How My Whole Life is Pointing at Me to be a Cheesy, Romance Trash Novelist
...simply because of that fine, quizzical, curious feature on Craigslist called "Missed Connections". For those of you familiar with this feature, I am sure your eyebrows raise in jocular arcs above your knowing and anticipatory eyes.
For those of you unaware, let me put it like this...picture if you will, that you are about your daily business in the throes of mundanity, you could be in the dairy section getting milk at Publix or some such scenario. And you could very well catch the eye of someone across the aisle getting their orange juice, or they could instead be catching your eye. And still, ideally, as we'd all would have it ...you, the "milk boy" and they, the "orange juice girl" would catch each other's eyes. Of course, as experience tends to proclaim, it is extremely awkward to strike up conversation with the Orange Juice Girl. There being not much to talk about other than preference of breakfast beverages. -But yet, something still remains as you walk back towards the check out line. A sort of residue of possibility. It is sort of a light feeling, though sometimes heavy. And you may not be aware of it, and it is only when you are waiting in the checkout line in between the packs of gum and the tabloids, then it suddenly becomes known and hits you that, "Yes, I could possibly fall in love with the Orange Juice Girl." And if anyone has a pestilent and feverish imagination like myself, then a whole string of flickering scenarios of intimacy, of fights, of make ups, of babies born, of retirement fall out. And it is only when you get home, with the fridge door ajar, placing that very carton of milk which caused the whole thing away, that you realize that she was a complete stranger and you'll probably never see that beautiful damsel, the Fair Lady of the Squeezed Oranges ever again. -What distress and a sinking feeling falls. You'll forever drink that carton of milk with slight indigestion.
Unless of course, you have what the brilliant makers of Craigslist put on their website. This Missed Connection feature allows you the chance, the slight chance however slim, to make the connection that didn't happen admist the waxed floors and the rattling shopping carts in Publix. And if you are given to words as a sort of expression then you can describe as colorfully as you'd like the feeling you got, when you saw her on aisle 7, the particular song that was converted to elevator music playing overhead during that moment, even venturing to describe the other items in her cart. And that you too like celery sticks and yogurt. (or at least can tolerate them if ever the two of you ever hooked up.) And of course, if you are lucky and the stars are aligned in this situation, even better than expressing your own take on this fateful encounter in the dairy/juice department, what if you should find that she had beaten you to the punch. What a sublime feeling to scan through the posts of the day and find the title, "Got Milk?" and this little piece to be nothing other than an ad about you.
Well, Craigslists Missed Connections allows you to do this. My sister had told me about it years ago. But I haven't looked into it until recently. And I found it to be true. I showed it to a friend of mine and she immediately thought that it would be funny to post a fake ad where someone was looking for me. http://bham.craigslist.org/mis/1615301748.html
And I was curious to see if anybody responded. Which lo and behold only in a few days, another friend of mine had noticed it.
But then, something interesting happened with myself. I began to notice that I was making my own missed connections in chance circumstances with mysterious women. That every day or two there was a beautiful lady in the midst of a common life that was worthy of a shout out So, I, of course, could not resist the newfangled ability to publish my own passing, fanciful crushes on females that I probably will never see again. I wrote two ads, and, oh, I indulged in cheesiness, abounded in lameness in both letters. Just for experiment's sake and because it was so much fun to do. As a game, let's see if anybody can guess which 2 posts are mine. It was only in the past week that I published them and I'll only give you the hint of "Nature" that sums up both of them. http://bham.craigslist.org/search/mis/?query=m4w
Both incidents actually occurred. And at this rate, I think if I really forced myself I could fall in love with a different stranger every day. Leisurely, as least once a week. Now you can easily see how I can be writing snippets of what could one day be romance trash novels that are supplied in those very Publix stores where Orange Juice and Milk exist together in starry-eyed bliss.
For those of you unaware, let me put it like this...picture if you will, that you are about your daily business in the throes of mundanity, you could be in the dairy section getting milk at Publix or some such scenario. And you could very well catch the eye of someone across the aisle getting their orange juice, or they could instead be catching your eye. And still, ideally, as we'd all would have it ...you, the "milk boy" and they, the "orange juice girl" would catch each other's eyes. Of course, as experience tends to proclaim, it is extremely awkward to strike up conversation with the Orange Juice Girl. There being not much to talk about other than preference of breakfast beverages. -But yet, something still remains as you walk back towards the check out line. A sort of residue of possibility. It is sort of a light feeling, though sometimes heavy. And you may not be aware of it, and it is only when you are waiting in the checkout line in between the packs of gum and the tabloids, then it suddenly becomes known and hits you that, "Yes, I could possibly fall in love with the Orange Juice Girl." And if anyone has a pestilent and feverish imagination like myself, then a whole string of flickering scenarios of intimacy, of fights, of make ups, of babies born, of retirement fall out. And it is only when you get home, with the fridge door ajar, placing that very carton of milk which caused the whole thing away, that you realize that she was a complete stranger and you'll probably never see that beautiful damsel, the Fair Lady of the Squeezed Oranges ever again. -What distress and a sinking feeling falls. You'll forever drink that carton of milk with slight indigestion.
Unless of course, you have what the brilliant makers of Craigslist put on their website. This Missed Connection feature allows you the chance, the slight chance however slim, to make the connection that didn't happen admist the waxed floors and the rattling shopping carts in Publix. And if you are given to words as a sort of expression then you can describe as colorfully as you'd like the feeling you got, when you saw her on aisle 7, the particular song that was converted to elevator music playing overhead during that moment, even venturing to describe the other items in her cart. And that you too like celery sticks and yogurt. (or at least can tolerate them if ever the two of you ever hooked up.) And of course, if you are lucky and the stars are aligned in this situation, even better than expressing your own take on this fateful encounter in the dairy/juice department, what if you should find that she had beaten you to the punch. What a sublime feeling to scan through the posts of the day and find the title, "Got Milk?" and this little piece to be nothing other than an ad about you.
Well, Craigslists Missed Connections allows you to do this. My sister had told me about it years ago. But I haven't looked into it until recently. And I found it to be true. I showed it to a friend of mine and she immediately thought that it would be funny to post a fake ad where someone was looking for me. http://bham.craigslist.org/mis/1615301748.html
And I was curious to see if anybody responded. Which lo and behold only in a few days, another friend of mine had noticed it.
But then, something interesting happened with myself. I began to notice that I was making my own missed connections in chance circumstances with mysterious women. That every day or two there was a beautiful lady in the midst of a common life that was worthy of a shout out So, I, of course, could not resist the newfangled ability to publish my own passing, fanciful crushes on females that I probably will never see again. I wrote two ads, and, oh, I indulged in cheesiness, abounded in lameness in both letters. Just for experiment's sake and because it was so much fun to do. As a game, let's see if anybody can guess which 2 posts are mine. It was only in the past week that I published them and I'll only give you the hint of "Nature" that sums up both of them. http://bham.craigslist.org/search/mis/?query=m4w
Both incidents actually occurred. And at this rate, I think if I really forced myself I could fall in love with a different stranger every day. Leisurely, as least once a week. Now you can easily see how I can be writing snippets of what could one day be romance trash novels that are supplied in those very Publix stores where Orange Juice and Milk exist together in starry-eyed bliss.
posted by Brian Harrison | 7:26 AM
2 Comments:
you really need to be published. so hunker down and get to it!!
I appreciate the encouragement. I guess there is no real formula to getting published but by hunkering down and getting to it.
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