People, I have an editor who intellectually kicks my ass, like every time I communicate with him.

It’s like a scene out of You’ve Got Mail, only take out all of the romance and cloying love moments and rewrite it as a slasher spoof where a giant dictionary eats me alive through my email.

I’m already terrified.

The editor’s lines are in red because I felt like I did in 11^th grade English when my paper was returned, covered entirely in red marks. I flunked a personal essay paper, y’all, because it was full of run-on sentences and the teacher used my paper as an example of utter stupidity to the ENTIRE CLASS but I survived the horror and never failed a writing assignment again and haven’t had a run-on sentence since.

Also, this is the same editor who won’t allow me to curse in my writing, so there will be a lot of cursing in this post to make up for it.

Fuck.

(That one’s just for good measure.)

So! Without further ado…

You’ve Got Mail! From Your Editor.
Subtitle: Heather is a Dumbass.

Hi, Heather, we really need to aoie nfsdhio oiffhi ufnnvgd llnvgfgj kk in the second paragraph because oiuijvfbiu rg oiuhn iobgft mcvkfbs bhdo bvbstfj erudition. And after you do that, look up hjhoip[n and iohkh, which will ioumngt anr nn fgr ll wpokit and nbniy aih iodfh. All of the above is predicated on the latest revision hio bjibb oibmdftr klhnvbdfdkjghbn, of course.

Of course.

What the fuck is he even saying? I don’t know either! Predicated? Erudition? I didn't know people actually spoke in Vulcan.

And so I say...

“Oh, hahaha! Did you know the Jewish hunt for crumbs by candlelight? Like God cares about crumbs. That’s so insane!”

(crickets)

“Um, Editor, are you Jewish?”

Oh yes, I laughed at the customs of his religion and called them insane. I am awesome.

“Heather, everything in your article must be 100% accurate.”

“Fuck, you mean I can’t make up shit about the Chinese? Thank god there’s Wikipedia.”

“Wikipedia isn’t a valid source for fact-checking, Heather.”

The hell? Dude, it's on the internet and rhymes with encyclopedia, of course it's valid.

I considered starting a philosophical debate on Truth. You know, one of those I can't prove I exist/how would anyone prove these Chinese facts are false/no one can define absolute Truth type debates. But before I could do that, the editor sent me another email with more five-syllable words in it, so I got scared and just did what he told me.

And then he and I had a battle of wills over Mr. Clean. I fucking lost, people. LOST! I still can’t believe it. I have shamed my ancestors. Everything I believed about myself is in shambles. I lost a battle of wills. My god.

“…say something about patriarchal values or sexism, maybe paternalism.”

Hmm. Paternalism. What the hell is that?

The dictionary attacked me yet again.

The policy or practice on the part of the people in positions of authority of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those subordinate to them in the subordinates’ best interest.

Of those subordinate to them in the subordinates’ best interest.

What does that even mean? My reading comprehension is limited to no more than 3 prepositional phrases in a row.

Clearly I am in over my head.

And then came the pictures for the article. Ugh. There was another battle of wills since I hate (HATE!) having my picture taken. Unless I've had a couple of drinks and can do something ridiculous, then I'm okay with it. Otherwise, I hate it. But I forced myself to take some, completely sober, and sent him two.

He wanted more photos, I'm sure so he could post them in seedy public bathrooms with notes like, "To drive yourself insane, email this woman. Trust me."

The idea of setting up more photos and actually look at myself in pictures - oh hell no. So I sent him this photo, letting him know what I thought of the idea:

I am SO professional.

But I did it! The article is finished, though not before the editor and I had another email stand off.  We were on the brink of writer contract ultimatums – aka literary nuclear war. It was like my own personal Cuban Missile Crisis, how did you people go about your regular day?!

Oddly enough, no nuclear ultimatums were thrown at one another, which proves that I can actually be mature when I want. I just don’t want to very often.

So I’ll be, like, for real published. On paper. But not until this spring, which is an odd experience for a blogger.

You mean it won’t be tomorrow? I don’t understand.

It’s a two-page spread with pictures, which sounds sort of kinky. I wonder if it’s in the center of the magazine? I should ask him if I’m the centerfold. I bet that would make him squirm.

Shit, people, he outsmarts me ALL THE TIME, I have to do something to get back at him. I tried to get back at him by asking people (in the article) to write housewife fantasy suggestions to him, but he edited that out. Apparently editors have that kind of power.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and I discovered many things about myself, such as I was never that smart to begin with. But with the right editor, I can sound brilliant and cultivated. Amazing.

(Seriously, he made me sound fantastically smart, more so than I think I deserve.)

Now I wonder if I ever was an intellectual, despite my honor degree saying so. Was that Heather a figment of my imagination? I’m sure we discussed paternalism in Gender Psychology and I was able to fully participate in the dialogue.

But the combined force of play date cocktails and reading Goodnight Moon 100 million times has permanently damaged my IQ. I can’t recall any words beyond three syllables.

This reintroduction into the adult world after nine years living in the mommy world is more difficult on my ego than I expected.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under Alabamer public edjumacation done taught me to read, Evidence File for The Betty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.