Dakota, Kal-El, Ziggy, Zowie, Pilot Inspektor

Aang, Sokka, Iroh, Zuko, Zhao, Ozai, Bumi, Jet, Longshot, Pakku, Teo, Haru, Roku, Jeong-Jeong.

Ronny, Ron, Robbie, Rob, Bobby, Bob, Alan, Michael, Mike, Mickey, Ben, Benji, Bennie, Jim, Jimmy, James, Jordan, Jerry, Josh, Joshua, Jacob, Jake, Perry, Percy, Pete, Peter, Sven, Sasha, Glen, Gordon, Kimball, Kim, Ed, Eddie, Edward, Edgar, Gar, Elwood, Woody, Mark, Manny, Carl, Charles, Chuck, Calvin, Cal, Sam, Saul, Sol, Neal, Daniel, Dan, Don, Donny, Danny, William, Will, Willie, Bill, Billy, George, Greg, Gray, Terrence, Terry, Tracy, Trip Zachary, Zach, if his parents were absurdly loyal to a family name, Ezekiel, Zeke...

Somebody stop me before I reach for the baby names book/site.

I don't do nearly as well with girl's names.

Uh, I picked the name Adam, like, two hours ago. Sorry, guys! Glad you fun, though.

That's OK. A reference to the shortest poem in the world.

Fleas.
Adam
Had 'em.

Well, you know, Amy, we're pretty easy to entertain.

How Viral PDFs Of A Naughty Bedtime Book Exploded The Old Publishing Model [link]

The party line on piracy is that it's bad for business. But what to make of the case of "Go the Fuck to Sleep," the "children's book for adults" whose viral-pirate PDF launched the book to the number-one spot on Amazon.com a month before its release?

So I'm working on a essay I'm hoping to sell to a magazine. I cut some stuff out when I thought the guidelines said less than 900 words, and it's really 1100, so I'll be adding some back in, I think, but I wanted some eyes-on to see what people are thinking.

It's for a women's mag, and the theme for that month is any House -- any part of the house, but not DYI. It's for a unconventional women's mag.

I'm so tired right not I don't know if it's good or shite.

________________________

My garage lurks behind the house at the end of a long driveway. Square, blue, surrounded by viciously thorned raspberry bushes, it’s been a looming presence since I moved in with my husband.

At first, I was enthusiastic. There’s nothing more wearing and depressing than navigating treacherous steps and slogging through icy sleet at 6:30 A.M. while juggling graded essays, a purse and coffee, faced with twenty minutes of hacking away at ice so thick an obese seal could gambol merrily upon it

My enthusiasm waned quickly. My husband told me doubtfully that the garage was pretty full, but I loftily assumed that with my ferocious organizational skills, I’d have it whipped into shape in a wink. I organize international academic conferences! I’ve dealt with psychotic teenagers threatening to stab me! It’s a garage. How hard can this be?

I was smug. I was an idiot.

When I went in, the first thing I was confronted with was lots of spider webs, which I presumed were home to countless spiders, aching for the chance to leap at me and start gnawing viciously on my ears with their clicky little mandibles. After the shrieking stopped, my husband thought I’d want to know the spiders were most likely brown recluses.

Darling, thank you. I truly needed to know that poisonous spiders would soon be ripping at my flesh, causing necrosis and destruction and fear and OH MY GOD THEY HAVE SO MANY LEGS. One spider, I can deal with. With great reluctance and much screaming and flailing about with a can of Aqua Net in one hand and a broom in the other, followed by a nicely therapeutic magnum or two of pinot. A spider suburb, on the other hand? Do they sell flamethrowers at Target?

Preemptively Xanaxed, I grimly braved the doorway, broom in hand, ready to leap back at the slightest hint of a hairy leg. Luckily, the spiders were on vacation or all suffered from social anxiety; my new neighbors declined to greet me, for which I was profoundly grateful.

I destroyed their homes, heartlessly, and with great fervor. I am utterly unapologetic about it.

As traumatic as this was, this was only the beginning. Once I assured myself there was no lurking arachnid sitting on the light switch, I flipped on the light. And came face to face with my husband’s ex-wife.

When you enter a partnership with person who has been married before, a certain amount of baggage is to be expected. However, one does not generally encounter a building full of literal baggage. But that’s what was there. Boxes and boxes of…stuff. Receipts. Moldy books. Photos. Outgrown children’s clothing and toys. Furniture. A drum set. Dismantled metal shelving three feet deep, running the length of the garage. I viewed the detritus of my husband’s previous marriage. A building full of history – disaster, love, memories, successes, failures, connections. And none of it was mine.

But it was mine now, by proxy. All the previously unarticulated fears and doubts about my husband’s life before me lay in dusty, rotting heaps in front of me. And to turn this into a space it where we could store the implements needed to turn the house and yard into our home, our yard, our life, I would have to clean up another person’s discards.

I didn’t know where to start. I was tentative – how intrusive was it to poke and pry into the remains of my husband’s previous marriage and start tossing, keeping, storing, sending back? That garage symbolized my fears regarding my new status as wife of a divorced father. What, exactly, was my role? Ruthless purger? Diplomatic (continued...)

( continues...) organizer? I didn’t know.

I stood there, paralyzed by indecision and by the enormity of the new direction my life had taken. I couldn’t just walk out back the door and ignore it. So I took a deep breath, pushed the opener and let the light and air in. I surveyed what was laid out before me. And I started digging.

There’s still a lot in the garage. I suspect, like most families, there will always be something that needs organizing in there. But I’ve hauled away junk, cleared some space and started arranging things. My husband’s ex looked through the garage and took a few things with her. They’re hers, after all.

But there’s a potting bench where I work on growing beautiful plants. I’ve gone through some boxes and kept what’s useful. I bring items to my husband that are part of his history and say, “Look at this. Should we keep it, or should we get rid of it?” I’m resurrecting a wicker loveseat – painting it a sunny, optimistic yellow, transforming it from a dirty, mildewed brown into a piece that I can place on the deck and sit in, my husband at my side.

I’m having a garage sale. The contents of all the boxes will be sorted. What is useful will be kept and cleaned. And what is useless, what is dirty and outmoded and broken, will be thrown out. The money from the garage sale will go into our bank account.

I will park my car in our garage this winter. I will not despair over chipping away the ice. I will not curse the darkness and the cold. I will get in my car, go where I need, and return to my home, my husband and a garage free of baggage.

Oh, Erin, I really like this. You built the theme beautifully and executed it really well.

There are some repeats in there that you could weed out, though ("fears and doubts about my husband’s life before me lay in dusty, rotting heaps in front of me" ).

I think, too, I would scale back some of the more formal descriptions. Your voice is coming through pretty clearly, but every once in a while the academically trained you comes through, the one who needs every sentence to be grammatically correct.

I think this kind of piece wants a really conversational tone -- more of "I was tentative – how intrusive was it to poke and pry into the remains of my husband’s previous marriage and start tossing, keeping, storing, sending back?" and a little less of "Preemptively Xanaxed, I grimly braved the doorway, broom in hand, ready to leap back at the slightest hint of a hairy leg. Luckily, the spiders were on vacation or all suffered from social anxiety; my new neighbors declined to greet me, for which I was profoundly grateful".

Just my take, of course, but I think the second half of the essay really reflects the emotion and conflict of the story, and the first half is a little too ... wordy.