This is the six-word memoir of Alex Vournas, one of the 832 collected in the great new book, Not Quite What I Was Planning.
Based on the legend that Hemingway won a bar bet by creating a six-word story ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn."), the editors at Smith, Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser, called out for people's personal memoirs. They received some 15,000 submissions and they are all collected in this highly-addictive book.
Its got stories from all kinds of famous writerly folk, such as: Stephen ("Well, I thought it was funny.") Colbert, Chuck ("Nobody cared, then they did. Why?") Klosterman, George ("Started small, grew, peaked, shrunk, vanished.") Saunders, Aimee ("Couldn't cope so I wrote songs.") Mann and Amy ("Mushrooms. Clowns. Wands. Five. Wig. Thatched.") Sedaris.
The beauty of the book, though, is that the majority of the pieces are from everyday folk, from the heart-breaking ("I still make coffee for two," Zak Nelson) to the heart-wrenching ("Cursed with cancer. Blessed with friends," Hannah Davies, 9) to the heart-stopping ("After Harvard, had baby with crackhead," Robin Templeton) to the heart, umm, smiling? ("Dad wore leather pants in Reno," John Falk.)
I'm in there as well--on page 152--right across from Arianna Huffington. I'm not going to tell you my six-words, but I will say that I probably should have thought through the whole "appearing in print" aspect to it.
Sorry, Mom and Dad. Sadly, it sums me up pretty good.
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