I’m happy that writing makes me so happy. I’m ambitious and I want to get my work out there and into bigger markets but even if I never published another story, I would still be excited to open a new Word document to begin something new.

PANK had an excellent year. I worked really hard on the magazine. I thought I didn’t but as I reflected on the last year I realize, yes, I put in some effort and that effort paid off. We have monthly online issues and a lively blog and with each new issue I think, “This is my favorite yet.” We got a pretty new website from the fine folks at Supreme Value. We held our first contest and were blown away by the winning writing and runners up. We sent out a lot of personal rejections because no matter how much we might complain about submissions on Twitter (which is WHAT Twitter is for), we see all kinds of really interesting writing and we hope that writers find that feedback useful. We’re putting out our first chapbook and our fourth print issue and they are both amazing.  If my writing brings me the most joy, PANK is a very close second in contributing to my overall happiness. No matter how slushy the slush pile or how frustrating the angry writer with whom I might have to correspond, the whole endeavor remains joyful. It is a real privilege to be able to work with writers on their work and to develop relationships with really exciting people. I’m excited to see what we do in 2010 and beyond.

I became the fiction editor for Emprise Review. I don’t talk about that project much because it is pretty low key but I’m just as proud of the two issues I’ve done so far with that magazine as I am of anything else I’ve done this year. The new issue in January is really interesting and diverse and I think people will enjoy it. Patrick McAllaster, the editor, is kind and genuinely cares about his magazine and puts in so much work and is a class act. It’s a pleasure to work with him. I also got to do a guest stint at Smokelong Quarterly thanks to Dave Clapper, an editor for whom I have a great deal of respect. The story I chose is perfect and moving and will go up at Smokelong in January.

I started contributing to other places this year, namely HTML GIANT and Barrelhouse, two very different places which have afforded me two unique forums for voicing my opinions on all things writing (the former) and all thing pop culture (the latter).  It has meant a lot to be invited to both parties. I also started working on a new project and when it’s ready (hopefully soon) I will share more. Once a month, I’ll be contributing a guest post to Big Other so if you’re not sick of me and my blathering, there’s that.

I began the final year of my PhD program. I’m going to be Dr. Gay in May. I am writing my dissertation and I went on the job market. I sent out 54 applications for tenure-track positions and learned about how exhausting and stressful and demanding it is to get a job in higher education. Hopefully by the end of February I will know where I will be next year. I can honestly say I would be happy at all the universities and colleges where I have interviewed (because I only applied to schools where I would want to go) so I’m nervous and terrified but also excited about the possibilities the future holds.  I have worked really hard for five years both in and out of the classroom. I’ve served my community and I’ve become a better teacher and I have a research agenda that interests me and I’ve learned how much I have yet to learn which is a lot. At this point I feel like I’ve done my very best. I can only trust, now, that my best will be good enough to get a job.

I quit smoking last year and didn’t smoke one single cigarette this year. That was tough until it wasn’t. This summer I decided it would be a good idea to get less fat so I started seeing a personal trainer and though losing weight is slow and hard and I’m prone to…sabotaging myself, I meet with my trainer five times a week and work out for like 2 hours a day and I’m proud of at least sticking to that regimen and it’s refreshing to walk up stairs without wanting to pass out even if I cannot give up soda or food no matter how hard I try.

I discovered so many exciting writers and read so much brilliance and have made new friends who are fun and smart and supportive and kind. In my mind we’re a totally rad girl posse–xTx, Ethel Rohan, Erin Fitzgerald, Lauren Becker, Paula Bomer, Mel Bosworth (don’t mind his beard), Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, I know I’m leaving folks out, but you get the drill. I read a whole lot–chapbooks and magazines both in print and online and short story collections and novels and poetry and theory books for school and I didn’t really keep a list but there was very little I didn’t enjoy in some form or fashion. It is always humbling to realize how much greatness there is to be found in the written word.

I’m forgetting a lot, I’m sure, like all the things that sucked of which there were many but really when I reflect upon 2009, I cannot help but think about how lucky I am to do what I do, both professionally and personally and in that, the bad doesn’t seem to matter as much.