The Proofread

A Fistful of Essays: Volume 1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 07:19:00 +0000

Approximately one year ago, five writers living in various locations around the world joined together with the common goal to publish essays and stories on a literary website. After numerous hours brain storming, typing, and editing, we are proud to present a compilation of those efforts; our best writing from 2009-2010: A Fistful of Essays: Volume 1.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us throughout the year. This one is for you. And of course, Enjoy.

Open publication - Free publishing - More the proofread

Prompt 2: The sound that wouldn't quit

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Wickler) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:36:00 +0000

The next prompt from The Pocket Muse: "Write about a noise -- or a silence -- that won't go away." Here I go! I'll try to post within a week (I'm supposed to be finishing my Manifesto, too). Feel free to join in the promptyness, and let us know your results!

Pocket musings -- the first result

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Wickler) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:18:00 +0000

It's been a few years since I wrote fiction. Here, in response to the prompt I referenced in my last post, is my answer to writing about someone who is pretending to be something he is not.

-------------------------------------------------------

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHgrrbblfhhhhwhaaaaaaa!" Kevin screamed as he rattled the bars of the cage and bared his teeth, only wishing that foam could seethe from between his lips. Red strobe lights flashed and thunder boomed, and fat rats poked their heads out around the feet of the girl and who Kevin presumed was her boyfriend. A mysterious moistness hung in the air -- was it from some rotting posthumous being? A brewing storm? A steaming pile of fresh sewage?

All that was missing, Kevin thought, was the proper stench.

The girl practically knocked the guy over as she jumped into his arms. It was pretty dark, but Kevin could see the guy's stiffness after he, too, jolted slightly. His girlfriend didn't notice, though, probably since he clamped his mouth shut and didn't let out a comparable, blood-curdling shriek. She also didn't realize that their weight ratios were not properly proportioned for him to take her weight.

Kevin had worked at the haunted house from the time he first remembered dressing up for Halloween. He was four, and very much against his mother's wishes he picked out a grim reaper costume. But she calmed down eventually. She figured as long as she read him some more uplifting books before bed at night, he'd turn out fine. After all, haunted houses were a family business, of sorts -- his parents and older brothers had been witches, corpses, skeletons and mad scientists for decades. When he was little, he delivered bottles of water to the haunted house workers throughout their shifts. He graduated to rat duty -- sitting behind a wall and thrusting a fake rat on a stick out a hole. And now, as a vastly matured and worldly 16-year-old, he was running one of the main scare attractions: the jailed felon. Not just a regular old felon, of course, but one painted in creepy Halloween paint -- bloodied, wasting away, abnormally gross teeth, dressed in tatters, nothing to do except shriek and scream in agony.

Kevin had become quite suited to the haunted house work over the years; he only wished the hours and the season were longer, so he didn't have to concentrate so much on the less satisfying, everyday life of the teenager going to school. In the haunted house, he was king of the spooks.

So in the haunted house, Kevin did everything he could to make himself more terrifying. By Halloween weekend, naught a person had stifled his screams when he walked by Kevin's post, much to the jailed felon's delight.

Then there was Jean Jacket Patches. Lots of people had jean jackets, but JJP had apparently hand-sewn several animal-print patches on her jacket. Kevin's encounters with the haunted house guests were brief, but he was good at giving a quick read as they turned the corner to his lair. Kevin could see a glint in JJP's eyes that was different from the other people; it was a strength gained from some experience in her life, perhaps very traumatic, perhaps very risky. Either way, he could tell this would be the ultimate test of his spook skills to even slightly startle JJP, much less melt her soul; it seemed like instead of wanting to be scared, she wanted to prove that the Halloween house horrors were no match for the fortitude she had acquired.

Thirty seconds later, Kevin walked out the back entrance of the haunted house. His eyes welled up with tears of shame as he peeled off his costume and threw it in the trash, among the greasy wrappers and styrafoam cups. He'd met his match. JJP had sensed him even before his act commenced. She had talked to him. How?! Why?! What right did she have to break the barriers within the hallowed ground of the haunted house. Did she have any idea what that blasphemy meant?! Or, Kevin thought, did nobody understand that anymore?

The champ had lost, sacrificing the proverbial belt to a new contender. A piece of Kevin hoped there was another contender out there, but the rest of him feared that nobody would ever be able to break the seemingly impenetrable shell of someone like JJP.

That night, Kevin went into the bathroom he shared with his brother and sister and brushed his teeth. After a few minutes, he loaded up his toothbrush with more paste. He brushed some more. Then he looked up at his reflection in the mirror. He pinched his lips shut, and used his tongue to push the mass of foaminess forward as he blew outward and started to open his mouth. He let out a ferocious roar. The foam settled on his lips and around his mouth, and after a few moments, deflated. Kevin silently watched it dripped down his chin.

---End---

Pluses: There is a beginning, middle and end; I incorporated some visual and descriptive elements, which is something I don't often do. Minuses: It probably lacks development -- even though it's concise, I think there could be a little more development while still not going overboard with connections and what have you. But is the foam theme too much? I wanted to be kind of clever, somehow. When is clever not to obvious, not too obtuse, but just right?

I will tell you that I originally wanted to have Kevin kill somebody who was walking through the haunted house, but I felt I would have had to develop some intense reason why he wanted to kill, like he had some major bullying problems at school. I tried to do this pretty fast and just let the ideas flow, and once I went into getting bullied it seemed really dull and it got too long.

Any comments, on anything? I think it will really help me to keep on with this, and feel free to join me if you'd like. I'll post the next prompt in a separate entry.

Pocket musings

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Wickler) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 00:36:00 +0000

Creativity sometimes doesn’t come easily to me (read my previous Proofread essay on inspiration). Maybe all the straightforward, fact-y journalism has just gotten me out of practice, but I’m constantly fighting to get it back or generate some more.

So a few years ago, I picked up The Pocket Muse at the dangerous-to-wander-aimlessly Barnes and Noble. It was a big leap for me to buy it like that — I didn’t read any reviews online (gasp!), didn’t know the author or anything she had previously written. I didn't know whether it would be better than the many other books offering the same types of creative writing prompts and practice. But the author's bio picture was of her and her cat; I had seen that kind of picture before, of a person I actually know and admire and who kind of inspires me. So I flipped through a few pages and swiped my debit card through the machine and that was that. The book looked/looks really cute on my shelf. But I never used it.

Until last night, when, as I'm getting more into writing in different forums, I opened to the first prompt page. I read “What are you waiting for? If not now, when?” And I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to write something about that, or if it was just an intro-type thing, and that’s when I realized I’m being way too uptight. Quit overanalyzing, Allison -- stop the inquisition!

All right, what the hell -- I’m going to try some of the prompts and observe the creative juices flowing. First up: “Write about someone who is pretending to be someone or something that he is not.”

I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, please help: How do you work your creativity muscles?

Inspirations

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 07:31:00 +0000

Kicking off our Manifesto theme is Matt's essay entitled Facebook-ifesto!.
While the dialogue is fictional, the inspirations are real. Almost a little too real. Don't Youtube the video referenced in this piece; you cannot un-see such horror.

Enjoy.

Facebook-ifesto!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 05:29:00 +0000

The First Sunday

“It’s a shame that you didn’t show up earlier to the party last night.”

“Hey. I made it to our weekly coffee date on time. Cut me some slack. Was the ratio of popped collars to normal collars outlandish?”

“I prefer to think of it as a rendezvous of minds. Anyway, Outlandishly high. I would estimate it at about a few degrees below the flash point of human skin.”

“And you wanted to subject me to this?”

“Your presence really would have helped reduce the ratio. Plus, I gave myself whiplash doing an impromptu break dance.”

“How could I have stopped that? I don’t know proper form and technique to ‘bring it on.’ ”

“If you had shown up as my wingman as good friends do, I wouldn’t have had to resort to such desperate measures to make things awesome. What were you doing? “

“I needed some hermit-esque activities in my day to balance out the mental demands of my social life.”

“So you were surfing the internet or watching movies. Any cinematic masterpieces?”

“Youtube.”

“Someone once said that love is the slowest form of suicide. But with the advent of Youtube, I would have to disagree.”

“It is only contemplating suicide as long as you don’t post anything. Anyway, before I left, I saw a clip of a fat woman in a halter top dancing to hip hop music.”

“Trying to get some tips before you went clubbing?”

“I am a girl. We don’t need moves for clubs. Boobs are an adequate substitute for style.”

“I might even say a better substitute, but then again, I hate clubbing.”

“Then why go to the club? You hate to dance and I haven’t even seen you once resemble anything close to being a man whore. It’s a waste of time for a pious person such as yourself.”

“The club is my one chance to wear the most ridiculous clothes that I can think of and still be considered cool. Skin tight orange pants. OK. 100 Neon bangles. OK. Eye patch. OK. I like my subtle way of making a mockery of the system while being the king of it. But anyway, back to this fat dancing woman. What was her deal?”

“Basically she is and/or was a fat woman dancing at home in a halter top and booty shorts.”

“Classy, but far from outrageous.”

“The video co-starred her five and seven year old children. Their roles were to throw money at her like she was a stripper.”

“That is the kind of classiness child social services should care about.”

“Sadly, it was PG-13 enough for the children to not be relocated to a foster family but for them to still be subconsciously anxious around go-go dancers or sumo wrestlers.”

“Like sushi and waffles, two wonderful worlds which I hope never try to fashionably combine into a fad.”

“Anyway, the video, while morally apprehensible, was fairly generic in the relative sense, until at the video’s climax where she grabs macaroni and cheese and pours it all over herself.

“Are you saying that she boiled, strained, and mixed up a box of Kraft Velveeta and Shells and then placed it into the room…”

“Her child’s room.”

“…her child’s room where she was filming the video?”

“Not quite. At some point when she was really breaking it down, she grabs a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, the standard cheese powder kind, rips open the top and pours the dried noodles into her mouth and over her cleavage.”

“That is — swell.”

