The Day That Was

February 13, 2007

Don't think of this as the day before Valentine's Day, think of it as the day after yesterday, I say to myself. What is all this new fuss over Valentine's Day anyhow? It's a nice holiday, particularly if you like roses and chocolate, or are in the business of manufacturing or selling either one, but if you're an ordinary civilian with nobody to pressure to buy stuff for you, it's not much of a day. And it can even be a downer.

So I'll focus on yesterday rather than tomorrow, before today really starts.

I began by posting a rather revealing commentary on arsenic on school grounds, responding to somebody from Georgia who found this site last week using the search engine words "fairhope alabama arsenic school." I decided to lay that story to rest once and for all by telling the true version of it.

Then I got an email from a sympathetic friend who said I should say nothing about the story at this time, certainly not on the Internet, but I had written it so carefully I was loath to part with my blogpost for the day. However, the mechanism for checking traffic on the blog was down and I couldn't tell if I'd had two hits or two hundred, where they came from, and whether they might be from someone who would want to use this arsenic post against me in some way I might not be able to anticipate. As the day wore one I began to become a little anxious, and by late afternoon I went on and deleted it.

Some of you got to read it. Here's your chance to weigh in -- should I re-post at some point or was I simply beating a dead horse? Was it a valid topic for a blog? Did it shed any light on the controversy that raged in Fairhope four years ago? Am I simply adding fuel to the flame intended to destroy a precious part of Fairhope life?

It's gone now, but resides somewhere on my hard drive and I can easily post it again if there is demand.

The mail in the early afternoon brought a rejection letter from the agent to whom I'd submitted my latest manuscript. A bummer, but not a huge surprise. The letter was nice and said that this particular agency did not feel personally passionate about the book but that I should not in any way consider that a comment on the quality of my work. Okay, I'll try to manage that. The manuscript was not returned, and as I pondered why that might be I came upon the last sentence of the letter, "We have discreetly recycled your materials."

Discreetly recycled??? What will bert bananas say about that? Visions of these attractive female executives at a shredder, discreetly recycling, leap into my imagination. It's not a pretty picture. I think I'd rather have the ms. back, complete with smudged fingerprints and coffee stains on it. I think I'd rather have it back even if it's still pristine and crisp, as if nobody had even looked at it.

I have a nephew who is a professional writer and jazz critic, with a few books to his credit, who promised to submit the book to his agent if the first one doesn't work out. If that doesn't happen I'll just start another book, I guess.

Or maybe I'll get back to daily blogging.