Quote of the Day

Our hearts hold the answer key to all of love's mystery...but it is also the hiding place that we have come to fear.

Ah, its wonderful to start writing again.

Face the Nation..with Facebook

I joined the glorious multitudes on Facebook for unkown reasons. It seems like everyone is registering on Facebook. Let's just say, I grew curious about people soliciting me emails wanting to be my cyberspace friend.

I will still keep the blog up and running. Admitedly, I do not know how to use Facebook or what its advantages are. Anyone who wants to find me can Google my full name. The time I checked on this my name was #1 in the world in frequency of hits. How Facebook will unite me to the masses...I do not know.

A Wrong of Passage

In the vestibule outside the movie theatre, two silver haired foxes sat on a bench chatting about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I just emerged from the same theatre so naturally my ears bent to hear elder wisdom.

Judging by the similar physical features of the women, I suspected they were related one generation apart. The wrinkles outlining their faces told stories and there must have been a century and a half of invaluable experience between them. Two pairs of prescription glasses, one walking cane, and a hearing aide were adaptive adjuncts to their time on this planet.

Rolling tears still with me from the movie's ending, I stood against the wall waiting for my wife to exit the ladies room. Watching the duo, the irony struck me because there may be no better movie encapsulating the entire aging process than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

For we are all a body of work in a body that eventually will not work, with one not completed until the other expires. So while living we must lead a purpose driven life. We must do what we must with the cards that we are dealt. We must keep moving to find purpose, deriving meaning for the celebration of life as it changes and for as long as it is here.

The only time I feel grounded to this earthly plane is when I write. Nothing feels better, feels more right, or more cathartic to my soul than writing. For me it is truly living unencumbered. It is breathing. Almost everything else in my life is a duty, obligation, responsibility, work, chore, a custom followed.

God-willing, my life is already half over and I have spent the better part of it writing for free for the benefit of only a handful of people other than myself. That matters not because I believe I am doing what I am supposed to - chronicling memories and experiences. It is the cruelty of forgetting that cannot be underscored. Dying brain cells from the aging process, traumatic brain injury, dementia, repression, and even overwhelming stress rob us of short and long term memories. Although embedded in the taxing nature of life itself, forgetting is a thief that steals from us before it is time to leave our physical hosts. It is for this reason too that I write…to develop a permanent record so I cannot forget my life, however ordinary.

After sorting these thoughts from my perch, my keen mind returned to the elderly couple’s movie review.

“Mother, in the Benjamin Button movie, didn’t Cate Blanchett look lovely as a dancer?”

She hesitated. “...Are you sure? I do not remember dancing being in the movie.”

“Dancing was featured in the entire movie, Mother. Surely, you….”

She stopped mid-sentence. The frightened look on the daughter's face seemed to be a capsizing glimpse of her own future. For every rite of passage between them, this seemed so wrong. It made me cry harder. I would like to think that moment is something I will always remember…now that I have written it down.

Arbogassing

The recommendation to visit Argogast on Film came from a friend and fellow blogger. Just spending a few minutes on this blog convinced me that I should not be in the business of writing. I have had writer’s block ever since I visited this blog and had opportunity to read this wordsmith’s rich prose and insightful mind woven through distinct storytelling.

So if you want to checkout a great writer’s blog, enjoy your magical journey with Argobast but beware of the ramifications to your pschye, if you considered yourself a writer before your first visit. Ain't dat a shame.

The Brush Off

2008 is half over and my semi-annual report card bemoans failing grades for accomplishing the goals I set forth for myself for the year.

In the year that I dedicated solely to re-writing and finishing a novel, other ventures have placed my pen down and my time, energy, and creativity is being channelled elsewhere. Painting hockey miniatures for customers spanning the globe has dominated my free time and acting gigs further take me away from my love of writing.

All I am doing now is finishing one job to start another. I have enough painting orders to work 24 hours a day save a few knockoff hours for sleep. My wife now calls me narcissistic when I act and Jepeto when I paint. Somewhere between narcissism and Jepeto is an overworked social worker who believes that deep down he is truly meant to be a published author.

As I paint away in my toyshop, I often guiltily stare at my hand that manipulates an artist paintbrush and not a writer’s pen. Crafting art has replaced crafting words. I need to return to the art of storytelling but cannot find my way back despite the repeated promises I make to myself. My word, like my words, isn’t good enough.

