War Is Language : 101 Short Works (9781937316044) (15 page)

After you rig the thing with a hope
and prayer, you think, "Well, if it does work, it'll be awesome. I
made it myself and got all the pieces for cheap.” There's also a
strong, “And I didn't get tetanus or lose a finger" component in
there somewhere, too.

101 — Lonely Broken
Heart

Dear Fake Advice
Columnist,

I go to fancy restaurants by
myself...no problem. Go to the movies by myself…no problem. Go to
plays alone...fine. Go on vacation by myself...great. Ice cream.
Shoe stores. Bars. Concerts. Readings. Weddings. Baby showers.
Business trips. Laser treatments. Haircuts. Workouts. Appointments
with the financial planner. Dinners with friends. Bed. But once
every couple months I'm like, “I do not want to go to the freaking
grocery store by myself ever again!"

Dear Lonely Broken
Heart,

Rent a husband.

If you’ve got a demand? I’ll make the
supply. I am SO the woman to start a temp-husband service. Better
yet, why not form a co-op? Let’s do it! I know some pimps that buy
huge quantities of Viagra from the pharmacy for their employees and
clientele. I figure it's just a matter of chatting these guys up
and adapting the business plan. I'll make a phone call.

Middle-aged divorced men need hookers
for sex. But middle-aged divorced women need husbands-for-hire to
drive them to the store for a few things and to make sure they get
home okay.

Just yesterday I gave my friend a
bunch of shit about playing matchmaker with me. But it must have
started me thinking and then here came your question,
and—bam!—eureka moment. If you want to print up Rent-a-Husband
flyers and hand them out in huge crowds like they do for lost pets,
that's perfect. I figure that will be the most expeditious way to
find both of us a nice quiet hourly guy who likes to read the paper
in his slippers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my Facebook family for
tolerant support during a lengthy exploration of warring language.
Special individual thanks to Heather Dewar, Lucille Fridley, Gin
Havard, Melody Layne, Tammy Servies, Brian Borre, Rayne DeVivo, Jim
Gratner, Peter Hale, Jane Friedman, Reginald Gibbons, Audrey
Niffennegger, Sandi Wisenberg, Miles Harvey, Aleksandar Hemon, Alan
Larson, Navneet Gupta, Paul Mason, Roland LMKO Rydstrom, Terri Lee,
Susan J Williams, Rob Cypher, Jenny Truppo, Crystal Neal, Sherrie
Toigo, Pepper D. Smith Burkholder, Carla Sizemore, Mark Rayburn,
Jamie Garcia, Guy Whitney, Todd Tue, Andrea LeVasseur, Josh Seib,
Deva North, Justin North, Joe P. Said, Dorothea Duenow, Zach
Duenow, Morgan Sorvillo, M.J. Sorvillo, Steve Gardiner, Sunshine
Wolfe, Ed Norris, Amy Greenup, Lisa Fenner, Marna Swagert, Rod
Hughes, Rebecca Huehls, Jason Hirsch, Maria Kubiak, Jennifer
Wohlberg, Sam Veilleux, Mike Kasky, Virginia Wallace, Alex
Philbrick, Anittah Patrick, Meg Canada Knodl, Darren Mast,
Genevieve Jones, Dorothy Jones, and Andrew Groh.

ABOUT THE ON IMPULSE EBOOK
SERIES

On Impulse
Series Titles:

The War is Language: 101
Short Works

2000 Deciduous Trees:
Memories of a Zine

Love & Darts

How to Cherish the
Grief-Stricken

*

We each have an impulse to
share our experience. These four collections of short works explore
storytelling from catharsis to craft. Over the course of this
series Nath Jones’s writing style develops from the raw,
associative, tyrannic rambles of cathartic non-fiction, flash
fiction, and rant in
The War is
Language
and our digital domains, to the
delightful rough-hewn vignettes of
2000
Deciduous Trees
, into the compact
characterizations of the fictionalized tellings in
Love & Darts
, and
finally toward
How to Cherish the
Grief-Stricken
‘s fully-crafted short
stories that use literary devices and narrative elements to reveal
a world well-rendered.

ABOUT THE
AUTHOR

Nath Jones received an MFA in creative writing
from Northwestern University where she was a nominee for the Best
New American Voices 2010. Her publishing credits include
PANK Magazine, There Are No Rules, The Battered
Suitcase,
and
Sailing World
. Her current e-book
series,
On Impulse
,
explores the spectrum of narrative from catharsis to craft. She
lives and writes in Chicago.

Connect with Nath
online:

Twitter

Facebook

Author
Website