February 28, 2002
So just where the hell have I been?
Let's catch up, shall we?
Okay, first off, I passed the EXAM OF DOOM.
Woo freakin' hoo. I'm relieved but, seeing as the damn exam has absolutely no bearing on either my store of knowledge or my GPA, I'm more annoyed that I had to waste my time taking it than proud that I passed. I'm just happy that I managed to procrastinate, as usual, and still squeak by.
Two people actually failed the exam. I know one of them. He was in two of my workshops. Nice guy. Wrote a lot of cyberpunk and existential post-modernist crap. I heard he just went out on medical leave this semester. Rumor has it that he went through a really bad breakup over winter break and he was already in poor health and failing the exam just sent him over the edge. He plans to come back in the fall and retake the exam. I hope he does. Gayle once said that what usually happens is that people fail and they get discouraged and give up. Oddly enough, as lazy as I am, I can't really fathom spending thirty thousand dollars just to give up because I failed this stupid test.
So, I feel bad for the guys who failed but I must admit that their failure makes me feel a teensy bit smarter. Like somehow my superior intelligence is what enabled me to pass with only having read Don Quixote and a handful of Modernists. Yeah, right. It's more likely that these two wackos spent the entire test period writing, "I have no idea what I'm doing. Unversity A sucks. Gayle sucks. Charles Sucks. Victor Sucks. Carl sucks. Everyone sucks" and the powers that be just couldn't find a way to pass them. Maybe they should have tried to pass it off as post-modern meta-commentary on the state of contemporary American fiction. That might have worked.
I stopped by the office the other day and the secretary let me take a look at the graders' comments on my particular version of the EXAM OF DOOM. Each exam is assigned two graders -- one creative writing faculty member and one from the Ph.D. department and to be honest, after learning that I passed, their comments meant absolutely nothing to me. Honestly, how seriously can I take Carl's comment that my third and final essay was a "rapid-fire response that was not nearly as in-depth as the first two essays"?
Well, duh. I had a fifty fucking minutes left to write the last essay because I had spent four hours and forty minutes on the first two essays and half an hour playing solitaire on the computer. What did you expect?
Even better were the Ph.D. professor's comments. "Examinee has a tendency to drift from the topic." I wonder why. You've just stuck me in a room with a computer and said "Write for six hours or we won't give you your degree." Add to that the fact that I have absolutely no useful or relevant knowledge of literature (with the seeming exception of Modernism) and now you want me to stick to the topic? Please.
My favorite comment though, was the Ph.D. professor's complaint that in my essay on the vices and virtues of the first person narrator in literature, I did not select works from different historical periods (a stipulation stated in the question). Hell, he was lucky I remembered three first person narratives. Besides, technically I chose works from three separate historical periods. I used Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho. Last time I checked, the 1980's and the 1930's were not the same historical period. And I'm pretty sure that James writing at the turn of then century was a different historical period than the Depression. Then again, I'm pretty literal in my translation of literary theory and I suppose that my qualification for historical period differs greatly from anyone who knows anything.
Ah, but I passed so really, what does it matter? Now all I need to do is hand in a hundred page manuscript (THE MANUSCRIPT OF DOOM), convince Carl and the other manuscript reader to pass me, and the M.A. is mine, all mine! Muwahahahahaha!
~*~ In news that I am actually proud of:
One of my stories was accepted for publication!
Woo hoo. (And I mean it this time.)
This acceptance came from the second batch of submissions I sent out. The story I sent out that time around was a short piece about waiting for a train. It's going to be published in the Apr-June 2002 issue of Oasis, a small literary quarterly from Florida. It doesn't pay much, but it's a start. I'm rather jazzed.
Of course, the joy of acceptance did not lessen the sting when the same story that just got accepted then got rejected by three other magazines a day later. Sheesh. I'd better send out those withdrawal letters to the other magazines before seven more rejections make me start to wonder if the editor of Oasis is crazy.
Strangely enough, though, all of this activity is from the second batch of stories I sent out. From the first batch where I sent out the quasi-lesbian story, I've only heard from The New Yorker. Next week, I'll send out ten or so more. Of course, it might help if I actually had a story ready to go out.
~*~ Holden and I are serioulsy considering bidding on a house.
We went to see it today. It's a trinity. (For an explanation of just what the hell a trinity is, please see the previous entry.) Totally remodeled -- new kitchen, new bathroom, new carpeting (which we will rip out as soon as we get in there if we take it). $89,900. The price is low because the neighborhood is borderline. It's in the Bella Vista area of Philly, which is the HOT area right now because there's no space anymore in Olde City and Queen's Village so people are moving further south into Bella. The areas surrounding the neighborhood that we're looking at are really good and where the house is actually situated is not horrible. It's definitely not located in the Bowels of Hell. Maybe more like the Esophogus of Hell. Not even that, really. There's a lot of work being done around there -- just today, we past four houses that were being gutted and remodeled and Lisa told us that two of them are going for $200,000, so it seems as if that area is, indeed, on the rise.
