I submitted a story to the Kiosk, one of a few student literary magazines on campus. It has a fairly good reputation, though some of the people in my writer’s group have grumbled about the nepotistic tendency of Kiosk editors to consistently accept work from their friends. I’ve made it in before without knowing anyone on staff, so I thought I’d try it again. The boy is usually a good gauge of the readability/terribleness of my stories, and he had a positive reaction to the story I wrote, so I had high hopes of getting in - coupled with the fact that, last semester, they’d only received six fiction submissions. I didn’t have time to have one of my writing professors to look at it, which is what I’d hoped to do, but I figured it would be all right.

I still hadn’t heard back from them, when one of the Kiosk people came by my poetry class to announce two things - first, that there are staff positions available for next year, and second, that the reading would be the following night. Hey, how’s that for a roundabout rejection? It wasn’t a huge surprise, but still, it would have been nice. Temporarily quashing the slight sting, I wrote down the info to apply for the fiction editor position. At the interview, which was pretty informal (being a student-run zine), the guy was very nice and told me that the job was fairly simple - “we don’t get very many submissions; you’ll just have to pick which ones are good enough to make it in and that’s that.” Whee, ouch.

I flipped through the copy he’d given me of this semester’s zine, just out of morbid curiosity to see if I knew anybody who’d made it in. Under poetry: a girl the boy used to room with, who pretty much is in the Kiosk every semester, and a boy in my poetry class. I was relieved to find out that at least it was one of the fairly talented people in my class, and not that one guy. He’s the one that inevitably haunts any workshop class - he talks all the time, writes at a sixth-grade level and has a poet-laureate ego. At least he’s not in it! - some dignity saved. Then I flipped to the fiction entries, to see who’d made it.

No one I recognized. One of the stories was kind of like what I’d written, a bit more polished (undoubtedly why it was chosen), except it was damned difficult to read due to the artistic choice that for some godforsaken reason, the design people had undertaken. Every other page of the article was upside down. In 8 point font. I liked what I read of it, which wasn’t much before my eyes started to bleed and dribble from my sockets. Yeesh. Oh, and these are the same people that chose to put light gray text on a dark gray background on their website. Style over functionality, yay!

Then I looked at the other two stories. The third story that made it - one that the Kiosk people felt was superior in quality and content to mine - was titled, “How to Snort Coke Off Your Buddy’s Ass (and not let things get awkward).” Oh. I skimmed it quickly, and it wasn’t a trick title. I’m sure it was well-written, and all, but…uh…yeah. I guess I need to come up with snazzier titles.

I’ll not give up, though. I’ll commence my takeover of this magazine and, should the invasion be successful, institute a new regime of readability (800-pt font, black text on white, how do you like them apples suckers?), literary work not necessarily involving drug trips or alcohol, and puppies. That is, if I don’t get rejected first.

I haven’t posted in awhile, so here’s some catching up:

1. Working on papers, poems and my huge end-of-semester presentation in Ethnicity and Sexuality. Back in January, when we were picking presentation topics, I decided to be all rebellious and cool and have a presentation that didn’t involve using Powerpoint (the scourge of computers). So instead I decided to do a collection of narratives on a specific topic. BIG mistake. I ended up having to do more research than I would do for a paper, since most academic scholarly type works have these nice little handy indexes (indices? that doesn’t sound right) at the back where you can look up specifically what you need. Novels and folk story collections do not have these, a fact that I was aware of before I started but didn’t seem to matter until I started researching. Consequently I checked out and read/skimmed about thirty to forty books within five days. Fun. After my schooling is over, I’ve decided I won’t read anything more intellectually stimulating than a cereal box for awhile. Wait, even that might be too educational for me at this point, what with all the nutrition info. I guess I’ll just read the Kansan.

2. Operation B-day Boy - planning the boy’s 21st birthday party, amidst all the schoolwork and whatnot. I asked him what he wanted - a huge party? a small one, with just our friends? a gourmet dinner, the likes of which would rival the Iron Chefs? (on a shoestring budget, of course). His answer? “Umm…I really want chicken wings.”

