21 April 2003 - 2:07 p.m.

I think I'm gonna make a spreadsheet.

There are two kinds of people in the world: the ones who use Excel, and the ones who don't.

When my dad was caoching little league, he made an Excel spreadsheet of stats for every game. EVERY game. At the time, I was pretty young, maybe 14 and had had very little exposure to the world of spreadsheets. My dad tried explaining the virtues of Excel documents to me, but at the time I was writing a lot of bad poetry and didn't want to think about Excel documents.

Hell, I didn't even want to think of them AS Excel documents. It was far more euphonic, I thought, to call them "retarded charts." So you can tell that I am a member of the not-using-Excel half of civilization.

Though I have made my mark on the spreadsheet universe. My father, still a staunch Excel user, calls his spreadsheets retarded charts to this day.

Last year, I was working on a project with Prof. McHotHot, when he became very concerned that there was no way to create different versions of an organized list.

"I'll see what I can do," I said, and proceeded to go home and make about the most rudimentary spreadsheet I could.

PMcHH, who was clearly a bigger Excel luddite than even my reluctant self, thought my various lists were about the raddest thing ever. Unfortunately, when I tried to send him electronic copies, he was unable to open the files.

To make a long story short, the files were pretty much useless because my verion of Excel was nine years old. It was like Microsoft Excel .33333333 or something, I swear. I did a lot of printing from my antique HP that semester, and then the project dissolved.

Which is probably just as well.

But I think I'll do what a fellow asshole suggested and start making a spreadsheet of publications to whom I have or will send manuscripts.

I've been thinking a lot about this summer, and what I'm going to do this summer, and how this summer I will probably just hang around my parents' house and sink into cliched ennui. And probably cook when my mom or dad don't feel like doing it.

But to be really, really cliched and bored, I have to have had my work rejected by The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, and The Paris Review. Preferably as soon as possible.

So, plan of action goes like this:

1. Collect data on impressive magazines

2. Create spreadsheet with names, addresses, etc.

3. Submit my shizzle

4. Wait awhile

5. Get rejected

6. Let the angsty and meaningless times roll!

What I'm wearing: Red surplice top, cargo skirt, camel cardigan, brown loafers

What I'm reading: Some weird buzzing as Dana undoubtedly succumbs to a slow, slow death

What I'm doing after this: Keepin' the retarded chart love alive