Carrolling All The Way

Charles Carroll, Bobby Carroll, and myself at the book signing.

I attended the 2007 National Caregivers Conference in Iselin, New Jersey this week. Charles Carroll, the author of the book Hard Candy, was one of the keynote speakers at the respected conference. The gifted author gave a rousing passionate speech about his institutionalization at New Lisbon Developmental Center and personal triumph over the neglectful and abusive care he wrongly received. His recounted tales of abuse left many attendees emotionally drained and in tears.

I got a chance to spend some quality time with him after the conference. The brothers Carroll and I went to dinner and the love they share seemed an authentic undeniable special bond that made the content of Hard Candy that much harder to swallow for me. Carroling all the way, we shared wonderful Chinese food while trading perspectives on caretaking. As a proofreader of my manuscript, Of Might and Manacle, Charles offered supportive suggestions on its content in the mutual hopes of landing publication.

Loose Lips Link Freudian SLips

Break out the cone-shaped party hats and annoying noisemakers for my blog Freudian Slips turned three years old today. Writing with a particular style and purpose in mind while keeping self-imposed timelines has made me a better writer than when I hatched this blog back in 2004.

I would like to take this time to thank my faithful readership and my irony-rich life, which continues to fill up internet space with only a smidgen of additional storytelling on my part. The words at my fingertips that connect to the world at large is exciting, fascinating, and strangely rewarding.

Five hundred short stories and fifty thousand visitors later, no viable publisher has come forward to publish this menagerie of irony for untold millions. Still, I feel compelled to continue to write for the betterment of myself and anybody who will listen at a close second. I receive emails from all over the world, if for no other reason than a Google search leads to my authored short stories on subjects people were interested in learning more about.

So may the anonymous comments continue because I still do not know your identities in most instances. Thanks to the anonymous donor of Broadway theatre tickets. Thanks to the high-ranking employee of a large book publisher who mailed me free hardback books. Thanks to the marketing department over at The FX channel for the care package you sent after reading here I was an actor on one of your television shows. Thanks to the patrons of my book Stop and Smell the Silk Roses for not making me honor the money back guarantee. Special thanks to my generous readers who made bonafide donations into my Paypal account. I would like to thank all of the people who I would not know on the street if they walked by me but I would recognize their email address this side of the dot.com.

Now if you will excuse me, I have been babbling on so long about this birthday of sorts that I forgot that I have to pee.

Closing the Book

OF MIGHT AND MANACLE

…The Ties That Bind

by Joseph Tornatore

I am proud to announce that I have finished penning a fictional novel called Of Might and Manacle. The plot evolves around a psychologist, Dr. Dexter Margold, who accepts a post at a turbulent cottage at a state institution called Nova Egypt Developmental Center. Located in the flat pinelands of New Jersey during 1989, the novel transports the reader through the insane normalcy of institutionalization. It is a graphic portrayal of 21 dually diagnosed clients and the motley crew staff responsible for their care.

While the original draft gathered only dust on a bookshelf much of the time, in the end it took me six long years to write this 387 page novel over a span of twenty years. It took me away from my family and it took a part of my soul. In my forty four years on this planet, writing this book was the hardest thing that I have ever done and with any literary luck it may turn out to be my greatest accomplishment.

The 75 book characters that I created are as real to me as any I have ever met in my social work career. Each character seemingly visited my imagination. They shot ideas to the forefront of my mind as if they wanted more air time or character development. They became a part of me in some strange way. While figments of my imagination, my characters are now equally hard to leave behind on the flat copy. Nevertheless, it is time to close the book on this chapter of my life. It is time to turn Of Might and Manacle over to trusted proofreaders, the US copyright office, and the search for a viable publisher...even if its publication takes me another twenty years.

Curious Joe

It totally felt like a productive day. After some preliminary correspondence, I met with the owner of a unique store called The Curiosity Shoppe to close a business deal. The eclectic store for artists waiting for their big break is located at 529 South Fourth Street in Philadelphia, PA.

I signed a straightforward contract to have my novel Stop and Smell the Silk Roses garnish their shelves for sale. While it is a consignment business arrangement, it breathes new life into a book about a man who nearly died of insect bites then faced two years of mistaken identity with others before he finally found out who he was inside.

