Sunday, July 16, 2006

Now through the smoke she calls to me

Yesterday we celebrated Molly's eighth birthday, which had come a couple of days earlier. Her younger sister, Sally, is a dynamo and demands the attention of, well, all the known universe. But Molly is quiet, shy, not quite timid but a bit reserved, so it was good for her to be the focus and she drank it in. We did the whole surprise thing. She loved it. Said festivities were the source of all the snazzy photos I've been posting: Starr, the kids' mom, has an awesome digital camera that she was snapping everybody with. Later, homemade ice cream but I missed that somehow. That's more than a little tragic. It's summer, people.

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Hard to believe, but I mailed off 90 pages of my memoir yesterday, in between all the birthday-palooza.

Said printing of all those pages made me decide it was time for a new printer. My old inkjet had hung in there for ten years and God only knows how many drafts of books (I still find drafts of my first book stuffed places) and individual poems. I hiked over to the Office Depot, spending a bit more than I wanted, but left with a swank printer. It's almost too fast. I printed out a new draft of One More Theory About Happiness and the sheets were fairly shooting out of the bay. Still, it's nice to be done in two minutes, compared to the old mark of ten or fifteen minutes at best.

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I've been listening a lot to the soundtrack for Once More, with Feeling. It reminds me of how much I miss that show.

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I've been sitting on this for a few days, not terribly disposed to disclosing, but I guess now is as good a time as any. No, not the albatross-like details regarding the publication of Notes, which I promise is forthcoming. That Memphis job I interviewed for?

Didn't get it.

Probably because I end sentences with prepositions.

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If I'm forgetting anyone, please forgive me, but people like Victoria Chang and Jeanine Hall Gailey read drafts of Notes last spring or summer, making wise suggestions about what to cut and why. To those of you who were so helpful, I wanted to thank you again. I was at my wits' end last year, dispirited, discouraged, distended--no, wait, I wasn't that, but who knows how far off from that I was. I appreciate you all.

2 comments:

Jeannine said...

Paul - Your MS was a pleasure to read - and I can't wait for the finished version!
Sorry to hear about the job. Hope you get good news on that front soon!

cK said...

I quote Sir Winston Churchill in regards to your ending sentences with prepositions: "That is something I will not up with put!"

The driest of the white wines,
-Mel Blanc