After The Morning After

Here’s where I give props to some competitors: It seems a couple’a folks over at Minnesota Monthly are having some success with Before The Mortgage, a recently published anthology of essays about adult life before taking on any real responsibility. There’s a public reading tonight at Magers & Quinn bookstore, 7 p.m. And yes, I will definitely be in attendance, if only to offer emotional support to my good friend, Tim Gihring.

This Before The Mortgage book grew out of a zine, you know. I once wrote something for the thing, even though, technically, I do not qualify… on account of my having a mortgage and all. I’m pretty sure my piece never made it to print, however. My essay was all about taking the Morning After pill with dinner at my ten-year high school reunion; and it’s even a true story! Seems I’d been practicing sloppy birth control day before the big event. And you’re supposed to take these things with food, of course, lest you submit yourself to 24-hours of queasiness. It was just coincidence that my next meal, after having picked up the prescription from Burch, was plucked off a typical D’Amico spread of caesar salad and lasagna, which was all that was being offered onboard the Centennial Showboat that night. Washed down the first in a two-part series with sapphire tonic, if memory serves. And I didn’t even feel woozy as we floated up the river and back again, despite the ever-presence of nauseating former classmates and all their pregnant bellies.

In retrospect, I’m pretty sure my essay sucked. What a horrible topic, first of all! Second: there are plenty of tough-to-tackle issues involved with sloppy birth control, not to mention with serial dating and childless-ly reaching the thirty-year hump. I didn’t adequately unpack any of them, dammit! Plus, I didn’t even bother to style the thing. It was a shitty effort. Sorry for that goes to BTM and MN Mo editor Rachel Hutton. See ye tonight. And good luck hawkin’ your book, yo!