Kanlaon

Self simply cannot describe her emotions today:  it is so overwhelming, the sight of actual sun.  Tonight is the Maxine Hong Kingston reading at Stanford.  Ah, another trip down memory lane.  Looking up the reading venue on the Stanford map, she sees that it is quite close to something called the “New Guinea Garden.” Also, it is a short walk from White Plaza.  Perhaps self will head over a little early so she can drop by the Stanford Bookstore.

The magnolia tree she planted in her backyard a few weeks ago is leaning very far to the side, but hubby claims that it “looks OK,” self suspects because he is reluctant to do his manly duty and prop it up with a stick or something.  Come to think of it, he’s been making himself extremely scarce in the garden of late, there must be all manner of exciting things going on in the sports world:  NFL playoffs, and so forth and so on.  Self still can’t believe Roddick flamed out of the Australian Open.  He should have won that game, that game against Cilic.

Anyhoo, at least self is probably having a better day than Roddick.  She was driving home from her morning stint at the Writing Center when she saw that —  Hallelujah! —  the building they are erecting on the site of the old Kentucky Fried Chicken place on El Camino near Whipple is:  another KFC!  Considering that KFC is self’s faaavorite fastfood, this discovery made self go all happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy.

Let’s see, in honor of this gorgeous day, self treated herself to a solitary lunch at Higuma.  And  —  goodness gracious! —  what has happened to that place since she was last there, over a year ago?  It was so crowded, she was lucky to find a seat!  Most of the tables were occupied by groups of office people, predominantly men.  The table directly in front of self were all men, and they talked about their wives in fondly semi-derogatory terms.  Self glanced studiously at her New York Times Book Review.

Then, in the mail today, a copy of Michelle Cruz Skinner’s new collection, from Bamboo Ridge Press.  Self contributed a blurb:  she sees now that Zack did, too, as well as one of her favorite short story writers, Ron Carlson.  Here’s what Ron Carlson had to say about Michelle’s collection, In the Company of Strangers (very nice title, that!):

Michelle Cruz Skinner shows us again that exile sometimes captures the body and sometimes the heart; she writes closely about love and life in a family, and we see that distance, longing, and desire all can contribute to the things misplaced in translation.

Very nice.  And now self becomes extremely graceful to the people who blurbed her books:  Zack, David Henry Hwang (though he probably doesn’t remember, it was so long ago), fellow Stanford classmate Ehud Havazelet (Ehud remembers!) and Jessica, the wondrous Jessica.

And now self begins to wonder what might have happened to the short story she submitted to Bamboo Ridge, almost a year ago?  Has it been lost?  Rejected without her knowledge?  Who knows?  It is embarrassing to have to follow up.  Never mind!  The day is simply too gorgeous to dwell on possible rejections.

(Did anyone see “Caprica” last night?  Woo-hoo, the birth of AI!  Not to mention Eric Stoltz.  How very, very fab.)

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.