The Restraining Order

For the past 16 years I have impressed myself (if not many others) with my writing acumen. Even though it was what I refer to as a 3 card monte trick, I have, with metronomic certainty been able to impress the judges. My words appearing in print in the New York Times as if I had an every 60 day by-line. Along the way I have picked up the Washington Post and the Boston Globe as substitutes when the moment necessitated.

Now it appears my secret is out, my incapacity is showing and my voice on these most public of stages has grown quiet. Rejection, it seems, my new constant companion.

I think it has been more than 3 months since last I could puff out my chest and exclaim to you (in all capital letters of course) of my latest conquest.

Where has my fastball gone?

If I were of a certain mindset I could suggest it was a great conspiracy, that this was all rigged against me, that my glory and proper place in the universe was being stolen from me. That the fault lay not in the stars but in some evil cabal that was conspiring against me.

But the truth is, I must have lost my edge. Maybe gotten too cute with my phrasing, too enamored with the sound of my own thoughts, too caught up in trying to be clever to pay requisite attention to the topic I was addressing.

Or maybe it is just that there are better letter writers out there who, with the election looming, came out in greater force and relegated me to the bench.

In my desperation, I even recently wrote the Times and asked if it was something I said, or more accurately, didn't. Sadly, dead air was all that I received in reply.

And while I continue to lick my wounds I suppose I will soldier on doing what I have done since 2008. I have long said, when asked how I have been so successful in my efforts to be published, that the newspapers could either put my words on their pages or get a restraining order against me.

I only hope that order has not been entered.