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success?

So for some reason, I was looking back through some old things I’ve made for work, and I came across my folder full of drafts of an email invitation to our “welcome back to school” party at the beginning of the year. It was…a little depressing.

These were the things I had saved in the folder for ideas or inspiration or to Photoshop together or whatever. (Presumably I was given an assignment like: “Make an invitation to the ‘welcome back’ party. Let’s make it something fun!”)

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(We’re, um, a women’s studies department.)

(I’m…not sure what the mole-man with the big human feet has to do with that, I guess.)

And so I made my first draft, and I passed it along to whoever needed to approve it, and I genuinely don’t remember the exact feedback I got there, or what exactly happened at that point, but…this is the invitation that ended up going out:

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So.

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take that!!!

EDIT: Ummm…so, uh. It has been brought to my attention that actually I hosed this all up. I’m, uh, missing a row? Or something? So uh. Let me fix this real quick. BRB. Meantime, please enjoy these photos of my cat.

SECOND EDIT: Okay! Fixed now! Go do that one! (You can still look at photos of my cat, though, if you want.)

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Dear Shena,

FINE. HERE.

UM ACTUALLY I MEAN: HERE.

Love,

Jessica

P.S. – GODDAMNIT I LITERALLY JUST THIS VERY FUCKING SECOND, WHILE EDITING THIS POST, REALIZED THAT THAT IS NOT FUCKING SYMMETRICAL, EITHER. But it is very loooooong and the words all mostly actually touch!! Ehnn! Ehhnnn!

FINE. WILL GET BACK TO YOU AGAIN. ARG.

Also It IS symmetrical now!!! YAYYYYYY!!!!!

blag

I just got a note from fucking LIVEJOURNAL that they were about to delete an account that I had no idea I had! I only had two entries on it and I hadn’t signed in for over two years. The two entries were from May 2005. I already had THIS blog in May 2005, so I don’t really know why I started a second one. It’s called “heartNY.” Maybe I was…I don’t know…specifically trying to write it as, like, a tourism blog, or something? I have no idea.

It’s embarrassing to read these, the way it’s embarrassing to read anything you wrote more than six months ago. I’m pretty sure I’m more interesting now than I was then, though. Or at least I write better about the same old boring stuff.

In the eight years since these were written, I have gotten three new jobs, one new computer, at least one new boyfriend, two cats, two turtles, one tattoo and two piercings, had four short stories published, moved away from and then back to New York, tried absinthe for the first time, went to a black-tie ball at a senator’s house, been to three Lady Gaga shows, visited two whole other separate countries, learned to sew my own clothes, swam with the Polar Bear Club, and bought a motherfucking juicer. Among other things. That’s not bad, right? Not bad.

Anyway, here’s some stuff I was doing almost exactly eight years ago:


Wednesday, May 11th, 2005
10:04 am

How to Buy a Louis Vuitton

How to buy a Louis Vuitton purse:

Louis Vuitton is on 57th Street between Madison and 5th. Dress appropriately or the doorman will look at you funny. Bring $1600.

Or!

Chinatown is one of my very favorite parts of the city. It’s a ridiculous tourist haven, but I think that’s fun, too. I like tourist traps. “I Heart NY” shirts are six for $10, and statues of fighting monkeys and Buddhist monks wearing i-pods are $15. And the smells are what get to me: one single block will take you from roast duck to dog shit to street vendor donuts to raw fish. Frankly, it’s mostly raw fish, though. And where else can you get a Fendi purse, a Burberry scarf, and a Tiffany’s heart pendant silver bracelet all in the same store and all for under $60?

But we know what we’re really here for. The Louis Vuitton. You can get them at any tourist trap – by the Statue of Liberty, near the park, Times Square – but they’re cheapest and most reliably easy to find in Chinatown. I went there yesterday to get a white bowling ball bag with colored letters for someone’s birthday.

