I'm just a scared and lonely writer but I've gotta know how it feels

by anna at 08:26 PM on March 30, 2005

Shocker: I wrote a book. It's called We've Come Undone: From the O-Jay Fiasco to Sept 11 and Beyond. It's basic premise is that things began to unravel the day those 12 morons unleashed a crazed killer on us and it culminated when Mohammed Atta piloted that 1st plane into the North Tower. A secondary premise is that so far, these zeros have proven to be a pathetically banal spectacle. Recommended antidote: solitude and alienation. Not surprisingly, agents and publishers didn't exactly flock to it. I actually got non-form letter rejections telling me to never send anything so insulting to them again.

In tone the text is caustic and sneering as I seek to undermine any memory from that time period that anyone might deign to cherish. Example: the Garth Brooks phenomena. Here's a sample grab where I tried to insult as many people as I could in one sentence: "Brooks then elected to stage a free concert in Central Park of all places. Any fool might have puzzled over his choice of venues. A sparse crowd consisting mainly of the Park's al fresco-dwelling denizens quickly fled to the nearest burqa-less bar located across the Goethels Bridge in Elizabeth, NJ." (all rights reserved)

There is a lot of focus on the OJ Trial, as I do really believe that is where it all started to go horribly awry. Fuck Lee Bailey haranguing Det Mark Fuhrman over his use of the N Word. Brash Barry Scheck grilling pathologist Dennis Fung: "Were you asked these questions and did you give these answers, yes or no" as he brandished transcripts. Most of all, on the despicable Johnny Cochran. I envisioned him drafting his infamous "If it doesn't fit you must acquit" line the night before. "If it don't fit you must acquit." Nah, too ethnic-sounding. "If'n it don't be fittin' you must be acqittin'." Even worse.

It all seems like a million years ago. And yet, upon hearing of his death from a brain tumor at age 67 yesterday, all my hatred of him came flooding back. And then I felt guilty about these thought crimes. One mustn't speak ill of the dearly departed, no?

Unless, of course, the departed happens to be Mr. Atta. In the 12 page piece about Sept 11, I talked a lot about how I wished he'd been aborted before his mom had to endure that oversized noggin forcing its way out of her stretched-out hole. But overall, that was the toughest thing to write about. The book is done in a humorous vein, see. And while you may be able to now, there was no way to joke about that momentous day in the grim, dazed, Anthrax-wafting, Taliban-ousting days when we all waited in dread for the other shoe to drop.

I also delved into the war in Afghanistan, particularly our failure to capture or kill Osama, Doc Zawahiri and Mullah Omar. (Dead or Alive, my ass.) Who ever thought we'd see calvary on actual horses in this day and age? And yet, it occured.

The book ends with the frantic run-up to that disastrous, permanent war in Iraq. I simply didn't have the heart to go any further. The Y2k scare, Battle in Seattle, Indecision 2000 and Heaven's Gate were harrowing enough. *takes a large gulp of wine and hits save*