It tickled me pink when the lovely owner read an excerpt of my book aloud for the mingling customers. It felt wonderful discussing a future book signing at the store. Thereby feeling the wind beneath my wings, I started to feel prideful about my author inroads. When I got home, I kind of sort of in a round about way telephoned my mother directly from speed dial to make casual mention of the publicity for her stamp of approval.

Mom listened to everything I had to say, shared optimism, and then changed subjects. “Your brother John is in Tokyo on an important business trip with company delegates and your brother Jim met with the Governor of New Jersey today.”

-It is sometimes better to keep looking inside oneself then stopping to look around.

Freudian Slips Blog Birthday

A rousing Happy Birthday to Freudian Slips, who turned two years ripe this week. After posting three short stories a week for two straight years, how much irony is there left to report? Plenty. To anyone even thinking about starting a blog to attract a readership, please inquire within about the time committment to produce quality writing.

25,000 Visitors

Maybe the reason I missed this triumphant mile marker is because no bell or whistle sounded. However, last week Freudian Slips catapaulted over 25,000 visitors. I decided to do some research to reveal the identity of my 25,000th visitor. I downloaded my statistics and discovered that my 25,000 visitor was a midget from Arkansas who Googled the word "irony" and got inundated by hundreds of short stories links posted on my blog. A midget getting caught on the short story end of irony is too apropro for even Freudian Slips.

The Double Swallow of Hard Candy

- Charles Carroll with New Jersey Govenor Robert Meyner in 1954

I believe that the truth is often stranger than fiction and fiction is no stranger to the truth. Freudian Slips is no stranger to irony but what you are about to read is not only strangely ironic and true but born entirely fictitious and ending up largely factual. The odds and reasons of how it turned out that way is incalculable, unfathomable and beyond my words.

In the 1980’s, I accepted employment at New Lisbon Developmental Center, an antiquated institution for the developmentally disabled carved out of the wilderness. For a twenty-four year old man, the work environment proved quite startling to my sheltered psyche. I never knew human beings so different from the normal populous existed tucked away from the front pages of mainstream society.

Holding a lifelong interest in writing, I started to pen a fictional novel about a morality driven psychologist who accepts a post at a similar institution for the mentally retarded. In creating characters within a storyline, my rich imagination intersected with only marginal writing skills. I devoted the next six years of my life inventing and writing, devising and revising. I titled the byproduct of my imagination Of Might and Manacle, a spin-off of the classic Of Mice and Men. In 1992, I copyrighted the manuscript where it has sat unpublished and untouched on a dusty shelf for the last fourteen years.

To properly tell this story I need to revert back in time to 1987, when my manuscript needed script. I took a group of clients for a nature walk in the neighboring Pine Barrens of New Lisbon Developmental Center. As a breeze jostled through the towering pine trees, something quite unusual came over me. Beneath the very ground that I walked and toiled for a living, I internally sensed an additional subplot for Of Might and Manacle. To escape the depicted injustices of institutionalization, I imagined a runaway attempt by two young brothers from the house of the unholy. During my invigorating and inspiring walk with nature, a picture book materialized in my head of what later became chapter eleven.

I invented two inseparable characters, uncommonly handsome twin brothers named Akeem and Kareem McNair originally from Atlantic City, New Jersey. Bonded by the same blood and bound by the same institution, I imagined the early life of the borderline mentally retarded incorrigible brothers. After a disastrous home life and a series of failed foster care arrangements, the McNairs became wards of the state and sent to dwell in a flawed institution. I sketched out one brother to be a gifted Special Olympics track and field champion. At the risk of rehashing Hollywood movie formula, I concocted Akeem shaking hands with the Governor of New Jersey months before this runaway attempt. Contrastingly, I fashioned the other brother as a juvenile delinquent, who often resorted to slashing his wrists in attempted suicides.