There are a few different ways to find an LV in Chinatown:

Sometimes there are guys standing around with giant cardboard boxes covered with tarps, looking bored and disinterested. I’ve never actually bought from one of these guys, but they’re the same guys who sell in Times Square and the Statue, so I assume they’re expensive. Anyway, I haven’t seen them down there lately – maybe the cops have been getting after them?

Then there are the guys who sort of stand on a sidewalk and mumble: “Louis Louis Louis Louis….” Now, there’s a distinction here, because sometimes Chinese women do this, too. I’m not talking about them. These guys are tough-looking and, you know, guys. Not Chinese women. Anyway, if you go up to one of them, they’ll hand you what looks like a page out of a catalogue, and probably try to make you hide it behind a newspaper so cops don’t see it, and you point to the one you want. Don’t go to these guys. They’re WAY too expensive. My personal theory is that, what with the super-secretive schtick, they’re trying to make you think that these are REAL LVs, but stolen. They’re not. They’re fakes just like all the others, they just cost three times as much.

If you run into a Chinese woman mumbling “Louis Louis Louis,” she’s okay to go to. She’ll lead you a block and half away, to a tiny little doorway, and up a dirty tiny little staircase, and into a tiny dirty little locked room. You think you’re going to get raped and mugged and murdered, and I can’t guarantee that you won’t. But if you do manage to survive, she’ll take you into a little room with a bunch of purses hanging on the walls. For a big LV, she’ll start you out at $50. If you’re very lucky, she might go down to $30, but personally, I’d say $35 or $40 is basically a decent price, if you’re really that desperate to have the exact same purse as every other woman on the F train. A little LV shouldn’t cost you more than $20. Other brands, like Fendi or Chanel or Burberry, will cost you slightly less than LV.

If you don’t happen to run into one of these mumbling people, you can also just wander into any of the narrow stalls selling purses on Canal Street. Look around confusedly for a while, then ask somebody, “Do you have any other purses? Louis Vuitton?” If the cops are nearby or if they’re legit (and I do think that some of them are), they’ll just say no, and you’ll very politely thank them and leave and try next door. Eventually somebody will say yes. They’ll either lead you out to this same dirty tiny scary room, or they’ll bring some out to you from a back room in the stall. That’s my favorite way. I still have super pleasant memories of “Tony,” the guy who helped me pick out a purse for my mom’s birthday. He would bring out a trash bag or two full of them and hold them up and tell me, “THIS is a nice purse. This is beautiful. $50. No? Here – here, THIS is a great purse. $45.”

Act hesitant and they’ll knock whatever price they give you down five and then ten and then often fifteen dollars. Never ever take the price they first give you.

And remember – if the cops come, play tourist! “What? Oh, my! I didn’t realize these were stolen! I thought they were just fakes!” Pretend you don’t know that fakes are illegal, too. “Jeez! I had no idea! You know, we don’t really have any of these in Muskeegee.” Be vague about whether you’re referring to the purses or the Chinese people.

And please don’t pass up the little spiky fruits at the vendors that look like sea urchins. I have no idea what they cost for real people, but the vendors will sell you a single one for 50 cents. Inside, it looks and tastes pretty much like a sweet green grape. It’s not great, and it’s way too hard to get at, but they sure are neat looking. Oh, those foreigners and their spiky fruit.

Tuesday, May 17th, 2005
9:24 am

We Hate Our Jobs

As I was walking upstairs from the subway to the sidewalk this morning, I noticed particularly that everyone’s footsteps were in sinc. We were this big mass of people in suits and slacks and secretary sweater sets, and we were all wearing our work shoes, all walking up the stairs together, all holding each other back to the same sort of plodding pace, and our footsteps made this horrible marching noise on the stone stairs. All marching slowly off to our offices. It was unspeakably depressing.

My office gets vacuumed two or three times a week. Right after it’s done, the carpet is this uniform greyish-rose color, but a day or two later, you can see these beaten-in tracks that my shoes have made. Perfect paths from my desk chair to the copy machine to my boss’s desk and back again. Which is also somehow unspeakably depressing. I try, sometimes, to specifically walk outside those lines, but it’s so ingrained, and I think about it so infrequently, that it doesn’t really work. Copier, desk, desk, copier, desk. It’s awful.

