Waiting for the Compass - finally, one of my stories will be published - pistachios are my new favorite nut, low in carbs, hi in succulence

Knowing you, you're probly wondering why I set my timer for an hour. That's when I'll drive to Hatboro to see the final Compass proofs before Mark prints them out. Jerry Boggs of Boggs Printing just walked the disc over b/c the file was too big to email.

Listen, I don't know what any of this stuff means. I just repeat it. Rene did a great job w/the graphics design.

This is not the New Yorker, which is virtually error-proof, so I had to keep checking and rechecking for mistakes.

Oh, listen to this. My bank - American Heritage Federal Credit Union - my main source for stealing pens - came up with a new pen, the one on the right.

"I don't know if I can deal with this, Tina," I said when I went to deposit the receipts from last nite's meeting. In fact, the new pen is worse! It doesn't write immediately. Why oh why didn't they check with me first.

So yesterday I went to Scott's so we could nap together during the Rockford Files. I brot the proofs over and lay in bed shuffling thru them.

"The busy executive at work," he said.

"Am I really an executive?" I asked as I was going thru the pages.

He could barely say yes cuz he was falling asleep.

Anyway, now at last I can relax.

Oh, remember when I said no one will publish my poems?

Today I got an email from an online publication I've never heard of called Haggard and Halloo. It's very impressive. They're gonna publish a story I wrote called Spanish Arches. It's about my search for a house, this very house I live in on Cowbell Road.

This summer I went thru a frenzy of submissions. Can't remember the names of the mags where I submitted them.

Goggle is doing me wrong. They refuse to list the website of Haggard and Halloo where I tell them to. Find it yourself.

Yesterday I did a little sleuthing. If you'd like to live a few doors down from me, here's an empty house you can bid on at auction. Of course, I'll have to interview your first to make sure you're a suitable neighbor. Friendliness is a must. I'd also like a more ethnically diverse neighborhood.

These are the people who left in the middle of the night. I feel sorry for the kids.



View thru living room window. It's b'ful inside.

Let's trespass into the huge beautiful backyard. And don't slip on the moist deck, Ruthie, which of course I did, but didn't fall.

Matching shed out back.

The perfect place to relax and drink some blackberry brandy, as I did at Goddard College many years ago. It was great! I learned for the first time how to get drunk. Isn't that what college is for?

The back door has this old-fashioned doorbell. Of course I rang it and felt melancholia when no one answered and thought about the family that used to live there: Steve and Anissa and their three kids.