I received a personal rejection for an essay from The Missouri Review. They had kind things to say: “It’s endearing in its honesty, and the ending is beautifully open-ended.” Alas, it doesn’t fit their needs. I have two essays struggling to find a home right now. It’s a little frustrating. I am not sure where to send them next.

I received a form rejection from The Paris Review. It was literally a form—a small rectangle piece of paper letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that they are not interested in my story. I was bummed because it came in that hazy period where the story had been out long enough to be actually considered. I came to this determination based on that highly accurate purveyor of submission information–Duotrope. I must stop using Duotrope to feed my pathetic writerly hopes.  I do love the slip of paper rejection, though. It lets you know that you do not merit a full piece of paper. You merit exactly 1/6th of a piece of paper. There is such honesty in that kind of rejection.

Talking about rejection tonight is a little silly. The most amazing thing to ever happen in my writing career happened this week. My short story “North Country,” which appeared in Hobart 12, will be in Best American Short Stories 2012.  I am stunned. I am thrilled. This has been a dream of mine for… more than twenty years. I honestly never thought it could happen for me. When I got the email, I thought it was an elaborate joke from one of my friends because of my critical writing on the anthology and I kept thinking, “Man, this joke is so awesome. It seems so authentic!” I was really tickled and impressed by the level of thought that went into the prank. Then I realized it was real because I googled to see who the guest editor was and it matched up and also Aaron Burch emailed me and then I cried. I’m in a funk but when I get out of it, I will truly savor this. I’m just so honored and grateful to Elizabeth Ellen who first picked the story and she and Aaron for publishing it in Hobart. Also from that issue in BASS 12, Mike Meginnis. Two stories! From an indie magazine! WHAT?

There has been a lot of talk about Rihanna this week because she has, at least professionally, reconciled with Chris Brown. I’ve seen all kinds of criticisms launched at her, people asking, “How could she?” I don’t pretend to understand her motivations. I do know she gets to choose how she lives her life and who she spends her time with. We don’t get to take that away from her or sit in judgment of her choices. Am I judging her choice a little? Of course. I want to just say, GIRL WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? For one, the cake song is fucking terrible.  Let’s start there. That song sounds like metal garbage cans being banged together with some “singing” and crassness included. At least make good music together. What I know is this:  it is very hard to leave an abusive relationship. Abusive relationships often come with a revolving door. Rihanna probably loves Chris Brown. Chris Brown is always going to be someone I find execrable. My opinion is irrelevant. I hope he never lays a cruel hand on her again. I am not optimistic.

Every once in a while I reach an emotional state where I am completely out of the ability to cope.  I have pretty strong coping mechanisms so when I run out, you can trust that life has been doing its best to wear me down completely. I am all the way worn down right now. I am looking forward to summer. I am traveling to various destinations across the country six times form AWP through May 24 after which there will likely be more travel. This is mostly a blessing. I am really looking forward to summer. I am going to make myself take a vacation where I truly vacate. I will work out the logistics in the summer. And pray I get the one residency I applied for so I can just go somewhere and disconnect.

Last week this amazing thing happened for two people I love like crazy. There is an adorable space invader in my life who I will adore and spoil forever. I couldn’t be happier, but it made me just break down (personal crisis, so boring) and I haven’t been able to pull myself together since. I knew some sort of reaction was coming because I know myself and still, I wasn’t fully prepared for how it would take me out at the knees or maybe at the heart. I’m so busy right now, I don’t even have time to deal with it. I just have to swallow it and move on.

Lately, I’ve been realizing I am thirty seven and have been dealing with the same bullshit for twenty five years–lame. A thing happens and it affects every single part of your life, sometimes subtly, sometimes in glaring, breathtakingly painful and unanticipated ways.  I’ve been consumed by the realization that I have no idea who I would have been if this thing hadn’t happened. That’s not the most productive way to spend my time. The past is the past. It is immutable. The only thing you can change is how you respond to it. That’s the song and dance people like to sell. Whatever. And still. I spend hours lately thinking, would this have happened? Would that have happened? Would I be the writer I am? Would I be the person I am? Would I have my friends? Would I look different? Would I feel different? Who would I have been? I wish I could know the answers to these questions. I wish I could know the who I would have been. This is a pretty universal thing where we wonder about the alternate possibilities for our lives.

