All Sorts of Dinners, Besides Girl Ones (watch out: this submission is where Jokes go to Die)

Ignored by The New Yorker, 2023

If you’re only here for this week’s rejected New Yorker pitch, scroll down for 100 years; it’s toward the bottom. Otherwise, buckle up for a three minute long stream of consciousness:

I woke up unfunny today!!!!! Does that ever happen to you? You just wake up and your elbow is like, “Bang the shit out of me all you want, but I refuse to tingle. I’m just gonna bruise.” ←Desperate attempt at a funny bone joke that came out like a Deathcab for Cutie lyric circa Transatlanticism that I would have put in my AIM away message (after signing on and off 3 or 4 times in succession) as a way to lure my ~*crush*~ (I hate that word) into thinking I was mysterious.

A Period of Unfunny, no matter how short, can cause a real identity crisis. When I started my first adult post-college job as a PR fashion assistant, I was so fearfully professional, shy and awkward that I remember thinking to myself, “No one in this office knows I’m funny…” which quickly devolved into a classic case of “WHO AM I AND WHY???”

Possibly worse is when you write something that you think is funny—like literally typing and chuckling to yourself all like “heheh good one, me”—but then when you read it back later, you realize it’s actually awful and you must have written it in a fugue state. That’s how I feel about this New Yorker Rejection that I’m delaying sharing with you even though it’s all the way down at the bottom of this post.

You have to be really careful around that shit though, because those moments can trick you into giving up for a while, NTBD. (←NTBD = Not to be Dramatic. I think we should bring back unnecessary acronyms and unnecessary All Caps, even though I heard the all caps thing was a cheugy signifier, and even though they never went anywhere. “SO WHAT? I’M STILL A ROCKSTAR.” - Pink)

K all that said: I often have to remind myself that, like Samantha’s orgasm, and one’s appetite after pulling a hair out of your mouth at a restaurant, Funny always comes back.

^ I didn’t say “really,” Regina. Relax.

Probably the best thing to do while waiting out A Period of Unfunny is to lean into all the unfunny, earnest writings on my to-do list, like the Thank You cards from my wedding that are now two years overdue; or this one moodier, sentimental chapter of my Stupid Ass Novel that I’ve been delaying; or more straight-forward reporting that could result in a lil’ 1099 byline. But I can’t really write-write right now, either (which is why this medium is so cathartic, keeps my fingers tickling the old ivories), and so, as they say in the old country: Those who can’t write funny, read funny. So before we get into my unfunny NYer rejection, here are three funny things to read:

**I started to panic as I listed these out because I have so many things I want to link to, so many funny writers and funny pieces and stupid things that make me laugh, so I’m going to make this a sep post and/or something I link to in these emails going forward.**

1. One of the funniest thing I’ve ever read in my whole life is a story Kelly Connaboy wrote when she was working at The Cut titled “Do Men Enter Bathtubs on Hands and Knees So Their Balls Hit the Water Last?”

2. Everything Caity Weaver writes is also The Funniest Thing I’ve Ever Read in My Whole Life, but when I’m really down in the jokes dumps, I go back and read her old Gawker column, The Best Restaurant in New York Is…

3. I’m new to Substack, but I just found out Samantha Irby has a Substack where it appears she mostly chronicles Who Was on Judge Mathis Yesterday, which as a concept alone is literally what invented Funny, and then you read her writing and it’s just like, well I hope you like laughing all day.

And if you DON’T like laughing, boy oh boy will you love the below: my most recent rejected New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs submission, which technically wasn’t rejected; I deduced the rejection in the way you deduced that the person who refused to IM you, even though you signed on and off twelve times and had a mysterious Away Message, hello, IS NO LONGER SINGLE—because THEY POSTED SOMETHING CRYPTIC ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE DEF NOT YOU IN THEIR AWAY MESSAGE. ← Ah the scars of youth!

