I wish I were friends with Sting right now

This has always really bothered me. In the song "Don't Stand So Close To Me" by The Police there is a lyric that goes:

Her friends are so jealous

You know how bad girls get

Does he mean Bad Girls? As in "Bad girls, you know how they get." Or does he mean, "You know when girls get jealous, it gets bad." Lately I've been thinking it's the latter but growing up I always thought it was the former.

I think about this a lot. If I ever meet Sting, I will ask him this. 

Also, unrelated, but am I the only one who thinks that swine flu just kind of seems like flu flu? The name sounds much worse, as I, like most people I'm sure, would not want to contract any illness with the word "swine" in it. But from what I've read (which is not a lot) it's bad for kids and old people and people with weak immune systems and has "flu-like symptoms." Is that because it's, how do I put this, the flu? I don't know. If I die from SWINE FLU everyone can make fun of me during my funeral's after party (not during the funeral, though, that's just in bad taste).

Office Life + Cherry Pie

One interesting thing about working at Savannah Magazine is that it's my introduction into office life. The set-up reminds me of a cross between The Office and 13 Going on 30 (underrated). There are unfinished pages tacked on the walls along with pages from past issues and different, current magazines filled with flags and circles. I also have to keep all of my projects and information about the rest of the year's issues under lockdown to avoid leaking information to the magazine's competition. A little more high stakes than I had expected.
I have my own cute little office space, complete with desk, computer, and highly-complicated phone. I hate this phone. Cell phones don't work in the building, as it is hurricane proof (ha!) so I have no choice but to use my office phone. It's cute because I have my own extension, but the novelty ends there. I have to dial a million different numbers to dial out of the office, a million more to dial out of state, and if I pause between digits for too long the phone automatically calls whatever extension the numbers I've already dialed make up, meaning I call some random person in the office (of 300+ people) and either have an awkward exchange or hang up (I go for the latter, usually and unfortunately). My editor suggested I personalize my desk, but that feels too awkward. Instead I've sort of adopted my drawers as something akin to my high school locker: filled with Diet Coke along with earphones and maybe some M&M's sometimes.
I'm currently working on two articles right now, one really dry and one actually very interesting (at least the research is). I'm basically going to have a Fat Cat resume after this internship is over.
In other news, I had probably my best visual-based critique yesterday, magically in 3D Design. It was for our second project, which was to make a food product out of clay. When they had my professor, Ben made a frog, Allie made matzo, and Chase made a box of Oreos (which Coleman disappointingly tried to eat during a Goblin party a couple of years ago). I made cherry pie. The fact that I hate cherry pie was an advantage as I wasn't overcome with hunger every time I worked on it. Although it did cause me to have Warrant's "Cherry Pie" stuck in my head for the past two weeks or so. I made a whole pie with a slice cut out, and then a slice with a scoop of ice cream:




The project went over really well. For the first time in a non-writing critique, I did not want to kill myself and not only that I, wait for it, was actually proud of my work. Sounds silly, but it was worth something.
I also enjoyed celebrating 4/20 last night with Allie, Ben, Jon Penn, and Dash along with Charlie and Calvin (Charlie's favorite holiday happens to be 4/20) and lots of snacks and Tetris Attack. I have the scratches (Calvin) and red eyes (not blinking during video gaming + other factors) to show for last night's activities.

robots and tears and missed connections

I'm in 3D Design right now. Our first project was to make a kinetic toy entirely out of paper. I made a robot.

His hands and feet move and he stands on his own. It took approximately a million hours but I feel good about it.

Charlie, Robot, Me.

In other news, a missed connection was put out for me. This happened last year but this time it's not a "hey you're cute," one.

Sad

It says:
animal collective bumpter sticker - w4w (downtown sav)

hey i saw you a few weeks ago in a white car around wright square. you were crying. i remember thinking you had a weird bumper sticker but couldnt remember it. i saw you again yesterday, i think on bull street and i made it a point to look at your car's bumper stickers and remembered it was an animal collective one i was thinking of. anyway i've never seen anyone crying so hard like that in their car and it really stuck with me and who ever you are i hope things are better for you now then when i first saw you. try and keep your chin up and remember even if you feel really alone you arent.

In case you hadn't guessed, I drive a white car with an Animal Collective bumper sticker. And I do cry in my car moderately often because I kind of forget that people can see in. If this isn't proof that I am just sad, sad, sad then I don't know what is.

recent successes

I started my internship at Savannah Magazine. It's cool; I get my own cubicle/desk/computer/phone extension/email/official signature line. It's all very office-y and official. It's a good mix of fun and boring and I appreciate that Annabelle, the managing editor whom I'm interning for, wants me to get real experience, not just get coffee for people. 

I always submit stuff to The New Yorker, usually poetry because they accept it unsolicited and via e-mail. And I always get rejected a few weeks later. This cycle happens every few months. My logic is that the worst that can happen is they not publish me, which is what happens anyway. I always get the same rejection e-mail that's along of the lines of, "Thank you for submitting, unfortunately . . ." etc etc. But Wednesday I got a different e-mail. It caught my eye first because it was a Re: e-mail when usually it's a new e-mail with a subject something like "Your Recent New Yorker Submission." When I opened it, I re-read it about a million times. Not only did they use my name ("Elizabeth, . . ."), but it wasn't the standard rejection e-mail. It said that my poetry was accepted for the first tier of submissions, that they enjoyed reading my work, look forward to hearing from me in the future, and that they would let me know if my work would be accepted for publication. In my mind, The New Yorker is the tippy top of publication (mostly because David Sedaris is a frequent contributor), so the fact that they even typed my name nearly made me scream. 

There's a few reasons that this is awesome. There's the obvious reason: it's the goddamned New Yorker. Then there's the fact that I recently did not get into SCAD's student literary journal, Artemis. My professor assured me that it was because my work is too vulgar/funny/real/good, which I appreciate hearing, but when the New Yorker takes note of some of the same work I submitted to Artemis, it makes me feel a million times better (and also is a "fuck you" to Artemis).  Then there's also the fact that I personally have felt over the past few months my poetry has hit a new plane. That sounds pretty artsy, I know, but it's true. It's probably due in part to the overwhelming despair that has taken over my life the past few months, but I know it also has to do with my maturation as a writer. And finally, all of the work I submitted to the New Yorker is about (some more directly than others) my relationship/breakup with Robert. There's that idea that if those pieces get published it would be a sort of personal triumph, but even more than that it's comforting to know that through everything I was able to create these little pieces that people, from friends to classmates to professors to editors at the New Yorker, have been able to identify with, appreciate, and (on some level) enjoy.