I was really looking forward to this trip, a week in NYC, no business to speak of, a lot of walking through galleries and around the West Village which I love. Then the phone rang this afternoon and woke me out of a deep sleep and I leapt to my feet and snagged the bottom of my foot on a nail sticking up from the ancient floorboards here. Hurt like hell. So I hobbled into the kitchen and saw Bob dozing on the sofa bed and turned to go back to the bathroom to hunt up a bandaid and saw how much blood I’d spattered getting from the bedroom to the kitchen, which is when I sat down and looked at the bottom of my foot and it was gross and dripping blood. By then Bob was sitting up, saying, “What now?” until he looked at my foot and then he said something else. After which I washed it off and he put antibiotic stuff on it and strapped the only bandaid I had on it and then he said, “That’s deep.” Which for Bob, the original “Oh, wah” guy, is like “Have you made out your will? Am I in it?” Thank god I have a blood disease that makes me clot a lot.

And I’d had such a good lunch with Meg, too. I showed her the collages and visual outlines I’ve been doing for the books I’m working on/want to work on, and she said, “Show these to Jen,” so tomorrow I will haul my computer with me to lunch and flash my editor with Curio pages. It could be a whole new way to pitch. Or just a fun thing to do with my editor and agent at lunch. Either way, Curio is working for me once again. Unlike my foot.

But since Bob is asleep in the kitchen–yes, at eight PM at night, my writing partner is sacked out already, worn out from mopping up blood all over the apartment–and my walking days are curtailed for awhile, that gives me time to go back to the short story with the inventive ways to get rid of the body–I told Meg all about you and your ideas at lunch, probably not the best time to mention pouring Coke over a body in a bathtub, especially since we were both drinking Diet Coke at the time–and to continue on with the community paper. I still haven’t gotten my head wrapped around what I want to say yet, but your comments are clarifying things beautifully. I do think there’s some self-selection going on here, but the feedback is so rich that it’s helpful anyway. So thank you very much.

Now does anybody have a big bandaid? Because I think my foot’s still bleeding. If you don’t hear from me again, it’ll be because I bled to death in the West Village and my writing partner got rid of the body.. Thanks to all of you, he knows how.