A Day of Incredible Frustration w/Minor Victories

Here's all that remains from my New Year's Day party. I was outside at 7 am - you can see it's still dark - to tell the trashmen that the cartons contain garbage. They are not recyclables.

I have been constantly writing. First priority was to finish my Guest Column for the Intelligencer. I titled it "Make a New Year's Resolution: Become an Organ Donor and Save Lives."

Of course, my editor, Alan Kerr, may change it according to space considerations.

I emailed him to ask if I can use the term "spokesperson" instead of the cumbersome "communications specialist" and he said he hates the term "spokesperson" but I could use "spokeswoman" or "spokesman."

Alan is so good I think he could work for any major paper in the country. He writes all the editorials, from the point of view of the newspaper. Today he wrote about Rick Santorum's surprise second-place victory in the Iowa Caucuses.

The organ donor story was fairly easy to write. I quoted three spokeswomen. Again, the purpose of the story is to advocate for people to become organ donors. I also gave some history of transplantation and other facts sandwiched into the article b/c of space limitations - 700 words tops.

One place I spoke to had a really hostile receptionist. I had to call her about 4 times to get to my spokeswoman. The first time I called she gave me an incredibly difficult time before she put me thru to the spokesman. When he wasn't available I had to call again to find someone I could talk to immediately.

I wanted the final graf of my story to say Do your own investigating about whether or not to be a donor. I'd list the website and the phone no. of the agency.

Would YOU list an agency where the receptionist would give the caller a hard time?

Fortunately, I found another place.

That problem was minor in comparison of a photo of me the Intell wanted. Scott took two simply terrible photos of me.

I had really chapped lips so I put "bee balm" on my lips and rubbed a little on my face.

The photo looked like I was foaming at the mouth.

Plus my hair was simply awful.

I called Molly from Salon Minevanh, who I wrote about in a Patch.com article. She said to come over immediately.

Molly leaves in a week for Jamaica to do the hair of women in the bridal party of her niece.

While at the Salon, I took these still-lifes:





I said hello to her mother/law Chan and asked where her little son Devon was.

She took me in the back room where he sat in his carriage with his iPOD trying to fall asleep. She spoke to him in Laotian.

Molly fussed over me for nearly an hour. Then I asked her to take a photo of me.

I'll be honest. I don't think it looks anything like me. Can I be part of a new Twilight Zone series where I've evolved into someone else? My mind is the same, or so she thinks.

But my really big task is that a publisher has asked to see the entire ms. of my novel, which I finished two years ago. I sent out a query letter to Bellevue Literary Press last week and got a quick response.

But my computer will not cooperate. For the first time ever, I couldn't create a double-spaced manuscript.

"Dear Editor, Please forgive me for not double-spacing, but there seems to be a curse on my Microsoft Word document."

Look, if you're Dean Koontz you can say that, but not if you're Ruth Deming.

I edited the entire 220 pages but - another glitch! - the save button DIDN'T FRIGGING WORK.

The entire editing process took 10 hours, which is how long it takes to read my book. As I sped toward the climax, I began to cry, the end was so moving.

I've got to do it all over again. Ten hours. Pull an all-nighter? Yeah, when I'm 19 and a student at Goddard College typing up Frank Dorsky's essay which is due the next day. It's on Norman O. Brown's once-popular, now largely forgotten Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History (1959).

I had no idea what Frank was talking about in his essay. He was a smart guy, though, and later got his PhD, like good ole Norman O. Brown, who died at age 88.

Hey, look who made it into my novel - Cookie Rojas! The Havana-born former Phillies second baseman, now 72, is the Spanish-language color commentator for the Miami Marlins.