why didn't i like the nice boys in college?

Unfortunately, my freshman year at Sarah Lawrence, I was not terribly interested in the special manner of learning that the school could provide, the extensive opportunity to be near NYC, the internships, the clubs and coalitions, the special interest groups or the opportunity for close relationships with my professors.

No. I wanted to party. I wanted sex, drugs and rock n' roll~! (Well, if Leonard Cohen counts as rock n' roll.) I didn't even know it, but the truth- or at least part of the truth, is that I was out to educate my Id. And it did my thinking for me.

I suppose that's why after taking the subway into the city to see Grace Paley it was so easy to let go of the nice boy who'd taken me out. He was studious, sincere, authentic and sweet. I was not. I was deeply invested in finding just the right guy to break my heart. Which I did.

And so, just around the time I accepted my third or fourth waitressing position post-graduation, that nice boy of yore became the Senior Fiction Editor at Viking Penguin.

And he's still nice. So nice that when I called him last year to get an interview about the state of the publishing industry in 2007, he reminisced with me as if I were nice too.

all about me

Finally there is an article all about me!

Of course, all I think about is me, so an article about me is my favorite kinda reading. Join my fan club, and read the article about me, here at Richmond.com. Oh, it's so endlessly interesting. I wish that all of my articles from now on could be all about me, too. Of course they already are-my thinly veiled view of the world- wrapped up in someone else's ideas, thoughts, words. But what I hear, how I hear it and what ends up on the paper, is of course, really just more about me- disguised as someone else.

In all seriousness, you really should read about me. I'm so fascinating. This little preview will whet your tongue and get you revved up for my book, due out in no less than 10 years, which is of course, also about me, (plus an additional 200 pages.)

First of all, I want to thank Catherine Baab, the literary figure writer-abouter at Richmond.com for recognizing my amazingness and choosing to interview me. Catherine is an excellent writer whom I first met when she won 2nd place in the Style Fiction Contest in 2006, for her story, "The Last Reader." She also recently won the Best Unpublished Manuscript Contest sponsored by Richmond Magazine for her novel, "I Love You I Get Good Grades," for which I was also a judge. No connection or relation, purely subjective coincidence, as is all good judging.

Secondly and lastly, I would like to thank my mother and my father for working so hard to make me so great. They let me fall and rise again and they handed me their faults and their blessings on a big, endless platter, over which I still have free reign.

in case you haven't heard....

......the next big thing on the literal and proverbial tips of everyone's tongues these days is open marriage. Also known as polyamory, not to be confused with polygamy.

This is a true case of having your cake and eating it too.

In the last week I've received press releases about 2 books on the subject- "Open" which is a memoir about a woman's open marriage and "Opening Up" which is more of a how-to guide, offering stragegies for such horribly difficult subjects in a 3 or 4 or 5 way such as time management! (Opening Up looks interesting, but I'm afraid the publicity dpt. missed a really great opportunity with their image. There are a mere 2 hands being held! Where are the others? Isn't that what this is all about??)

In any case, yesterday, amidst all of the editorial buzz about Jenny Block, our very own former Style freelancer having written her memoir about open marriage, I had the opportunity to interview her. It was a brief interview only because it got farrrrrr tooooooooooo interesting for me to contain in the short preview word constraints confined me to. (I will write a longer peice for the end of June after I've had a chance to actually read a few of the books I'm writing about.)

Jenny couldn't have been nicer or well, more open. But as much as I admired her and can't wait to read her book, I am equally disturbed. And this is how it should be. This is why her book is practically a bestseller before its even been published.

I mean.... MARRIAGE yall!!! I happen to have one of those myself! We are coming up (next week!) on that proverbial SEVEN YEAR.....what? Itch? Yeah.

It seems that even reading this book or even thinking these thoughts is opening Pandora's box, which ain't always a bad thing. Hell, maybe I'll give Stan the book for our anniversary. Until next time, with love.

