Sarky Bastard

Every so often, life holds a mirror up to you or to the way you were a few years ago, and the experience is usually jarring, unless you have no problem with yourself.

After two years of waiting, I got a humor piece I wrote three years ago published in a literary journal. My copy finally arrived in my unreliable mail last week, but I didn't read it carefully -- I just glanced at the other contributors' names in the front and tossed it aside. There's almost always a nasty surprise when you get something published, like in this case they left in the html symbols around two italicized words in the opening paragraph. Horrified, I looked through the rest of the journal to see if they had some kind of general problem but no, there were plenty of italicized words without the html symbols around them. Zut! There are hardly words for how annoying it is to have a long-awaited piece of writing besmirched with format errors. ("Zut" is not even adequate.)

So but later, perusing the Contributors Notes in the back, I read, "Kristy Eldredge writes for gloriousnoise.com and regularly performs at open mics in New York City, so her success can hardly be measured on a human scale." Argh! I had no memory of writing that, but I clearly recognized the bitter and sarcastic mood I must have been in. Even so I was startled by my snarkiness. The writer of that sentence obviously believes she has a right to be published in national magazines and singing in large, prestigious venues.

It was humbling to be shown in black and white what a sarky bastard* I can be and also what a sense of entitlement I have.

Good times.


* The photo is of Ricky Gervais to whom I am indebted for the phrase 'sarky bastard.'