I love Erin McCarson. I just do. As I have thoroughly lost all faith, it may seem, in myself as a writer, JUST because they didn’t pick me to interview for admission – E decided to lift my spirits with these choice words:

You do NOT want to go there. Let’s dissect the word.

First of, ‘Jew.’ Ew. We do NOT likes Jews*.

Then ‘Lee.’ Ew. All of the worst people I know – their middle name is Lee.

And then ‘Hard.’ It’s Hard? Ew. You do not want to do hard things.

God bless you, Erin McCarson.

*This statement does not actually depict Rebecca Brunstetter or Erin McCarson’s feelings towards Jews. Just a cheap joke to make a point. In fact, Rebecca’s Grandmother is Jewish, and she takes serious pride in this. She wrote a play about her Jewish heritage in college, in which Erin played a woman who danced around the stage in a wig singing Broadway Baby for no apparent reason, whatsoever. This has nothing to do with Judaism, you think! Au contraire. Because upstage the entire play, the protagonists Great Aunt Ruth, a concentration camp worker, arbitrarily moves rocks from one side of the stage to the other, until the end of the play when she BURSTS forward through the walls of time and forces her great Niece to reckon with where she’s come from! To quit her 2004-esque whines and shenanigans! At which point, if I remember, paper swatsikas fell from the Grid. Take That, haters. Take that. This White Girl’s got serious grit.