I have a soft spot for Rihanna and her predicament, for lack of a better word. It is very easy to be smart and stupid at the same time, which I do with alarming regularity. I look at her and think that she might be wondering, what if Chris Brown and I could be happy? What if there’s an alternative possibility for us? Maybe she is willing to take that chance. Maybe she wants to help him out. Maybe she is young and impulsive and just wants to tell the world, “You don’t know me.” Maybe her label forced her to do this. Maybe they didn’t. We will never know. We can only sit and watch and wonder and worry.

I went out with this guy the other day. We met at an event at the beginning of the semester and he said, “We should go out for coffee sometime.” I thought he was talking to the person behind me so I accidentally blew him off and walked away from the conversation so he and the person behind me could have their privacy. It turns out he was talking to me. Awkward.

Then I thought he just wanted writing advice because he mentioned he has a project he’s working on. You know how it is–mention you’re a writer, and all of a sudden, the floodgates open. I feel sorry for doctors because then people talk to you about the strange, leaking infection behind their left ass cheek. That can’t be pleasant.  I gave this guy my email address because ugh, phone call from a stranger to talk about writing? No thanks. I completely forgot about the encounter, mostly hoped he didn’t have a 500 page manuscript for me to look at because I am happy to help aspiring writers but I couldn’t conceive of finding the time to tackle some Life Project Manuscript for someone I don’t know. Anyway, he emailed me and coffee became dinner. I thought it was so weird. How were we going to talk about his Life Project 500 page book (borne entirely from my imagination) over dinner? Then he asked for my address so he could pick me up and I realized OH. Turns out it was a date.  My radar for this sort of thing is not… good. It’s a fat girl thing.

Before we went out, I wrote out this list of things NOT TO DO because I’m so detached from normal dating behaviors that I’ll go out with someone, and act first, ask questions later whether I really want to or not. I wanted to remind myself of all my bad habits so I wouldn’t do them. I was trying to be responsible and mature. I was trying to choose a different adventure because I was tired of turning to page 69.

I didn’t even want to go on the date. That sounds terrible but I just went because I thought, well, he asked and, “Who am I to say no?” That sounds terrible too. I’m a feminist! I mean, come on. The entire time, I thought, “I do not want to be here. I do not want to talk to him. I want to go home.” It’s a situation I’ve been in countless times. I write about it sometimes, this sense of entrapment where I feel unduly obligated to say yes to things. Nice enough guy, good looking, but not my type, no chemistry, not a great conversationalist, excessive eye contact with my chest. I wanted to tell him, “They cannot talk to you.” I totally realized at one point that he was a chubby chaser because of some excessive hints he dropped about curves and zaftigness and such. Some of those guys are just… nuts. I try to steer clear. And the way he dropped the hints, it was like he wanted me to be grateful. I’ve been in such a terrible mood this week that really I wanted to tell him, “I do not give a fraction of a fuck.”

At the end of the evening when he dropped me off, he wanted to “see my book collection.” I thought, “I do not want you in my home,” but I didn’t want to be rude so I let him come up and said, jokingly, “There are no books in my bedroom,” so as to avoid any awkwardness and make it clear that I wasn’t interested in anything beyond conversation. (There are lots of books in my bedroom for the right reader.) He started looking at my books and trying to talk about them which I also had no interest in doing. I don’t want to talk about my books, I just want to read them.

He noticed wine on my counter and said, “Let’s have some wine,” and I didn’t want to be rude so we had wine. That I didn’t want to have with him. At all. I kept thinking, “How do I make him leave without being rude? How do I make him leave without making him mad?”  I started to get irritated because I had work to do and teaching the next morning and on and on and I knew I was going to be WRECKED at work because it was getting so late.

I also have this great DVD collection, like I could open a video store. Of course he started looking at the movies and said, “Let’s watch a movie.” At this point I was basically dying inside because I know my patterns and the whole night was going to end stupidly. To make matters worse, he didn’t even ask what I wanted to watch, he just… picked a movie he wanted to see, which I. DID. NOT. WANT. TO. SEE. It was X-Men First Class, which, to be clear, terrible. I own it because well, it was 4 for $20 at Blockbuster and that feels free. I didn’t want to be rude so I let him put the movie in and excused myself for a moment and went to my bathroom. I stewed and stewed and stewed because the entire boring stupid night wasn’t the guys’ fault, it was mine, for putting myself in a situation I had no desire to be in because I didn’t want to be rude and didn’t have the nerve to simply tell a guy, thank you but no, I do not want to spend time socially with you. I was angry because I have done the bathroom stewing thing SO MANY TIMES. I needed to choose a different adventure, an alternative possibility that ended up with me in my awesome bed ALONE.

