Today's Surprise

Took the day off work because my back is bugging me. This injury has been quite a surprise. Bugging is a nice word. I'm in pain. A lot of pain. I've decided that my standard of pain is altogether skewed and I need a new "scale" - this 1-10 thing the Dr. requests of me is no longer sufficient.

Anyway, home trying to rest, I became severely aggravated by the horrible state of my bedroom. Struggling against a disease of disorganization that's ruling my life, today I cannot do much about it for the pain, but I did clean off the chest/cabinet next to my bed where I'm spending my day. There I found a little notebook like the ones I always carry in my purse. This is the one I had before the one I have now; mostly stripped of it's pages but what I found remaining there surprised me today.

9-2-06
Yesterday my best friend called. She was angry with her
boyfriend. My listening ear and advice giving (isn't it great being a best
friend?) turned into a 4 hour conversation (isn't it great being best
friends?)
In one of the strands of conversation I mentioned I was
working seriously on my writing. She scolded me for keeping details of this
adventure from her. After I shared a few she lavished more harsh words upon
me.
"My best friend is going to publish a book someday and I won't
have a clue about it!" she snapped into the phone.
What followed
was something a little softer. Maybe she'd gotten that the fact that I'm
insanely selfish with my writings.
"It's gonna be so cool when I
have a coffee table book written by my best friend."
Later she told
me to just "...get over yourself and publish something already...your worst
stuff is so good it makes me ill. How do you do this?"
My biggest barrier to publication - to life itself - is merely believing
what my best friends already knows and believes for me. And what the rest of the
world (or at least those who chose to buy "the book") might if I quit being so
selfish.

So, surprise! Even to me. I'm gonna sort through some of my edited work and find something. Today. And mail it away. I really wanted to have an editor look over my work first...but maybe that's just procrastination I don't need to bother with. Well, I'll know later if I should have bothered.

Gotta write a cover letter and figure out which poems to submit. I've got some publications researched...now where did I put that list?? Today's surprise is that it's time to start the journey of publication. Who knew! Not me. What a surprise! This will all happen in between naps, of course.