Convinced they would rather die then languish in an institution, the McNair brothers join forces to make a daring daylight escape. On a warm day, they take advantage of a lapse in supervision by indifferent staff members, including a fictitious staffer named Westly. Running across the white sands of the backyard courtyard, the brothers scale the perimeter fence then dart for the Pine Barrens. Reaching the sanctuary of the woods, the runaways “hide motionless and scared in the camouflaged brush.” looking back at the institution that held them captive. Under the threat of hound dogs, they trudge on. By nightfall, they scale a tree to sleep in a deer hunter’s tree fort, where they eat all of their provisions including candy. The brothers “marvel at the natural beauty of the celestial sky”. “Shortly after dawn the twins awake to chirping birds.” They sojourn miles on foot and even take up a cross-country run during which one brother is not able to keep pace with the other. Along the way, they celebrate their newfound freedom by disrobing their institutionalized garb to swim and frolic in a murky creek. Mother Nature reveals itself with the hooting of an owl, the indiscernible sounds of wild animals, and the odd broad daylight sighting of a white-tailed deer. Hunger sets in. The dense woods eventually thin. They share brotherly camaraderie and rival banter along their journey. While the love they have for one another is all they have in this world, it has never been enough. So they steal a hillbilly’s pickup in an attempt to return to Atlantic City, NJ where they last saw their father. My copyrighted version has the brothers caught by police after a couple of days on the lamb. After the brothers accusingly argue over whose idea it was to elope, they return to the same hellish nightmare they risked their life for to escape. End of chapter.

Enter the theater of the absurd with the world just a stage. On the very day, I decide to take my manuscript off its sedentary perch on the library shelf to endure another round of circumspect editing, I learn from a close friend of a 2005 published non-fiction book entitled Hard Candy by Charles A. Carroll. The subtitle Nobody Flies Over a Cuckoo’s Nest, is a spin-off on the movie classic. The author and his brother are former patients of New Lisbon Developmental Center. I Google search the book online. I find the listed book, book excerpts, and the author’s email address. Wasting no time, I email him with envy. As if the author is on the other side of a parallel dimension, Charles A. Carroll emails me right back. A flurry of emails follow back and forth across the country with all roads turning to New Lisbon Devleopmental Center. Irony fuels my car to the bookstore to purchase a copy of Hard Candy. I can take a hint with a hammer blow.

Hard Candy chronicles the aborted foster care placements of a handsome featured Charles and his behaviorally involved brother Robert, who became wards of the state and institutionalized. Of normal intelligence, Charles Carroll wrote Hard Candy years after my copyright arrived for Of Might and Manacle, a decade after my walk in the woods. I learn that what the wind placed on my pores for me to breathe during that leisurely stroll in 1986 actually happened. I somehow absorbed glimpses of real events and put them into prose through what I cannot explain other than osmosis. Whatever the case may be, it mysteriously inspired two authors to include mirror chapters in their novels. So excuse me if the following true account sounds redundantly like my work of fiction.

An entire chapter in Hard Candy details a 1954 summertime elopement by brothers from a cottage on the same campus grounds where I worked. In their escape, the brothers scoot by a sleeping staff member by the name, Mr. Westly. They advance outside the building to the sandy terrain of the backyard where they run with “the speed of Olympians” in a scramble for the Pine Barrens. They scale a perimeter fence separating the institution from the woods then hide “under a bed of golden leaves” where they “looked back at New Lisbon” As if art imitated life, the Carrolls stare back at the institution I used to work, from the woods in which I embodied their pangs of freedom. Unsure of what lies ahead of them but not deluding their chances for escape, the Carroll brothers are certain that they would rather die in the wilderness then return to their previous existence. At “the onslaught of daybreak the birds were giving us a throaty warning.” They walk for miles through the dense woods but wading through the underbrush poses challenges until the woods thin. By their lively dialogue, you can sense the profound sadness that each other is their only sense of family in the world. The brothers “stared at the stars high above us through the trees.” As their AWOL status eclipses the night, they have consumed all of their meager provisions. During their hiatus, the brothers climb a tree, listen for wild animals, talk about hound dogs, hear the hoot of an owl, watch a deer give the birth to a fawn, argue over incidental stuff, and while traveling through the woods the physically stronger brother urges the other to keep up. They even remove their clothes to swim in a swamp. Police capture the boys a couple of days later. After blaming the other for whose idea it was to runaway, the police return the boys to the same institution I worked at thirty-two years later.

