{"id":819,"date":"2012-06-28T13:15:21","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T11:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=819"},"modified":"2012-10-30T12:03:34","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T11:03:34","slug":"meeting-of-the-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=819","title":{"rendered":"Meeting of the Minds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"365<\/a>\u201cSo, I love this part when your date starts calling you fat. That\u2019s probably the best part of the story and I think you should draw that out more.\u201d I am speaking on Skype, so my position is prone and languorous. The pre-rain muggy weather has forced me into a pair of the loosest shorts I own and a T-shirt that was built for spaghetti stains. As M begins to speak, I take the opportunity to cram a few cheese doodles into my throat.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I agree,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to focus on how upset I am here. I want to look more pathetic, but how?\u201d A high-pitched squealing comes from behind her somewhere. \u201cMy dogs hear your voice; they are eating their squeak toys again.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is good to know that my voice has a dog-whistle effect on canines.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I know\u2026were you sweating on the date?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh yeah; it was in August.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOK, from where?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy boobs. I always sweat from my boobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat! OK, get it in there that you were sweating from your boobs when he called you fat. That\u2019ll make you more pathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hear her typing and take the opportunity to finish off the cheese doodles and order the cat to pour me a glass of wine. She does not comply with my request.<\/p>\n

M reads her notes in a murmur to herself, and then to me, \u201cI really like the way this is shaping up. Oh yeah, I don\u2019t think I sound like enough of a loser in the contrast between me and my dating profile.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry, we\u2019ll take care of that!\u201d I say, \u201cLet\u2019s take a look.\u201d We are quiet as we both review her dating profile in the story and ponder ideas. Then it hits me.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever let someone poop on you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Conversations with M always make me think of meetings between famous writers over the last hundred. James Joyce and Marcel Proust evidently had nothing to say to each other, as neither had read any of the other\u2019s work. Ernest Hemingway met J.D Salinger and even read one of his stories during the Second World War. Hemingway reportedly exclaimed, \u201cWow, we have a hell of a talent here!\u201d Then, though unreported, he surely went to his bunker, got tight on absinthe, put on a prom dress and cried himself to sleep. Henry Miller and Ana\u00efs Nin <\/strong>had one of the most famous relationships in literary history, gooey with lust and penmanship.<\/p>\n

In no way, shape or form am I suggesting that our meeting is comparable to that of a meeting between famous writers. For one thing, neither M nor I are famous. We don\u2019t own a bunker and Hemingway probably didn\u2019t gorge on cheese doodles. Furthermore, while I am sure that M has a prom dress somewhere that she puts on to drink mission burgundy, I don\u2019t own one. Anymore.<\/p>\n

The above conversation occurred earlier this evening and, ridiculous though it may appear, was very successful. In the scheme of things, M seems to be my writing soul-mate; our deranged incantations on each other\u2019s work have thus far been effective. I have edited essays of hers that were published on Salon.com and Mental Floss. She edited my novel and an essay that was published on Nerve.com. We have a mutual insight on each other\u2019s work, gist and style that enables advice that would otherwise be lost.<\/p>\n

That being said, it is often less than dignified.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s talk about your story,\u201d M says. \u201cI like this part here, when you ask the girl to kiss you, it is so pathetic. It\u2019s perfect. I think you should hit us with three or four quick scenes as pathetic as that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I like that line too,\u201d I say. \u201cWas it funny enough?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my God, I was laughing so hard at how pathetic it was. It was great!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOK,\u201d it\u2019s my turn to jot notes and mumble to myself. \u201cHmm\u2026more pathetic scenes to bolster main\u2026uh, patheticness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love this story. I wish I was as pathetic as you,\u201d M says this with true, genuine envy. And I respond in like.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need to be as pathetic as me, you\u2019ve got sweaty boobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue.\u201d We hang up a few minutes later and get back to work.<\/p>\n

Maybe one day people will speak of this meeting, without the prom dresses of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo, I love this part when your date starts calling you fat. That\u2019s probably the best part of the story and I think you should draw that out more.\u201d I am speaking on Skype, so my position is prone and languorous. The pre-rain muggy weather has forced me into a pair of the loosest shorts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-dd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=819"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1008,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions\/1008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}