Today was an insanely hectic day, even for me; whose life has been so frequently and unexpectedly punctuated of late by The Child's newfound insistence upon turning darn near
everything into a fight.
But yeah- today was a hectic day, even (or, perhaps, especially?) considering the fact that all the frenetic rushrush was in addition to the standard, baseline tantrum incidence. So, interwoven with the frequent bursts of banshee-esque wailing, there was, first off, getting The Child off to school. Sounds pretty easy, right? Wrong!! Because Friday happens to be "free dress day," meaning the kids don't have to wear uniforms. Fun, right? Wrong!! Because in reality, "free dress day" translates into me trying to yank clothes onto a squirming kid who's trying to run away whilst simultaneously stripping off clothes as fast as I can wrest them on. And, inevitably, kid is dead-set upon going to school wearing a Christmas sweater-- appliqued with snowmen, sleds and santa hats-- when it's nearly june. On top of a pair of Elmo undies. And a pair of MY socks. And nothing else. Yep.
But I digress. So, to sum up the day thus far: chase Child. Catch Child. Attempt to clothe Child...and fail. Many times. Finally stuff Child into new "I Am the Kwisatz Haderach" t-shirt, herd Child into car, somehow manage to bend and compress Child into carseat. Begin drive to school, whilst listening to The Cult's "Fire Woman" for the brazillionth time that week because Child has decided that that is the official "going to school" song. Arrive at school, bring Child inside, promptly get foot (not the bad one, thank heaven!) run over by crazed kid on tricycle. Kiss Child goodbye and realize that I am supposed to be at a doctor's appointment NOW!
And so on, ad nauseum...
Today was a day of being stuck for hours in the service area of the car dealership because my regular maintenance check turned up a screw in my tire, (well, the car's tire, really) a funkdafied air filter and a recall adjustment. It was a day of waiting for an exterminator who never showed...which means we still have a wasps' nest by the front door. It was also a day of interminable time spent on hold, only to hear that I have to pay almost a hundred bucks just to have someone come out and- very likely- tell me that they can't help me and I need to buy a new fridge. And squeezed in between all of the above were the usual attempts to read something, write something and eat something. Whew!
But...ya know what? There are those ineffable, bright-shining moments when all of it-- all that hectic, frantic, emotional bottlenecking...actually pays off, and how!
Sitting in the dealership, (with my ruptured discs snarling in protest as I worried that The Child hadn't yet had a nap) I decided to check my email. Again, that is, since I just had like 5 minutes before. So I was mildly surprised when quite a few new messages popped up...including one from an online 'zine to whom I'd submitted a piece. With shaking fingers, I opened the message, which naturally took an insane amount of time to load. But, when it finally did, these were the first words I read:
"After reading and discussing your work, we are happy to accept the following submission"
As we say in Indiana: my heart like to've stopped right then! This is the 2nd piece I've sold, albeit for a mockery of a pittance, but WOW! What an amazing feeling; knowing that my HS teachers (and more than a few college profs, as well) might very well have been wrong about my writing being trite, banal, unimaginative, uninspired, gibberish, worthless.
Take that, My Past!
