Swift Response

May 28, 2004

I submitted a couple of stories to McSweeney's and received a surprisingly swift response:

I'm afraid that this one isn't quite right for us.

And of course, they were right, it wasn't. But I figured that since I'm new to this writing game, I may as well start getting the rejections out of the way, right?

Last night, as I sat in the window of San Loco in the East Village, eating a taco for dinner, I saw Signe walk past the window. I wasn't too keen on running down the street with a mouth full of taco, so I waited until I swallowed, then pulled out my phone and rang her.

"Jamie?" she said. I couldn't figure out if the curious question mark that she put at the end of my name was because she'd seen me or if she'd just seen my name come up on the caller ID.

"Signe...?" I replied, mimicking her slightly.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Did you just see me?"

"Huh?"

"I just saw you walking down the street."

"You did? No, I didn't see you. Where are you?"

I was around the corner, so we stayed on the phone giving each other location reports: "I'm nearing the corner of St. Mark's and Eighth Street." -- "I'm walking down Avenue A,” et cetera, until we had each other in our sights and hung up.

"You know why I didn't see you?" she said.

"Why?"

She was careful to look me in the eye as she explained: "Because when I first moved to New York, my father told me never to make eye contact with anyone. So I never do. I walk right by people I know all the time. Everyone gets mad at me."

"Yeah, I was pissed. I was like: That bitch!"

Like everyone else in New York, she's an elusive creature and hard to pin down. We'd been trading sporadic emails for a couple of weeks with vague plans to meet for a drink.

"So, yeah," she said. "Let's hang out soon."

I walked her to the restaurant where she was meeting her friends, and after a few brief introductions all around and some more vague plan making, I went on my way.

I had plans to meet up with Erick later on, but at that point I still had about an hour to kill, so I popped in to have a drink and say hello to Gina, who was bartending nearby. I sat down and asked her about The Lunachicks reunion show she recently played in D.C... She asked me about my book.

"I have it with me actually," I said, and patted it through my bag.

"I'm a slow reader, but can I read the first page?"

"Sure. But the first page is pretty depressing." I told her as I pulled the manuscript from my bag and handed it to her.

She stood on the other side of the bar, reading silently. I felt like a schoolkid who had just handed in a term paper. A minute later, a group of people came in and ordered drinks, so Gina closed the folder and handed it back to me.

"I like your writing," she said.

So, McSweeney's aside: Laudata sum.