Dahab, Egypt

I'm in Dahab, Egypt -- the land of camels, hookah pipes and heat hot enough to melt the surface of the sun -- and the fact it took a train, four buses, a dilapidated taxi and a 500-person 767 jet plane to get here has apparently not been enough to inculcate me from the Real World.

"Thank you for letting me read samples of your book," the email began. "I appreciated the opportunity to read it."

Uh-oh. Not good. In the world of literary agents, this was the equivalent of "Dear Jane."

Nine thousand miles from home, I have received a rejection from a literary agent, who, on a verbal description of my book and an elaborately documented analysis of the chicklit marketplace, had agreed to read four chapters. That, it would seem, was three chapters too many.

In the email, Sandi has taken the time to give me a thoughtful and honest critique of my book, and in a world where most literary agents don't even have time to lick their own stamps, this is no small gift. She likes my writing, she says, but the problem is, she really just doesn't get the whole "Abraham Lincoln thing" in the second chapter. "I just don't see the connection," she says, "it's way too much of a stretch."

After reading her email, I returned to my hotel – called the Penguin Paradise, of all things – and joined my travel buddy for dinner. It was about 105 degrees outside and we sat on the floor in a mountain of cushions, Arab-style, sipping lukewarm pineapple cocktails. "So she thinks that you comparing your long list of failures in dating and in life to Abraham Lincoln's list of failures is an overstatement?" Marcus asks, after I tell him the news. "She thinks that's too much?"

I nod and look out over the lapping waves of the Red Sea. Down by the water, a skeleton-clad cat is sniffing around the rocky beach, probably looking for scraps of fish. Leaning back on the pillows, I rest my feet on the table and reflect. Trying to picture myself with a black top hat and a beard, I'll admit, is a little bit weird. "What's really weird though, what's ironic," I finally said, "is that the very act of rejecting me makes the comparison all the more apropos. It's like just one more rejection to add to my list! I becoming more Abe-like by the minute!"

Marcus smiled and took a drink. "Hey, you're an even bigger failure now than you were when you woke up this morning!" he laughed, flashing a gummy grin in that warm-hearted kind of way that only an old friend can do.

"Why thank you!" I laughed, raising my glass to cheer the air and taking a big swig. "I demand recognition for the failures I have earned!"

The second thing, Sandi said in her email, was the issue of tone. "To be honest," she explained, "you sometimes don't sound funny so much as bitter. And bitter just isn't funny."
Hmmm, now that was interesting. I had to admit, my writing is sometimes a little bitter. The line "this dating shtetl from hell" comes to mind. She's right. That's bitter. I guess the question becomes – is bitter so bad?

"Marcus, do you think anyone, the reader in particular, can really blame me for being bitter? I mean, aren't you bitter? You've been single even longer than I have. Have you ever met someone who has spent their entire adult life subsisting on bad first dates and short-lived love affairs who didn't, at least once in a while, need to unleash a little bit of resentment?"

Marcus nodded. "Yes, he said, "we all get that way sometimes. I guess it comes down to how bitter is bitter."

Good question. I'm not sure of the answer. So I moved on to the third point. The third problem, Sandi concluded, was that she wasn't entirely sure that all of my stories really constituted a book. "It might be more of a magazine article," she explained, "for the Jewish Exponent or something. I'm just not sure you have enough content or substance for a book."

Content. Substance. My mind rolled over those words, over and over again, as the waiter delivered my steaming plate of funghi pizza. Within about 20 seconds, three other skeleton cats leapt over the wall of pillows and sat next to me, their sorry eyes like black holes of hunger, fixed desperately on my plate of food. With a knife and fork, I began cutting away the outer crust like a donut and parceling it out piecemeal.

Content. Substance. "Marcus, do I not have content and substance?" I asked, biting down on the pizza and at virtually the same moment, spitting it ungracefully back on the plate when it started to burn. "Does my life lack content and substance? You tell me, isn't this some good stuff here – right now, this very moment – isn't this fodder for the New York Times Best Seller List?"

Like any good friend would do, his head bobbed up and down eagerly, his mouth stuffed with pasta. "Oh yeah, baby," he agreed in a muffle. "This is gold, baby, g-o-l-d."

***

With the sun eventually set and our bellies full, Marcus and I returned to our room and our plutonic bed on the second floor of the hotel. I brushed my teeth and rearranged my clothes. Marcus ran out to fetch some water and came back with a six-pack of bottles. We chatted about what how much money he had paid, agreed that the Californias we had met at the Internet café were weird and realized we had forgotten to pack an alarm clock.

He was standing in the middle of the room, trying to figure out whether his cell phone could get enough reception to use the alarm function, when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. "Hey, what's this?" he said abruptly, scooping down by the door and picking up a piece of paper. "Is this yours?"

A few minutes of silence passed. Then an explosion of laughter. "Oh yeah man," he said, his whole body starting to shake, "no doubt about it, this thing's for you!" He walked across the room and handed me a torn piece of paper.

Sometime after we had come up from dinner, someone with a thick black felt pen had scrawled a message to me and shoved it under the door. One side was a computer printout of bibliographic references on Egypt. The other side said this:

Submissive Canadian with foot-fetish really admirers your feet! I would love to serve as a discrete, humble, obedient foot slave during your stay in Dahab. I'll run-errands, pay for meals, & cater to your every need just to grovel beneath the soles of your feet while you boss me about! I often sit in the café dreaming that you'd come sit in front of me, place you feet on the table with the soles in my face while you read a book.