“You look shaken. Did I crack you?”

“No, I am just empathizing with the pureblooded Italians out there who would cringe at the blatant violation of pasta ethics.”

“Haha. I am still awe struck by that woman. Just promise me if I ever get fat, you will talk me out of dancing and pouring mac and cheese on myself.”

“I feel it’s my duty to do that regardless of your mass or volume. Even skinny girls shouldn’t pour dried pasta on themselves. Anyway, you watched some horrible movies. What did you think of the party?”

“It was OK. The music wasn’t horrible. Anything Lady Gaga was pretty rad. It’s especially easy to dance to.

“Meet any cool guys?”

“No. But come to think of it, I did meet someone weird.”

“Yeah, who was he?”

“She. She introduced herself as the World.”

“You hadn’t met the World before that night?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, let’s see. You are twenty-four. You have been working a fulltime non-fast food job for about two years. And you watch a lot of Youtube. I assumed that you two would have been acquainted with each other by now. That fat mac and cheese woman must have been the final catalyst needed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What were your first thoughts after watching that video?”

“I believe it was ‘seriously?’”

“What was your second thought?”

“The world is stupid.”

“Well I suppose it would be rude if I didn’t formally introduce the two of you. Angela, this is the world. World, this is Angela.”

The Second Sunday

“So the World showed up every evening this week.”

“You gave the World your address?”

“She found it on Facebook.”

“Which is the easiest and worst way for the World to find out your address. Why did you open the door?”

“I had my lights on. And she stood on the stoop for like five minutes. I guess she had nowhere to go.”

“So what do a couple of best friends like you two do?”

“We just talk. And by talk, I mean she basically rants to me about any little thing all the time, and I interject witty comments while surfing the internet.”

“That sounds exactly like what you normally do when surfing the internet and posting on social networks.”

“But now there is the shrilling audible tone of immediate feedback.”

“Now that you two are BFFs, what is the World concerned with?”

“Mainly watering crops.”

“I guess when you are the World, you are concerned about some pretty heavy stuff.”

“No, not the World’s crops, Farmville’s crops.”

“I think she tried to give me a rare blue chicken last week.”

“You are Facebook friends with the World?”

“Lady, millions and millions of people are Facebook friends with her.”

“Anyway, she was bugging me to help her put up a barn or donate some fertilizer for her corn crops in her farm video game.”

“Did you tell her that your friend has some fertilizer he could donate. ‘Night soil” is what my ancestors back in the motherland called it. But let’s venture back from that aside. Did you water her crops?”

“Oh god. Ummmmm. Yes. For like five minutes. Peer pressure.”

“The World is good at that.”

“Do you know how boring this game is? At least when you play a typical video game, there is a goal and you get to blow some stuff up. There is nada here. You earn money, your farm gets bigger, and I think you earn some awards. You do chores. Chores! You sell stuff. It’s like real life, but I have nothing to show for it at the end of the day except for a bunch of coding on a server somewhere.”

“Materialism without the materials. I wonder what the Zen Buddhists would say about that one.”

The Third Sunday

“Have you been reading the World’s status updates?”

“She is really craving attention isn’t she?”

“Sweet Jesus. Here are some recent examples from memory:

“OMG, last night was soooooooooo AwEsOmE!!!!!!! totally need to go out with girls more often. They are the craziest bitches ever!!!! P.S. I love IRISH CARBOMBS!!! <3”

“So, I am totally feeling lonely today. It’s like sometimes I feel like I am the only thing like me out in the universe. I really need someone to talk to text me or call me. Maybe I will just go to bed TTYL….”

“That’s right, Lady Gaga, when love isn’t rough it isn’t fun!!!!! (^_~) (^_~) (^_~).”

“Shower.”

“I am going to do it.”

“The prosecution rests, your honor.”

“Did you figure out what she was going to do?”

“Someone on her page asked and she just replied ‘it is a secret. ;-)’”

“Impressive.”

“And she keeps bugging me to comment on her status updates. Doesn’t she realize I don’t care?”

“Well, doesn’t she realize you care enough to read but not to reply?

“I have been dragged into her web of sin, haven’t I?”

“No, you are more like one of those bugs who falls in a pitcher plant and is slowly digested away. Or drowns. I suppose the drowning comes first, then the digestion.”

The Fourth Sunday

“You are older and wiser than me. Do you know the Earth?”

“By know her, do you mean am I Facebook friends with her? Then yes, I do know her.”

“The World recommended I Facebook friend her. I didn’t realize they were two people.”

“Indeed. The Earth keeps to herself and worries mostly about deep matters like global warming and modern day slavery. I was surprised she joined Facebook. She has been putting up with a lot of shit lately and I didn’t think she would intentionally venture into the virtual breeding pit of annoyingness.”

“And the World is just plan irritating?”

“She has been tagging you in a lot of photos lately.”

“Yeah...But not real pictures. A ton of “my friends are like” pictures…”

“The ones that have a bunch of Disney or anime characters to represent different personality types?”

“I was tagged as Pocahontas and Mr. Pibb.”

“I am sorry that the World thinks you are cheap knock off of a great soda and that you will never earn anything higher than a Bachelor’s degree.”

“I could totally get my M.D. if I tried.”

“If I were you, I would go with your strengths and work the Pocahontas angle. I always thought you looked hot in deerskin.”

“Buffalo skin is much more thinning though.”

“So, why don’t you just un-tag your name from the photos? It’s not like those actions are posted in the feed if you do.”

“If she found out though, I wouldn’t want to deal with the fallout.”

“Fair enough. I have to bounce, but tell Grandmother Willow I said ‘hello.’”

The Fourth Sunday

“What are the chances I can get a flavor shot of cyanide in this coffee?”

“You don’t want the flavor, you want the effects. Plus, that would be an extra buck, and I think you are too cheap to pay for those extra little luxuries. I got a bag of unripe almonds bursting with cyanided goodness that I need to get off my hands; they can be yours as long as you give me your Xbox 360 after you have leapt this mortal coil.”

“The World changed its status from ‘single’ to ‘in a relationship.’”

“Who is she dating, the moon?”

“No. Some guy named Corey. And now all I hear about is Corey, Corey, Corey.”

“Does the World still keep showing up at your apartment?”

“Sadly. Why can’t the World talk about something interesting? She just keeps going on about the dates the two go on. They are not even interesting dates. Each anecdote is another rehash of she and Corey going to TGIF’s for appetizers.”

“I prefer Applebee’s. Or microwaving a box of frozen hot wings at an antique store. Same décor, cheaper prices. Sometimes the owners get mad at you for doing that. Most times though, they are just happy to have the business.”

“Do you know that the World orders ranch dressing with everything?”

“Even nachos?”

“Even nachos.”

“The felon.”

“Corey, Corey, Corey. Seriously. How is that the most frequently heard and used proper noun in my lexicon at the moment? Corey gossip is a retrovirus that has intertwined into my DNA. All I hear about from the world is Corey. And how Corey does this or and how Corey does that. And how cute he is. And how he was in a band.

“Intere—“

And how Corey thinks it’s totally stupid that she orders ranch with everything and they argue about it all the time. And Corey even made her cry one time by calling her a “stupid ranch dressing loving bitch.” And how Corey one day, he bought her a fruit basket but it was filled with a variety of ranch dressings and she cried tears of joy and they had ranch dressing and make-up sex.”

“I hope not at the same time.”

“I am off of ranch dressing just to be safe. So that is what I have been living through for the past four weeks.”

“And that is what I have been vicariously living through the past four weeks we have met here for coffee.”

“If you are interested, there is still room in the pitcher plant.”

The Fifth Sunday

“How’s Angela and the Technicolor Dream World?”

“The World got Twitter.”

“Did you become a foll—“

“No fucking way.”

“Think of the potenti—“

“No. Fucking. Way.”

The Sixth Sunday

“Society.”

“What about it?”

“Society added me as a friend on Facebook. How is Society different than the world?

“Hmmm…I suppose it was probably the result of that damn friend suggestion program on the Facebook homepage. So which one was it?”

“Maybe ‘A-something Society’?”

“American Society. I am also friends with Western, Eastern, Japanese, and Australian. I don’t talk to Australian Society very much. Not that the accent is a problem, but that ‘crikey’ slang shit disintegrates the lining of my ear canals. But back to your original question. The quirks of the World are overall generic. The Societies’ idiosyncrasies are a lot more ‘refined’”.

How so?

“Well Japanese Society wears barrettes in his hair and he spams his friends with “which anime character are you?” quizzes. American Society posts a lot of YouTube videos and is obsessed with adding “FAIL” to any slightly embarrassing photographs.”

“Has the World been tagging you in its Facebook notes?”

“No, but I did see that things ‘are complicated’ with Corey and her.”

“If by complicated you mean that Corey cheated on her?”

“Corey cheated on the World?”

“So from the World’s report of the story, the World had just spent the night at Corey’s. Corey went to take a shower and the World decided to check her Facebook profile and update her status, you know, since it had been about six hours since she last did that.”

“My Lord, six hours. She is so brave to stave off the separation anxiety for that long.”

“Apparently, Corey had his profile set to automatically log in, so when she typed in the address, she was brought to his homepage. It was there she noticed that he had about twenty new messages. Since she is the World, and by nature slightly inquisitive, she clicked on his inbox to find the mother lode of erotic love letters.”

“In Facebook form.”

“From who?”

“From Life.”

“That’s Life, I suppose.”

“Upon reading a selection of the electronic billet-doux, the World went into the bathroom and slapped Corey across the face.”

“Seems like an appropriate consequence for screwing with the World.”

“But not before she poured Mountain Dew into his Playstation 3. “

“Wow. The World isn’t afraid to kick 20-something year old cheaters in the figurative testicles.”

“I will admit that part of the story was entertaining. However, the frequent polarized mood swings are a lot less enjoyable. Sometimes she is sobbing in my house. Sometimes she is sobbing in my inbox. Other times she really giddy. Which of course I mean, she is really drunk on tequila.”

