Dear Casting Director:
First off, I want to say that I know I look like an aging turtle in the photograph I sent to you. I would have liked to have sent a different picture, but I’m afraid my lady put her foot down on the matter, claiming it was one of the few photographs we had in which there was no visible tooth paste on either my face or shirt. ( I do not think this is true.) At any rate, if you choose to accept our application, you will see that my resemblance to a turtle is only passing, and greatly reduced when I’m not wearing a turtleneck.
Let me tell you a little bit about us:
I have an extensive wardrobe and am excellent at Ping-Pong. I work as a writer, and as I am modest, I feel awkward about my genius, which I recently found does not translate in IQ tests. For the last three and a half years I’ve written a weekly column about watching TV for the Ottawa Citizen, and now write about Pop Culture for Slant Magazine and Pajiba.com, as well as participating in an impressive and sexy array of other arty projects and free lance endevors. I have appeared on TV a few times( CTV Newsnet) talking (nervously) about culture, and have a host of videos on Youtube( under the name Cormac40) that served as a complement to my columns. I also Blog like a superstar: http://www.michaelmurray.ca/blog/
My lady–Rachelle Maynard–is also a genius, although her genius doesn’t translate into IQ tests either. I wonder what’s up with that? Anyway, she’s a quadruple threat-illustrator/graphic designer/artist/advertising titan. She is insanely talented. She is also the captain of our floor hockey team, The Jesus Cobras. You can see some of her work at www.rachellemaynard.com. She’s also very pretty. Loves animals. Talks with a bit of an accent. Very mysterious.
At any rate, we’ve been an item for 4 years now, and have been living in the Annex in Toronto for the last two. Our present apartment is utterly stunning. (We have an Impala head on the wall!).However, like many people who don’t really know what they’re doing, we think we should buy a house because interest rates are low. And so we searched, quickly finding ourselves to be overmatched in every regard. We are now retreating to our corner, having decided that what we need to do is downsize and save some money, and then try again to buy in a couple of years.
We presently pay about $2000 a month, and are looking to pay about $1400, all inclusive. We have tons of stuff, and a dog( a miniature Daschund named Heidi), so we need a big place. We are also scared of bugs( Indian Meal Moths, Fruit Flies and Earwigs in particular) and so we need a clean place. We realize that it’s unrealistic to find a big 2 bedroom place in The Annex at the price we’re looking to pay, so we’re primarily concentrating on Leslieville, but are open to any area centrally located area where it’s unusual to find a corpse. If you folks could help us find a new place, well, you would be heroes and we would invite you to all our parties. Good food at our parties, and fun games!
Michael Murray