The Bad:
The two-hour drive from Vacation Location to Home Location this morning was supposed to last a gentle two hours, after which I would just barely have time to see a dear friend before she left for her own vacation. However, somehow, the entire freeway was shut down in the direction I needed to travel, and so I was forced to take a very long alternate route which added an additional two-and-a-half hours to the two hour drive and resulted in my missing a dear friend.
Driving for four and a half hours with a feline traveling companion.
In the mailbox when I returned: two rejection slips, one from a journal, one for my manuscript (ooh, feel the burn).
I broke my vow to stop eating fish by eating a Filet O’Fish.
The Good:
The Filet O’Fish was delicious.
My feline traveling companion did not decide that my vehicle was her litter box.
In the mailbox: two checks, which made up the first two times I have ever been paid by a literary magazine.
Also in the mailbox: the issue of dANDelion in which my poem, “Epistle IV: Attempting to Determine the Effect of Absence by Number,” appears. If you haven’t checked out dANDelion, you should give our wonderful neighbors to the North a try, regardless of your interest in my epistles series. There’s a tremendous, vibrant energy to the journal that’s very refreshing. And they published an “Absurd” issue with the spine on the wrong side. What’s not to love?
A trip to the new supermarket in town yielded the following wonders:
- A gigantic organic section with everything a (lapsed) vegetarian with an MSG allergy could dream of
- Travel sizes of all-natural shampoo and conditioner
- Ben and Jerry’s Smores flavored ice cream
Overall Evaluation:
Bad Scenes: 5
Cancellations of Bad Scenes Due to Deliciousness of Fast Food: 1
Good Stuff: 6
Today was a close one, but, thanks to Ronald McDonald, Good Stuff triumphs yet again.
Emma Bolden is the author of How To Recognize A Lady, a chapbook of poems published as part of Edge by Edge, the third in Toadlily Press' Quartet Series, and The Mariner's Wife, a chapbook published by Finishing Line Press. Her third chapbook, The Sad Epistles, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She was the recipient of a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers' Conference and was named a Finalist for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship by the Poetry Foundation/Poetry magazine. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in such journals as Prairie Schooner, the Indiana Review, Feminist Studies, The Journal, Redivider, The Greensboro Review, and Verse. Her manuscript was a semi-finalist for the Perugia Press Prize. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Georgetown College, where she also serves as the poetry editor of the Georgetown Review.
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August 3, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Jessie Carty
I was already smiling reading this, knowing my luck w/ driving in the car, and especially w/ one of my cats but laughed out loud at the Fish Filet. Ah, the fish filet, if I had not vowed to be on a diet today, I would have you
August 3, 2007 at 1:20 pm
emmabolden
It is true — only the Fish Fillet can soothe the savage pain of driving with a cat!
August 3, 2007 at 6:34 pm
mynorthernexposure
You’re a naughty girl. I must admit, I had a gorgeous scrambled egg with cheese yesterday morning. Accompanied by none other than banana pancakes. So, feel ye not bad.
August 3, 2007 at 7:47 pm
emmabolden
Oh, there really are few things better than the scrambled egg with cheese … So, so delicious. Perhaps I need to own my own chicken AND my own cow?!