“Maybe you should take the World to ladies night? Get your drink on?”

“Haha, yeah. Maybe I will just de-friend the World. I am tired of her constant bullshit.”

“I know we have been teasing the World, but she has her good points.”

“Well, it would be nice if she posted those redeeming qualities in her Facebook profile because I don’t see them.”

Seventh Sunday

“Dude-san, have my eyes deceived me?”

“Dude-chan, a.k.a. Dudette, what are you referring to?”

“You and the World are tagged together in a ton of Facebook photos.”

“Not a whole metric tons worth of photos, but with all our talk lately, I finally found the inspiration to renovate the profile.”

“You and the World…”

“I am no Corey, but then again, the World said she was also interested in ‘friendship.’”

“There is an entire album of the World and you drinking Coronas at the beach. You really went to a beach party with the World?”

“Sunrise beach party. Watching snow monkeys in a hot spring. Ten day road trip across rural America with the World.”

“There is also a picture of you being sexually accosted by an old Japanese man.”

“It was one grab and he was just sizing me up; it makes for a great story. Plus, I was wearing pants, so no harm done. Good thing the World was there to snap some photos of the event.”

“I can’t believe it. The World has been bugging me at my house and on Facebook for the past seven weeks straight and here you have been partying with her for years. I didn’t think you could be as stupid as she was.”

“Everything looks stupid when observed from the Internet.”

“Huh?”

“Status updates, tweets, message boards. Watch a YouTube video on making cheese cake and you will have about 100 idiots commenting on how cheesecake is both Bush’s and Obama’s favorite dessert and that it was simultaneously invented by Hitler, Bin Landen, and your least favorite Pope of the past 200 years. How the hell does a rational person degrade the good name of cheesecake? Only as something as screwed up as the internet could do that.”

“The World is pretty damn annoying when it’s just complaining to you about Corey in your apartment.”

“Anyone is damn annoying when they just sit in your house and complain all the time. That is why the divorce rate is so high. Face it, kid, your apartment is too small for the World. I hear they are doing some sort of zombie pub crawl this week, you and the World should go there.”

“Maybe…Even if do this one thing, she’s still will come over won’t she?”

“Yeah, but she will slowly become much more tolerable. You might start to like her. Even recommend her to your friends on Facebook.”

“I can still make fun of her, right?”

“Oh God, yes.”

“So this is life in the pitcher plant?”

“It’s a pool party once you remember you can swim.”

New Theme: Manifesto

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Wickler) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 01:14:00 +0000

Karl Marx wrote his principles of Communism. The United States' founding fathers Declaration of Independence announced the separation of the thirteen colonies from the British Empire, and the rights of the people of the new United States of America. Even Ted Kaczynski penned "Industrial Society and Its Future" -- the Unabomber Manifesto -- in which he chronicled what he saw as the disastrous effects of the industrial revolution.

We at The Proofread don't exactly want to take after Ted Kaczynski, but we have opinions -- lots of them. So, we'll bring you our manifesto-themed essays, some outright declarations and others requiring some between-the-lines reading. And because manifesto contains the word "fest," we expect reading our coming works will be like a party. Rock on.

Roma, Roma Ma(nifesto)

noreply@blogger.com (Tara Sloane) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 03:02:00 +0000

The article cuts off half way through (whaat? we have to pay for online content?).. but you'll get the gist. Poor Gaga's wig must be singeing...

Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex

Camille Paglia for the Sunday Times

Old is New

noreply@blogger.com (John Sharkey, Esq.) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:51:00 +0000

For our Rewind set, I am turning to this 2007 essay about the Gnarls Barkley album St. Elsewhere. A couple of reasons: I continue to adore this record, and the specifics of this essay still, I think, reflect my thoughts. And, the lead singer is enjoying another well-deserved moment in the pop music sun, so this seemed like a good time to return to some of his earlier jams.

So anyway, hopefully you enjoy. Excuse the slightly academic tone; this was, indeed, written for a class...

...Just Like Me

noreply@blogger.com (John Sharkey, Esq.) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:44:00 +0000

We pay psychiatrists hundreds of dollars an hour. We shovel-feed our children anti-depressant drugs by the mouthful. Mental problems sit at the forefront of our minds (no pun intended). Gnarls Barkley’s 2006 album St. Elsewhere dives into the depths of our thought process, emerging with a striking look at how our minds work and the up-and-down nature of our personalities. The album’s ever-changing mood and sound remind us that our consciousness is in a constant state of flux, while the album’s lyrics explore a broad range of mental issues. A catchy beat may have made the second song, “Crazy,” one of the most popular songs of the year, but when one scratches the surface a bit he finds more than a made-for-radio album.

Click. Whrrrrr... The album begins with the sound of an old reel-to-reel projector turning on. This cinematic effect alerts the listener that he is entering some kind of unreality where things may not be exactly as they seem. One of the very first defense mechanisms against mental anguish is the simple escape from reality—not coincidently, St. Elsewhere opens by denying reality. And just like those first few moments of oblivious bliss, “Go Go Gadget Gospel,” the opening song, feels ready to fly. “I’m well on my way / I’m almost everything / and this is my day / make me wanna sing,” croons singer Cee-Lo. The song uses a rapid tempo, energetic horns, and soulful lyrics that bleed the “freedom in Hi Fidelity” of which the song speaks. Reality has been successfully shunned, and the world seems bright...

For two minutes and nineteen seconds (the length of “Gospel”), at least. We can’t lie to ourselves forever, keeping the bad thoughts out, and neither can Gnarls Barkley. “Gospel” abruptly ends with a rapid distortion of the music, immediately followed by reality breaking through the artificial mental wall: the four pounding first beats of “Crazy,” followed by the singer’s explanation of his mental breakdown. Gone are the upbeat horns and optimistic vocals. In their place, “Crazy” gives us a minimalist guitar rhythm backed up by a humming choir. An audible wind blows during the chorus, and Cee-Lo asks, “Does that make me crazy?” before answering himself: “possibly." The singer deals with self-doubt created by hero-worship, something we are all guilty of from time to time. “All I remember is thinking / I want to be like them,” he reminisces. Not being able to measure up to his image of perfection cripples his personality. He even doubts whether or not he is actually crazy. Interestingly enough, the singer does not seem distraught by this realization of insanity. Even though his mental defenses on the first track have failed, he feels oddly comfortable about his new situation: “I remember when I lost my mind—there was something so pleasant about that place.” We tend to hide our mental problems, and consider them taboo. St. Elsewhere smashes this convention. No longer lying to himself, the singer is ready to confront his issues. As in reality, however, things are about to get worse before they get better.

The singer withdraws inward in an attempt to overcome his issues. The third (and album-titling) song, “St. Elsewhere,” follows his journey to a deserted island of isolation. The song employs a sound similar to “Crazy,” but at a slower pace. Now alone and left to fight his demons, the singer finds himself wandering without any idea what to do. Loneliness consumes him: “Would it be so hard for you to come and visit me here?” Still dealing with residual issues from whatever traumatic event in the past, the singer finds himself unable to overcome his desire for companionship and a return to the way things were. We cling to the past, because we worry that it is all we have. The future is uncertain. This is the key moment in his journey—one we all have to deal with. Instead of taking the easy path, giving up on his issues and accepting things the way they are, he chooses to fight on. This decision sets the stage for the middle section of the album, where the singer finally begins to come to grips with his own mind.

The issues he confronts (well, at least, most of them) are painfully relatable. One of the reasons St. Elsewhere works so well is its willingness to bare its soul and let us in. Inside, nearly everyone can find something meaningful to his/her own experience--specifically, the bulk of the album deals almost entirely with self-loathing. “The Boogie Monster” is, first and foremost, creepy. Nefarious laughter rules the day as the singer realizes that he cannot sleep. To add to the horror, the singer invokes the name of the classic horror villain, Dracula. There are monsters afoot, in his closet and under his bed, and “it won’t let [him] get any sleep.” Again, the singer instinctively tries to hide from the problem. But only when he works up the courage to stare his demon in the face can he realize the true issue: “I used to wonder why he looked familiar / And then I realized it was a mirror.” He finally realizes that he is his own problem, and with that revelation out of the way he can move on to other issues.

After confronting his obsessive-compulsive disorder in “Feng Shui,” the singer moves on to (arguably) his most pressing issue: suicide. “Just A Thought” (which doubles as the album’s best song) takes the singer to the brink, where he must finally make the ultimate choice: live or die, fight on or give up. As he says himself, the singer only wants peace and quiet, “wouldn’t have to have one worldly possession." Death looks more and more attractive. Teetering on the edge of failure, he looks out at the world and decides that even though “it’s not just good, it’s great depression / when I was lost I even found myself / looking in the gun’s direction," life may be worth living after all, as we learn in the final line of the song: “But I’m fine." As doomed as we may feel, the singer wants us to remember that there is a way out other than suicide.

With this darkest of moments finally in the past, the musical tone of St. Elsewhere begins to lighten. Problems persist, but they no longer seem insurmountable. “Transformer,” the most upbeat song since “Gospel,” sees the singer confronting schizophrenia, and the singer is remarkably candid and at ease with his drug issues in “Online.” These songs demonstrate the kind of self-comfort that can only come from a process as painful as the introspection that he just experienced. It may sound cliché, but often we really do have to accept the painful parts of life in order to move past them. With underlying issues finally dealt with, we become more comfortable with our quirks--even when they are extreme as the bizarre “Necromancer.” As the pun-ny name implies, it is a necrophilia song--far from a socially acceptable topic. But now the singer is comfortable in his own skin--he accepts his necrophilia as part of himself and does not pretend to hide it. The self-doubting hero-worship of “Crazy” has passed, and he no longer wants to “be like them,” but to be himself. Only an incredibly self-confident person could possibly be as candid when it comes to a subject so strange and taboo—a remarkable improvement from the singer’s state of mind in the early songs.

