Yet More Proof That Ignorance is Bliss

(Note: No dogs were harmed in the taking of this photograph...really!)

Well, folks, the writing "career" stumbles ever onward. I've sold three short stories and four poems (only one published so far) and am on pins and needles (and Extra-Strength Excedrin) finding out if I'll be accepted as a writer for a dog website. (I'll not put a link to them here ...might jinx me). Things are starting to very very slowly roll in my direction, whether for good or for a smashed foot, I don't know.

Now, memory is a tricky beast. I used to have a photographic memory up until my 30th birthday...or my 29th...wait, maybe it was the 28th...ANYWAY, I could quickly recall entire conversations, comedians' momologues, what artist did what album cover, arguments...fun stuff like that. My head was full of useless trivia. And I discovered that if you have a photographic memory and no one else in the room does, you can really piss a lot of people off really fast! :-)

So it was an absolute shocker for me to find the first draft of an old poem called, erm, "The Ballad of Lucky Feet" (which I am NOT letting out of the house!) which had a scribbled note which read: "This is the version sent to Peter Gabriel".

OH.

MY.

GAWD!

I didn't send my hero a copy of a crappy poem about a horse, did I???? Alarm bells were going off in my head, my blood pressure hit the roof and I needed more Excedrin. I really didn't want to know the answer to this question, but the cobwebs cleared and I suddenly remembered that I sent my inspiration and my aspiration A WHOLE BOOK of my handwritten poems for his 47th birthday! Oh, NOOOO! Knowing idiot pre-Prozac me, I sent him a few exquistitely crappy love poems that make me blush to remember. Hell, I'm not even revealing the TITLES of them on my blog, let alone any excerpts. If I ever get to be a famous writer, he could blackmail me with that damn book. God, he must think I'm a lunatic...well, I am a lunatic, but I'm a harmless lunatic. There's probably a list of CRAZY FANS TO SHOOT AT ON SIGHT list at his studio(and if there isn't, why not?) and my name is on it in big black capitals.

"Now, calm down," the Excedrin and the Prozac told me (after a while, the chemicals do give some good advice)"what are the odds that the great, supremely busy Peter GAbriel would ever sully his hands on a grubby little poetry book from an ugly, unpublished American? You have NOTHING to worry about. His secretary probably chucked it in the bin."

Ahh....thank you for that mental image of someone tossing my blood, sweat and tears into a paper shredder. I feel so much better now.