The Post Office and the Herd

So I put a new photo up. Frighteningly enough it is also my current author photo that my mom took after we had been shovelling snow for two hours. Needless to say I am going to get a proper one done in Hawaii--if I ever get back to Hawaii. My wonderful students who I saw last weekend no longer believe I am ever coming back.

I am having a funny life at the moment. I am writing, researching, teaching, and editing. Not my manuscript--that went back to Simon and Schuster yesterday--after 442 pages and a lecture from a very irritated post office lady who did not want to insure a gigantic stack of paper for five hundred dollars--I figure they will be less inclined to lose it if it is worth more? I also asked her five times whether next day really really meant next day and how many packages they really lose and then I kissed the package and wished it luck. The people in line hated me at first but then were fascinated by the train wreck nature of my post office visit and eventually wished the package luck too.

It is all wonderful and wordy and fun and I love it but it does take me out of the herd of regular people a bit--not that that is a bad thing as I have always been of two minds about herds. I spend inordinate amounts of time in my pajamas, don't see many other humans (except moms, nannies, tourists and kids in strollers) and lately I have begun talking to myself in public, and unashamedly writing down words I like and things people say--right in front of them--all worrying. I go out into the world when the world is at work. No lines. No rush hour. But no people either. There is something really fun about the great exodus of people heading to the subway on their way to work. A sort of sesame bagely, New York Times, coffee cup camaraderie. But then I think I am just romanticizing it from afar. When I was in it I just wanted shorter lines at the post office and no people...