You’ve Got Mail

Have you ever said to yourself, “Self, where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?” Well, I have. In fact, I had that very moment today. You see, of late, life has been insane. I’m crazy-swamped at work all day, busy querying agents each night, and–in between–I’m trying to schedule a ski-trip out West. In other words, at the risk of putting my balls in your face, it’s a lot to juggle. Seriously.

Be that as it may, let me say this: I’m not complaining. I love my job and I love my boss; and, in this market, not everyone can say that. Furthermore, although trying to get published has only produced more evidence that God clearly hates me, at least the manuscript is finished. As for heading to Colorado to ski, I understand that’s a first world problem. It’s like bitching because you only got one packet of barbeque sauce for your twenty piece McNuggets. I get it. I do. However, disclaimer disclaimed, I have something to say to Yahoo Mail, which I’ve been using to contact said agents, and here it is, "Dear Ymail - Given that I’d like to become a real writer one day, I’ll try to provide grammatically correct feedback about your Conversation “feature.” Ready? Off is the general direction in which I would like it to fuck. Not kidding. Sincerely - mkromd"

But, before I can tell you why Yahoo so justifiably deserves my wrath, I have to tell you this part of the story first . . .  Since the holidays, I’ve spent easily a hundred hours researching literary agents who handle humorous memoirs/narrative nonfiction work (specifically geared towards women) and are willing to take on new writers. I even found a select handful who specialize in female bloggers looking for book deals. If you don’t believe how long all of that took me, just ask the NSA. They can totally verify my digital whereabouts. Note: Dear National Security Agency, thank you for backing me up. Also, while you may have read thousands upon thousands of texts between my sister and me, I’m not whiny or needy. She likes hearing every minute detail of my life. It makes her feel important (she’s welcome). And though her replies say things like, “Did you HAVE to send me a disgusting pic of your toe? It’s a spider bite. You’re not going to die, so stop freaking out.” When I saw her face-to-face, she hugged me and said, “I’m glad you reached out for help. As a woman with a degree in Biology and a mother of all boys, I was the most logical person to contact. Besides, I wanted to be there for you. Even mom was worried it would spread and you could lose your whole leg.”

Anyway, I digress. The point is that, using the criteria above, I created a list of ten agents and worked with an editor to craft the query letter and mini-proposal. Then I began submitting my work, and it was a mistake. Today I found out that Yahoo decided to “tag” every email with a similar Subject line (e.g. Query for your review), assume it was one conversation (regardless of the recipient), and combine them into one threaded discussion, so every agent can see exactly who I’ve contacted and what I said. Yes, really. It’s like Gossip Girl, the Mid-Life Crisis episode, with a splash of American Horror Story thrown in to mix things up a bit.

In any case, on the off-chance that a snowball landed in hell and one of those agents is visiting my blog (despite her better judgment), I sincerely apologize for the chaos and deeply appreciate your interest. I realize you may feel like you weren’t special, but I assure you that’s not the case. Hours upon hours went into finding you; and, like Herman Cain once said, “It’s true there were a lot of other women, but think of how many I didn’t bother.” Given that I just quoted him to help my case, perhaps hell really did just freeze over. That’s OK, I’ll ski that, too. Speaking of, I’m off to plan our trip out West. I mean really, how bad could it be?

Talk to you later.

They say yard work can't kill you, but why take a chance.

Do you remember in college when you had a car and your friends would ask for a ride, so you'd say, “Cash, ass, grass, or pass - nobody rides for free.” Well, at forty, that phrase doesn't mean anything even remotely close to what it did back then. These days it means that you pay thousands of dollars to an asshole who landscapes your yard, which causes you to suffer a small stroke, because you spent so much fucking money on actual grass. That’s what it means. And, that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that the yard he planted is full of weeds and the neighborhood association is going to fine us if we don’t get it under control. In other words, I have to start doing yard work… which doesn’t just irritate me… it genuinely horrifies everyone around me… and with good reason. The last time I tried to do it, I sent the following text to my best friend:

mkromd, “OMG. I broke the hot tub. The side wall thing fell off.”
TB, “HOW in the HELL did you break your hot tub?”
mkromd, “With the lawn mower. Hellooooo. How else do you break a hot tub?”
TB, “Do you need me to come fix it?”
mkromd, “No, I need you to come and cut the fucking grass. We’ll call a handyman to fix the hot tub.”

Honestly, I hate doing it so much that it makes me cry. Granted – not as much as it makes the neighbors cry, but still – there are tears. It’s so bad that passersby rapidly usher their children past our home and the people on our street won’t even make eye contact with me when I’m in the yard. And that’s where our story begins.

You see, this month, DB went fly-fishing in Montana, so for the first time since we moved in, the yard actually has fallen to me, and I know that’s wrong. I do. I know that we’re partners and the work should be more evenly distributed. I get it. But it’s one thing to process that logically. It’s a whole different ball game to process it emotionally. Because honestly, you might be surprised to know what I’d do for a Klondike bar, but you’d be downright horrified to learn what I’ve done to get out of yard work.

So, there I was, resolved to take the high road and do my part, when the automatic sprinkler system went off and nailed me. Thank GOD I wasn’t wearing white shorts… just a white tank top. Yup. Once again, my life was like, “Girls Gone Wild,” the mid-life crisis edition. Next time, I’m going to do it in a Burka. Why not? After all, like my dad used to say, “Dear Lord, please give me a sense of humor. If you give me strength, I may need bail money to go with it.”

Talk to you later.