JBrower
06-04-2009, 12:13 PM
Here are the very rough first 3 paragraphs to a satire I started last night instead of sleeping. If you could read them and then let me know if, as a reader, it would be something you'd care to read and other critiques and such, I'd love you forever.
Love Like A Grocery List
(rough draft, paragraphs 1-3)
Matthew gazed down at the tiny slip of paper between his thumb and index finger, flicking it back and forth absentmindedly, not really taking in the neatly penned words; carefully printed in black ink, as slowly and neatly as he could manage between diligently doing homework and self-righteously telling his floormates to 'please shut the **** up if you wouldn't mind, considering its already 9:30 on a school night'. After all, he'd gone through five post-it notes until he finally managed to craft a list with nary a smudge, smear, or stray line (neighbors with loud music be damned!). Pensmanship was important, it lent validity to his endeavor.
Cautiously pressing the post-it onto the side of his index finger, Matthew read over the various items and impartial clauses, greeting each like an old friend--with what he liked to think of as his 'knowledgeable but sexy' smile--as he continued to bat at the corner of the paper with his thumb. It was a grocery list of sorts, this tiny slip of yellow paper, a bulleted, numbered list of the essential accoutrements possessed by any lady lucky enough to be hand selected as his very own college honey. Mommy and Daddy would be so proud of the one he was going to pick, this shopping list was that good. Today was grocery day; they were ripe for the picking.
Writing the list had taken some finangling--there were so many qualities selected as absolutely necessary for the young lady that would be his--but it was something of a work of art, if one were allowed to critically acclaim their own shopping document. Onto one tiny post-it, Matthew had neatly, carefully, neurotically, chauvinistically, printed eleven exacting standards that he felt confident would be met by any girl smart enough to fall in love with him (after his selection, naturally). Up until this brilliant list--this perfect, foolproof, love-defeating grocery dossier--the going had been rather tough. As such, no one had really gotten Matthew going. He had started the list, actually, as a message board thread to the running community. Are my standards too high? he wondered, via anonymous internet forum. Is any girl good enough to deserve to love me? All the runners, whom he thought were his people, had responded in the nastiest ways. They called him a prick, they told him to stop trying to make love a formula. Well, **** them. Every girl at Central Midwest University, it seemed, failed to possess every last quality that he considered essential for a woman to be good enough for him. But he had faith. Matthew knew, he really knew, that he was special, important, exceedingly full of himself, and would, as such, settle for no less than perfection in his pre-selected future mate (may the advice on his running message board be damned!).
Love Like A Grocery List
(rough draft, paragraphs 1-3)
Matthew gazed down at the tiny slip of paper between his thumb and index finger, flicking it back and forth absentmindedly, not really taking in the neatly penned words; carefully printed in black ink, as slowly and neatly as he could manage between diligently doing homework and self-righteously telling his floormates to 'please shut the **** up if you wouldn't mind, considering its already 9:30 on a school night'. After all, he'd gone through five post-it notes until he finally managed to craft a list with nary a smudge, smear, or stray line (neighbors with loud music be damned!). Pensmanship was important, it lent validity to his endeavor.
Cautiously pressing the post-it onto the side of his index finger, Matthew read over the various items and impartial clauses, greeting each like an old friend--with what he liked to think of as his 'knowledgeable but sexy' smile--as he continued to bat at the corner of the paper with his thumb. It was a grocery list of sorts, this tiny slip of yellow paper, a bulleted, numbered list of the essential accoutrements possessed by any lady lucky enough to be hand selected as his very own college honey. Mommy and Daddy would be so proud of the one he was going to pick, this shopping list was that good. Today was grocery day; they were ripe for the picking.
Writing the list had taken some finangling--there were so many qualities selected as absolutely necessary for the young lady that would be his--but it was something of a work of art, if one were allowed to critically acclaim their own shopping document. Onto one tiny post-it, Matthew had neatly, carefully, neurotically, chauvinistically, printed eleven exacting standards that he felt confident would be met by any girl smart enough to fall in love with him (after his selection, naturally). Up until this brilliant list--this perfect, foolproof, love-defeating grocery dossier--the going had been rather tough. As such, no one had really gotten Matthew going. He had started the list, actually, as a message board thread to the running community. Are my standards too high? he wondered, via anonymous internet forum. Is any girl good enough to deserve to love me? All the runners, whom he thought were his people, had responded in the nastiest ways. They called him a prick, they told him to stop trying to make love a formula. Well, **** them. Every girl at Central Midwest University, it seemed, failed to possess every last quality that he considered essential for a woman to be good enough for him. But he had faith. Matthew knew, he really knew, that he was special, important, exceedingly full of himself, and would, as such, settle for no less than perfection in his pre-selected future mate (may the advice on his running message board be damned!).