August 2: Best Break, Good News, Fairy Tale

The best break I had in years, when I got home the regular night elevator boy, Pete, wasn't on the car...

Yes, I realize that isn't a whole lot of Catcher.  I was looking for something from the book that referred to good luck, and that's the best I could do.  Holden goes home, hoping to avoid his parents, and gets the "best break" he's had in the book:  the elevator boy is new and doesn't know who he is, so he's able to sneak up to his parents' apartment.  Good luck.

I got some good luck news this afternoon in the mail.  It was a card from North Country Publishing informing me that I've received First Honorable Mention (second place) in its first annual nature essay writing contest.  Now, perhaps you're thinking, "Second place!  Big deal!"  Well, it is a big deal to me.  I haven't been feeling all that confident about my writing recently.  Rejection after failure has plagued my publication efforts recently.  First Honorable Mention feels like the Pulitzer to me right now.  And the $20 gift card that accompanied the note didn't hurt.

I felt so good that, when I went for my evening run, I went for a couple more miles than I was planning.  (I think my legs are going to regret that decision tomorrow morning.)  I'm still on Cloud 29 at the moment.  That's a few floors above Cloud Nine, in case you didn't know.  I think I'm going to have a very good weekend.

And now, a fairy tale.

Once upon a time, a young writer named Thoreau lived by a pond in the kingdom of Walden.  One morning, a messenger from King Emerson delivered a scroll, telling him that he'd won two new pigs from a sonnet-writing contest he'd entered.

Thoreau replied, "If you have guilt castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.  Now put the foundations under them."

The messenger frowned at him.  "What the hell are you talking about?"

Thoreau smiled.  "I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion."

The messenger handed him the scroll.  "Shove your pumpkin up your arse," he said.  He got on his horse and galloped off.

Moral of the story:  Pigs is good meat.

And Saint Marty lived happily every after.

Bacon anyone?