May 2, 2003 [Just a note: Hey, kids, in case you didn't know already: There's a notify list for RDP. You can sign up and get a notify alerting you to my less than clockwork-like updates.] Help comes from the most unexpected sources. I left work this afternoon, not in a bad mood, but a strange one. Normally, when I have the truck at work, I get in, pop in a CD, turn the volume up loud, and sing (not well, mind you) all the way home. If it's warm, but not too warm, I'll leave the windows open; I don't care who hears me warbling along, off key, with Ani DeFranco and Simple Plan. In the car, I like music that I can sing at the top of my lungs with: Top-40 pop punk like Bowling for Soup and Good Charlotte and chick music like Rosie Falcon and Michelle Branch as well as Ani and Dar Williams and my beloved Barenaked Ladies and Everclear. But today, I didn't feel like singing. Instead I felt surrounded by this need to be silent; it crowded in around me when I got into the car. I don't know exactly why, either. I had a decent day at work, as decent as spending 8 hours in an office that isn't Billy Boyd's personal management office could be, really. I didn't do an extraordinary amount of talking today at work. But when I left, I felt compelled to drive home without making a sound. Maybe it was the weather. It had been sunny, a little too warm, all day. But as I steered the truck towards the city and home, there were heavy, steel blue rain clouds hanging low over the horizon. The air had cooled. I opened all the windows in the truck and the breeze that blew threw them was already misty and wet. The evening light was muted and melancholy. It was the kind of late afternoon that I have always loved but has also always made me sad. Maybe it was John Updike. No, he didn't reject me yet again from The New Yorker (and I'm sure when they do reject me, my story never gets within 10 feet of Mr. Updike's desk). I'm reading The Witches of Eastwick for the class I'm teaching this summer. I'm enjoying it, but, like a day like today, his novel has a muted, melancholy feel to it, like a cool, rain-spattered day in the Northeast. And while there's a decidedly misogynist bent to Mr. Updike's writing, it has also made me regret the immense power that I have been given as a women and have wasted through my teens and twenties. Maybe it was a combination of both the day and John Updike and a frustrating expedition for gas before being able to head out onto the highway. Maybe it was the whiny, petulant entry for this journal that I've been working on for the past week. I put Dar Williams' Out There Live in the CD player and drove home with my hair and thoughts whipping around my head on the cooling air that rushed through the truck's windows and I didn't utter a word or sing a note along with Dar. My own physical stillness behind the wheel and the clogged, sluggishness of the traffic headed towards Philadephia began to drag me down. Dar didn't help: If I am in a good mood, her songs seem hopeful, bright, powerful; but if I am inclined towards melancholia, her work lends itself to tears and ruminations. It's one of the reasons I really like her. But the time I was halfway home, I had slid halfway into a Class A Funk. A sudden, sharp burst of laughter from the car keeping pace next to me on the highway dropped my heart further. In these moods, I am always convinced that unexpected laughter from strangers is directed at me. The overlaying mist turned to spits of rain, stretches of blue cloud haze broken occassionally by bright, strange patches of sunlight that were sadder than the clouds and the rain. By the time I passed the airport, I was dissastisfied and fully depressed: I hated my face; my hair; the awkward, hot outfit I had on; the sandals I was wearing over a layer of protective band-aids because they always cut my feet; the drive home; my life and how it seems to be standing still and rushing towards old age at the same time without any creative success and progress. In short, I was in a state. It didn't help that traffic slowed to a crawl over the bridge between the airport and South Philly. The city had closed the Broad Street exit just before the stadiums again and there was a game. I sat, high in the truck, mouthing Dar's lyrics, and fighting the sting of tears at the corner of my eyes. A forest green Mustang pulled beside me. A voice -- male, with a smile of youth in it -- broke through the sadness of my trance: "Hello! How are you this evening?" I glanced towards the speaker, prepared, because of my mood, for a taunt or a joke at my expense. He was cute, maybe twenty-one, a college boy with a red Phillies cap pushed back on his head, covering the sharp brightness of blond hair that's a result of peroxide rather than nature. He was hanging out the back window of the Mustang. A small, dark haired girl was driving, his buddy was in the passenger seat, grinning back at him. He smiled, genuine and approaching. "Hi!" he called, again. I felt cracks begin to run through the melancholy shell that had hardened over me during the drive. I smiled and waved as the flow of traffic in my lane pushed my truck past the Mustang. He must have told the girl driving to catch up with me. She managed to draw even with me just before they would be stopped in the long, backed up line of cars at the stadium exit. "Hey!" he called to me. I turned my face, just briefly, towards him. He smiled again and shouted, "You're GORGEOUS!" It wasn't what I was expecting. I had since stopped dreading a negative encouter, but to be told that I was gorgeous by this cute college kid on his way to a ballgame with his friends was a possibility that had never entered my mind. The melancholy shell disintergrated and in its place, I felt a rosey glow that pulled my lips into a permanent smile. I smiled at the boy in the Mustang; I'm surprised I didn't blind him, it was so bright. I smiled the rest of the way home. I'm still smiling now. I was so surprised by his overture that I forgot to thank him. I hope my smile was enough. And to that lovely boy, even though you're probably never going to run across this journal and recognize yourself in these words, but just in case: Thank you. Thank you for seeing in me what I could not and for leaping across the gap of human distance to give it back to me.

7 Deadly Sins and Other, Less Fatal Diversions Pride: Well, duh. Envy: At this moment? Not a drop. Wrath: Before that encounter, it was directed at myself and my life. After, it all melted like sugar in rain. Sloth: I should try to be more productive at work. Avarice: It may not seem like it was much to you, but I wouldn't trade that moment for anything. Not even French Stewart in a Mustang, telling me I'm gorgeous. Gluttony: Weightwatchers has put a moratorium on gluttony for now. Lust: It's nice to be the object of lust once in a while. Book: Witches of Eastwick. Reading this book, I can see why Mr. Updike is allowed to be the Evil Overlord of The New Yorker Tune: Dar Williams, "The Blessings": Blessings: There's nobody there. There's nobody home. Yeah, the blessings. At the moment I was most alone Task at Hand: Reading and making a syllabus. Quest for Publication: Another rejection on the rape/video game story. But at the moment, even that couldn't bring me down. Total Submissions: 51 Rejections: 25 Acceptances: 1 Withdrawals: 7