Dear Erin,
This letter will definitely come in under the wire. I flew back to Salt Lake on Saturday, bussed home to Pocatello on Sunday, and spent today laundering, cleaning, and otherwise returning life at home to normal. Only at the last minute did I remember it was Monday, and not a federal holiday at that.
I was much delighted to receive your revise and resubmit, especially as it contained new writing while simultaneously declaring your continued revolt from said activity. Though I’ll echo Christy, yet again, in her request for more, more, more. So many points of interest in the piece, so many questions: Sophie? Dad? And besides, I don’t understand a lick of French (unless it pertains to ballet vocabulary) so I at least need a translation. I’d thought you were a Latin master, and now I learn you hold French in your arsenal as well?
Also, on closer analysis of the reported rejection, I am wondering where else your splendid math book might be sent? I’ve personally declared books dead before, but I feel like this one might just be faking it. Would it be possible to get a second medical opinion? Perhaps the book is just playing dead, like some over-trained dog, out to get a laugh. If so, please call it to order and teach it another trick instead. Fetch might work.
Residency, all in all, was splendid. My brain has not returned to proper function, but I will say this: I would highly recommend submitting an application to work as a GA. To be honest, I’d thought I’d managed to graduate remotely - holed up in my laundry room - with grace and poise. But it turns out I was wrong. Being back on campus, finally, felt like the actual completion of all I’d done. And something about being there as a graduate, instead of a student, made it possible to use all my energy to imagine what might come next instead of only what was directly at hand.
It also broke my brain, so there’s that.
Overall, I’m coming around to getting back to writing. As you are too (as I have hereby declared.) I’ve got a theory that it’s going not the quitting that will show Writing who’s boss, but the continuing.
And it’s getting to be time to test that out.
Jamie