Rainbows and pots of gold

I'm practicing being female is what I think I declared to Joe and Mike last night as I muttered a sad ow with every step. Since I had not intended drinking very much and thus staying out any length of time I wore my ankle boots. It's that teeny extra height and the clomp they make and the fact that they are gorgeous and I found them at a ridiculously low price. I love them but I can't understand why someone had to invent shoes that hurt to walk in. As soon as I was safe in my own street I pulled them off and shuffled home in my socks like I did when I was wee and would dash round to my friend's house 2 doors down in bare feet. No time for shoes we're gonna climb up on the roof and make a den.

It was a weary walk home. There's the annoyance of having to get off the bus because the conversation always starts getting interesting as we move far too quickly into burnside and everything that was in my head floats off when I lose the curved roof above me. There's always something odd about walking down that road. It was part of an old route home from school so I could walk with people who lived further over this way. Distant memories of snow ball fights and secrets shared and secrets made up to have something to share and it's all airy fairy and blows away with a shake of my head.

I get home to read the pen that scrawls over the back of my neat rows of fanciful imagery just happy that somebody other than my mother took the time to break my words down. Julie does too, of course but in the past when I forced her to read my melodramatic tales she'd giggle and snort and draw comma sperm with smiley faces or U FANCY DEAD KIRA FACE LOLOLOL because that's the kinda awesome she is. This morning my email brought me another crit on a piece I've never been happy with but I was too cowardly to send in a piece I liked. This was by the same woman who gave me the positive rejection but this is not an acceptance, it's just letting me know that she liked it and she'd pass it on to someone else. The crit itself is encouraging. It's minor tense issues, a clumsy sentence and a suggestion of rewriting the whole thing in 3rd person but on the whole my work is untouched. And I'm happy just knowing somebody I don't know read something I wrote and didn't discard it. It's never been about bestseller lists and film adaptations, those dreams are distant. It's about reaching someone and worming my way into their subconscious.

And having my work studied alongside Salinger and Shakespeare naturally.