Nurse

It doesn't seem right that on the last day of November I strolled along my merry way in 75 degree weather to mail off the manuscript for Notes, but stroll I did. It was gorgeous here, as it has been off and on for the last week or so, and even though it's probably indicative of some systemic dysfunction in the global climate, I'll take it today. I've been scanning the copyedits lightly since I received them from the University of Nebraska Press two weeks ago, but I took the last two days to seriously read over the book. A strange experience, because it's the first time in a long while I've really read the book, start to finish, line to line, and it's like rediscovering the book, finding things that work better than I'd thought, finding things that don't work as well as I thought. The main thing, though, is learning I must've been mildly allergic to contractions while living in Tuscaloosa: I went through the book changing several places around, loosening things up. I moved one word around. And struck two words from a line. And that was that. My strolling out into this false spring thusly commenced, my little book on board, consigning it to UPS. I trust they'll roll into Lincoln, Nebraska with it on Tuesday and hand it safely over.

I didn't celebrate but I should have. Well, I bought an .89 cent pack of strawberry Twizzlers. For tonight, that'll have to do.