As the album ends with the innocent “The Last Time” that simply asks “When was the last time you danced?”, we can step back and see how far the singer has come. The projector reaches the end of its film, and we hear it slow to a stop. Journey complete, the singer is finally ready to move on with his life, no medication required. In the end, there is no replacement for self-honesty, as painful as it might be (although a catchy beat helps to ease the process).

The Happy-Go-Lucky Flirt

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:49:00 +0000

After exploring his college computer, Matt finally rediscovers an old essay worth publishing on the Proofread. It is about flirting. Or more precisely, how he justifies his obliviousness to flirting. It was written four years ago, but besides who he was dating at the time, not too much has changed.

Check it out here

Enjoy.

Proofread Throwback

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:58:00 +0000

I was rummaging through my old essays on my college computer when I happened to find the old logo from the past incarnation of The Proofread. And then instead of actually finding an essay, I decided to update our look. It is kind of like Mountain Dew Throwback, except without sugar and less references to hillbillies.

A new Rewind essay will be up later this week.

Enjoy.

P.S. Comments and suggestions about the new layout are appreciated.

Zombie revival

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:59:00 +0000

Zombies. First they were slow (Night of the Living Dead (1968)). Then they were fast (28 Days Later (2002)). And now they like to party.

This week Tara brings us her firsthand account of a (mostly) real night of the living dead.

Eat it up.

The Perks of Being Un-Dead

noreply@blogger.com (Tara Sloane) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Walking along Washington Avenue during the early morning hours of October 19, it isn’t likely one could miss the blood. Little spatters and streaks and puddles that weave between the sidewalk cracks and cloud the corners of store windows, fading on the edges as finger paint does. It oozes into the sleepiness of a Minneapolis Sunday so subtly that the usual Monday traffickers might not notice them at all. Fall breezes had dried up the sticky smatterings overnight, returning with the day to taunt the Avenue’s cars and bars and street signs, and to awaken the blood -drenched strips of cloth and Kleenex that cluttered it. In less than a minute, the mischievous wind had given legs to those little horrors, whisking them into a flimsy, disgusting dance; a nauseating tribute to some happening that must have been momentous but can only be conveyed halfheartedly by its vague yet enticing entrails.

What one wouldn’t encounter on this morning stroll are the many thousands of photographs and boozy memories that had been born alongside the dancing horrors. But even without them, the breeze would betray their secret, for it would not carry with it the smell of death or carnage. In fact it couldn’t, because the blood crusted on Washington Avenue is not real blood, and the only crime it traces is perhaps not even a crime at all. You see, the dark but not-so-stormy night of Saturday, October 18, marked the fourth annual Zombie Pub Crawl, the attendees of which could be accused of nothing more than partying too hard and leaving their “bloody” litter behind. The “blood” being of any combination of make-up, imitation blood and fake ooze contained in all sizes of tanks, tubs and tubes – all of which could be purchased at Twin Cities Magic & Costume Co. in St. Paul for 10 percent off with a printed coupon from Zombie Pub Crawl IV: Spawn of Death’s official web site. “Go Get Zombified!”

And Zombified they were. Young and old, sober and not, from every corner of Minnesota and beyond, the undead marched in droves.

Seeping, groaning, limping, drooling,

squirting, spooking, gnashing, stalking,

spitting, grimacing –

Reapplying, reattaching,

retracing, resonating, reeling,

reentering, repositioning, repeating –

“Braaaaaiins!”

From the Stone Arch Bridge, a group of four zombie cohorts could hear the cry. Rising from what they knew to be the legendary Gold Medal Park, a grassy knoll next door to the Guthrie Theater, it came from the hordes of living humans who were gathering to “undeaden” before the commencement of the ZPC. The sound of those monstrous voices mingling caused the foursome to quicken in walk – er, stalk – and let out their own zombie cacophony in reply:

“Muurrrrrrm... Guuuuuugg…Braaaaaiins!”

Their humor wasn’t well-received.

“Don’t worry, they’re not real,” one man said to the wide-eyed little girl he pushed in a stroller. His gaze was more menacing than the hooligans who had provoked it.

The guilt must have made Justin Michlig’s skin melt. Decked in a plaid shirt which appeared to have been used as a napkin for someone’s bloody fingers, Justin stopped shortly after the encounter to peel off a plastic scar from above his left eyebrow. He tossed it onto the bridge in distaste – much to the delight and horror of another child crossing the zombies’ staggered path. Wary to scare the pudgy, black-haired boy, the gang compensated for their deviltry by straightening their backbones and smiling sheepishly. Their teeth had been made as rotten as their faces.

“You look kinda dumb!” the pudgy boy called, causing a surprised eruption of very human cackles. Quickly gaining composure, John Pozniak, a pale, shortish zombie with a bolt sticking haphazardly out of his forehead, mustered for the child his signature shriek – the sound of which was something in between a pterodactyl and a whistle.

The child gobbled it right up.

Meanwhile, more zombie frenzies – fiercer now – flared in the distance.

From somewhere within the fray, which swallowed up Jake, Justin and John with frightful ease, Heather Esperson and her own band of zombies undeadened, slathering their pretty, upper-twenty-something faces with gauzy white cream and rimming their eyes to the cheekbone with filthy-grey rings of costume eyeliner. In a frightful flurry of “scabbing” fingers and dollar-bin brushes, they transformed like squirming caterpillars into a larger, more hauntingly graceful version of the laughing corpses they had been during their college days in Winona, Minnesota. There they had been few in a tiny fistful – 50 zombies maximum – of marching, boozing, breathing shadows of un-death.

In those days, Heather and her friends were just glad to be around those of “similar humor – as in they all enjoy wearing makeup and getting drunk.” But as age can not elude un-death, the draw of the Minneapolis ZPC for the Winonians was not the alcohol.

“Some people feel they have to be drunk in order to justify wearing a costume and makeup in public… But I think I have reached a point where I’m just happy to be dressed up… with a bunch of other creative people that find it fun as well.”

Such creativity!

And not even on Halloween!

For many of the zombies, it’s the makeup and costumes that have them staggering back year after year. Some are a little grayer. Some are a little greener. Some are a little whiter. Some have dripping blood. Some have exposed bone. Some have worms or ripped skin or rotting flesh. “It’s fun because there’s no generic zombie,” said Jim Berg of Twin Cities Magic & Costume Co. –

Just

zombie

babies

zombie prom queens zombie police officers zombie workmen zombie clowns zombie athletes zombie Jesus zombie scientists

zombie Michael Jackson zombie photographers

zombie wedding party

zombie pirates

zombie doctors zombie Hooters girls

zombie housewives zombie soldiers zombie bikers zombie bakers zombie bumblebees zombie Statue of Liberty

zombie hoboes:

“Will work for Braaaaaiins!”

Avid horror fan and two-time crawler William Earl Wheeler led the pack.

“The biggest lure of the Zombie Pub Crawl is dressing like a zombie... Sometimes you need to step outside the box, the comfort zone or the every drone of a life stuck in a rut. Try something new, change a parameter or cause a little jolt in somebody’s life to make an impression. It does not have to be a bad impression, but an impression to get a smile, a laugh, a chat or even meet somebody as a friend. This event can, and [it] has done that for myself and friends in my group. Even though it's scary to some, morbid to others; yet to us it's unique and built around people that love to be very open-minded.”

It started with 15 people four years ago, and the hype has groan and groan (and grown). “I hear ZPC: IV was estimated around 1,500 zombies,” Wheeler said. “The hype is real.”

By the time evening sets in on October 19, the blood along Washington Avenue has lost its squeamish sheen. Makeup has been washed down drains in torrents, and shredded, stained and scandalous costumes alike have been tossed away or hung behind very-human suits and scarves and Sunday best to await next year’s crawl. Thousands of pictures have been posted online, which will decorate Facebook pages and Flickr websites until Halloween snapshots come to haunt in their place.

At the bars, it’s business as usual.

Except you can’t moan for discounted drinks.

Rounding the Bases

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Wickler) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:35:00 +0000

Adolescence: The bane of most people's existence -- except for those privileged cheerleading captains like Sarah. No, not our Sarah Steadland. The other Sarah. First-name-only Sarah.

Our Sarah reflects on a mere ten minutes of her adolescent life, which you'll find by essay's end evolved into more than just a game.

Bon appetit.

I Never

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Steadland) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:13:00 +0000

“I never smoked pot,” Alyssa stated as a few fingers around the circle went down (but not mine). Not a very exciting disclosure. Marijuana wasn’t a big deal at Andover High School. Some people did it, some didn’t. Shrugged shoulders all around. On to the next revelation.

“Sarah, you’re next,” Ashali said, nodding to the other Sarah, the more important one. I was Sarah Steadland, she was just Sarah. I couldn’t wait until I was the cheerleading captain and everyone called me by just my first name. But for now I was just an insignificant freshman, lucky to be on the varsity squad but still a freshman nonetheless.

In case you’re not familiar with this ritualistic coming-of-age game that the nine of us girls could be seen playing on that afternoon of 2003, I’ll briefly explain “I Never” to you. These days, it is considered one of many options for college students in need of a game to play when they have a case of beer and not much to talk about. But back then, when we were still on the younger side of our adolescent years, “I Never” was basically a slumber-party game. It wasn’t quite as widely known as “Truth or Dare” but way more interesting, due to its lack of the “I’ll take...Dare” cop-out option. In “I Never,” you sit cross-legged in a circle and hold up your ten fingers. You go around the circle and each person says something they have never done. Whoever has done it puts one finger down. The first person to lose all ten fingers loses. Or wins, if that’s how you see it.

So it was Captain Sarah’s turn. She made an “Ummm.…” sound as she mysteriously glanced about the circle in thought. I couldn’t imagine there was much Sarah hadn’t done. “I never had sex in a car.”

“Oh, good one!” Erica gushed as she slowly put a finger down, demonstrating for all to see that she had totally done that. “You should try it. Me and Ry do it all the time in his truck.”

