Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Sometime last week Muse and I visited our publisher and were dismayed to find that she had changed. Madame Blogger, who up until this point had been rough around the edges but pleasant, flounced down the hall with an utterly ghastly makeover.
“What the f–” started Muse before I shushed her.
“Shhhh! We don’t want to piss her off, not yet at least.”
Madame had clearly suffered some kind of horrible shock because she sashayed into the room, with little shame and with even less taste, wearing a checkered gingham gown and a terrifying wig.
“Like my grandmother caught in a blender,” Muse whispered to me before I gave her the evil eye.
Muse had a point, though. As far as her hair was concerned, Madame Blogger looked like Peggy Bundy beaten over the head with a vat of Crisco. Her whole presentation suggested a person trying–and miserably failing–to be perfect and inviting
“Hel-lo, my dear boy!” hailed the Madame cheerily. “What can I do for you today?”
“Oh, we just came by to see how you were doing,” I replied. “And it looks like you’re doing…well.”
“That’s grand, that’s grand,” she sighed airily, fluffing her wig. “Notice anything different?”
I pretended to look searchingly at her for a few moments, when in fact I was looking at the fissure in the wall behind her.
“You got a makeover!” I exclaimed.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t notice, dear,” she chuckled contentedly. “My stylist said I should be more user-friendly, more WYSIWYG. It’s all the rage.”
“Wizzy what?” I blurted out.
“WYSIWYG. You know, ‘What you see is what you get.'”
The Madame turned to Muse.
“And you, my dear! Why did you come along?”
“Well,” Muse began, “we were just about to–“
“That’s nice. Now let’s get down to business.”
They never did get along, Muse and Madame Blogger.
“So you’re probably here to publish,” Madame said to me. “Anything else? Perhaps I could get you some coffee?”
“No thanks, we just had dinner,” interjected Muse.
“I didn’t ask you,” Madame Blogger shot back icily.
The room suddenly filled with New York tension in a New York minute. Madame turned to me again.
“If not coffee, then perhaps some scones made from free-range wheat? How about a backrub? Imported chocolates? A sponge bath, maybe?”
Muse’s mouth hung agape, as did mine.
“No, I think I’m fi–” I began.
“–a foot massage? No? Then allow me to wipe your nose,” Madame concluded slavishly.
“No! No, no, no!” shouted Muse.
“I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to him,” Madame Blogger said. “If not your nose, then at least your ass.”
Muse grabbed my arm and stormed out the door, turning around to shout at the sycophantic Madame, “We’ll manage just fine, thanks. Maybe you should take your WYSIWYG off. Bitch.”
It’s my contention that Blogger will evolve into a bright red button in a few months’ time. Press the button and shazaam! It will create a post for you, all the while spewing milk and cookies out of your disk drive.