When I returned, this dude was comfortable, stretched out, feet ON MY COFFEE TABLE, shoes off. I wanted to say, “Sir, I DO NOT KNOW YOU.” His sock feet were on my coffee table. I’m still angry about this. We had met twice and exchanged perhaps six emails of a vaguely personal nature. Now, I am a flirt, sometimes shameless and dirty. I am. But I did not flirt with him because I was that uninterested in friendship or anything else. Our evening together, casual and platonic, was not enough to make sock feet on a coffee table okay. You guys can put your sock feet on my table but not him. I also didn’t like his socks.

We started watching the movie and he started inching closer and stretching his arm along the back of the couch and I thought, “Seriously? Dude, we are in our thirties. Get your game together.” I was on the edge of the couch so there was nowhere for me to go short of moving to a different seating situation or straddling the armrest, both of which I considered. Then he started that boring date talk about what was your last relationship like and what are you looking for and all those depressing feeler questions where a guy is trying to figure out–is this going to take one date or three? I had not the energy for banter. I don’t even remember what I said but I was drawing from recollections of the latest issue of Vogue I had just read. I said nothing of substance.

Eventually, he had done his arm stretch slide maneuver such that our legs were touching. Now, anyone who knows me, knows I absolutely hate being touched unless I am dating you or you know, in the moment. He doesn’t know me and we were decidedly not in a moment. My skin was crawling and I knew I was about fifteen seconds from losing my shit completely. I remembered my NOT TO DO list, which I had mostly ignored like a champion and reminded myself I did not want to do anything with this guy. I knew that before the date. That had not changed. It wasn’t personal, I just wasn’t interested or in the mood and I had this long mental conversation before I realized, I DO NOT NEED A REASON and here I was, trying to justify to MYSELF that it’s okay to not want to pursue any kind of activity with a guy. I wanted to show him the list and say, see, my 6 pm self has forbidden any overnight guests but that would have looked a bit insane.

Finally, because I really needed his thigh away from mine and his arm away from MY SHOULDERS which he was weird rubbing, and sometimes he was stretching his fingers so they were brushing the girls and they are member’s only. He was not a member. I stood and said I had work to do (TRUTH) so we’d have to call it a night, but that it was a lovely evening. I thanked him for dinner, which we had at this gross restaurant so that was just me being polite. I did not like the food. Oh and at dinner, he asked, “Why are you a vegetarian?” Motherfucker because I feel like it. That’s why.

He said something “jokingly” and inane about how if he stayed all night we could do some work together. It was supposed to be charming but it was not. I smiled and said, “No thanks.” He said, “Let’s at least finish the movie, the wine.” HULK MAD HULK SMASH MAN FACE! I politely said, “I need to end the evening,” and he was still on his own agenda. He is truly a nice guy (he is, just maybe not good at reading cues). I didn’t know what to do. I felt like… I was speaking English and I did so clearly and somehow that wasn’t translating into whatever the hell language he hears when people speak to him. For now, I am going to call that language DICK. I moved to my other couch and grabbed my laptop and thought, “If he comes over here, I will fucking scream and beat him over the head with my laptop and then make him buy me a new laptop.” I wasn’t worried, I was just pissed off at this point.

When he saw that I was seriously going to work hahahaha he made this big dramatic sigh and started putting his shoes on like I was being unreasonable, like I owed him something for our little $23 dollar dinner. I hate that… expectation that, what, I’m going to barely know you, have no interest, and just fall into bed with you? Please. Also, breast talking chubby chaser but not the good kind. No, sir. No.

That’s why I empathize with Rihanna and sort of understand why she’s making a hot mess of things right now. You can know what’s right and have a good head on your shoulders and still do stupid things and make stupid decisions and not be good at setting and maintaining boundaries even though you outwardly appear to have your shit together.