So I planned a medium-sized gettogether at this beautiful house we are housesitting right now, out in the boonies. I’ll post pictures of it sometime. We ordered a ridiculous amount of wings (at first the boy wanted me to order 200 of them. Keep in mind this is for about twenty-five people. He has big eyes.) and copious amounts of beer, ranging from high quality like Flying Monkey, to the significantly more modest PBR. Fun was had by all.

3. Saving money for summer study abroad. England (and Scotland, I’m guessing) is expensive. It’s pretty disheartening right now to think that I can’t afford to buy much here, and everything over there is twice as much as here in the States. I pretty much had close to a nervous breakdown last week in class thinking about it…this was right before the party, when I thought I had to pay for, on top of electricity and rent and assorted other bills I’ve been ignoring, 200 chicken wings (I eventually talked him down to 100). How many people do you know have nervous breakdowns over chicken wings? Well, now you know of at least one.

I talked to my father after that, though, and (surprisingly) he is going to help me out with the study abroad. With just enough penny-pinching and skimping, I think I’ll actually be able to pull it off. I am going to live on nothing but pasta and canned vegetables for the rest of the month. I will sell all those clothes that I no longer fit into. I will donate my plasma for science and $, despite the fact that I hate needles and will faint at the sight of one. I will apply for loans blithely and not think about the future. Tra la la la!

4. Entertaining my father and stepmom. The day after the party (which was last Friday), my dad came up to see me and attend a banquet for this minority scholars program that I’m in. I had him stay at the house that we’re sitting for, so not only did I have to clean up my place (a federally-declared national disaster area after I was finished with my presentation), I had to clean up after the drunken gathering also. I’m really glad we didn’t decide to do a kegger.

My relationship with my dad is kind of weird - I don’t really communicate with him all that much since my parents were divorced, and subsequently he’s not really aware of what I do. I think lately, though, he’s seemed like he’s wanting more involvement in my life. He’s helping me out with rent, now, which is great as I don’t work any more, and I’m almost at the end of my student loan money for this semester. It was neat having him at the banquet, though, so he could hear from other people about what I’ve done. I guess it’s kind of bad that I haven’t talked to him before about things, but honestly, I just don’t think about it. I’ve just assumed that my parents aren’t really all that interested in my volunteer work at the ECM, and I don’t exactly know how to explain Sexuality Education Committee to them, either. (Apparently my mom, freaked out by the seriousness of the relationship between me and the boy, actually called up my sister to have her ask me if I knew about birth control. Thanks, sis. And I really don’t go around thinking about academic honors all the time, unlike -certain- people in my classes that like to constantly remind people of their own prestige. Afterward, my dad said he was proud of me, which made me tear up.

Hah, and I had been worried about the -other- Vietnamese girl in the program, who didn’t show up but whose bio they read anyway, and it went basically like this: “med school med school research research med school doctor doctor.” I had been cringing when they read her bio. My parents aren’t exactly the stereotypical Asian “our children will be doctors or disowned” parents, but I know they’d probably be happier if I were in some more, shall we say, practical field of study. But after the program, my dad and I talked about the things that I could write. Well, it was more like my dad giving me suggestions and me interjecting once in awhile and saying, “Oh, that’s a nice idea, but…uh…” - this used to aggravate me about Dad, but now, it’s kind of funny and cute. He’s just trying to relate.

That’s it for the moment. I’m sure there’s more, but this has been what I’ve been up to for the last - oh, five days. I haven’t really had time to relax, let alone blog, until today.

-p.s. - Almost forgot! Our four-year anniversary was earlier last month, also. I got the boy a tin of peppermint tea from Upton, a fancy tea supplier, and he got me this:

The bowtie, that is, not the cat. (We give unique presents). I thought that Quark would hate the bowtie, being that he tries to scratch it off every ten minutes or so. But I can’t be sure. Once, I had taken it off because it was easier to pet him without the bowtie in the way, and I set it down somewhere upstairs. About an hour later, I was downstairs using my computer, and I look over and see the little gray rascal trotting by me, bearing the bowtie in his mouth. As if to say, “please put it back on. It makes me feel pretty.” Awww. So maybe, he really doesn’t resent being made to wear a stupid plaid bowtie! He loves looking like a furball poindexter!

Although, now that I think about it, he may have been dragging it to the litter box to bury it.

Oh well, I’ve already put it back on him. Mwahahaha!