Dear Shannon,

You are consistently excellent!

Pretentious? Moi? (There you go — a joke in a punchline.)

When I tell people I’m a writer, sometimes they’ll tell me they want to write — when they’ll retire. I ask them what they’re doing now, & whatever it is, I say, “Oh, I want to (fill in the blank: be a nurse, a pilot, a CEO, a police officer, an accountant,) when I retire!” And look at them all bright & bushy tailed, like I want to be complimented on my good choice of retirement activity. There! Thanks for not treating writing like an actual job it is! Then I walk away. Fuck you very much. Think it’s easy? Go write a true sentence, drop & give me 50, (I’m a little bit of a sadist) then we can actually talk, you stupid troll!

If I had a dollar for every conversation I had like that, I could buy myself a number bed by now!