The Dork Knight Rises Again

Okay, this is officially crazy. I’ve been accepted to the Clarion Writer’s Workshop. It’s a big deal. Some of the other attendees are already professional writers, been accepted to Writers of the Future and making money for their words and all sorts of adult stuff.

I still feel like a kid beating on his computer because he’s not satisfied with the way the world is now. My life feels like a script of Harold and Kumar that never made it off the slush pile. My personal timeline looks a little like this

I’m born: Hello, world! Smells like chicken!

Young Man: Thank god that school thing is over. What should I do next? Ah, I know, I’ll subvert the dominant paradigm and become a Taoist priest!

Five years later: Ack, being a priest is hard. Let’s go to Korea. It’s on the other side of the world. That’s why everyone’s standing upside down! Wow, you’re a beautiful girl. Let’s get married. Why not? Publish a book of poetry. Too bad the economy collapses, I’ll just have to….

Next Year: …go to grad school. Hello black berets, black coffees, bleak attitudes. Make a literary zine. Ride a motorcyle. Crash the motorcycle.

Two years later: Medical school? What? In Israel? Stop shooting at me! Where’s my gas mask?

Four years later: Emergency medicine training in South Central LA. Gangers and rappers, stop shooting each other! I can’t pull the bullets out fast enough!

A thousand bazillion years later: Medical training finally over! No more hundred hour weeks. Time to be a real doctor, have a car and a house and a spiffy white coat. Hey, our film was accepted at Cannes! Let’s take a whole bunch of films and try to be a producer!

Soon after: Wife left me and took my money. No big deal, got so much to do. I’m a flipping medical professor now. Studies to publish, students to teach, articles to present. Working in a clinic in Guatemala, backpacking Thailand. And being single in New York City….

A million of your attention spans later: Clarion Writer’s workshop. What?

So, I'm taking a leave of absence from my cushy job, traveling Europe, and I'll try to be brilliant enough to justify my admission. Oh, gotta go, hearts to mend and wounds to heal.....