Oh, so now she tells me...

I've had many random emails come my way since I carpetbagged into this strip-mall portion of Blogistan almost 4 years ago. Folks who saw me on that game show? Yeah, that was cool. Folks I used to work or go to school with? Heartens me to know that the 'net helps memories live on.

Folks who found a short story I wrote that was published in Bay Area Teen magazine in 1988? No more calls, please, we have a winner.

The name of the story was "Frustrata Hormona Paranoia." I forget all the specifics of the story - I don't think I have any copies left - but the protagonist wrote a love poem (much like the hapless author was prone to do), it somehow got read in class against the protagonist's will, and things turned out okay. I think my English teacher, the legendary curmudgeon Donal Brown, suggested I submit it to Bay Area Teen for its short story contest. I did, and it won 2nd place. The only reason I kinda remember it now is that those cocksuckers never paid me the $50 prize. (Hell, that would've gotten me about 3 years' worth of X-Men issues.) Didn't even get a copy of the goddamn magazine for posterity. Freelancers always get screwed over, don't they?

So a proper stranger kept this magazine in her files over the intervening 16 years. "Back then, I was so curious about this Louis Kipilman guy," she wrote in her email. Zounds, I had no idea that my persona was as opaque and elusive as Salinger or Pynchon. So while she was purging her files - well, that rings familiar to me, madame - she came across that old mag and decided to Google my name. And even after she must have realized what literary promise I had at 16 dissolved by 17 in a haze of Coors Party Balls and Denny's fried appetizer samplers, she still emailed me a very sweet note. Excerpt:

Well, I'm finally saying goodbye to that cute short story, and I realize this serves as nothing more than an ego stroke, but... thanks, it was great. Had I gone to your school, your poetry would've totally worked on me - I liked geeky guys. And I was at least mildly hot back then. So there! Have a great life. ;)

Oh, trust me, "mildly hot" would've been habañero hot to me back then, because I was "mildly dateless and virginal" at the time (in the same way that being "mildly virginal" is like being "a little pregnant"). I can only envision myself and the emailer as prom king and queen at Alternate Reality High School, Class of 1990. Hope you like the tiara, A.

Today I feel like Silky Johnson at the Player Hater's Ball. "I wanna thank God for giving everyone so much, and me so little..." Hatehatehatehatehate!

Close election. Heartbreakingly close. And now four more years of Neocons Gone Wild. Both houses of Congress are even tighter in the GOP clutch. They said last time that the vote didn't constitute a mandate - and these guys still ramrodded us into a war under bogus pretenses. Can you imagine what they think they'll have free rein to do until 2008?

How about that youth vote? Fffffft. Enjoy the draft, kiddies. Vote or Die!

I've gone through the 5 stages of grief since last night, and thankfully it was soothed by leftover Halloween candy. But I can either look for real estate in Vancouver, or steel myself to see how I can help the cause at home. Vancouver's beautiful, but I'm leaning towards the latter. Let naïve hope live.