On the subway the other day, I saw a good-looking young man in sitting, wearing a relatively nice black suit but with brown socks, sitting and reading a magazine called “Real Estate New Jersey.” Not a pamphlet, not a little scrap of an advertisement. A whole, entire, glossy magazine.

I hate my job.

This is what happens. It’s called “panty-hose time,” as in, “Well, actually, I’m a sculptor, but I’m just putting in some panty-hose time right now.” You move to New York to write poetry or become a rock star or illustrate comic books, but you end up putting in so much panty-hose time that eventually you’re not a poet or a rock star or an illustrator, you’re the Assistant Vice President of Aquisitions. Nobody wants to be the Assistant Vice President of Aquisitions when they grow up.

All of the new clothes I buy anymore are work clothes, just because that’s what I wear most of the time. I’ve got a couple of pairs of jeans and an old stock of t-shirts and that does me just fine for the two days a week that I have to dress in something besides button-down shirts and grey slacks. So I just keep buying more button-down shirts and grey slacks for the rest of the week.

Blegh. What a depressing entry.

Hmm. I’ve sat here for like ten minutes just now trying to think of something to add to make it less depressing, but I can’t think of a single thing. It’s just true – it’s depressing. Uptown fucking blows. Button down work shirts fucking blow. Making small talk in elevators and offering to get somebody a latte while you’re out and making files and alphebetizing files and taking phone messages and reminding tenants to pay rent and not wearing stupid socks and boots with your skirts and watering the plants every Friday fucking blows.

I’ll write something cheerful later. Right now I’ve got to go RSVP my boss for the New York Magazine’s Taste of New York pary and pay his bill to the Colon and Rectal Surgery Center of Manhattan.

ROUNDUP

I recently downloaded all the photos that were on my phone! So now you have to look at them!

(Hint: most of them are vaguely sexist!)

Hilariously sexist (and old, yes, fine) advertisement in my local library. It’s a shitty picture, I know, but there are 7 images of the boy (as Robinson Crusoe, a baseball player, a pirate, Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, etc) and 2 of the girl (as a medieval lady and as a mother feeding a baby). NO REALLY. Like. I mean. BUT. Even in 1982 or whenever this was painted, this was not okay, right? They couldn’t have given the baseball player a ponytail? There’s no fucking…I dunno…Joan of Arc or, like, Generic Lab Coat Clad Lady Scientist or whatever??? Come on. A fucking baby? Not even, like, World War I Era Nurse Holding a Baby? Just…that girl, but + baby? That’s it? That’s all she gets? (Also, the boy even gets the cooler seat UP IN THE TREE. Fuck you, 1982 Boy. I hope you have a cocaine problem in five years.)

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Mexican Space Ship, duh.

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Perfect, beautiful, clever, subtle graffiti. I mean, also, my buttons: they are pushed. Excellent work, guys. Really wish I’d done this one.

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And of course I DID do this one. The second half of it, at least. I think I’m very clever.

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You may not have known this about my roommate.

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I don’t know. Something about this is sexist; I’m sure of it. I’m just too busy with other stuff to give it too much thought. This one’s on you, Chevrolet Spark. I got got some other shit going on is all.

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ARG AND SPEAKING OF. I mean, I bet she does! Because humans do! This is one of those things where you want to shame the bigots for being idiots, too. Like, yeah, duh, who doesn’t love beans or watermelon or money or black dick? But also, this is another one where I just don’t have time.

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(Also, yes, that “end the patriarchy” tag was mine as well, thank you very much.)

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Aaaaand…yeah…I dunno. Another one for the “SOMETHING ABOUT THIS IS SEXIST BUT I CAN’T QUITE PUT MY FINGER ON OH RIGHT THAT’S IT IT’S THE SEXISM” category.

