The main thing I have been doing this morning is waffling about my essay, "Under the Skin: A Survey". You see, it is due to the contest on Tuesday. And this morning, once Kevin wakes up, we will climb into my little car and drive drive drive 4-5 hours to Ann Arbor. He's giving a talk there on Tuesday, but we're going up a few days early to visit with our old friends Kira and Sean.
(Historical note: Jed and I met for the second time in California, at Kira and Sean's wedding -- he was there for the groom; I was there for the bride, whom I knew from college in Chicago. She was the first woman I'd ever kissed.) We're driving back Tuesday evening, so if I don't put the story in the mail today, I'll be trying to somehow print it out and do so in Ann Arbor on Tuesday. (Hmmm...it has just occurred to me that one potential solution to this difficulty is to ask someone else to print it out for me and put it in the mail that day. Well, let's save that for emergencies.)
I've been working in a frantic rush on this because I only just heard about the contest (just before my hard drive crashed) and I would really like a few more days to work on the piece. I'm pretty happy with it, but I think I can tease out a few more interesting points, and the ending really needs some work. I had been thinking it wasn't worth the hassle of trying to deal with it in Ann Arbor -- but in the clear light of morning, I think that was a mistake. I'll deal with printing and mailing it there somehow, and in the meantime, send out the revised version and give my readers a chance to respond. If you're not on the readers' list (why aren't you? :-) and are still interested in seeing it, drop me a line. It's a memoir, similar to "Silence and the Word", but this time about skin color and sex and all kinds of other good stuff. I think you'll like it.