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that in August, I submitted a story to The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs editor, who I WILL get to notice me someday!, and though she didn’t write back yet (it’s ok it’s ok), The New Yorker just shared a farrrr more delightful (illustrated!) riff on the same HOT BUTTON TOPIC as my submission.

Here’s the published TNY Shouts & Murmunrs story (not by me): Girl Dinners Throughout History by Mads Horwath, Meghana Indurti, and Sohrab Forouzesh.

“Perhaps there is no greater, grander tradition in history than that of Girl Dinner. As long as humans have traversed this planet—by foot, by horse, by Lime scooter—they’ve been too lazy to Martha Stewart together a full supper.

Sometimes it’s because, after sunset, starting a fire would have invited marauding neighbors. Other times, food was hard to come by after a village was invaded by Genghis Khan. Most recently, it’s because an oven takes too long to preheat.”

See? It’s so funny.

And now for something completely different:

From: Amelia, sent 8/17/23, and followed up 9/5/2023

Hi EDITOR WHOSE NAME I SHAN’T REVEAL!

Amelia Diamond here. I've attached a submission for Shouts & Murmurs: You've Heard of Girl Dinner, But Have You Heard of These Other Kinds of Dinners?

Thanks so much. I appreciate your consideration. 

Fingers crossed,

Amelia

You’ve Heard of Girl Dinner, But Have You Heard of...

You’ve heard of Girl Dinner. But have you heard of...

Parent Dinner: Two room-temperature dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, one with its head bitten off. Baby carrots that touched ketchup. Noodles with butter, eaten from the pot while standing. A glass of wine from a bottle you found in the fridge, which you had your significant other sniff to see if it was still okay to drink and they shrugged.

Dog Dinner: A scoop of kibble, crushed floor Cheerios, half of a pizza crust “dropped” under the table by the person most likely to scold someone else for feeding the dog at the table.

You’re Going to Ruin Your Dinner: Bread basket and squares of individually wrapped butter. ( Worth it.)

Catch-up-with-Friends Dinner: A begrudging split of the burger, Brussel sprouts, burrata salad (one small blob divided four times too many), Cacio y Pepe, the cauliflower steak, and truffle fries. A quiet, bubbling tension between the friends who were fine with tap water versus the friends who ordered a bottle of sparkling for the table then hogged it all.

Diner Dinner: Tuna salad sandwich on rye, ruffle chips, fountain Coke, usual booth. That or Chicken Parm with a baked potato and a pale 1940s scoop of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.

Breakfast for Dinner: Pancakes whipped up by the cool parent in a movie. Precedes a dance party around the kitchen island, usually with an 80s classic blasting, which precedes (spoiler) a tragic, unexpected death in the next scene.

Egg Dinner: You forgot to go grocery shopping. Then you spent 10 minutes on the phone with your mom to get her vote on various items in the fridge with past-due expiration dates and/or questionable textures, then you panicked because everyone was meltdown-hungry, so scrambled eggs won.

TikTok Dinner: Still eggs, but this way of cooking eggs has gone viral. Delicious but unnecessarily complicated.

Revenge Dinner: Sushi from the expensive place, ordered to your apartment, using your recent ex’s DoorDash account. An “accident.” Their fault since they never logged out.

TV Dinner: Anything eaten from a plate or container on your lap while watching shows where the characters eat and/or cook better food than whatever you’re eating. But still, it’s worse to watch these shows with no food in your lap.

Deadline Dinner: Sweetgreen salad shoveled into your mouth like an angry Jack Russel terrier learning to use a fork.

Second Dinner: The first one was just kinda unsatisfying. You know what they say: If at first you don’t succeed...

What Do You Want for Dinner? I don’t know, what do you want?

P.S. Then I swear to god i’m done: Sharks!!! Thank you for green-lighting my submission, Diana Ross’s Thanksgiving Dinner Invitation List. I’ll have it in to you by Thanksgiving!