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Grumble, whatever.

I’m totally positive that someone here is unfortunately suffering from a causation/correlation confusion! But good advertising, I guess?

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But my super duper favorite thing in this post:

THIS EXISTS.

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Goodbye!

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Oh look what’s this not much just yet another journal I’ve been published in that is now available for purchase should you so desire, NBD.

And the illustration I had mentioned earlier? Well, first of all, Other Jessica, I am SHOCKED I tell you, outright SHOCKED, that any major american university is not a subscriber to the UK’s most controversial weird magazine. This is a lapse in literary judgement that I can only hope will be rectified soon. In the meantime, for those of you living in one of the very few areas without public access to Morpheus Tales Magazine (we call them “dead zones”), below is the utterly fantastic illustration of my story:

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Which I adore.

I’ve decided I am no longer suffering from google-search-fear for this thing, because, like, fine, I’m kind of half-teasing this magazine for being just a goofy pulp horror magazine or whatever, and I certainly hope that’s not offensive to them, because obviously I’m fucking THRILLED AS BALLS to be published there. Turns out I love goofy pulp horror stories, and I assume they do, too, and I assume they’re not mad at me for pointing out that that’s kind of what’s going on there.

So really. I hope everyone knows that I’m not teasing or being sarcastic when I say that I LOVE this illustration. It’s exactly NOT AT ALL what I would have thought of myself, and it IS EXACTLY what it should be for this publication, right down to the lady-butt. I particularly enjoy the beatnik in the corner, who I suspect might be the artist himself? But my absolute favorite thing about it is his interpretation of my story’s Jesus, who is…haggard and snarling and scary and evil, whereas my imagination of him was more, like, charming and hipster and slight and not-necessarily-an-arsonist and…I dunno…someone a 14-year-old-girl might have a crush on. But then again, his interpretation of my 14-year-old-girl looks like she can handle him, so, whatevs. I trust her. (His depiction of HannaBelle the gorilla is SPOT FUCKING ON.)

Anywho, decidedly unsarcastic woot for all that. But also!

LUMINA officially marks my first highly respectable literary-type publication to come out. (No T no shade, Morpheus, ALL my love over here, but I mean. YOU know, gurl.) I’m doing a reading of the story in LUMINA on May 22 at Cake Shop, and that’s fucking terrifying, so everyone please come and see me and reassure me that I did a good job whether or not I actually do!

So here’s sort of a funny story?

My psychiatrist is an Orthodox Jew.* (I shook his hand when I first met him. I didn’t think! I felt super-bad about it later!) I told him that I write stories and that I was sending them out to journals and stuff. But he…didn’t believe me? Or, like, I think he thinks I’m pretty stupid, so he didn’t think I’d get anything published or something? But, like, I like him! He’s nice. He, um, sings to me. A lot. That’s…well, okay, no, now that I’ve typed that, it’s just awkward. Fine. But…it’s…not that weird when it happens in real life?? And he has all these crazy stories about, like, working at weird experimental therapeutic hippie theatres in the 1970s? That’s fun! But he keeps telling me I should convert to Judaism (which…can’t be ethical for a doctor, right?), and he’s kind of sweetly disapproving about the fact that I live with a male roommate, and he keeps thinking that I’m a secretary (which, fine, I call myself that sometimes, but sarcastically). And also he says things like, “Oh, you write stories? Like ‘The Metamorphosis?’” And when I tried to make a joke about how, sure, kind of, since I write scary stories and ‘The Metamorphosis’ was sort of a horror story, he very firmly corrected me that, no, actually, ‘The Metamorphosis’ was about very serious psychological issues, and the whole bug thing was actually a metaphor, not just a scary horror story plot, and I just sort of nodded and said “Oh” and then he gave me some pills so it all worked out in the end.

