In fact right this second I am waiting for a rejection letter. Not just any rejection letter. The mother of all rejection letters, particularly as it pertains to those of us who write funny stuff, or at least attempt to.
I have been awaiting this rejection letter for twenty-six days now. Which means it’s six days late. The people from whom I’m expecting it are typically mercifully quick and like clockwork in telling me to take a hike. If I mail them a piece on the first, I have their “Maybe your friends think you’re a riot, but they’re wrong” letter by the twenty-first. Twenty days on the dot. I know because I send them one of my demented diatribes once a week. And so far I’ve received a rejection—within twenty days—to every single one.
That’s not to say I’m not making progress. I am. My first thirty-five rejection letters were standard photocopied form-letter fare. But of late each has had a personal note scrawled in the corner. Stuff like “I really liked it!” and “Keep trying!”
So I do. I do keep trying.
That’s why twenty-six days ago I sent them a few more of my “female funnies,” as Hemingway calls them. And that may be the problem. There are two editors of this publication, a man and a woman, and I write mainly for those with uteruses.215 It’s a good bet the gentleman calling half the shots doesn’t share my fondness for shoes, fashion, and fine-needle injectibles, or my fear of having a thirty-five-dollar pedicure pecked to death by a bunch of churlish chickens, which means the chances of my getting the green light are slim, but you never know.
What I do know is that I get a lot done while waiting to be spurned by this and other magazines.
Last week I washed the windows. Not most people’s favorite task, but my particular take on it made it a bit more bearable. I started using the old newspaper and vinegar trick. Then, in a burst of inspiration, I switched to vinegar and a bunch of my Good Housekeeping “Your drivel will never see the light of day” communiqués. Nothing I’ve written has gotten their seal of approval, but that sparkle sure gets mine.
Just this morning I replaced the drawer liner sheets in my shoe cubbies. I skipped the lavender-scented Laura Ashley sheaths in favor of several “Get lost” missives from Working Mother, Cosmopolitan, and More. Their brightly colored logos look pretty peeking out from beneath my footwear. And seeing my four-inch stilettos stabbing their editors’ signatures gives me a certain perverse sense of satisfaction.
Occasionally I even wrap gifts in rejection letters. Redbook ’s are particularly perfect for this application, as they’re printed—big surprise—on red paper. Sure, they bellow “YOUR STUFF STINKS,” but topped with a shiny bow they make any present look pretty. (Plus they let me off the hook for not having bought something more expensive. Obviously I can’t afford to.)
It’s reached the point where my bills and rejection letters arrive in lockstep. If I open my post office box to find an invoice for our health insurance premium, I can be sure a rebuff from Reader’s Digest is tucked somewhere in there, too. If it’s time to pay Cingular, DirecTV, or MasterCard, it’s time to be snubbed by Seventeen, the Saturday Evening Post, and Prevention.
The combination of bills and bad news would depress most people, but not me. My work has actually begun to get picked up more frequently, and that makes me feel good. Optimistic. Hopeful that Nora Ephron-greatness could one day be within my grasp.
I do think, however, that it’s human nature to dwell on the rejections, the ones that got away, the ones that didn’t want you for whatever ridiculous reason.
Like my high school boyfriend, Donny. He dumped me for a redhead. No offense, folks, but when does a blonde get dumped for a redhead? At my last class reunion I learned the poor guy had gone legally blind. Frankly I saw that coming senior year.
In all seriousness, getting the kiss-off from dozens of popular publications doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is the waiting. And since I can only do so much with my collection of rejection letters, I’m free to spend hours at a clip indulging the third of my long-dormant passions: playing the piano.
Have I mentioned the piano? Hemingway bought it for me as a birthday gift.216 I’ve played every single day since I was four, except for the 4,745217 we didn’t have one while we lived in Ridgewood.
If you recall, part of the appeal of Nate’s Place is that it had a wall I could dedicate to a piano.218 Add to that the fact that I’d actually have time to play it, and you can see why the prospect of living on a farm didn’t totally freak me out. I figure Hemingway came here to make hay. I came here to make music.