The published words bore uncanny parallels to my printed manuscript. I canvassed Carroll’s non-fiction book to gain a broader perspective of the ironies from my fiction. Throughout my transfixed reading of Hard Candy, I was thunderstruck by the graphic descriptive similarities of two wordsmiths. While mere words were enough to frighten me in living color, the photographs included in Hard Candy convinced me unexplainable forces were at play. I stared incredulously at the wide smiles of the Carroll boys in a picture as they frolic in a lake realizing that this snapshot of freedom was the backdrop scenery embedded in my brain that fateful walk in the woods. I stared in disbelief at the 1954 picture of ward of the state Charles Carroll meeting Robert B. Meyner, the Governor of New Jersey, at a publicized athletic event several months before his ill-fated elopement. I could not help but recall my main character, Dr. Dex Margold, as I stared wildy at Charles Carroll pictured beside the staff psychologist who befriended him. The element of surprise was gone by the time I read of Robert Carroll’s homicidal tendencies to slash his wrists, behavior that led to his transfer to a mental hospital. So I only stoically read the epilogue citing Charles Carroll’s remorse about never reuniting with his biological father and of his 1959 institutional discharge, which led him to choose no other place in the world to live than Atlantic City, NJ, the hometown of my fictional set of brothers.

I closed the book at that point. The truth about Hard Candy remains difficult to swallow and I might not ever digest its content. So I ended another ironic chapter in my life realizing that I am never really out of the woods with coincidence.

The Second Time is a Charm

"There are almost no people who are not dentists who can fix teeth, but there are a lot of people who aren't professional writers who write very well. This is one of the reasons why being a writer is tougher than being a dentist."

-Andy A. Rooney

It was a regular reader of Freudian Slips who suggested I ask The Mastocytosis Society to give me a byline column in their quarterly newsletter, The Mastocytosis Chronicles. The organization promptly denied my request so I gave them personal space where they professionally offered me none. There are only 20,000 people afflicted with my rare skin disease nationwide so how many of us can communicate effectively through words? Evidently, more than I presumed.

In all fairness, the gracious editor of The Mastocytosis Chronicles encouraged me to routinely forward suitable material pertaining to my skin disease. It wasn't just lip service. I have been published in the last two newsletters which travel around the world with a small circulation. I am happy to report that they just published my blog posting dated November 29, 2004 entitled One Man in His Time Plays Many Parts, a whimsical story about becoming an artifact in a Ripleys Believe It or Not museum.

Seeing my name in a story byline offers me a great sense of pride. Knowing the story originated from my blog makes it even cooler. I can be certain of one other thing. Being mistaken for a writer is a hell of a lot better than being recognized as an artifact!

Knock Knock. Who is there? Free Publicity

My printing company, JustBooks, asked me to forward a copy of my autobiography Stop and Smell the Silk Roses. JustBooks was contacted by a newspaper agency who wants to do a grassroots story on self-published books. I have been told my book will be considered for the story. The piece will run simultaneously in 24 different newspapers in the country. Keep your fingers crossed for free publicity thrown my way. It would be a long shot for my book to get selected but when opportunity knocks, I am the ears-a-plenty guy pressing a glass up to the front door. The book went out in first class mail today.

42 Years 288 Days

Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.

-Sigmund Freud.

It took me 42 years and 288 days to become an author. On February 5, 2005 The Mastocytosis Chronicles, published my non-fiction short story, Wish I Could Be like Superman. It is about a single day in my life. It details how a Mastocytosis patient’s life intersected with Christopher Reeve on the day Superman died. After 43 years in writer’s exile, a copy arrived in my mailbox on Wednesday. Stop the press! I haven’t really told people about being published until now but my whole life as a scribe led up to this pinnacle of publication. When Wish I Could Be Like Superman published, this was a proud moment in my life. I would rank it right after marriages and birth of children on a Top Ten List. I might even consider nudging the moment ahead of the ink and parchment of my two college degrees. The only person whom I expressed my joy to barked, “They are only publishing it because you have the disease.” So let me keep it real. I will say quietly what it is with no ringing endorsements or nominations for a Pulitzer Prize. Writer’s write about what they know. Some write about what they don’t know and can get away with it. My prose barely scrapes by on the little I know about this life. I cannot change the diagnosis of my disease nor should I feel shame in writing about a medical condition that has forever changed my life. I confess that The Mastocytosis Chronicles is a newsletter. It requires not a bindery, any office stapler will make do. I also admit that the newsletter doesn’t appear on a newsstand but I don’t need a display case to make me savor the moment. The Mastocytosis Chronicles is a mailer variety and one has to pay their dues to get it. You need a peculiar skin disease called Mastocytosis, a rare disease that when spelled incorrectly spell check assumes you are trying to write “mustachioed.” Hence the newsletter’s circulation is only 500 people worldwide but it didn’t waver my enthusiasm. It has been pointed out to me that I wasn’t paid for my hard work but that doesn’t make a dent in my sense of accomplishment. It didn’t even make the front page of The Mastocytosis Chronicles. I am buried towards the back in pages 20-23 but I rest my laurels in that my name is in the byline. It is enough reinforcement for me to go on writing. The suppression of events weighed heavy on my mind as I took my son to Boy Scouts. His Webelos troop visited a nearby Boy Scout troop. We attended Troop 54 in Lindenwold, who do scouting in an indoor outpost with no climate control. As I walked into the shell of the building, I saw a scout leader tending a fireplace. Entering the smoldering fire was a copy of the Courier Post newspaper article Eagles Fan Dreams of Filling Big Hole in Sports Shrine(See Blog posting XXXIX), an article about me. I saw my picture crinkle and burst into flames. I watched myself being cremated in the cruelest of ironies. So ended another day in the crowded halls of irony. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Living the Life of Reilly

