The Death of Dead Like Me

Why did no one tell me Dead Like Me was cancelled? Oh, right, the execs at Showtime sort of swept it under the rug, didn’t they? They dropped it in December, but kept the show info on their website. They’re re-running the second season (of which the DVDs are being released in July) but fail to directly state on the site that no third season is coming. They assume we know. Now Mandy Patinkin is on CBS.

As most people who know me can readily attest, I often get very attached to fictional characters. I choose to view this as a good thing, as I am a writer, and writing involves a fair amount of commitment to “people” who don’t actually exist. I am attached to the reapers on Dead Like Me. They fight over breakfast foods. They’re witty, dry & sarcastic at all hours of the day and night. They know who they are and don’t apologize for it. I want to hang out with them, and not just because Callum Blue (Mason) is the most adorable thing to come across the Atlantic since Ewan McGregor. (Ryan Kwanten is also high on my adorable list, but as he is from Australia, he likely came across the Pacific.)

If I were instantly killed by a flaming toilet seat from outer space, I wouldn’t mind Rube as a boss & surrogate parent. And if I needed a roommate in that undead afterlife, I could probably live with Daisy’s self-absorption, because she has a hell of a lot of naughty stories to tell. And she’s not as shallow as first she seemed. Just ask Mason. He’s smitten by her—utterly, inexorably, adorably smitten. I was awaiting the third season specifically to witness how the writers would finally bring them to that inevitable moment.

Well, now that there won’t be a third season, I can write my own climax, guilt-free. I think we all know who’ll be there in place of Daisy.

30 Is the New 20

I can no longer be categorized as “up and coming.” Apparently, I already should have arrived. I was just getting used to the idea of turning 30, when, in one fell swoop, Random House Publishing Group made me want to cry. More on that in a moment.

One of my writing obsessions, for as long as I have been stabbing at writing non-fiction, has been the role of my generation in contemporary society. Well, the stabbing period has been roughly the past decade, which corresponds with that period known dubiously as “my twenties,” and alas, they’re just about over. For the fruit of my labor, I have a computer full of ideas, entries, essays, lists and other miscellany that I will be sorting through in the coming months. I’ve been rather excited about the project—mostly because these coming months are the first in my life that will be fully dedicated solely to my writing since…since…ever.

So, there I am yesterday, in the faculty mail room—picking up mail (duh), photocopying, getting ready to teach my 2:30 class. Just as I am about to leave, I notice announcement on the back of the door, a flyer for a writing contest sponsored by Random House. It’s called The Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers Contest.

I get excited. I think, “Wouldn’t several of my essays be good candidates for this contest? Especially since most of them contain that undercurrent of twenty-something awareness? Surely, I’ll make the deadline…Even if it’s this year, perhaps it will be before my birthday…Maybe…Possibly.”

Ummmmm…no. The contest deadline isn’t until late 2006, by which time I will be 31. I will be decidedly unqualified, by that time, to enter a contest called “Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers.” No matter that all of the essays were written way in advance of the big decade-turner.
Out came the little voices. Too bad you didn’t organize earlier. Too bad they didn’t have this contest earlier. Too bad your days of being twentysomething, and therefore understandably confused, are passed. Too bad you haven’t arrived anywhere yet. It’s all just too bad. Suck it up, kid.

Somehow, I don’t think Random House will buy the idea that “30 is the new 20.” But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.