50 Tries

Rejection, Sans Serif

They just rejected #33, the nursery school newsletter. It was the same standard rejection statement, but they used a new font, so that spiced things up.

I Wish I Had These People's Problems

Trolling around the Web, trying desperately to find something to write about, and I came across Rosie O'Donnell's poem about Oprah, Hermes, and Tom Cruise. It's a bit overwrought, but "who would know better than Gayle" is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.

However, it's sort of impossible for Brooke Shields to do anything other than "stand tall."

Actually, maybe Tom Cruise is hassling Brooke Shields so much because he's secretly in love with her. He only seems to fall in love with women who are at least twelve inches taller than himself.

37. Overseas Production

Thirty-seven is a lot of anything.

Rose-Colored Glasses

Kylie has various pairs of little-girl sunglasses, and whenever she puts them on, one of us invariably tells her she looks like a movie star.

I was just lying on the couch, reading a magazine. It has been a long day. We had plans that were canceled, so I conceded to making cup cakes in honor of her doll Gee Gee Goo's birthday. Anyone who has ever attempted to cook with a toddler will confirm that it is a messy, seemingly endless ordeal of danger and whining.

Kylie came in, wearing her pink sunglasses upside down. She walked over, noting my (conventional, untinted) glasses, and said, "We both look like movie stars now." Children really are the best things ever.

36. Restaurant Review: My Mother's Kitchen Confidential

How thoroughly adequate!

13 more essays to go. This is why I hate writing books: it's too fussy and takes way too long. So if some magazine—say, the standard for literary journalism, for example—would just publish me, I could stop all this.

If I weren't working on this project, I would do yoga every day, and cook dinner every night. Kylie and I could go on lots of playdates, which I wouldn't hate, and she would always be perfectly behaved and we would cavort amongst the flowers in the yard, which would be covered in neither pesticide nor caterpillars. She wouldn't be upstairs screaming the way she is now, and I could wear my new shoes, because it wouldn't be raining, and my hair wouldn't be pouffy from the humidity, and the Republicans wouldn't be in office, etc., etc., etc.

Save Big Bird

It's over. I have nothing left. This is making me crazy and sad.

Republicans want to kill Big Bird. Unreal. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since it's coming from the people who voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela, and don't think they have anything to apologize for today.

Medical Marijuana as it Relates to Really Uncaring, Unfortunate People

A letter I just sent to the editor of the New York Times:

As a cancer patient, I found Lesley Anderson's "Medical Marijuana, a Casual User's Tale" callous, irresponsible, and self-indulgent.

During my first round of chemotherapy, I lost 25 pounds in four months due to the illness and nausea brought on by the drugs I was taking--not least the side effects of the anti-nausea drugs.

Medical marijuana is not legal in New York state. Had it been, I might have been in much less distress, and perhaps have been able to continue caring for my 10-month-old daughter on my own. Ms. Anderson and your editors trivialize an issue of great importance to a great number of people, and if she has delayed the legalization of medical marijuana, I believe she has done them grievous harm.

Sincerely,
Kiersten Conner-Sax
New Rochelle, NY

35. The Real Me

I could not have hated writing this submission more if it came to my house and stole my dog.

Making up an amusing porn title shouldn't feel like work.

On the up side, Microsoft Word's grammar checker said I had 0% passive sentences. I also found out that it scans for clichés. Does that mean some guy at Microsoft just sits around, cataloging clichés all day? If so, that would be the best job ever.

Caterpillar

The caterpillar is my sworn enemy: hairy creeping beasts, which can devour a rose bush in only one day.

I brought Kylie home from school this afternoon. She found a caterpillar hanging off the garage, and instantly made it her pet.

She was fascinated by the nasty thing: less than an inch long, it crawled all over her hands and arms. She would hold it out toward me—"Look, Mommy!"—and I would shy away, saying "That's your caterpillar, honey, Mommy doesn't want to hold it."

The caterpillar was quite well-handled, however, and after lunch Kylie's babysitter did something with it. I didn't and still don't want to know what that was; let's just say she set it free.

Kylie was devastated.

She came back from the park sobbing, sobbed right through her bath, and began sobbing again when a thunderstorm started and we had to stop looking for another caterpillar in the yard. She asked if we could make caterpillar food, to lure it home, and I said we could. She has a cookbook for toddlers which had a recipe for green spaghetti, which seemed like a good choice. Unfortunately, we didn't have basil.

She started crying again. "Could we call Grandma?" she asked. "Could we ask Grandma to get it?"

Grandma answered her cell phone and agreed, but now we had to wait for Grandma to return home. I tried to distract Kylie, to tell her that this was hard, and Mommy was sad for her, too, but now we needed to move on and do something other than being sad. "But that caterpillar was my friend," she cried.

"I know," I told her, rubbing her back.

"I miss my caterpillar," she said. "My caterpillar loved me. Why did he have to go away? I miss him..."

I didn't know what to do, since I was choking on tears and didn't want to let her see me crying. So I hugged her and tried to dry my eyes while she looked away.

I need to find an answer. She'll ask the question again when my mother moves out, in a few weeks. Then I hope it will be quite some time before she has to ask it again.

The Three of Me

I need a new personality. I've gone way over the allotted two-pieces-per year recommendation, even for all three of me: 34 divided by 3 = 11 and 1/3.

I'll make up someone new, but I really like being Susanna Jane Pelletier. Susanna writes pseudo-autobiographical pieces that have nothing to do with doctors or anger or illness. She's just a normal young woman—younger than I am, I guess—trying to get published.