The lead sentence for any writing assignment should be thought of as the first words you say to a bridge jumper. If you don’t catch people’s attention from the jump, the splash you hoped for in your writing is now but a blip in the water. My killer lead worked, if you are still reading.

I recently wrote slobbery fan mail to Rick Reilly, the renowned writer from Sports Illustrated magazine. Rick’s writing style carries both a dramatic flare and an acerbic edge. I spill envy all over the page when I read his weekly column. If he wrote his column on toilet paper, I would be first in line at the bathroom door screaming let the shit hit the fan!

In my letter to Rick Reilly, I let on that I am a wannabe scribe and an admirer of his prose. I asked him to check out my Blog and if he could throw a few peanuts of pointers my way, I would be all Dumbo ears. My motto is don't ask and you shall never receive.

My adulations for Rick Reilly really are two hands clapping. As of late, I have even incorporated Rick Reilly into my Blog writing. After I write a rough draft, I will go read snippets of Rick Reilly’s finished artistry. I return to my own drafts with such inspiration it could cause a paper shortage at Staples. This exercise for better writing I call my own myopic “Living the Life of Reilly.” It is a catchy phrase but one that has not escaped the master because “Life of Reilly” is the title of Rick’s column.

I received a reply email from Rick Reilly on November 29, 2004. I don’t want readers to flip a wig here. It is a form letter. But it is a form letter…related to becoming a better writer. I suspect Rick must have a form letter for every topic down to jalapeno pepper seed harvesting. I’ve heard of prepared statements but something struck me as funny for a prolific columnist to have a prepared form letter to save words.

Nonetheless, I do not let the opportunity go to waste. I begin to read about how a young Rick Reilly got his start in sports writing. I absorb the roll call of Pen Zen Masters who inspired him. He even provides practical examples of how to transform basic writing to distinct authorship. His words dance like Sioux Indians before a needed rain. My eyes are absorbed by the content. I fall into a hero worship of his talent. It feels both wonderful and a cold slap in the face reading someone who writes with the skill and style I always wanted to. That’s when I remembered this is only a generic form letter. Heaven's to Betsy, the master got this young apprentice again. If I find out Rick Reilly signed his next book deal with Scott’s paper products, I’ll be sitting down for that one…in the bathroom.

The Irony Giant

In October 2004, Readers Digest made preliminary contact with me regarding a short story I wrote entitled Wish I Could be like Superman. It was written about my disease Mastocytosis and how my life intersected with actor Christopher Reeve on the day he died. It was an uplifting story about irony and it was gaining attention. I had aspirations of moving from the theatre of the bizarre anyway. Yes, I wanted to move from my appearance on TV’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not, enter a Witness Protection Program, and relocate to mainstream middle America writing under a pseudonym. I had all of my bags packed for Main Street Middle America when I received an email from an editor at Reader’s Digest. She politely explained that my short story had been rejected. After I finished digesting humble pie, I unpacked my suitcases for my prose was all dressed up with nowhere to go. Rejection without constructive criticism can be confusing to a fledgling writer. I envisioned my short story grinded through the steely claws of a shredder then a night custodian emptying the trash can as he mumbled about the waste of trees in America. Ouch!