But so then I told him I was getting some stuff published, and now he keeps asking me about what they’re about. And…it’s kind of embarrassing to tell your Orthodox psychiatrist the plots of some of my stories? Like, the one where Jesus burns down a burlesque theatre is one thing (I swear to g-d, this is true: he actually told me, “I never trusted that guy” and I think he wasn’t joking), but when I told him about the one where two little kids kill another even littler kid? He gasped! Shocked! Asked me: “And George Saunders liked that!?” and then added, “Some people might find that very offensive.” Then, because I felt so bad for telling him about that story, I tried to be all, “No no! Some of them are nicer than that!” and I told him the kind of cute funny one about the ghost who lives in a law firm, and how they try to get rid of him by, like, serving him an eviction notice and stuff, but it doesn’t work because they can’t serve him because he’s non-corporeal. And that’s when suddenly he decided that my stories Mean Things.

According to my Orthodox psychiatrist, the even-littler-kid who gets killed by the slightly-bigger-kids represents MY INNER CHILD and the ghost who cannot be removed from the law firm represents ALSO MY INNER CHILD. Because sometimes our inner children are monsters or ghosts or um children.

I feel like I had a point to this story, but now I have forgotten what it was.

The End.

Love,

Jessica’s Inner Child

* This sentence won second place for Most New York Thing Jessica Has Ever Said. First place was: “Oy gevalt, this F train is slower than the line at the deli where I get my roast pork buns for breakfast when the bridge-and-tunnellers are here. Go Nets!”

There’s a painting of a lady in a very vibrant blue dress. She has dark hair and maybe something white in her hair – a hairnet or little cap of flowers or something? It looks a little bit like these:

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The STYLE is more like the very sassy one, but the lady in it looks less sassy. The COLOR of the dress is more like the first one, but it has a satiny sheen to it like the second one. I think it’s in the Met or the Louvre (I’ve definitely seen it in person before). Anybody know what/who it is??

It is Saturday morning. It is the second time so far this spring that I have had my bedroom window open (but my feet are very cold; I am too stubborn to close the window, though). I am listening to Frank O’Hara on youtube (“What’s that one poem about soda and liking a girl?” “Well, liking a boy, but it’s ‘Having a Coke with You.’”) and eating dinosaur-shaped cookies covered in sparkly pink and purple glitter. Later, I am going to a bar called “Spain” where the waiters are old and grumpy and give you free meatballs, and then I am going to go to the Met and look at pretty things. I may wear a fantastic outfit! Happy spring to me!

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Dear Internet! Tell me things to buy!

I have an Amazon gift card for $250. I want to spend it! I kind of want to get practical things, because I’m super-poor, but just buying $250 worth of cat food is…well, I was going to put “sad,” but actually that would be kind of hilarious. But I don’t want to do it! I want treats! I want something fun! So tell me what to buy!

Options:

JUICER! Because of reasons. Only one in stock, you guyzzz!!

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New collars for the cats (they’re very fuzzy/worn-looking right now) and a new ID tag for Erwin. He keeps chewing at his tag, so the info on it is all obscured and useless. This kind of tag doesn’t dangle – it slides onto the collar flat – so he won’t be able to chew it off. Clever! (Though then they won’t match as much, anymore, which is kind of a shame…. But I am not insane. I do not need to buy them both new matching tags.) (…Right?)

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Turtle food! Responsible! It’s like buying cat food, but easier to ship. Also, this IS techncially a treat: this is the good shrimp food that they like extra-well! So: practical AND fun! (Yes, where I live, shrimp-based turtle food is “fun.”)

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Cute new basking platform for my turtles!! The reviews are mixed, though? I dunno. It’s not terribly NECESSARY, I think.

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I need new stud earrings. These cost one cent!

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Very expensive jeans. Because this is the only time I would ever do that?

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Very expensive shoes. But I don’t need more shoes, right? Even nice ones?

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Very expensive purse. As long as we’re here!

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Or, I guess, also: less-very-expensive versions of any of those things? Like the knockoff McQueen clutch I keep wanting? But the rings on these never fit my giant man hands.

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Or oh god CAT FLATS.

