I don't know how I got there. I was minding my own business doing my usual Saturday reading and checking out humor writers and there I was eyeball to wedgie with Beyonce on the cover of Sports Illustrated. I was so stunned I forgot how I got there. Maybe if I retrace my steps...
While reading my weekly issue of Long Story Short I began wondering why exactly these writers had won first place. It's not that the stories weren't good--there were some very good pieces--but I enjoyed the also rans so much more, thus proving it's completely subjective and not necessarily about talent once again. Many of the also rans (Honorable Mention) made me laugh and cry and touched me so much more than about 99% of the winners, and that doesn't even take into account the horrid grammar and rampant type-Os that failed to be edited or corrected. I know how those things fall through the cracks.
The more I read, the more I clicked to read other writers, stumbling dazedly upon the humor writers. I really needed a break from having my heart strings plucked, played and otherwise twanged. One or two of the top rated writers winkled a chuckle out of me, but the
Anyway, I lurched into Jennifer Brown, a writer who has pulled off the unbelievable coup of winning the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition not once but twice. I wanted more--much more--so I checked Mrs. Brown out (Oops, wrong Mrs. Brown, but a really great movie with Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer of As Time Goes By). At any rate, I found out the American humorist, Mrs. Brown, offered classes in humor writing, citing her miraculous (not so miraculous when you read her Erma-like humor) and unprecedented twin EBWC wins as proof of her ability to teach what she does, thereby disproving the axiom that those who teach can't do what they teach.
Sorry, off track again.
I read more of Mrs. Brown's writing and followed her to the KC Star and into the back roads of the neighborhood news where she has written a few more If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? guest columns. That led me to a search for her columns and a search through the KC Star because the links Mrs. Brown provided didn't get me to what I wanted--her humor.
Aha! I think I've finally found the twisted thread that led me to the Beyonce wedgie.
I searched the KC Star and something colorful pulled my focus. Must have been the tears in my eyes when I was laughing. It was the words Vogue and full figured. That's what did it. Vogue and full figured just don't go together. Anna Wintour, she of the razor cut hair and razor thin figure who was allegedly not the model for Miranda Priestly of The Devil Wears Prada, made Oprah lose twenty pounds to appear on the cover of Vogue. Evidently, full figured does go on the cover of Vogue because Jennifer Hudson made it to the cover of the March 2007 issue. The picture isn't that flattering and there was talk of Photoshop and Annie Leibowitz's use of perspective and bad taste in all the pictures of the spread. That led to reading about the hotly debated cover and pictures and that's when it happened.
That's it. That's how I got to Beyonce's wedgie. It's easy to understand once I retraced my steps. That's what happens when I have a laptop computer, enough V-8 to keep my stomach from noticing I haven't eaten in about 12 hours and a fast Internet connection. One thing leads to another and humor leads to wedgies. A day in the life. That is what happens when I work all night so that when I fall into bed I sleep like the dead. I haven't had a dream for days--or nights. I miss my dreams. They're so much better than the memory of that image out of my seared and bruised brain. Sometimes the mind is a terrible thing to
That is all. Disperse.
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