hope, voting, and eyelids

So this is the crazy up and down about this writing business: I have more or less written off the current draft of my new memoir. The nonfiction conference and my editor friend showed me some of the problems with it, at least in the first section, so I assumed I would have to rewrite at least the first half. And I've been resisting that, or maybe life has handed me so much to do that resistance has been easy. Nothing has happened in the creative writing department for weeks.

Riding my bike to teach at U of T, I saw a familiar face walking nearby - the publisher of a small local publishing house of repute, to whom, months ago, I'd sent the ms. Have heard nothing and assumed they were not interested. As I cycled by, I called a cheery hello, since I sort of know him, and he flagged me down. "Walk with me," he said, "I have to talk to you. How coincidental to see you now."

He told me his acquisitions editor had given him the ms., saying she wasn't interested in acquiring it, and he had started to read it. "I really like it!" he said, and my heart leapt. It turned out he has not read much, doesn't even really know, yet, what it is about. So anything may happen; rejection may still be nigh. But there, suddenly, for this old donkey, was a big fat juicy orange carrot, dangling in front of her nose.

We shall see.

In the meantime, Ontario is voting. Will our very own criminal fathead Trump be elected? Probably, but when I went to vote this morning, the lineup was so long, I decided to come back later. In my three decades of voting there, that has never happened before. Are all those folks voting for the right party? This is a small l and big L liberal riding. I voted NDP. Let us pray.

In the meantime, my eyes hurt. I needed a procedure on my eyelids - a cyst on one and an ingrown eyelash on the other. Had an appt for yesterday at 3, hoping to get out quickly to recover before teaching at 6.30. At 5 I was still sitting in the waiting room, fuming, and had to leave, fuming, to prepare for class. They managed to squeeze me in today, and though I still had to wait nearly an hour, once I was in his chair, the operation took only minutes. I have small bloody dots above both eyes and will be black and blue tomorrow, he says. I told him he's a wonderful surgeon but his time management needs work.

My home class tonight, with a bottle of Prosecco chilling - we'll watch the returns after class. I doubt we'll have anything to celebrate, but a cold bubbly drink might help us feel better. My poor daughter is distraught. But perhaps the voters are not as stupid as we imagine they are. No. They are that stupid. Look at Trump's approval ratings. And remember the damage Mike Harris did to this province ...

AAAAAGH!!!!!!