Now sure, there is that nasty little "accidental" plagarism charge...but that will just help her sell more copies.
The bigger key I think is the fact that she's young and attractive. Face-for-radio reclusive authors are going to either need college teaching gigs or stick to their day jobs to make it, unless they're Thomas Pynchon (who I think secretly has a day job...he submits ridiculous stories to Fox News and they run them as if true.)
This should bother me a lot...but it doesn't. The bonus side effect of finding self-confidence post nasty relationship is that I realized (pause for Zoolander moment) I'm not-quite-but-close-to really, really, ridiculously good-looking. And people either lie to my face and tell me I'm funny and enjoyable company, or those things are more or less true too.
So basically I need to finish a novel, any novel, before I get old, wrinkled and crumudgeonly. Because if all the publishing world is looking for in their quest to find a half-a-million book deal author is decent but no where near MacArthur Grant-level writing and a pretty face that can make for great inverviews and book tours, well, I'm your guy Little Brown and Company.
(Side note: the current candidate is a short story that wants to be more than short, that also wants to be a romantic comedy. Think Nick Hornby but with seasonings of Gaddis's dialogue, Ellis's pop-culture sense and bits and pieces of DFW. Oh, and here's a sample:
The next day I meet Jason and Mike for lunch. Conversation-wise, our lunches after a night of Hunting are like a twisted version of Baseball Tonight.
“Mike’s got a hell of a streak going.”
“Ah, just meeting the right girls at the right time…”
“Fuck you man, quit sandbagging. That Brandy chick was fucking hot.”
“Give me a scale, I didn’t see her.”
“Fucking 8.9 easy.”
“She was alright.”
“Alright? Mike, you get her airbrushed up like all those Maxim sluts and she’d blow half of them away.”
“Yeah, well…”
“She was lousy I bed wasn’t she?”
“How’d you know?”
“You sandbag every time. Jason, you should know that by now. He did it with whatshername last month too.”
“Oh yeah. Still that Brandy chick was hotter. Those tits man.”
“Are you jealous? Or did you come up empty?”
“Nah, Jason did ok.”
“Yeah Sarah was cute, but she had no tits.”
“Damn, mine was named Sarah too.”
“Cute?”
“Not bad.”
“Now who’s sandbagging motherfucker? Was she bad too?”
“I dunno. I just wasn’t feeling it with her, you know?”
“If she was hot, no, not really I don’t.”
“Or was she saying ‘don’t touch my makeup’?”
“Nah, nothing like that…it was her name.”
“What?”
“Her name. Sarah.”
“Come on.”
“Quit bullshitting.”
“I’m serious. She gets to screaming my name and, being a good gentleman like I am, I want to scream her’s back, but I’m thinking of Sara.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to be thinking about a psycho bitch like that man…”
“I thought you were over her?”
“Well…”
“Oh fuck. This is not the lunch I wanted to have today man. You’re ruining the taste of my delicious chimmichanga here. And you know I love that fried cheese goodness. Helps my liver with the booze.”
“Helps you to a heart attack.”
“Look, maybe it’s just a one time freak thing. I told her she was ‘too good’ and she loved that. Chicks’ll believe anything if it’s a naked guy on top of them doing the telling.”
“True that.”
“Hells yeah.”
But I lied. It hadn’t been a one-time, heat of the moment slip. Some strange part of me decided I was going to go home with Other Sarah only after I learned her name. That some strange part of me was starting to piss me off. What’s in a name anyway?
Sara actually had two when we dated (and probably still does): most of the time she was just Sara, after enough drinks though, she became Sara Ann. That was her full-name (well most of it, the complete thing is Sara Ann Morrison, but that’s really just one of those parental “In Case Of Extreme Anger, Use This” things tucked away most of the time) but anyway, just for some reason she had a drunk alter-ego that went by a different name.
--and yes ladies, guys really are like this and it kind of scares some of us when you act surprised.)
1 comment:
What did I tell you this year? You got hot!
Your story scares me. Please tell me men aren't really like this. Say you lied. Please.
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