The thing is this: It's still a gamble. What if we take this house and the area doesn't improve but gets worse and then it's me and Holden and the crack addicts? We both like the house and we felt comfortable in the neighborhood and we feel like the risk might be worth taking but this whole thing is such a big investment and when you get right down to it, neither of us knows what we're doing.
To make things worse, the market is picking up and people are snapping up these houses as soon as they go on the market so now our decision has to be made even more quickly in order to be able to actually buy the house we're considering. We saw another house last week that we really liked but were concerned about because it didn't have any storage and while we took a day to debate possible solutions to the storage problem, someone bought it. I keep trying to tell myself that when things like that happen, it means that buying that particular house wasn't meant to be, but still, things like that start to make you panicky.
Despite the panic, however, we are going to take at least the weekend to mull this over.
~*~ This is a little strange: You know how I was saying that my old high school chum, Simon, made an independent film and I found it at hypnotic.com?
Well, the other day, I found this other film on ifilm.com that stars a comedian who used to work the Philly comedy circuit with Holden. What is this? Every fourth man I know must make independent films and put them on the web? (I didn't link to the comedian's film because I don't want him to think I'm a stalker.)
On a related note, lately I've been missing when Holden did comedy. It's strange. When he was doing it, I hardly ever went to the shows or open mics, particularly towards the end. But now I think of when he used to perform with this troupe of itinerant comics and I get all nostalgic. Sometimes, I think it's because those shows were one of the few places where I got unsolicited praise. Holden always used to say how the other comics would stand backstage and go on about how cool I was and how hot I was and how lucky he was. Even the female comics. They used to call me "99" because they thought I looked like 99 from Get Smart, but apparently, to third-tier stand-up comedians, 99 is hot. This one guy used to think it was so cool that I thought he was funny. It's been a while since I've gotten that kind of unsolicitied, unbiased praise. I miss it.
~*~ The magazine is progressing. Slowly.
The original herd of participants has been thinned to leave me, Nancy, and Melody, with the odd appearance from Derrick. I think it's better this way. Before there were too many people with too many opinions who were not necessarily willing to work that hard. But I think the three of us can really get this off the ground. We think the same way and we're serious about doing it.
So far, we've got a title and a manifesto. We wanted to call it "We Hate John Updike and Alice Munro" but since we'd all like to one day publish in The New Yorker, we backed down.
Now we've got to figure out how much it's going to cost us to publish this thing. After that, we start taking subscriptions and submissions. God help us all.
~*~ Just a bit of advice: Don't go to see Cabaret at Studio 54 with your mom.
Believe me, not a good idea.
7 Deadly Sins and Other, Less Fatal Diversions
Pride:
Envy:
Wrath:
Sloth:
Avarice:
Gluttony:
Lust:
Fantasy:
Book:
Tune:
Don't you think your friends are talking, Alyson?
Well, don't you think your friends are talking, Alyson?
Task at Hand:
Quest for Publication:
Total Submissions: 20
See the main entry, kids.
No one, today
One day I'll have to write an entry about Liza, this chick in my program at University A., but for today, let's just leave it at that she really pushes every single one of my buttons. Repeatedly.
Same old. Same old.
It's all about control, baby.
I don't know what's wrong with me. I went back to Buffalo Exchange and bought five more new tops and a cardigan, plus I left behind two other shirts and a dress that I'm thinking about going back for. This conspicuous consumption concerns me in light of the fact that I am about to outlay a big sum of cash for a house.
The dress that I left behind was really nice.
Sabrina and Sammy are seriously talking about moving to Philly and starting a children's theater which would then fund Rose's adult work. I've spent the past few days dreaming of a permanent job as assistant director.
Book of Shadows by Phyllis Currott. It's her memoir of how she went from high-powered entertainment lawyer to Wiccan High Priestess. Curott has a tendency to stray into the sentimental in terms of description and since she is trying to also provide a general definition of many Wiccan principles in her writing, some of her "scenes" read kind of forced (i.e., "Aren't all witches Satanists?" the girl asked.) but other than that, it's a good read and it is very informative about the basics of witchcraft.
Alyson by Rick Springfield:
They're blaming it all on me.
I'm blaming it all on love.
Just a little sexual tension
under the guise of love.
Sending out withdrawal letters.
Ah, how lovely to be able to change the number in that Acceptance column. I've also added the "Withdrawal" category for the submissions I withdraw from consideration before receiving an answer either way.
Rejections: 4
Acceptances: 1
Withdrawals: 7