I Have Become Accustomed To Rejection

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.