How can I be so sure?
Well, it’s a stupid day, or a nothing day, as Franny used to call them. That is, a day when nothing works, nothing goes right, nothing will be accomplished.
Well, it could be worse. The Norwegians have a concept—the nothing YEAR! Yeah, a whole year in which you spin your wheels, accomplish zilch, create a big zero. It drives you and everyone around you to despair and madness.
There is—I can tell you, because I searched heroically—NOTHING good in the news today. OK—so what to write about? Music?
Well, I listened to a new piece—well, new to me—of music, but that’s sort of ho-hum. So was the music, actually—and that’s nice. There is after all a place for average in music. Not everything has to be great.
Right—then my student cancelled. Sears was coming to repair the roof. Well, I understand that. When Sears impends, you postpone!
(Yes, I can hear you wondering about that ”impends” up there. Well, why not? If it’s not right, it should be!)
And now, to top it all off, I can feel my editor going crazy in Tobago!
She’s taught me a lot, this sister of mine. In the past, I used to go absolutely nuts about technical issues on the computer. I should say—I’m neither a whiz nor an idiot when it comes to technology. In the days of Wal-Mart, I once created a complete “web-site” in PowerPoint. I learned how to “program” in something called VBA. I started in on HTML, and was actually getting somewhere when the guillotine fell.
And it wasn’t easy. Because my first response when something didn’t work?
Fury!
“If you have a button that says ‘enter’ then you should enter, dammit, and not give me this stupid message that you cannot enter because the script contains a deleted variable!!!!” That’s what I would scream, at the beginning of it all.
Later?
Get up from my desk, go walk through the parking lot, look at the bamboo, address the iguanas. Screaming at a computer is like screaming at a cat. Unless you enjoy it, it’s pointless.
Also counterproductive.
I know this because of Miss Taí! She has two amazing qualities that I have slightly adopted. The first is patience.
The second is absolute fiendish determination.
This lady will NOT give up.
An example?
“Ah, the curse of being a religious, if you have a gold candle stick, it should be melted down and given to the poor.”
That’s a sentence from Iguanas that became a curse.
Look, it wasn’t that great a sentence. But doña Taí got it in her head—the average reader would be confused. What was “a religious” anyway?
I explained. A scientist, a doctor, a religious! See? Simple!
She dug in.
I sent her a link to thefreedictionary.com in which “religious” is called a noun—the name of a person practicing religion.
But Charisse—a canny lady indeed—had never heard of it! And if Charisse…
No, it’s my book, I’m the author, it stays.
Yes I know, ok, fine, but….
Taí!
“It’s just that….”
Well, the trench was six feet and Taí had an inexhaustible supply of grenades! And one hell of a throwing arm.
“I just think….
Dammit!
Well, as I say, I can feel her spinning around down there, a terrier worrying a technical rat.
Here’s the problem:
Beautiful, hunh? And designed by none other than my editor herself. That MFA came right out! Even the name is spelled correctly!
Beautiful, hunh? And designed by none other than my editor herself. That MFA came right out! Even the name is spelled correctly!
Now then, how to stick it into an email, and link it to amazon.com so that I can avoid the fate of starting a little shoeshine business, just to keep body and soul together!
Gotta sell some books….
Well, she’ll do it, I know. She’ll nail that problem and explain it to me and I’ll nod my head, not understanding or caring in the least. Why should I? When Taí is there?
Oh, and about that sentence? “The curse of a religious?”
Got changed…. 
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