And a name for myself as the next Nora Ephron.
But back to the piano.
I love playing it, but lately I find my nose pressed so close to the music I can practically feel Beethoven’s breath on my face. Sad to say, but it’s gotten to the point where I might need peepers.
Now, I adore accessories as much as the next woman, but to me these magnifying glasses masquerading as eyewear simply scream “middle age.” And I don’t need any help advertising my descent into the physiological horror show of hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, age spots, midmonth migraines, progesterone creams, and a growing obsession with cardigans.219
But really, back to the piano.
It’s a fifteen-year-old Baldwin upright in excellent condition, except for the abuse it takes from me. And I do dish it out. One day I’m mangling Mozart’s Sonata in C, and the next I’m beating Billy Joel’s “My Life” to death while the crowd in my head cheers and flicks their Bics, begging for an encore.
One evening I got so carried away I thought I could hear them chanting my name—“Soooo-zin! Soooo-zin!” It turned out to be Hemingway calling me from the kitchen. I raced in to discover that dinner had turned to charcoal on the cook top. Twenty-five minutes and one frozen pizza later,220 I was back at the piano. All this practice means I’m sounding better, but the house has hit a few clunkers.
Mealtime mishaps aside, having the piano has actually made me a better parent. Thanks to it, I’ve found the perfect way to propel my two surly spawn off the PlayStation and onto the five hundred rolling acres on which we reside: I simply play and sing.
I stumbled upon this particular technique one weekend when, while pounding out Keith Urban’s “Days Go By,” I heard bedroom doors slamming upstairs. At first I was miffed and immediately decided my two dunderheads would not be invited to my Mamapalooza concert debut. I also thought, if I sound that bad, why don’t they either put in the earplugs Hemingway the wiseguy gave them, or go outside?
And then it dawned on me: I just didn’t sound bad enough.
So I started to sing. Loud. I wasn’t three bars into it when “Days Go By” became boys rushing by carrying more sports equipment than Modell’s.
Maybe spending so much time outdoors will net them pro football, basketball or baseball careers, which will result in multipage profiles in Sports Illustrated. And when a reporter asks them, as one undoubtedly will, what inspired them to practice, practice, practice, they’ll simply say: my mom’s singing. Now, won’t that be nice?
Speaking of practice, I need to get back to the piano. I’ve been working on some classics by Queen and Elton John. And of course I always practice the classics. Like Cho-pin’s “Minute Waltz.” I’ll never be able to play it in sixty seconds, but I have perfected clearing the house of husband, kids, and dogs within the first four measures.
It’s nice to be back to doing what I love, from the comfort of my living room, with a full view of frolicking—and occasionally fornicating—farm animals. Talk about inspiration! I still haven’t heard from the “Number 1 humor magazine in America”221 but I’m sure I will shortly.
I’m also sure that when I do, it won’t be funny. It will, however, be a relief. No one likes being rejected, but at least you know where you stand. Or in my case, sit. Sometimes at my piano, but most of the time at my laptop.
Look out, Nora Ephron.
Chapter Forty-two
GET YOUR NEW YORK ON
As I
mentioned a few chapters ago, I recently sold my first book. (Look for my second, When Suzy Met Nora, in bookstores soon!) Of course, when I sold it, it wasn’t a book. It was a blog. And before that it was just a once-a-week e-mail update I sent my friends, family, and former colleagues, who were waiting, I’m certain, for me to snap and say, “I’m outta here.” (Particularly when I couldn’t force any of the farm animals, including those I’ve given birth to, to kickbox with me, and plans to build a Target in town fell through.) Amazingly, though, I didn’t snap. I stuck it out. And as the great Frankie S. would say, I did it, not to mention documented it, my way.
What you don’t know is that the day after a major chunk of New York City exploded,222 killing one person, maiming dozens of others, and forcing many of my friends and former colleagues to work from home as their offices were in the “frozen zone,” I had to travel from the bucolic backcountry into the Big, once again bruised Apple for my first meeting with my editor.
