Butt, meet chair

Writing is ultimately about sitting down and doing it, whether you feel like it or not. These days I've been going through a lot of sad stuff that I just don't think is appropriate to put on here, much though it does help me to process things to write about them here.

But there's been good stuff, too. To wit: a couple of weeks ago I got a phone call at 9:00 PM on a Friday from Dr. Moo. She told me to check my email. Because she'd sent me an essay she wrote to enter a contest to win a flock of sheep. Oxfords, specifically. Those were the sheepy-deeps she'd raised from lambs, and shown, and bred, and eventually scattered their ashes on the grounds of the fair at which they'd won many a ribbon.

Well I looked at that essay and while there was a lot of Dr. Moo in it - mentions of what a nice carcass the Oxford has, dissing of the candy-ass Icelandic sheep she sees at fayuhs in Vermont - she'd buried the lede. I told her so, and suggested a rewrite. She called me later and said she laughed and laughed because I had so many facts wrong in my rewrite. Like she wasn't 9 when she got her first sheep, and it wasn't a boy sheep. Harumph, I thought to myself. That wasn't the point. The point was the story: you fell in love with sheep young, you raised sheep, you grew up, your sheep died, you went to vet school, you married and bought a home and now it's time for sheep again. Yada yada yada.

Anyhoo. Wouldn't you know, not three days later she emails me to tell me she's a finalist in the contest and it was because of my suggested edits.

She ended up coming in second out of 25 but since there was only one prize, she ultimately lost. Which meant I didn't get my wish: name the firstborn lamb Vajessica Bumbawiener. But Moo is buying a ram with enormous woolly balls so there's hope yet.