Katy Perry believes in me.

I have this week off work and will hopefully get some writing done. This has not been going so well. In fact, it is not going at all.

My writer's block, I believe, can be attributed to my recent rejection from round two of submissions, and Snookie. Considering that the literary climate is currently at Vampire, non-fiction, memoirs, and chick-lit, I am not surprised that editors are as interested in publishing my book as they are in... are in... god, I don't know, I have writer's block, lets pretend I wrote something wry and clever... eating boogers. Perhaps I should just change all the characters in my book into vampires and Justin Bieber and stuff Americans are into--Bridalplasty, and it hand over to my agent for another go.

It will be a huge success.

Sometimes I can feel the dark side whispering to me in the voice of Voldemort (and sometimes Anderson Cooper for when I am feeling both desperate and sexy)... "hey, you, 'writer', I can make your dreams come true. You can get published... you can do it. It is as easy as 1, 2, 3... credit card information." What are you saying Voldemort/Anderson? "SELF PUBLISH!" NOOOOO!!! I can't! I can't! You can't make me, Voldemort! Maybe, Anderson... YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!!!

Really, I can't self-publish. Sometimes, it feels like that may be the only way in which I can ever get printed and bound, but I am as interested in self-publishing as I am in... in... eating boogers. So, I guess I will push through this writer's block, write another book, and years from now, I will try to get it published. And then if my agent tells me that I have, for the second time, failed. Well, damn it, I will write a third book! I will write ALL THE BOOKS!

I only feel optimistic because I was just listening to Katy Perry's song, Firework. Lemmetellya, that is some potent stuff because I know I'm not PMSing, so... I guess what I feel from listening to Fireworks are just emotions, regular. 

Valentine's Day

Josh and I celebrated Valentine's Day on Sunday. I was very excited to give Josh the present I had customized and pre-ordered weeks in advance. Before he was able to brush off all his eye boogers, I shoved his unwrapped gift right in his face. It was a coffee mug with this image printed on:

It's my faces! It's a mug with two of my heads fused together with MS paint to form a super-conjoined-twin me!!! In addition, I gave him a hologram bookmark--also with my faces.
I think he really liked it. His mouth uttered, "Thank you. I love it." But his face read, "Seriously? This is the fourth mug she has designed this year." After the mug and hologram exchanged hands, I demanded my gift... because as much as I like giving presents, I really like receiving presents. I like presents like nobody's business. I like surprises. I like tearing gift wrapping paper. I like coiled ribbons. I like confetti gratuitously stuffed into boxes and gift bags. I love presents!!!

 Josh did not have anything for me. He said he had gone down to the Bowery earlier last week to look for some duck I had said I wanted (whatever, dude, I have no memory of this stuffed duck). He looked sad and embarrassed, so to comfort him--to be a good person--I said something lame like: "Oh, it is the thought and... you know, the effort... that counts. Yeah. That's it. Your present counts so much to give to me in an imaginary thing that so much effort and all thoughts so it is so that thus is a present that is both full of mind feeling nice which makes me so good." I was disappointed. I like surprises. My surprise was stolen from me! and of all people... who knew it would be the person who was supposed to give me a surprise that stole the surprise from the person who was supposed to give me the surprise but could not give me the surprise because it was stolen from the person who was supposed to ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I felt rage.

Josh suggested that we go to the Columbus Circle mall after watching the Justin Bieber 3-D documentary at Lincoln Center Lowes. Damn right we're going to the mall after Justin Bieber! Not a bad movie, by the way.
However, when we got to the mall, I did not want anything. I was sad that I did not get a surprise. Too sad! Kind of pissed. More sad. Josh really wanted me to pick something out because he sensed my agitation, but I do not like knowing the cost of my gifts (I like guessing the ballpark)... and what I really wanted was a pre-planned surprise.

Eventually, I found a sale and did not feel guilty about picking out some practical sweaters. We at at Avoce for dinner. There, I got pretty drunk off of gin and lavender-something. After dinner, I ran wild at Whole Foods, looking for 365-brand Oreo knock-offs and the glittery kitchen sponges we normally use. "They do'n hab our sbonges!" I loudly slurred. "I neeb coffeeeeeeee..."

On actual Valentine's Day--today--I got a call from my agent. She informed me that our last publisher had rejected my novel and that my best bet is to write a second novel, get that one published, and then publish the first one. I am feeling pretty sad. Yes, I am not getting published this year... but Snookie did. Anyway.

I don't want to end up working at Duane Reade and admitting to my mother that she was right about how I should have gone into pharmaceuticals , or married a doctor with a nice Mercedes, or business man with a fuckin' private jet like Bill Gates

I am applying to grad schools this winter, as I have written about and alluded to a billion times.
Recently, I lost the taxidermy workshop I was organizing, I was rejected from the Seattle art gallery because the hipsters think my works are priced too high (I say, not high enough!), I stopped going to ballet, my nose is peeling all the time, and I am slightly behind in my research paper... Well, at least I have not been officially rejected from the smaller publishers... my agent tells me it should take awhile before we hear back from the smaller guys... And, I have my health, which is great--except I have developed a fear of eating hard-candy alone (I could choke and die with no one around to try to save me or listen to my last words, "arg, argh, always check the stove before you leave the house, arg, arg!").

Things feel like garbage even though I know these things are not THAT bad--and in fact, compared to other people's situations, my life is baller.
Very much a part of my quarter-life crisis, (1) I am finally realizing that one day I am going to die... and while there was a time in which death felt eons away, I have already gone through a quarter of my life--and that is generously assuming that I am going to live up to 96, which we know is not going to happen because of my diet of corn syrup and wine--it's probably going to be diabetes or liver failure around 65, right before retirement (2) I don't want to be mediocre, but I am realizing that a lot of people are mediocre. I am not going to be a Beyonce or an Ellen or an Oprah or a Boyle.
After all of my reality checks, I just want to go to graduate school, get my Ph.D. in sociology, work as a researcher/professor at a second tier university, publish some of my fiction, and skin road kill on my spare time.
This is where I am today:

I don't want to end up managing a flippin' Duane Reade.

I thought I was going to tell a cute story and specify all the things I hate about Duane Reade, but I spent too much effort on the picture above, so I'm just going to go make more popcorn and end this post.
The main point is, I want to get into grad school and if I do not get into a school this year I am going to barf.