I tried to look impressed by the other captain of our squad. That’s half the game, you know, reacting to each statement through body language. It’s a tough skill to master, the “Well I haven’t done that yet, but maybe I’ll consider trying it in the future” look. It doesn’t matter if the person’s talking about screwing in a car or purposely cutting off a chunk of their tongue. You absolutely have to look cool with it.

“I never went on a date with Ross King,” said Ashali, clearly targeting Sarah, who smiled smugly as she put yet another finger down. Sarah was quickly losing.

After Erica’s turn, it was going to be me. I went through a mental list of all the crazy things I hadn’t done and panicked a little. A lot rested on this. A newbie on the varsity hockey cheer squad has to seem cool to her superiors, which my pale wallfloweriness didn’t do for me. I thought of the things I was proud not to have done by the age of thirteen (broken my 4.0 GPA, gotten drunk, been grounded) and tossed those out. Yawn. I knew sex was all they wanted to talk about, but I wasn’t about to tell them I hadn’t even kissed a guy yet. God, I can still feel the pain of that moment, the judgement I knew was going to be unleashed upon me no matter what I said.

After Erica’s turn, I still hadn’t come up with a good “I never” and they were waiting for me. “I never went to second base,” I blurted, trying to make it sound like I had at least done something, but not too much.

“What do you consider second base?” Sarah asked pointedly. I probably looked pretty bewildered. There’s more than one definition of the bases? I still feel bad for my 13-year-old-self in that moment. A heat that was the result of some combination of panic and humiliation was creeping up my face. What the hell kind of team-building activity was this? The older girls all gave me their opinions of what second base means at the same time. All I remember hearing is a lot of really sexual terms that my sheltered thirteen-year-old ears didn’t quite understand. What a way to spend our practice time. No wonder no one likes cheerleaders.

I sighed, then decided it would be easier, and less embarrassing, to change my statement. “Maybe I’ll just go with...I never had sex.” Their chattering stopped and their fingers went down. I was glad my turn was over. Looking back, I know I shouldn’t have stressed so much about the situation. I should have shrugged them off. “I’ve never kissed a boy. Big frickin’ deal. Put all yo fingas down, bitches.” Or I should have used the phrase “I never went to fifth grade.” It wasn’t until much later that I realized that my skipping of two grades was the best artillery I had in that game. But this was the peak of my vulnerability to peer pressure. Those tween years are a dark time, and no matter how much I wish I could tell a story about my triumphant casting-off of mean girl influences, this was a time when I bent my will to the influence of my superiors. No, I didn’t turn into a 13-year-old slut. This is just a story about ten minutes. Ten minutes that were so crucial to my adolescence, I still feel uneasy when I think about them.

As I listened to the next few girls brag about the things they’d done in their illustrious cheerleading lives, I realized that I was going about this game the wrong way. Those girls didn’t want to hear about the things I hadn’t done, they wanted to hear about the things I hadn’t done that they had. This game was more about fingers going down triumphantly than the weeding out of inexperienced players. This was one of those situations where “just be yourself and everyone will like you” probably wasn’t the greatest advice. I could feel my mentality changing as I sat there.

I looked down at the nine fingers I still had showing. As discreetly as possible, I tucked two more fingers into my fist. I laughed to myself when I realized if someone said “I never cheated at ‘I never,’” I would have to put another finger down. Thankfully, no one noticed, or at least said anything about noticing, me cheating until my next turn.

“Dude, Sarah, when did your fingers go down?” Ashali asked.

“I dunno, when did yours?” I replied nonchalantly. I swear those girls got easier to talk to after that.

For the next few years, I lied and I lied and I avoided topics until I, too, had my own stories to tell. It troubles me now that those quiet moments with high school boys were often done more for the sake of a story than for what they meant to me.

The Rewind begins.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:19:00 +0000

The Proofread digs up a literary past that most of you have not witnessed.

Allison starts off our theme with an essay about a courtroom drama. It's from her college days, but old man time hasn't dulled these words.

Enjoy.

They Rode the Bus for Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Wickler) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:15:00 +0000

My first few days as full-time custodian last summer reminded me of exactly why I decided to go to college. It was a combination of things that did it, really: the actual cleaning, yes, but more so the cattiness among the custodians, the boss’s air of superiority, and even the way the kids looked at me like it was explicitly in my job description to wipe their fecal matter off the walls. But I had received my official jury duty summons letter from the county months before, and had informed my boss that I had been called to a possible two-week term of civic duty. At that point, it was all I could do to pray that I would be picked, rather than be sentenced to scraping gum off desks, cleaning floor-to-ceiling Venetian blinds, and cleaning up after classroom pets. I didn’t consider that my passion for social justice would cause problems in a courtroom.

I was the opposite of most other candidates, who found it a burden to be called away from work or their families. During selection, they looked for any excuse to show bias toward the lawyers, the parties involved in the case, or the nature of the accident that was up for judgment. I, however, avoided any response to the preliminary questions that would jeopardize my chance of showing up at the courthouse every day for the next two weeks. I practically willed myself to be selected; my ultimate dream was to be sequestered for the entire summer.

The best I could get was a small, two-day civil case. Still, it was something, and I looked forward to a brilliant and unique educational experience.

Michelle was a 20-something-year-old woman who lived with her mother in a nearby town. She claimed she was injured on a city bus because of the driver’s recklessness, and was only asking for the bus company to pay her medical bills and a small amount of pain-and-suffering. Her mother was the only other person on the bus at the time of the alleged incident, and apparently this bus was the only bus left in America with no video camera on board.

Michelle and her mother were both “slow” – that’s the best way I can describe it. Had they had the means or awareness to get evaluated, they probably could have been diagnosed with some formal type of mental retardation.

Not only did these people have no jobs and no money, they also did not have a case. After two years of waiting, they finally got to testify about Michelle being hurt on the bus. Because of their mental capacities, the time lapse, and the amount of coaching they had probably received, it was easy to understand how they could mix up their stories. They just didn’t have a chance against the slick-talking bus driver. The same simple questions, repeated a thousand times, were repeatedly answered, “I don’t remember.” Despite definite responses given on their depositions months earlier, the prosecutor made them jumble and twist their stories around until I’m sure they couldn’t understand that their case was being severely worn down.

The verdict was plain and simple: The bus driver was not guilty. While it was plausible that Michelle probably had received some type of injury sometime (and as a result, substantial medical bills), negligent driving was not the cause. She and her mother would not receive any money.

But during the deliberation, most people had a hard time ignoring the knot in their gut — the one that kind of feels like a conscience — despite the strict order to bar any personal feelings from the decision-making. It was obvious that every person took their role seriously; it was important to be consistent with the law that has been solidified in our country for so long. But one woman summed up what all of us in that jury room were probably thinking, despite the evidence laid out for us: “I just feel like something happened on that bus.”

Maybe it was Michelle’s untamed hair, acne-ridden face, or Goodwill-bought clothes that did it for me. Maybe it was the nearly inaudible way both Michelle and her mother spoke. Maybe it was the way their eyes always gazed downward, showing an utter lack of self confidence, that convinced me that the suit wasn’t a charade to extort money from a bus company. Or, maybe it was the fact that I thought the bus driver was a sleazebag, and I wanted to make him pay.

But what had struck me most about Michelle and her mother was the reason they had been on that bus in the first place: for fun. It was one of the only things they articulated clearly and consistently during their testimony. A lot of people say that riding the bus is an “experience,” mostly for the variety of characters they encounter, but there is a difference between riding the bus for enjoyment and saying that riding the bus, when you have to do it, is fun. Nobody rides the bus specifically for their afternoon entertainment, except for “simple people” (as their attorney called them) like Michelle and her mother, who really had nowhere else to go.

I’m not stupid. I know that a legal system can’t be driven by sympathy; there isn’t enough money to go around for that. I know that some people lie through their teeth just to get money, and we can’t let feelings overtake the systematic approach to justice. But while I’m all for systems and organization and being logical, my stomach rarely lies. I still wonder about Michelle and her mother, which usually ends up bringing back that same sick feeling. I wonder, too, how I could feel so disgusting for doing the right thing; but somehow, on that day last summer, in an atmosphere that should embody all that is fair in the world, doing the “right” thing felt really, really wrong.

*Written in January/February 2007

New Theme: Rewind

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Wickler) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:16:00 +0000

If you could, would you go back in time to a particularly great experience you had just to live it again? Holla, of course you would! And we, your Proofreaders, will be doing just that during August, when our theme is “Rewind.” That’s right, we’ll be kickin’ it old school and bringing back some of our favorite already-written essays from class, workshops, that time we holed up in a tree house for two weeks on a creative-writing binge, etc. "Rewind" launches on Monday, August 2nd, so check back then. It’ll free you from constantly thinking in 140-character Twitter mode.

Fly-By-Night

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:38:00 +0000

The days are longer and the nights are hotter, but the ghosts of summer are not detoured.

Tara brings us a narrative of a summer haunting, worry, and faith.

Enjoy.

Let There Be Light

noreply@blogger.com (Tara Sloane) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000

I am deep in sleep, and the nightmares ebb and swirl in my head as they always have. I am running amidst hellish landscapes, with sinister smoke for sky and an atmosphere of billowy haze, and it is my job to save her, to guide her safely… where? She is my mother, even though I don’t see her face and she’s always one step behind me to my left. We cross quicksand and fire and grimy bogs, steep terrain and never-ending pathways that somehow sprawl differently with every step, and we stop to talk with people who ask for directions in monotone, eyes blank. A girl I barely know when I’m awake, Katie, wants to know how much further. Just keep going, I tell her. It takes awhile, but you’ll get there. Get where? The road gets wider, the mass of journeyers, thicker. But they’re all going to, as we go fro. Mountains shrouded in ash loom in the distance; the sky is red. We walk.