HOT SHORTS

211 submissions.

9 readers

One Valentine Richmond History Center Garden

A fruit salad tree

3 talented 20 something-men

a few crazy people

horseradish, meat

and me


And so concludes my fourth season with the style weekly fiction contest.
We did shorts this year- short shorts, flash fiction- daisy duke style.
They were the most fun submissions to read.

To me, they are the most fun stories to write.

Perhaps most interesting however, is how strongly people reacted to the whole event.

Some people have simply never heard of flash fiction. And it made them angry. I guess it's like if we had a contest for the most efficient, modern vehicle and the guy who showed up on his horse had never heard of a car.

One fearless emailer compared this year's fiction issue to an episode of How I Met My Mother. I'm flattered because I am a fan of the surreal, and that is definitely one big fat jump off the deep end.

Other people were deeply hurt by the superlatives or perplexed by the instructions.

Welll, I guess we shook things up a bit, rocked the boat, deviated from the norm, defied expectations and created a new normal.



We can only hope for so much excitement next year.





READ (AND LISTEN TO) THE STORIES HERE

Hello Anybody and Nobody;

I haven't written on my blog in one and a half eons because I'm actually trying to write my book. And check me out, I didn't even put quotes around book this time! Between writing about Richmond's social scene for the Style display-ad department (maybe we'll dissect that irony later), taking bizarre spiritual movement classes for my Belle column, interviewing people who paint ceilings for homestyle, trying to keep track of the plots (or lack thereof) of 14 1/2 books at a time for book reviews, author interviews, vcu first novelist judging events, etc and et al, I just don't have the time I used to. Actually, I didn't used to have the time either. I just fell into time backwards and it carried me for a while.

But! Thanks to my dear friend who is 1/3 agent, 1/3 professor, 1/3 scooter riding hellion, 100% writer and all woman, I now have a plan!!

Last Sunday we sat down on her couch and broke it down.

9 manilla folders.

5 color-coded sticky note pads.

Italy,

New York,

Colorado,

1205 Hillside Avenue,

Arkansas,

road trip,

Alaska,

train ride,

1202 Hillside Avenue.

At last it is beginning to coalesce.

Maybe it is becoming what it already was.

In any case, I am looking for 2 days and a free hotel to carry it there just a little bit faster.

Work History, 16-21

installement 1

Sixteen

I think in a past life I was an Amazon warrior, but now I waitress at Waffle House. I have to wear an apron with my name embroidered on the lapel and an ugly brown bonnet, that's really a visor. I try to slip it off when Bubba, my manager, is in the back, but usually he's watching me through the one way mirror. When the phone rings I have to say “This is Valley. Thank you for calling your friendly Waffle House.” It makes me gag. Mostly I wait on dead beat dads and the widowed old people of the city who want to look at another human face after they've finished their meal.
This place never stops, but there are some dead zones, like between the lunch and dinner rush. That's when everyone gets stoned in the back. Doris smokes through her tracheotomy and yells at the rest of us to shut the hell up for staring. The job I hate most, next to mopping the bathroom, is refilling the monster sized salad dressing containers and mixing together the chunks of ketchup, relish and mayo. Thirty-five pounds of Thousand Island dressing is so wrong. To me it looks like puke, but I got in big trouble for saying that.
Sometimes Carter rides his bike over to visit me, and then I take the visor off whether Bubba is looking or not. Usually when he comes, he tells me stories about his band or the death games he's been playing in the woods with his friends. Sometimes he brings me a cup full of butterscotch chips, my favorite. Carter says to find anything worthwhile in this world, you have to go out there and get it and that he's planning on going to get his in May.
Bubba gets mad at me for talking to Carter and taking my visor off but I tell him, you don't want me to mention the back room to anyone do you? And then he shuts up. Besides, my hair will not fall in the food. It is just my best weapon against growing old and ugly in this diner that never quits.