Catching the Last Tuna Home

How do you deal with rejection?

I spent many years as a freelance writer, and another many years online dating, two endeavors that gave me a Ph.D. in the rejectionary arts. As a result, I have skin thick enough to withstand an orbital death ray or "Thanks, but nope" email.

But now, I can wrap my cinder-block like skin in a warm verbal quilt, thanks to a word choice suggested by dating coach Meredith Golden:

If you're totally bummed about your crush calling it quits, Golden suggests practicing cognitive reframing or changing the way you see the situation.
"I prefer the term 'closure' to 'rejection,' Golden says. "Closure is beneficial!"

Closure. I like it. Even a cynical motherfarmer like myself needs a rose-colored dictionary sometimes. I didn't fail, dozens and oodles of times, to make it into The New Yorker. I just achieved closure on my literary dreams.

One dream that never ends is the endless parade of euphemisms that flow through the river of English like baby wipes in a sewer. Please enjoy the following terms of non-endearment.

wildlife artist
Even since I first saw Evil Dead 2 as a wee youth, probably too wee in retrospect, I've looked askance at the weird and possibly twisted practice of taxidermy. I reckon those mounted deer heads were creepy enough before their possession by Deadites. But now that I've learned real-life taxidermist Kurt Cavender calls himself a wildlife artist, I am positive all taxidermists are demented weirdos. This dubious dollop of drivel could sit comfortably beside sandwich artist in the Euphemism Hall of Fame, which lacks a physical location but exists in the landscape of my own fevered imagination. I just hope none of Cavender's peers have a double MFA in wildlife and lunch.

illusionist
This isn't a new term, but it was new to me when I spied it in headlines such as "Siegfried Fischbacher, illusionist of Siegfried & Roy, dead at 81" and "Legendary illusionist Siegfried Fischbacher dies from cancer." In fact, almost all the headlines about Siegfried's recent death use the term illusionist rather than magician, which would have been my pick, since I believe there's no shame in magic, witchcraft, voodoo, hoodoo, or any other mystic art. Someone has to free those poor rabbits from the prison of hats. The history of the term is pretty neato. While the magician sense has been around since at least 1850, the Oxford English Dictionary traces an earlier meaning back to 1843: "One who holds the theory of illusionism; one who disbelieves in objective existence." Folks, I think I've found my religion, because the last several years simply must be either illusion or inception, and I haven't seen Leonardo DiCaprio in my dreams yet.

caught the last train home
Writer/artist Walter Simonson — one of the best comic book creators ever, and possibly the nicest, which I can personally verify — has a phrase he uses when someone dies. As Simonson wrote recently:

I was deeply sorry to learn this morning that [artist] Steve Lightle has caught the last train out, a cardiac arrest apparently brought on by Covid-19. I didn't know Steve well, but liked his work.

I'm not too big on euphemisms for death. I despise the most common ones, such as pass away and gone. But this euphemism has a poetic, folksy touch; it's a charming way to discuss something none of us really want to discuss but have to discuss more than ever, as American Covid deaths move closer to 500,000. Sometimes I wish I could take a train to the moon and stay there.

Finally, when is tuna not tuna, as Lao Tzu probably did not ask?

At Subway's, of course.

A Washington Post headline proclaims: "Subway's tuna is not tuna, but a 'mixture of various concoctions,' a lawsuit alleges." From the article:

The star ingredient, according to the lawsuit, is "made from anything but tuna." Based on independent lab tests of "multiple samples" taken from Subway locations in California, the "tuna" is "a mixture of various concoctions that do not constitute tuna, yet have been blended together by defendants to imitate the appearance of tuna," according to the complaint. Shalini Dogra, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, declined to say exactly what ingredients the lab tests revealed.

In an age when Americans cannot agree on the difference between their hiney and their elbow, this tasteless lexical cloaking device fits like an astronaut in a diaper.

For what is life but a "mixture of various concoctions"? I am so tired of Covid, winter, people not taking Covid seriously, American democracy hanging on by a thread, not seeing my friends because of Covid, that insufferable Bernie meme, Covid, and Covid. So I could use a verbal punching bag, and I'm filling that bag with tuna and adopting a new meditation mantra:

The only thing we have to fear is tuna itself.