Look At That Fucking Pecan! It’s Huge!

I’ve always been deathly afraid of rejection.  In high school, I had some of the most intricate plans about how to get the gorgeous Jewish girl who I’d talked to a few times in a junior high drama class to go out with me.  I would have daydreams of learning Hebrew and going to temple, with the goal of converting to her great faith.  I would of course do this behind her back, because a big part of the plan involved me running into her, as if by accident, at temple one day, her curly hair shining in the evening sun, my payos perfectly complimenting my already spectacular beard.  I would look her longingly and say “your eyes shine more beautifully than the miraculous consecrated olive oil that burned for eight days during the rededication of the Temple after the revolt of Judah Maccabee.”  But, of course, I would say it in Hebrew.  She would melt, fall madly in love with me, and we would live happily and Semitically ever after.

Naturally, I never put this plan into action.  I could never get over the possibility that she might still not want me, even after my going through all the trouble of conversion.  And then what?  I was a hopeless romantic dreamer, but I was fairly practical.

Looking back on my life, I realize that I’ve probably missed out on a lot of opportunities for growth because I was too afraid of the unknown.  If I had gone through with any of my hair-brained plans, at the very least, I would have a lot more experience with trying and failing under my belt than I do now.

It was thoughts like these that inspired me to really sit down and think about things I’ve always wanted to do, but have been too afraid to, for whatever reason.  Here’s what I came up with:

1) Go to the Middle East and tell them all to “cool the fuck out.”

2) Run for public office, preferably for the office of “Recorder of Deeds.”

3) Track down the aforementioned Jewish girl and dust off that old plan to see if it would work.

4) Take over the city of Danville and turn it into my own personal fiefdom.

5) Go see the World’s Largest Pecan, which is located just down the road in Brunswick, Missouri (that pecan weighs 12,000 pounds!).

6) Submit a list to McSweeney’s website.

I looked over this list, and realized that most of them were slightly out of my reach at the time being, mostly due to my lack of transportation, and lack of a “war chest.”  However, submitting a list was something that I could do, and doing so could possibly kick up some exposure for this here blog.

I kicked the idea around for a while, and came up with a good list.  Having read McSweeney’s for a while now, I know damn well that their lists are pretty much entirely driven by their titles.  The title is the joke, and the list is usually very disappointing.  Here’s what I came up with:

Names of Feminist Authors Featured In My Summer School Class on Women’s Literature If They Had Chosen To Dedicate Their Lives To Promoting Awareness of Oral Hygiene Instead of Promoting Awareness of the Plight of Women

-Charlotte Perkins Gil-Man Who Always Remembers to Brush and Floss

-Edith Whar-Tongue Care and Hygiene

-Toni Morri-Sonicare Vibrating Toothbrush

-Sylvia Plaque

Now, I accept that this isn’t the best list anyone’s ever made, but I deemed it good enough to submit.  Well surprise of surprises, I got an email today informing me that, while the list was fun, they were going to pass on it.

I was heartbroken.  I decided to head over to McSweeney’s and check out what lists they decided to publish instead.  I was sure that I would find some gems, some truly hilarious and cleverly put together lists, and that discovery would make it easier to accept my rejection.

What I found instead was a bunch of fairly decent lists, and a couple of abysmal, pointless ones.  I don’t know what I can and can’t quote from their site, but there is a particularly bad list about 30 different rocks that I know is inferior to mine.

Ironically, this experience, now that I’ve had a little time to wrestle with it, has been very illuminating.  I think back on my days pining for that Jewish girl in high school, and I realize that after I didn’t make my move, she started dating a really douchy guy.  I realize that there are a lot of parallels to my current situation.  If I had asked her out, she probably would have turned me down, and ended up dating that douche anyway.  My actions would most likely not have made any difference on the ultimate end result.  I put my hat into the ring by submitting my list, I was rejected, and a douchey list was published instead.

In the end, I’ve learned a very valuable lesson: don’t try.  Also, I’ve learned that if you do try and you fail, it’s a lot easier to claim that whoever rejected you is shortsighted or flawed than it is to accept that maybe your list just wasn’t that good or that you were unattractive and a pretty big loser in high school. 

Alright, this is getting a little too cathartic.  I’d better just end this here, I’ve got a lot of Hebrew to study tonight.