Free I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies) by Laurie Notaro Page A

was sure, I’d be hanging with Susan Sontag and Fran Leibowitz by the pool, chiding my new pals, “Another margarita for you, Miss Skunk? And you can go ahead and put your hand down, Frannie, you’re not getting another gin and tonic until I see you in a skirt, you cuckoo!”
    James Lipton’s people would leave a message saying that although it’s not standard protocol, they’d love to have me featured on
Inside the Actors Studio.
I’d start practicing my dramatic looks on cue whenever I heard tragic-sounding music and scribbling a short list of my most adored swear words, accompanied by a coy, shy giggle when I uttered them. In a shocking surprise that reveals just how much in-depth research goes into one of James’s shows, he would demand a serious moment in which he would cock his head slightly to one side and say, “QVC? The first thing you bought with the money from your first bestseller was not a meat preserver, not Bobbi Brown makeup, not a trove of Diamonique, but QVC. All of QVC. And then you gave it to your mother. Tell us.”
    “Well, James,” I’d say bashfully, “she just dreamed of having her own show on QVC, but the network said no. I mean, the woman just wanted to talk about her pants—and she’s given me so much. She’s a giver, you know. She gives and gives and gives. And I” interrupted by a swell of emotion—“excuse me, please. Just one moment, one . . .”—lengthy pause during which I look up and blink several times to regain composure—“and I just wanted to give something back to her. She’s a religious pilgrim, you know. A
giver.
”
    And then, just when I had narrowed down my favorite profanities to twenty-four in preparation for James’s show, I got to use every last one when I opened a thin envelope and read the letter from a renowned publishing house, one by one.
    Each said I sucked.
    Each said I was “not right for their needs.”
    Each wished me “good luck” in my pursuit to get my book published. And they meant it, the same way my mom meant it when I told her I had finally found a boy that liked me back.
    “What does that mean, I ‘don’t fit their needs’?” I yelled into the air at no one. “The boy who likes me back once said the same thing, but a couple of drinks can change all that!”
    Then, months later, I got a thick envelope in the mail. I clutched it to my chest, my heart churning, smiled, and raced inside my house to open it. I was ready to be redeemed, ready to tell James Lipton my whole painful story, which I had no doubt would bring him to his feet in a rage never before seen on Bravo. Inside, there was no rejection form letter, only a copy of my sample chapters on expensive paper that now had food stains and what looked like the remnants of a bloody nose covering the first page.
    Then, because being a poor, chunky girl with bad skin and Arlo Guthrie hair wasn’t a steep enough incline for a quick slip down my self-esteem slide, I repeated this ritual year after year after year.
    And year after year after year, I still wasn’t meeting anybody’s needs except Hostess’s and Marlboro’s.
    Finally, after seven years of trying to get my own book, I probably should have given up and adopted someone else’s by changing my name legally to Anne Heche or Rosie O’Donnell, because they didn’t seem to have any problem getting a book deal. All Anne Heche had to do was invent her own crazy-person language, run around a cornfield wearing only her bra, and try to talk people into getting on her spaceship. But then I had an idea. I decided to try my own brand of in vitro—I mean, after all, if no one else was willing to give me a chance, maybe I should just do a Wendy Wasserstein and go it alone.
    So I published my own book, sold some copies, and then about nine months later, I got an e-mail from a girl named Jenny. She was a literary agent, had found my DIY book on her own, and was pretty sure she could sell it. I laughed and said I had been trying to