Let’s leave rejection behind and travel back to the glorious week that I imagined my life’s story would be read by millions of happy readers across the United States. I grew-up with Reader’s Digest and cannot think of a more wholesome publication to be associated with. So when Reader’s Digest gave me a deadline to submit not only the final draft for my short story but a one page story proposal on myself, I made a fresh pot of coffee and hunkered down at the computer for a long night of extracting the creative juices from every orifice in my body. Strangely, I sat staring at the blinking cursor on the monitor. I developed a troublesome full fledged writer’s block trying to figure out a lead sentence in the crucial last paragraph. It seemed intimidating toying with the notion that I was actually writing for an intended audience for a change. But the longer my keyboard emitted no sound, the more my forehead grew sweaty, and the more I realized I may be out of orifices.

Beside me, my wife sat down happy-go-lucky on our second networked computer. She punched up the website to AT&T to investigate the pros and cons of their AT&T Advantage plan, which operates through your cable line. Her nimble typing seemed to bastardize my writer’s block. The phone rings. Since I am the only one in the room not doing anything, it seems my responsibility to answer the blasted phone. The caller is John, a middle aged guy who only recently met me.

John had never been on the Internet until last week when his cable company connected him. The very first thing he did on-line was go to Ebay. He types in the name of Randall Cunningham, a former quarterback with the Eagles. He finds my listed auction advertising the sale of a Randall Cunningham photo. From the auction he links to my own memorabilia website and sees that I live not only inNew Jersey but also in a neighboring town. He retrieves my phone number off my website, gives me a phone call, comes over to do business, and viola, friends for life. There are easier ways to make friends but I wasn’t knocking his sucess. The nice guy that he is, John is calling to see if I want to go with him to a bookstore in Philadelphia to an autograph signing of Philadelphia Eagles superstar Terrell Owens. I tell him to call the venue and get back to me on the details of the event.

He declines on my suggestion. “Joe, do you mind if you call the book store and check it out? I don’t know if you have ever heard of the AT&T Advantage plan but there is no 411 information. You are hooked to your cable and you got to look up numbers on-line. I am not skilled at the Internet thing yet. I was lucky to find you. "

I looked over to the monitor of the second computer where my wife still read from the AT&T web page.

“John, hold on for a minute.” I muffled the receiver then whispered to my wife to clue her in on the irony. “John is on the line. He is calling from an AT&T cable line right now. He brings with him new meaning to the saying word of mouth advertising.”

“Oh, how does John like AT&T?” my wife asks matter of factly.

“That’s the thing.” My wheels started turning upstairs and this caused me great celebration. I had found another orifice that I did not know existed. “Evidently, one advantage of the AT&T Advantage plan is you don’t have to dial long distance.” I chuckled. “Yeah, you just call local friends to make the long distance calls for you.”

I get back on the phone and tell John he could never sell me the AT&T Advantage plan, which has left both of us disadvantaged. I explain to John that my wife is looking at their web page as we speak. He seems surprised but only in a small way.

“Joe, our relationship is based on irony. Remember how I found you. I thought I was expanding my world and I found you in my backyard the first place I looked. That’s pure irony.”

I took it one step further; risking sounding crazy to a person I met only once. “That is all fine and dandy, but I’m telling you my whole life is based on irony. Life imitating art. Irony tripping over itself. Irony engulfs my life and don’t ask me why. In fact, I’m sitting here writing a short story about irony this very minute. I am up against a deadline to get this to Reader’s Digest and I’m stuck wrapping up the last paragraph.

Then John delivered the ultimate irony. “Maybe, irony is God’s way of talking to you.”

“Oh, my God.” I reveled in emotion. “That is it, isn’t it? You are so right, John. That is exactly what I am trying to say in my short story to Reader’s Digest.”

I took it that God was talking to me through John. John appears to be a lightning rod for irony. He was the Irony Giant and he was slaying me with coincidence. Not that I needed or wanted anymore irony in my life but if this guy gets this short story published, I made a silent vow to put shoes on his baby and give God twenty percent after taxes.

I couldn’t help but ask. “John, how attached are you to that moral-of-the-story line you just gave me?”

“Why, do you like it?”

“I love it. It is the bomb.”

“You can use it, no bid deal.” he says.

I gained consent to permanently borrow his adage but not before I made clear no royalities would be involved with his contribution. We put the social plans on hold as I vowed to finish my short story at a decent hour.

After I hung up the phone, my wife chimed in, “What else did John have to say?”

“Besides finishing my short story for me, John now wants to buy a copy of my autobiography (Stop and Smell the Silk Roses).”

Diane concluded, “The world is a different place for you isn’t it?”

When God helps you make a deadline, you know He is in your corner.