Statement of Purpose
by Brandi Wells
[ fiction - january 08 ]
To Whomever It May Concern:
I am a student at Georgia Southern University and I'm interested in your MFA program. My GPA would be higher than 2.77 if I hadn't flunked 30 hours' worth of class. My freshman year, my boyfriend got into coke and OxyContins. He said he needed them, because his mother was dying of cancer. Her whole body swelled up like an inflatable doll, overstuffed with fluids and Jell-O that jiggled every time she coughed. To be honest, I spent most of my spare time snorting the Oxycontins we stole from underneath her bed.
Also, my grades would have been better if I hadn't taken classes like Environmental Physics and Latin. My Language and Linguistic Theory class kicked my ass too. I can tell you all about the Navajo practice of silence, though, and that ought to count for something. Did you know that whenever a Navajo child returns home after a long trip abroad, their parents don't speak to them at first? And if one Navajo person gets drunk and yells at another, it is customary to listen to their ranting in complete silence?
What's important is that I write, mostly about weird shit, like snowmen being made of marshmallow fluff, my mother being locked inside the hot water heater and money raping a girl, bejeweling her throat with mother of pearl and marrying her in front of her naked grandparents.
You should accept me into your MFA program, because I'm not sure what else I'm going to do. If I don't go to grad school, I'll still write, but I'll do it in Georgia, working at the same realty company I've been at for five years. People don't like me here, because I don't say "ain't" and "y'all" or drink sweet tea. Someone attached a note to my car with blue bubble gum that said "You Next Brandi." I don't know what I'm next for, but it was so hot that the bubble gum melted down my window in a long blue streak.
In my spare time, I am a stalker. I read this Christmas story by Tao Lin where he had very pointy legs and I fell in love with him. Now I'm his stalker, but he doesn't know it, because I am a very lazy stalker. I tried to google him, but my computer froze. On his Myspace, he is holding handfuls of fruit. I think the fruit makes him more likable, but he might be a pompous prick in a bear suit. It's hard to know.
So I'm going to graduate with a BA in Writing and Linguistics in May 2008. I used to be an English Major, but I dropped it, because the guy who sat in front of me already read all the stories three times and he knew what Robert Frost meant by "Good fences make good neighbors." I pretend to know too, when I'm in a group of English Majors and they are talking about it, but I don't care about good neighbors. No one lives on either side of me.
I have work published in a few online places, but I don't have much in print. I'd like to have more print publications, but all the people I've emailed so far have rejected me and I don't have enough money for stamps. I have a roll of stamps, but the price of stamps went up several months back and now I can't use them.
I'm not Tao Lin or Amy Hempel or Barry Hannah. But Barry Hannah isn't Ernest Hemingway and Amy Hempel isn't William Faulkner and Tao Lin isn't anybody really, except Tao Lin. If you accept me, we can hang out sometime. We can eat meatball subs whenever they are on sale and spin on the merry-go-round in the park. There are these young kids who hang out with me at the park and sometimes we talk about spelling bees and slip 'n' slide parties. Maybe you and I could be lifelong friends and influence each other's writing. Or maybe I'd stalk you, look up your Myspace and submit writing to the same places you submit writing. You probably shouldn't have a Myspace anyway. There are crazy people on Myspace.
Well, thank you for your time and attention. That's something people say all the time, but it doesn't mean anything. They're only hoping you paid attention, but if they suck you probably didn't. You probably only skimmed their story. That's what I'd do. I'd skim it to see if they mentioned men in bear suits or bubblegum. If they did, maybe I'd read it.
Sincerely,
Brandi Wells
P.S. If the answer is NO, could you tell me quick so maybe I could start applying for jobs? I don't want to work at this realty company anymore. Today someone asked me if their apartment came with doors.
