  there are crazy people in the world. sometimes i have to deal with the crazy people. unfortunately the ones i come into contact with professionally are not cool-crazy, but sad-crazy.
they are recluses that sit in their basements and hit key after key on their derelict typewriters until they have decorated two hundred pieces of paper with smeared ink and messy prose. they will then lovingly place this bundle into an envelope and pay twenty dollars to have it overnighted to my office. i will open it, struggle through the cover letter (in which i will inevitably be told that Mr. X is the next big thing fer sher), then attempt to disregard the spelling errors, atrocious grammar, convoluted plot, and terribly-named characters which populate their great american novels. after much thought and consideration, i crush all their hopes and dreams with a form letter to which i rarely sign my own name. And after doing this for about a year, i find that i don't really feel bad about it anymore. what i find so shocking is the amazing depth of delusion within which people operate.
seriously. plus the scary almost-threatening phone calls and the ransom letter-looking correspondence which comes after the initial rejection and just breeds more, you guessed it, in your face rejection. i wish craziness went hand in hand with heightened creativity and aesthetic appeal. unfortunately this is not always the case. 