Like I wasn’t nervous enough. Now I didn’t just have to worry about blowing it; I had to worry about being blown up on the way to blowing it. Wasn’t it stuff like this that forced me to flee the city for the sticks in the first place?
Now, what you’ve probably already figured out about me, and I promise this will all tie together shortly, is that I’m one of those people who likes to talk to people. Even if I don’t know them. I always think, You’re a person; I’m a person. We share the same planet; maybe we can be pals. So I strike up conversations. Here in the South, this trait does not immediately paint me as mentally suspect. But in New York, among my fellow straphangers on the Grand Central shuttle, it always did.
Once while riding the subway, I saw a woman wearing the most beautiful pair of pumps. I couldn’t help staring at them. And then she started staring at me staring at them. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, so I decided to put her at ease by doing what I do best: hurtling into fast-forward-friendly mode.
“Your shoes are beautiful,” I cooed. “Are they Prada? No, no. Let me guess. They’re the new Kate Spades, aren’t they? I saw them in In Style. Did you get them at the downtown store or Saks? I love Saks, but they just don’t have the selection, you know?”
I took a brief pause to breathe (but somehow managed not to take in the mounting fear on her face) before plowing on. “They look great on your feet,” I gushed, leaning in so close I could literally smell the leather. “I’d kill to have such high arches. Have you worn them with jeans? I’ve got a pair they’d be perfect with. What about the bag? Did you get the matching bag?” This was followed by yet another split-second stop while I caught my breath, but not the fact that she’d tucked her feet—and those perfect pumps—all the way under her seat.
“So, do they run true to size?” I blathered on, oblivious to her DEFCON 4-level freak-out. “I’m a seven. Did you know that seven is the most popular size? It is,” I added, gazing fondly at my fabulous, and fabulously pricey, Stuart Weitzman stilettos and wondering just for a sec if she’d swap shoes. “Do you think they have any sevens left? I’m sure they don’t. I’m sure they had a bunch, but they’re probably out, right? Right?”
Surprisingly, she never actually replied. She simply reached down, plucked those puppies off her feet, and ran, carrying them, into the next car.
It’s unfortunate, the freakish response some people have to friendliness.
Of course this friendliness is something my buddies frequently badger me about. They want me to knock it off and get my New York on. For the uninitiated, this means snarling and not smiling; being taciturn, not talkative. And absolutely, positively not offering condolences to a Pakistani cab driver who bemoans the state of his beloved country, leading me to believe he means the war and strife and poverty of the place, when in fact he’s just grumpy because they haven’t got a Gap.
Believe me when I tell you it was tough extricating myself from that conversation.
In my defense, I must say that I really do know how to New York. I went to college there and I worked there. I can fend off a homeless person making a lunge for my morning mocha from fifty feet, and I’ve perfected the art of using my briefcase as a battering ram. I can run in the aforementioned stilettos (and whip ’em off and wield ’em like a butcher knife in a nanosecond), jump a turnstile in a skirt (which is the price you pay for spending your last dime on designer footwear), and snag a cab on Fifth Avenue at the height of the holidays. (If you’re thinking I’m about to tell you that wearing a short skirt and high heels helps, you’re right. I am. In fact I just did. So do it. You went to see the tree go up. Do you still want to be there when it comes down?)
Clearly I’m able to get my New York on. I just don’t like to, and living in the serenity of Nate’s Place for the past two years has helped me come to terms with that personal tidbit. Right now all I want is to window shop my way through the West Village, revel in the fact that Denise and Angeline (numbers 27 and 93, in case you can’t recall), don’t smell nearly as bad as the subway stop at Broadway and Canal, and wow the woman willing to take a chance on a counterfeit farm girl. What I don’t want is to get blown up on my way to the most important meeting of my life.
Of course, acting New York City-surly won’t save me if terrorists have other plans. And since I’ve no clue what those cretins are concocting, I’ve made an executive decision. I’m going to act natural. Not a state I can claim for my hair color, but that’s a discussion for another day.
