She has returned for real, with the Silverback Mac

Oh my friends, happiness is this little machine in my lap, purring like a sleek grey pussycat. All my Macs have had names, since the first one, MacZine, and the second, Fleetwood Mac. This one is Silverback Mac. Home, with all new insides, the operation covered by AppleCare. An expensive two-year old machine should not need to have its insides replaced after two years. Wouldn't Steve Jobs be appalled?

I can type quickly with all my fingers, look things up easily, print, work on my hundreds of documents. It's ridiculous; not that long ago we survived extremely well without these machines, and now we cannot live without them.

Someone wrote to me about Loose Woman:

I finished reading Loose Woman last night. Loved it. It was interesting reading about your life, full of change and reflection, achievements and growth, watching you grow up, and mature. And I was simultaneously paying attention to the structure and how you moved the narrative forward - events and reflections. I left you 5 stars.

I heard from Hippocampus, a nonfiction magazine to whom I'd submitted an essay about my childhood friend Penny: the nicest possible no. 

While we're unable to accept Secret, we read this piece carefully and found much to admire in your writing and in this story. We hope you find it reassuring that your work made our shortlist for our current issues-in-progress.

Our readers found this piece to be poignant without being maudlin, rich in detail, risky, and well-written. If you do revise this, however, our readers suggest building out the ending more, and also honing in on which part of the story is most important to you. If it's the present, you could add more reflection, sharing more about yourself and about how this experience affected your life. If it's the childhood experience, reflection would serve us well there, too. What does it mean to be a friend? How did you feel during the various stages of the friendship?

As writers ourselves, we understand the submission process can be just as challenging as it is rewarding. We wish you only the best in your continued work, and we hope to see your name in the queue again soon.

All the best in your future publishing endeavors,

Is that not marvellous? If only all rejections were as generous and thoughtful. 

The next few days: getting wine, going to the market for veg and nuts and to Mark the butcher for our annual turkey - 35 years of buying our turkey from him. The great challenge is finding a hamster for Eli. Anna had already bought the cage and we decided I should get the hamster, only the local pet store is sold out and there are none at the Humane Society. But Menagerie just called; they're getting six new hamsters in tomorrow. PHEW. Reserve one hamster please! 

These are the death-defying issues I need so urgently to share with you. HI FRIENDS! I'M BACK!