Ooohh!! Oooohh!!! Pick me!!!!!!

Brad's Cafe is dangerous to my productivity. I sit here with my laptop, sipping their lethally strong iced coffee with soymilk, answering emails, making phone calls, meeting tons of people I know and doing everything but what I ought to be doing, namely schoolwork.

Today, instead of starting my History of Journalism paper (on the German press during the Third Reich) or any of the three papers due for my outside course in Sociology (can someone please explain why academic writing is so dense???) or even helping my friend promote her new book (I promised to send out a flurry of e-blasts. I will, I swear, just haven't done it yet) I found myself perusing literary social networking sites and stumbled onto one I actually liked.

It is called Fictionaut.

The thing is, this band of elitist snobs issue you invitations only if they deem you appropriate.

So I signed right up, filling out the form where you make the case as to why you ought to be invited, with the words, "Google me, bitch."

I was paying homage to the scene in The Social Network, of course, where Mark Zuckerberg gets his customized business cards.

But maybe that's not a highbrow enough reference for the Fictionaut fascists. Maybe I ought to have included an allusion to a Bergman or Fellini film. Or Godard. I bet the readers of Fictionaut love Godard.

Anyway, while breathlessly (get the allusion??) awaiting news of my membership application, it occurred to me that I was having a flashback to that universal memory from childhood. The one where you stand pathetically on the sidelines while the jocks select worthy players for their team.

(The following paragraph is a gratuitous and self-indulgent digression. Skip if you like.)

A scruffy tomboy until I turned overnight into Lolita at the age of 12 I was in a state of constant rebellion against any kind of group enterprise and completely negative about team sports. The thing was, I really didn't care about the game but once I was chosen, took great pride in the fact that I could kick a kickball out of the field, shoot baskets fairly well and was an ace dodgeball and gaga player.

So, I am not sure whose childhood memory I am appropriating or maybe I am tapping into a paradigmatic memory that is readily available to all adults.

The point is, I am sitting at Brad's quietly praying, "pick me!"