Belated Good Idea

The Sewanee Writers' Conference is about to crank up again. Last year's conference seems like yesterday in that I can still remember every detail of every room I entered, etc. I'll just come on out with it--I didn't have a great time at Sewanee. I did find it a valuable experience, just not in the ways I expected to. Anyway, I don't feel like going into all that, I was only going to mention that I was struck by an idea today, approximately one year too late.

I was reading a book by Margot Livesey, who was on the faculty at Sewanee last year, and I was thinking that I guessed she and my own workshop leaders, Jill McCorkle and Tony Earley, would all be convening again pretty soon. And I thought, wouldn't it be neat if the story I took to be workshopped last year had been published since then. I'd mail Jill a copy and she'd get it after breakfast one day, on that table in the dining hall where they leave your mail.

And what made me mad was that if I'd had this brilliant thought right after I came home last year, I could have made it happen. The thought of Jill McCorkle picking that package up from the mail table would have been inspiration enough for me to actually submit the thing to the requisite four million places until somebody took it.

Instead, what really happened was that I procrastinated for months before I FINALLY revised it in light of the comments everybody in the workshop had made, and then one day in a burst of energy I had about ten copies made of it, and then I dumped them on my office floor where they've been gathering dust ever since.

I'm not sure whether to say that the Sewanee workshop dampened my enthusiasm for the story I took, but I don't know that I'd ever care to participate in another. I dislike dissecting the work of others--I always have, even in literature classes. And I'm afraid it's been detrimental to me to picture a roomful of people dissecting mine.

Before, when I sent out a story, I imagined a lone editor reading it (sometimes, I know, only a paragraph) and either tossing it on the "not my taste" pile, or continuing, liking it, maybe fighting to get it into an issue of the magazine. Now I'm afraid that the workshop--the one and only workshop group of my life--will stick in my head forever like a Greek chorus muttering. Passing judgment.

I think it's one of those life situations where I was happier when I knew less.

Career Move?

I am developing such a collection of hoochie shoes that I'm thinking about starting a website for foot fetishists. (That's just a joke but believe you me, if I thought I could make a living at it...)

Ya like these? I do. I wish the zippers were silver, but I still like 'em.

Still Sick

Five days later, I think I'm worse. Still coughing, sneezing, sniffling, and generally unable to breathe right. Throat feels OK sometimes, other times like I swallowed a razor blade. But most unpleasant are the earaches which sometimes decrease my hearing so much I feel like I have earplugs in. Also, I've barely slept.

Now for a tally: How many bowls of chicken soup have been made for me? How many times has my husband soothed my fevered brow or favored me with a sympathetic glance? How many times---in SPITE of the fact that he ADMITTED reading the previous post---has he so much as seemed to notice my proximity to the valley of death? You guessed it. ZERO.

But how many times has he said, "Did you start the laundry?" Approximately 4,927.

When Your Wife Doesn't Feel Well

I always think that if a man can't figure out how a woman wants to be treated, just look at how she treats her kids. However we mothers treat our children (if we're mentally normal and all) is bound to be our idea of what pure love is. How do we greet them? How do we talk to them? Comfort them? Hold them? Feed them. Whatever.

With that in mind, let me just say that when I am sick I would like the following:

I would like you to look at me with tender concern. (Fake it if necessary.)See if I have a fever.

I would like you to tell me to lie down and rest. Cover me up with a blanket. Ask me if I want anything to eat or drink. Ask me if I have taken any medicine and if I have not bothered, insist that I am going to take some and right now. Then bring it to me.

Touch me. I understand that you don't want my cooties. But my body aches, and you are better than Tylenol. I promise not to give you my germs if you just let me put my head in your lap, or if you hold me for a few minutes or rub my back. Maybe a kiss on top of my head would be nice.

If you fussed over me in this manner for about five good minutes, I would feel all warm and fuzzy and would then insist that you go do whatever you want to do. Which is what you do anyway, only I do not feel warm and fuzzy.

If you wait until I have a heart attack or stroke to hover by my bed, I'm not going to know it. Take care of me when I'm just lightly-to-moderately sick, and I will love you for it.