I’m going to forgo the tough city-chick bit and simply be me. Overly friendly, fast-talking, and even faster-walking me. I’m going to quiz the guy pushing pretzels in front of the Le Parker Meridien Hotel about how often he’s got to redo his dreads, and hand my skim, half-caff, extra-whip mocha to the first homeless person who hones in on it. I’m going to wolf whistle right back at the construction workers on West Forty-third, and help the obviously lost gaggle of European, backpacking, guitar-toting twenty-somethings find Madison Square Garden. In short, I’m going to get my New York on the only way I know how to wear it: with a dippy smile and an incurable case of flap jaw.
Now that I think of it, maybe I am mentally suspect. Or maybe I’m more of a country chick than I ever thought I’d cop to. In either case, promise me you won’t tell my editor?
Part Five
EPILOGUE
(OR, AS I LIKE TO CALL IT, GROUNDHOG DAY, PART DEUX)
“What are you doing?”
I was standing out on our lawn, listening to the crickets and contemplating the front of Nate’s Place. With its dahlia-, petunia-, and vinca-filled window boxes hanging off the porch, lush green ferns dangling from the ceiling, sweet white rocking chairs, and steps piled high with straw roosters, cement turtles, and freshly picked pumpkins,223it is my always-and-forever favorite spot on the 110-year-old tenant house in which we reside.
I was lost in a wild fantasy in which I convinced the frugal farmer to whom I’m married to permit the purchase of black shutters, something he’s loath to agree to, as he thinks they should be white, which I think will make our farmhouse-red abode look swathed in surgical bandages, so why bother?, when he snuck up and startled me with those four little words.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting,” I replied.
“For what?”
“For death to overtake me.” You didn’t actually think I was going to launch into my pitch about the exterior adornments I so desire, not to mention deserve, now, did you? After all, and this I neglected to mention, I had just snuck out on the poor guy and left him alone with a kitchen full of dirty dinner dishes. I tend to doubt he put them in the dishwasher, but I’m certain he stacked them neatly on the counter after encouraging our two canine garbage disposals to lick them clean. If I didn’t get in there quick it was quite possible Casey would think they’d been washed and would put them away.224
“Why?”
“I just ingested a totally Stu-grown salad and I figure I have about a half hour before it hits my large intestine, brings on a b
out of diarrhea I wouldn’t wish on a turkey buzzard, and leaves my lifeless body clinging to the commode.”
“Well, you are always complaining you’re . . . you know.”
“Oh, so your little rancid romaine, cherry tomato, and cucumber concoction is just what the doctor ordered? Doctor Kevorkian, maybe.”
“I’m crushed.”
“Don’t be. It was actually delicious. Going down. Coming up could be a completely different story.”
“Oh, so now it’s coming up.”
“Please, could we just enjoy the view?”
“Of the house?”
“Of the house.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. I’ve just always liked this view of Nate’s Place.”
“Two years later, you’re still calling it Nate’s Place.”
“I guess it’s because the house has so much history. So many other people have lived here. It’s like it’s Nate’s, or somebody else’s, but not ours.”
“It isn’t ours. It’s Doug’s.”
That startled me. I looked away from the house and at my husband, aka Hemingway, aka hon, aka He Who Was About to Give Me Very Bad News. “Oh, my God. You got fired.”
“What?”
“You’re standing here, ruining my pre-death experience with all this ghastly gastrointestinal chatter because you’re trying to work up the nerve to tell me you got fired.”
“I didn’t get fired.”
“Oh, well, of course. Doug did just retire, and he probably doesn’t need us babysitting his property anymore. It really makes so much sense.” I glanced around at the henhouse, the hog pen, the springhouse, the pasture where the hay bales burned and the cattle ate them, anyway. I loved bitching about this place, but that didn’t mean I was ready to leave it. “I don’t know why I’m getting so worked up. I mean, I always knew this day would come. I just, well, somewhere along the way I forgot. Alright, so you got fired. It was bound to happen.”
Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl Page 23