In the conscious world, it is the full moon. That is to say, the Sagittarius sky has transitioned to Gemini, so this fucked-up month of people leaving and fighting and running wild will (says my friend Paul) disappear with a blood red moon and a night of bad feelings (Paul again) proved true or false. I awake afraid. It never gets easier: the sensations felt from childhood night terrors – chest seizing, heart sprinting, feeling torn between both closing my eyes again (what if the nightmare resumes?) and getting up for a glass of water (but what if the darkness gets me?) – are no less impeding even though my feet have long since reached the end of the bed. The air conditioner rattles, but there’s something else making noise in my kitchen, on the stairs, in the hallway. A face appears in my doorway – (my roommate) Sarah? – shortish, short-haired, silhouetted, a tinge of blonde in the shards of moonlight escaping through closed blinds. She looks around my room, not at me, and turns to go. I check my phone – why is it that the most important thing when we’re disoriented and afraid is to know the time? – 4:17 a.m. But Sarah is supposed to be at her cabin this weekend. Something has happened. I call out to her.

Nothing. More banging around in the kitchen. Sarah’s bedroom light doesn’t turn on, bed remains disheveled and empty. I lock my door, hide my valuables (in bed with me), pull the covers up to my chin (worked when I was six), and wait. More acerbic nightmares, the kind I’ll protect Sarah from ever knowing, the kind that makes me call her the second I wake up to see if she’s okay. She is. Doors and windows still locked, kitchen in order, everything in its right place. And so I am haunted. Awesome.

A presence isn’t that surprising, really. I was that child who took walks with things I called angels, who saw them glide into my parents’ room when we got back from long trips and then disappear when I ran after them, who learned things from Ouiji boards that didn’t just become self-fulfilling prophesies (did they?), who floated straight to the ceiling during “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” fell back into my body and the outstretched fingers of a circle of third-graders who didn’t seem to notice where I’d been. Everything was simple light or dark back then – good or evil, angel or demon, from heaven or from hell. Or maybe it still is, and I’ve just gone like sheep, astray.

If it scares you, then it’s evil said my father, the morning after “she” visited. I must go back to Him, start reading scripture again, fortifying myself with the armor of which I used to sing and pantomime in Sunday school so many years ago. Don the helmet of salvation and the shield of faith with grandiose gesture, stick out my righteousness-plated breast and stomp those peace and gospel-clad feet, the (s)word of the spirit unsheathed before me. I say okay, Daddy, I’ll think about it, even though I know I won’t – at least not for a while. I do miss when it was simple to just get out of bed on Sundays and go to church, when I could use words like “faith” or “savior” without flustering, could believe that I truly am – what do they say? – fearfully and wonderfully made. And now when I pray, usually when I lose something or am smack in the middle of a panic attack, I tend to stop half way through the first plea for help, exasperated at the sudden realization that I might be talking to nothing. And then nothing comes along and talks to me, and I’m a mess.

I always call my father when things get like this; when I get like this. I’m afraid that part of me is just humoring him, like when she comes back in the middle of the day a few weeks later, when Sarah is out and when I’d just finished telling someone my story, and I feel something in the air, like breath or heaviness or both, and I call my dad because I promised him I would if she ever came back, and he tells me to cast her out, yes like an exorcism. I shouldn’t have tried to speak to her when I felt the heaviness; I told her it was a low blow to give my oversensitive imagination nightmares, to appear to me in the witching hour of a full moon, for goodness sake, but that if she didn’t like our crazy parties we’d stop throwing them, but that I wasn’t going anywhere and so I hope we could make peace. She responded by turning the kitchen sink on, off, on again, and off, banging glasses and plates and rummaging in the cupboards. After the indignation (She’s the bitch disrupting my house, my afternoon. Why doesn’t she love me?), I shook, and my body temperature went snowy. She’d made her point, I guess, and at my father’s suggestion I made mine: tiny olive oil crosses above every doorframe, In the name of Jesus Christ you will not enter here! (and at Sarah’s: you will not hurt my Sarah). The embarrassment of talking to nothing had nothing on that, and ugh does my voice always sound so… meek? From her alternate realm window, I’m sure she was laughing (though she’s yet to return again).

When it’s the witching hour and things like this happen, the disparity between silence and noise feels vast as chasms, stuns to stillness. But in the middle of the day, cars drive by and people walk or bike by, and the shop on the corner does its dealings, and nothing outside my haunted house suggests the darkness that lingers in the in-between. My father kept cutting out as we spoke; I was certain she’d made her way into the airwaves, like monsters breaking free from the closet. Maybe she’s here because we needed to have this conversation, because you’re being prodded back to the light, my father says, familiar voice full of that steadfast certainty I’ve always admired, even though it fails to move me now. I wish this sickness were just for fear – she could be lighting my kitchen on fire, breaking all of Sarah’s dishes, coming to possess me, to steal my sanity. My childhood faith could have vanished for good – or have I banished it? But I do not linger upon these things. For what plagued me most was shame: yes, I was humoring my father.

But I haven’t lost sight of everything. If I absolutely had to choose, I’d probably say creationism. Maybe only because it’s more romantic, the idea of a heavenly easel, of an omnipotent imagination whose very breath gives life, but still. I still get queasy when I watch True Blood, when characters orgy and drink each others’ blood and literally rip the hearts each others’ chests and at the end of every subsequent terror of a day, the only one Sookie wants to hold her as she sleeps must leave her at dawn, lest he burst into flames, char into nothingness. Is it because I’m just sensitive, or is that the kind of perversion all those youth pastors were talking about? Maybe it just hurts less to trust scientific proof. And am I just supposed to accept that I flawed and fallible, then, if I can’t manage to tear myself away from the television screen (save for closing my eyes when the blood pours thick)?

And when someone’s misguided son or daughter shot up the corner by the Gay 90s a few weeks ago and I – along with my misfitting Minneapolis (friend) family, had left but two minutes before, heard the gunshots as we entered the parking lot, tried to convince myself it was firecrackers even though I knew is wasn’t, tried to be brave for Sarah, because how often does she get to come out into the gritty, sweaty, pulsating city with us? – breathed silent prayers of gratitude to the one who may or may not guide our cars swiftly home and waited to cry until I’d brushed my teeth, shed my dress, and tucked myself in tight. Because if any of us had been lost, where would we go?

There’s a reason I won’t watch scary movies or shows: they fester. All it would take is one too many bumps in the night onscreen before I’d forget to check if it’s really just the air conditioner, nothing more, that’s doing the rattling. As it is, every time the internet goes down or the breeze coming through the window feels slightly colder than it ought to, I listen for her. I remember the night after her first visit, I had plans to go out dancing, even though no part of me wanted to go anymore. The dark outside scares me too, I guess. It was getting close to midnight, and my friend Jenny needed to go to the bathroom before we left. It was dark upstairs, and I followed her, flipping the stairway lights on for her. The poster hanging on the wall halfway up had been torn down in one corner – a coincidence that had me sleeping in other people’s beds for days. Some things you just can’t shake with an extra loop of Scotch tape. Although it must have been Sarah who hung it back up.

Summer Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:34:00 +0000

You've had a little bit of sun, a little bit of sand, now fulfill your summer reading needs with the literary stylings of the Proofread.

Allison jumps starts our current theme with a story about something that is flying in disguise.

Enjoy.

The Merry-Go-Round in the Sky

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Wickler) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:34:00 +0000

I was flying.

I am a bird, I thought. But I quickly realized I was not a bird, partly because I wasn’t actually flying and partly because the idea of a person trying to be a bird reminded me too much of that line from the movie The Notebook, where Allie is in the ocean water and crazily yells at her boyfriend, Noah, to “Say I’m a bird! Say it!” (I think that scene had something to do with them being birds in another life so they could fly away together. Gag.) So yes, confirmed: I did not feel like a bird. Birds don’t fall, for the most part — they glide or coast or majestically soar through the air. Horizontal movement versus vertical movement is the key. Even though I was in flight territory, what I was doing was not flying. It was falling. I was free-falling out of the fly zone. And fast.

But I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t feel a pending death. My life did not flash before my eyes. In fact, I felt pretty glorious, all things considered. Free, somehow. Falling, falling. Wind rushing up and trying to support me, and me going down anyway. Atmosphere! I thought, you are awesome! How do you let me fall but make it feel so pleasant?! Oh, but haha, wind! You cannot use your resistance to make me float upon you forever – I will cut through you and keep falling!

This was physics at its finest. For a moment, I thought it was too bad that I didn’t really care about physics — but just for a moment. Gravity exists and I can’t control it, and knowing how it works won’t really help me much, for my general purposes. So I let it be, and instead focused selfishly on myself, determined to cement the current feelings and sensations in my mind. I was parallel with the ground, flattened out against some invisible force. I spun, like I was splayed out and plastered on a merry-go-round that had come off its bearings and just kept spinning. Unlike being face down on a merry-go-round, where I would inevitably be staring right into the cold metal (or probably closing my eyes), I tried to look around so I didn’t miss it. I was forced to squint, for it was a very sunny day. Tears collected on my eyeballs – I strained to see through them. Was I happy? Was I exhibiting a reaction to a latent fear I was experiencing? It really was super windy, which was probably the culprit. The tears slipped upward on my face. Well, that’s new, I thought. Crying up. Tears streaming up. I wondered if they’d fly off my face and fall down eventually, too, or if they would evaporate. What happens to the salt, then? I wondered, trying to recount my elementary knowledge of the water cycle.

Indeed, I felt glorious; maybe at that moment some type of healing light was shooting out of my body toward other people many thousands of feet away from me, and I just couldn’t see it. That’s what I felt like I had the power to do in those few moments. And if I only had a few more moments in this rushing bliss, I’d best take advantage of whatever special powers I had suddenly gained and would probably lose just as quickly.

I then realized that when those few moments had passed, when I no longer felt like a superhero, I would have lost out on the opportunity to ask what I had planned to ask while I was up there, to someone or something, or maybe to nobody or nothing (and yes, before my fall I had planned out a speech, to both plead for guidance and to show my desire to be altruistic, just in case anyone else was listening in). And so, presumably geographically closer to whatever being or thing could answer my questions, I thought my speech in my last free-falling moments: “So, Universe, while I’m up here, got any answers for me? Where am I on the continuum of me, and which way am I supposed to be going? Who am I going to influence? Who will I help? I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to do something great for other people at some point, right? But when? And why?”

