by Mary Adkins
ArduousArdvark: DB = lame
ArduousArdvark: DB = dying 2 blog lol
BonnieD: my mom didn’t tell me for a long time and when I found out I was mad
BonnieD: I found it patronizing
BonnieD: also if I had known I could have cheered her up and stuff
IrisMassey: what would you do to cheer her up?
BonnieD: tell jokes about skinny women who used to be fat
BonnieD: she loved making fun of those women because their personalities always changed once they got skinny.
BonnieD: she was fat and fine with it
IrisMassey: what kind of jokes?
BonnieD: like walk around and be like, “this lettuce juice that I made in a blender is even more delicious than French fries, I have soooooo much energy! I looooove cucumber juice”
IrisMassey: Haha. Get some sleep! It’s late no matter where you are.
BonnieD: Colorado. it’s 3 in the morning here but I don’t really sleep. ok nite
Saturday, September 5
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 9:02 AM
subject:
re: Manuscript of Note
* * *
Dear Christian,
I’m so thrilled to hear that you’re interested in my former assistant’s manuscript. In response to your question, I am in the process of ensuring we’re clear on the copyright front.
I’ll be in touch soon.
Best,
Smith
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 9:10 AM
subject:
Copyright
* * *
Carl,
Please check out Dying to Blog and suss out if, as a contributor, Iris signed away the copyright to her posts.
And would you begin Monday researching imprints that might be appropriate for her manuscript? At the moment, I’m drawn to self-help, but there could be other takes on it I’m sure. I mean frankly, we aren’t even strapped into publishing. Given the interest you’ve expressed in alternative approaches to presenting her blog, perhaps you’d like to explore various platforms on which we might distribute it. Something tech-y? An app? Feel free to think creatively.
I know this past week was a difficult one for both of us. I am glad to have you as an intern, and I hope we can find a way to work together in a way that makes use of your skills and caters to your interests. But, of course, as we spoke about on Tuesday—it is very important that you check with me before sharing any materials with clients.
Have a good weekend.
Thx,
Smith
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 9:45 AM
subject:
re: Copyright
* * *
I’m SO BAD at this boundaries thing. A workaholic on a Friday is a workaholic on a Saturday and Sunday. And FYI, Monday is Labor Day, so I will be in the Hamptons at a SHAVED cookout.
Okay, I will reach out to them, but remember what I said about the sister? I think that’s going to matter as well.
See you Tuesday!
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 9:47 AM
subject:
re: Copyright
* * *
I’ll deal with the sister. Thx.
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 11:02 AM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
Did you really not read the emails I sent to Iris?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 11:28 AM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
Emails, plural? I only saw one. (And I didn’t read it.)
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 11:31 AM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
How are you doing?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 11:45 AM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
I’m okay. Focused on getting my life back on track. Today I’m sending out résumés and cleaning my apartment. And I’m going to look up the malpractice claim and what all it entails.
How are you?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 6:44 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
That’s good.
Me? Oh, at rock bottom. No big deal.
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 6:45 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
Joking.
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 8:20 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
Um, ha?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 8:27 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
Things are not great. I messed up with a pretty big client so I’m dealing with that. But it’s nothing you want to hear about.
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 8:33 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
Were you in love with her?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 8:38 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
The client? It’s a he. I can’t say his name. And no, I wasn’t . . .
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 8:41 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
I mean Iris.
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 8:44 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
What makes you think that?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 8:48 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
You wrote it. In the email you sent to her.
(I did read it. Sorry.)
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 8:50 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
I wrote that?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 8:53 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
It was heavily implied. You talked about how much you miss her.
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 9:04 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
I don’t think I was in love with her. I do miss her a lot.
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 9:42 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
You know those cartoons where a giant boulder falls out of the sky and flattens the coyote or bunny or guy with the beard? That’s how it feels to me. Like I don’t even have the choice to care about anything, because I’ve been flattened. Just eyeballs staring up into nothing.
Sometimes I cry as hard as I can for as long as I can, as if eventually I’ll be finished. Like grief is a marathon and I just have to log enough miles. I wake up looking like I was in a boxing match in the night. People talk undereye bags, but do you know how much your eyelids can swell from crying?
I tell myself to get out of bed, but then I think, why bother? Doing anything. We are alive then we aren’t. The world is indifferent to whether we’re here. What’s there to be other than indifferent back?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 9:50 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
I think you should give yourself credit for feeling that way and still getting shit done. You feel like that, and yet you’re looking for a job and flying back and forth to Virginia to care for your mom? That’s impressive as hell.
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 9:54 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
Well. Thank you, I guess. I’ve also started writing poetry, which is weird. I wrote that to you a moment ago and deleted it because it sounds stupid. But since nothing matters, neither does that.
Speaking of moms, how’s yours?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 9:56 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
My mom? Why do you ask?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 10:04 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
You told me she wasn’t doing well. That’s why you left the funeral.
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 10:38 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
Right. She’s okay. I mean, she’s still paralyzed. Ha.
Can I read your poetry?
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 10:47 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
Glad to hear it. Well, I’m falling asleep. Good night.
* * *
from:
[email protected]
to:
[email protected]
date:
Sat, Sep 5 at 11:00 PM
subject:
re: no subject
* * *
Good night.
http://dyingtoblog.com/irismassey
January 16 | 7:40 AM
I have been thinking about when I started baking, and it was right after the fire. The fire that I probably started.
I was twenty-seven and still at Nose, the perfume shop where I worked for two years between my consulting job and my current job. I was happier at Nose than I had been at Propel, but that’s not saying much. It was retail, after all.
I’d also started dating Daniel, which both excited me and made me anxious all the time. My feelings for him kept me alert, on my toes, a constant buzz that fed my nicotine addiction. My smoking had escalated. Before Daniel, I’d gotten it down to one cigarette a night, but it had climbed to three, then eleven or twelve. I was going through three or four packs a week.
That night, we all stood outside the building, those of us who lived in it, and watched the smoke pour out of Mrs. Freder’s on the first floor. I had just had a cigarette in my bedroom window an hour earlier. I was pretty sure I had fully extinguished it before dropping the butt down the fire escape, where it would have bounced like a Plinko game onto the littered alley below. (I had no qualms littering back then, though I should’ve, given my Smokey the Bear exposure as a child.) Of course I had extinguished it. I had squashed it on the ledge and then dropped it below like a million times before. But maybe I’d been too careless, too hungry to light my next. Maybe I’d neglected to notice the trace of a glow at the tip.
Mrs. Freder was crying and meth-head Ernie from upstairs had his arm around her.
When the smoke thinned and we were allowed back inside, we passed through the remains of her ground-level one-bedroom. It was soggy and black, like drenched burned toast, minus a few objects that had survived the rapture. A toaster. The porcelain base of a lamp styled as the figure of a Victorian lady. A red rubber plunger.
I listened as a bulky fireman asked Mrs. Freder if she had left her stove on, perhaps. The stove sat by the window, now open, below my own. Could it have been open before? It was late April and possible.
Tom the landlord, who was always way too nice to be a New York landlord, let her stay in the empty unit across the hall while her unit was being cleaned up. Ernie brought her a small TV with an antenna, and I brought other things: towels, plates and pans, cups and napkins, a lamp, the quilt Daniel’s grandmother made for him that he’d brought over after my radiator temporarily broke. When her daughter and son came from Chicago and Miami, she invited me down to meet them. They thanked me for all the dinners I’d delivered to her since the fire.