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OMG. These come in gold, too! I CANNOT DECIDE BETWEEN SILVER AND GOLD.

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Jesus. And then this got recommended to me and I AM TEMPTED.

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And…then these got recommended to me. Christ, my recomendations are going to be all effed up for a while now, aren’t they? (I am still tempted.)

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Spikes for my punkness.

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FOE. Always useful. Though maybe I don’t need a zillion yards of plain black? I prefer to buy only a couple yards at a time, in pretty colors? But that’s so much more expensive that way! Grumble grumble.

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Actual books? (I was on a Shirley Jackson kick recently. Have you read Hangsaman??? That shit is NICE.)

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Or…just let this money ride, since I just noticed that now it’s all in my account and will sit there forever and not lose money or go away or expire or anything, so it’s actually not like I HAAAAAVVE to go buy some wacky expensive jeans or a goddamn juicer or whatever, after all.

(But I want a juicerrrrrrrrrrr!!!!)

(But I am probably literally honestly going to buy either the silver or gold cat flats and probably also the cat dress. I don’t even care, you guys.)

(But and probably the juicer.)

Thoughts? Votes? Other suggestions???

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SCIENCE

This is a science blog!

In response to this, here are my cats doing science!

Please don’t sue me, Oingo Boingo!

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Remember all that crap I said last time??? (About being a super-fancy famous published author, not about being old. Which, I mean, you know. Maybe also.)

Turns out it was TROOOOOOO.

So I’ve had four stories “accepted for publication,” cough cough, but here is the first one officially published!

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And, like, it’s dumb that I can’t get over this, but here’s me with my google-search-fear again, so I’m not going to googlably type this out, but come on! It’s the “Goo-K’s most Gontrovercial Geird Giction Gagazine,” gou guys!!!

E-book editions! Print edition! COLLECTOR’S EDITION! Whut!!! And if you want it signed and numbered by ME?!? Well that does not exist but the next time I come over to your house I’ll totally sign your boob, which is also good. (Plus: your boob!)

It’s ILLUSTRATED!!!

The preview doesn’t show it! I don’t know what it looks like! Blerrrrrrgggh! And crazy neurotic me keeps trying to decipher what it means that it is the second-to-last story in the table of contents. That’s sort of bad, right? But then again..it’s illustrated!! And it’s illustrated by the person who did the front cover! So…like…that’ll maybe encourage people to look at it? Right? Jessica is neurotic and overthinks things! But also! Who cares! I keep half-typing some half-excuse, all, like, “Blah blah I dunno I’ve had beers” or whatever, but maaaaaan, balls to all THAT. Fuck downplaying being excited about a very exciting thing. DOODS: hey look! I did a THING!

The very first story I ever wrote was (also!) illustrated (by me!), and I was pre-verbal at the time. (Or, like, pre-written-communication, at least?) It was about an ice cream cone and a sneaker who met, and then fought, and then parted. And…I think that’s all. Dialogue was all scribbles. It was VERY AVANT-GARDE, YOU GUYS. I don’t still have this book. I don’t know where it is exactly, now. My mom kept it in her awesome fold-out sewing box (along with a secret box of Camel cigarettes; she did NOT smoke).

The first career I remember telling anyone I wanted to have was “an artist.” I think at some point I then claimed “a fashion designer,” to which someone told me: “Well that’s a very difficult profession to break in to,” upon which I apparently decided that becoming a fiction writer would be a much more stable and profitable thing to do. So from the age of eight on, that was the plan.

When I was in I think the seventh grade, I won a short fiction writing contest from my school’s literary magazine: best short story, or whatever? The prize was a check for $20. My dad bought it from me for $20 cash, and he framed the check, and that was very nice. (I have NO IDEA what I did with that $20. Man. Wish I remembered that, now. Knowing me at like thirteen or whatever? I would guess clove cigarettes and garage sale books?)

And now, a, um, mere decade and a halfish later: the Goo-K’s most Gontrovercial Gagazine.

Auspicious.

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