I barely made it in time; I think it was too late to get any answers. It’s funny how the mere act of falling — doing it, feeling it, trying to observe it from both inside and outside myself — caused me to so easily forget what I had assumed would be the most important things to contemplate while I was ground-bound.

Whoosh! Open. Parachute. Actual falling time slowed down. I began to regain a sense of realness for the next nine or so minutes.

It’s now hard to believe I could fit so many thoughts into 60 seconds; another thing I never bothered to try to learn or comprehend, and that also is related to physics (errr, maybe?), is when you get that feeling that time has slowed down. I also wonder how I managed to feel so free when I was probably as constrained in harnesses as I’ve ever been in my entire life. I wonder if experiencing a fall and not dying is as great a victory as flying would be.

Will my life be different? Will I be different, after experiencing just such a fall in itself? As I said before, the act of falling seemed to have distracted me a bit from my original purpose. But I still gained an experience — a flash, an adrenaline rush, an aberration of my normal life. Maybe I was expecting too much from the experience. Maybe it’s that way for a reason.

If my actual, future attempt at skydiving is not as I’ve imagined — how I’ve been imagining it for months now — I’ll be utterly disappointed. Intellectual, curious, exhilarating, confirming, though probably not totally enlightening (but at least the whole thing would help me contemplate the idea of enlightenment). It could be all those things and more, really.

I could just remain grounded; I probably wouldn’t lose out on anything (and I wouldn’t risk getting injured, I suppose). Except then I still would not have felt my cheeks flap in the wind, in that frenetic way that’s pretty funny to watch. It probably feels funny, too. I’d like a picture of my cheeks doing that.

No Man's Mustache

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:06:00 +0000

There's no mustache? There's no mustache!

Sarah brings us back this week to a world of eco-billionaires, private jets, and a not cliche approach to magical tattoos. Did i mention Ed Grund shaved the 'stache? Well he did, so stop crying and get over yourself. The story is still worth the read.

Enjoy.

The Instant Billionaire’s Wife: Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Steadland) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:10:00 +0000

Author’s Note: I know Hollywood sequels are usually worthless stories that just give us a chance to hang out with our favorite characters for another couple of hours, but this particular story needed some more screen time. So I hope you enjoy some more of Hugh Grant working in an American accent and his dishy assistant, played by Zoe Saldana.

Rick

“Benton, take me back to the office, please,” I call from the back of my limo. Then I nervously wait for my assistant to call me back. I don’t really know what to do with my hands. I thumb the buttons of my BlackBerry aimlessly. I reach for a bottle of water, then decide it’s not worth the 6.50 the limo company will charge for it. Billions. That’s how much money I could spend and still be able to afford the extravagances I’ve become used to. But a bottle of water that costs the same as some poor college student’s splurge on a Chipotle burrito? Can’t do that.

My BlackBerry’s sudden buzzing makes me jump. Samira. Why couldn’t the tattoo have told me she was my soul mate? It would be so cliched but kind of romantic, the big boss-man falling for his cute, but whip-smart, assistant. Like when the chief of staff finally started dating his assistant on The West Wing after seasons and seasons of sexual tension. Or when Iron Man fell for Pepper Potts. Only, Samira already has a cool USC football-player boyfriend. I sigh before I answer my phone.

“Samira.” Gosh I like the sound of her name.

“Mr. Graves, I’ve located the person you requested.”

“Samira, you do not need to be so formal. I’ve told you that before. Think Iron Man. I like the relationship he has with his assistant.”

“Sorry….Rick. It just seems weird on the phone. But. Yeah. Matilda Jones.”

“Right.”

“So, she’s still living in Connecticut. She appears to be single, though you never know with social-networking sites. But yeah. We have a phone number, an email address, and a home address.”

“All right. I don’t have anything the rest of the day, is that right?”
“You do not.”

“Okay, call the airport. We’re taking the jet in 2 hours. You’re coming too. I’ll explain on the way.”

“Okay, then. I will meet you there in 2 hours.”

Samira

The VIP part of LAX airport is the strangest experience for a non-celebrity like me. I’ve seen Billy Bob Thornton, Harvey Weinstein, and Donatella Versace about to board private jets. Not my first choice of celebs to see in person, but still. It’s always fun. An airport employee briskly marches me out onto the tarmac, where the Little Ricky is sparkling grandly in the California sun. I’ve only ridden in Rick’s jet twice (one time he flew me and Grant to Vegas for my birthday–ah, the extravagant perks of working for a billionaire), and I’m excited as hell for our spontaneous cross-country trip. Sometimes I wonder if a guy who built his fortune through eco products should have a private jet, but you can’t deny a red-blooded American man the ultimate display of wealth, I guess. No one can compete with an airplane.

I climb the stairs and enter the sleek cabin, where Rick is sitting on the edge of his leather recliner, looking like a ten-year-old with ADHD. Something very bad has happened, I can tell.

“Samira!” he says.

“Hi. Quite the day at the office.”

“Yeah, well, we have more important matters to deal with than running a company.” He turns to the cockpit and tells the pilot we’re all set to go. He gestures to the recliner across from his and I take a seat. The leggy flight attendant does her spiel, and the plane starts to head over to the runway. The flight attendant disappears and Rick looks very concerned as he tries to decide how to start telling me what’s happened.

I know all about this Ed Grund person, mystical tattoo artist to the rich and famous. And since I know every detail of Rick Graves’ daily schedule, it’s a reasonable assumption that this trip has to do with the results of his tattoo. As Rick looks so deeply into my eyes, with such a serious look on his face, I briefly wonder if my name has been tattooed onto his arm, and we’re only flying to Connecticut to find out if this Matilda Jones woman is okay with her ex-husband re-marrying (I wikipedia-ed her name after he asked me to locate her–it was news to me that he had been married). The notion is ridiculous, though, and anyways I have a great boyfriend. But you can’t tell me you wouldn’t end it with your college boyfriend if a dashing billionaire wanted to marry you.

“So….how did the tattooing go?” I ask.

“It was awful.” So he’s not about to tell me he loves me….

“How so?”

He sighs deeply, then pulls his button-up shirt down past his shoulder to show me the name Matilda Jones. Yeah, my first assumption had been right. He just found out he divorced his soul mate eight years ago. Ouch.

“You didn’t watch the press conference?” he asks.

“No, sorry, I was on the phone with–”

“It’s fine,” he interrupts. “Basically, I didn’t want the press to find out so I had Ed draw a decoy tattoo.” He shows me the tattoo that says Anna Gushlenslaw.

“And she’s not real.”

“Hopefully not.”

“And we’re going to see Matilda? Who has no idea about this?”

“Who has no idea,” he confirms.

“Are you going to try to get her back?”

“I don’t know. I guess. I mean, my first instinct was just to get on this plane and show up at her doorstep. If she’s been online in the last few hours, she’ll think I’m tracking down some Anna girl right now. Although, you know, Matilda’s too Catholic to believe in this voodoo tattoo business. She’s probably laughing at how gullible I am right now.”

“Well, we’ll see how she feels once she finds out it was her name that came out of that needle.”

“True.”

“Here, I’m going to quick watch the press conference on my laptop,” I say. Thank god for in-flight wi-fi. Wow, that Ed Grund guy is not how I pictured him. His name makes him sound like a gross ex-pro-wrestler. “Hey Rick, what’s this thing about Melanie Wollace?” I ask when the video’s over.

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that. There’s allegations that Ed’s tattoos are fake? God, wouldn’t that just be the ultimate hoax of all time? Convincing people to marry strangers and ex-wives.”

“Does it make you nervous?”

“Nah. How could Ed Grund have known about Matilda Jones?”

“Well, I wikipedia-ed her name, and there’s a page about how she used to be married to the eco-billionaire playboy Richard Graves.”

“You think he could have wikipedia-ed me and found out about her?”

“Honestly, yeah.”

“Shit. Maybe I am laughably gullible.”

“Or maybe this Melanie Wollace person is trying to get money from Ed G Tattoos. Her statement would be an easy one to retract after he’s paid her off,” I say.

“Have you wikipedia-ed her?”

“I’ll do that now.” From the internet I learn that Melanie Wollace was the first person to ever ask Ed Grund for a tattoo of someone’s name. She came in to the place he was working and asked for her boyfriend’s name but for some reason Ed Grund wrote a name he’d never heard: Enrico Gomez. Obviously Melanie was furious, thinking this tattoo artist had deliberately branded her with a name she hadn’t asked for. Ed Grund couldn’t convince her that he’d been as surprised as she was when his hand wrote a different name than what she’d requested. She threatened to sue but was content with him paying for the laser removal (I’m guessing she later hid from the press how much the additional settlement was, in the interest of looking like a generous and forgiving person). Ed Grund was able to hold onto his job at a crappy tattoo parlor but banned himself from writing names, on the off-chance that the same thing happened again. Three years went by, and Melanie was in a relationship she later called “uninspired.” One night while she was on vacation in Miami, she met a hotel bartender named Enrico Gomez; the coincidence was just too random, so she spent the night with him. He turned out to be her other half, as she put it. Melanie brought a few of her single girlfriends to Ed Grund and each of them found great relationships thanks to his tattoos. The rest is history.

“So now Melanie and Enrico break up, and she’s demanding that the press questions the legitimacy of the whole Ed Grund operation?” Rick asks.

“Or, like I said, maybe it’s a stunt.”

“Maybe the money they could get out of a settlement with Ed Grund is worth more to them than their relationship.” He pauses, his brow knit. “Great. So now I’m on my way to a reunion with a woman who hates me, who may or may not be the only woman I’d be happy with.”

“Do you want to turn around the plane?”

