My latest rejection letter: "Although portions of your manuscript are of an experimental nature, it does not seem the particular sort of experimental writing we would like to pursue." (Have you ever noticed how people who are "experimental" aren't anarchist at all, but anal little bastards who always experiment in a narrow, supposedly transgressive way?) I went to therapy and talked about rejection and was met with a faceless clock. My shrink had removed the face from a small wooden clock near my seat, because it was broken, and the remaining indentation -- looking much like that guy on Ripley's Believe It Or Not who could remove his nose and half of his face -- began to interfere with my perfected 50-minute emotional arc. When I told him the empty timepiece made me nervous, he said that we should try something experimental. He said we should pretend I had all the time in the world to feel everything, and then he showed me the clock face, which he pulled out of his shirt pocket the way a one-trick Grandpa pulls a coin from a child's ear, and explained that time was broken. One trick Grandpas are always harping about the end of time in moments of magic, and I started to emote about my childhood -- which was really one of those Vasoline-lensed photographs of puppies but I try to embelish -- and I cried and grappled for the tissue box but before I could blow my nose he did his telltale rocking motion and said, "time's up." I left thinking about Buddy Holly and how he always told people he didn't have a lot of time.