“No. No. I think….I think Matilda will know what to do about this. I might as well talk to her about it. Anyway, I’m kind of interested to find out what she’s up to. But it’s absolutely imperative that you stand right next to me when she opens that door. I don’t want to get punched. I used to just let my lawyers deal with Matilda.”

Ella and I are sitting in a booth at a restaurant that we wouldn’t have gotten a table at if it wasn’t for my driver’s license. By that I mean, the maitre d’ didn’t believe I was Ed Grund without my trademark mustache. I had to flash him my ID to convince him I was worthy of a seat in this pretentious establishment of exclusivity. I think he was questioning if it’s possible for Ed Grund to even be Ed Grund without a walrus mustache. Whoa, identity crisis.

Ella’s huge green eyes are fixated on my mouth. “I mean, you just look so different,” she says.

“I hope that’s not a bad thing,” I say as the waiter puts our food in front of us.

“No!” she says emphatically. “It’s just weird working for a guy with a huge mustache and then when he asks me out, a guy with no facial hair shows up. Are you really the same person?”

I laugh. “You decide.”

“What if your magic gift disappears with your mustache?” she says, looking worried.

“Do I even have a ‘magic gift’?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

Ella shrugs. “I’ve always believed in it.”

“And now? Do you believe in it amidst allegations that I’m a fraud?”

“I do.” She’s not going to indulge in amusing conspiracy theories with me, so I change the topic.

“Would you ever get one of my tattoos?” I ask.

“Yeah right, you do not pay me enough,” Ella says, before quickly adding, “I mean, you pay me like way more than other tattoo parlor employees, but I could never afford what Rick Graves paid.”

“Okay, well if money wasn’t an issue?”

“Then….I don’t know. I’m only 24. I wouldn’t want to know just yet. But someday that would be something I’d consider. What about you?”

“I don’t even have to consider it, since I can’t tattoo myself. I haven’t met any other tattoo oracles yet, so I guess I’m just going to have to figure out my love life on my own.” What if the tattoo said a name other than Ella Vee? If this girl isn’t the one I should end up with, I don’t want to know that. For a year-and-a-half, I’ve seen her sunshine-y face every day, and I’m pretty convinced she’s perfection. I kind of thought that if I could only work up the balls to ask her out, we’d fall head-first into new-couple nirvana. But here we are, doing the whole going-on-a-date thing. How unromantic.

“Oh, this stir-fry just melts in your mouth,” Ella says with a flash of her cat-eyes.

“Ella, you’re really great,” I say. I’m hoping the warmth spreading through my cheeks isn’t showing up as a blush. Where’s that mustache when you need it?

She smiles softly, and I can tell that she can tell that the tenor of the night has changed. Until a moment ago, we were friends. Now, I think she gets just how significant my feelings are for her. And her smile just might be a confirmation that she has been thinking about me for a long time, too.

Rick

For the second time today (the first being my time at the fortune-reading tattoo parlor) I am so nervous I would give all my billions to fucking Harvard if it meant I could be somewhere else, and you know how loyal I am to Yale. Samira is waiting in the town car, parked on the curb in front of this little New England saltbox house with dormers and powder-blue shutters. This house is way too charming for a woman like Matilda Jones. Clearly Samira has gotten it wrong.

No, no, she hasn’t. In a sweeping motion that scared me so bad I might have lost consciousness for a moment, Matilda has opened the door and is staring at me with huge eyes.

“Rick,” she says, surprised but seemingly neither happy nor angry at the sight of me.

“Matilda.” We stare at each other for a while. She is still pretty, with long dark brown hair and a serious, slightly lined face; a school-teacher version of Cindy Crawford with ten more years on her. Underneath her guarded expression there’s a hint of weariness that wasn’t there the last time I saw here.

“I saw you on the news today,” she says, narrowing her eyes. Why would I be here on the day she saw me on TV?

“Yeah. Um. That’s sort of what why...I’m here.”

“Do you need my permission to re-marry?” she asks sardonically.

“Hm. We need to talk.” She opens the door for me and let’s me inside. Her cottage is the coziest place I’ve ever been, the exact antithesis of my stark, minimalist mansion. As Matilda leads me into the living room, she asks me how I’ve been in a very guarded, impersonal way. I tell her nothing specific, and in return she tells me that she’s the vice-principal of an exclusive private school. She scowls when I ask jokingly if education is the only thing they do in New England. “After all, it was the only reason I ever came here,” I say.

“And why are you here now?” she asks pointedly.

Goodness, she has not done anything to calm my nerves. “I have an interesting problem,” I say. “That is, a problem that might interest you.”

“Doubt it.”

I ignore this typically snarky comment and take a deep breath. “Okay, so this is all going to sound strange, so I’ll say it. You know I went to that magical...tattooist...today?” She nods. “Well, the tattoo didn’t actually say ‘Anna Gushlenslaw.’ That’s a name we made up because it sounded like a name no one would have. Really, it said…your name.” No reaction on her face.

Matilda

Do you want to understand my psychology? I have a master’s in psychology so I like to analyze these sorts of things. I was once a slightly-jaded, but ultimately idealistic young intellectual, as most college students are. I saw the world in the rainbow hues of peace and progress and politics and passion. When I met Rick Graves we were 24. He was a Yale grad student and I was doing my Master’s at UConn. He was the first guy I’d ever met that could keep up with me. Articulate, driven, funny, cute, and maybe a little crazy. I spent ten great years with him, my entire twenties, and then suddenly he struck gold with his prescient vision that sustainability (was that even a word then?) was the big idea of the future. He changed. We got a divorce about two minutes before the supermodels starting catching his eye. From what I hear, he turned into quite the world-class skirt-chaser, while I took the half-a-million he left me with and bought this little house. My half-brother, hearing about the money and thinking that was a fortune, decided my house was a better place for him to live than a mental institution. So I have been a single mother to a difficult teenager for years. I’ve always found it ironic that Rick divorcing me was basically the reason I never had kids, but it’s also the reason I ended up with a teenager. I think the men I’ve dated since the divorce have never measured up to my crazy, brilliant, ultimately very selfish ex-husband, so I’ve never remarried. I hate Rick, I really do, he ruined my life. Well, my career has been rewarding. I love the school and the students, but it hasn’t been the jet-setting adventure that Rick’s has, has it? So am I a tired, middle-aged school administrator who’s stuck in a small town in Connecticut? Gosh, it looks that way. I hope not.

Okay, so Rick has just told me that a tattoo predicted that I’m his soul mate and I am very carefully trying not to react. I don’t know what to think about this.

“There’s more,” Rick says. “I had Ed Grund draw the decoy tattoo so that the press wouldn’t know this turn of events. I wanted to talk to you first. I know, I was surprised too. I mean, we got divorced, like, ages ago. But there’s more. Um, I don’t know if you heard, but there have been allegations made today that Ed Grund’s whole business is a sham. Apparently some girl that got one of his tattoos broke up with her boyfriend and is claiming that they got together because of the tattoo, and now that it turns out they’re not soul mates, Grund must be playing some kind of elaborate prank. And I mean, I can see how he would run with it, once people started to believe in his magic. He makes a killing from those tattoos. Anyway, in light of this development, I won’t blame you if you don’t want to take this tattoo business seriously. Grund could have looked me up on Wikipedia and found your name and done this to mess with me. Or maybe we’re...supposed to be together?”

“What do you think?” I ask.

“I don’t know what to think. I thought I’d run it by you. I flew over on the Little Ricky first thing.”

Private jet. Of course.

“So basically, Rick, you’re leaving it up to me whether we get back together just because a sketchy tattoo artist wrote my name on your arm?”

“I guess. But Ed Grund isn’t sketchy. No, he’s just a cool guy that has a weird gift. I totally believe in it, or at least I did until this afternoon. I paid a fortune to get it.”

“You wanted it to be some model’s name. A movie star. Someone other than me.”

“That’s not true. I did it because I’m sick of models. I want something real.”

“Ha! Sick of models. What kind of a person has the luxury of being sick of models? We had something real. You threw it away.” As I say this, I ask myself Who has the luxury of turning down a billionaire?

“I know. I’m not expecting to walk out of here with a fiancee or anything, I just want to find out your opinion on the matter. It’s easy for me to believe in it, but I know you’re not…”

“Not what?”

“Well, you’re not really a romantic.”

“No. Not anymore.”

After a moment of strained silence, in which I feel slightly embarrassed about this melodramatic statement, suddenly Rick jumps up and darts over to my kitchen counter. He leans in close to an 8” x 10” framed picture of a beautiful Australian shepherd dog. His breathing is heavy with emotion and he turns to me and says, “You still have a picture of Leia.”

I nod.

“I haven’t seen a picture of her in years.”

“She was a great dog.”

“An amazing dog. You know, sometimes I think I’ll never be as happy as I was on the days I spent with Leia. And you.”

Quietly, I say, “I think about that too. But then I remember how bad her begging was.” I shake my head. “So annoying.”

Rick laughs. “Oh, but we would have gone to the ends of the earth for that dog. And now, I’d pay a billion dollars just to have that dog back.” We sit there in silence, lost in memories of the dog that had completed us. Shared memories that are as close to perfection as they ever get. Just as I’m about to suggest that he go and buy a new puppy, he says, “So maybe we could just get to know each other.”

“Okay.”

“What?” he asks in surprise.

“Okay. Let’s get to know each other.” I pause. “I know I should probably run you off my property with a machete, but I’m tired of my life being completely...stagnant. If there’s a chance of happiness together, I’m willing to try it out if you want to.”

“Wow. Hm. What happened to Bitch Matilda?” he asks. Then he quickly adds, “I didn’t mean that. You’re not really a bitch.”

But I’m not mad. I laugh. Rick Graves. Wow. The only man who could ever keep up with me. Would it be the worst thing if I forgave him? Maybe we could be in love again, all over the world, on yachts, in penthouse apartments, in Dubai, in Paris, on his private jet. Would you blame me for letting go of the last eight years?

“Can I see the tattoo?” I ask. He pulls aside his collar and pushes his shirt down to show me my own name on his arm.