may you find your mojo

When I told Laura I was going to try to blog, she said, "May you find your mojo."

Friends, Romans, country bumpkins: I have alibis for my absence. They are not good ones, but they are alibis. I've been here, I've been there. I've been like Sam I Am. I do not just sit peacefully often enough, except for my daily meditation period, which is on my To Do list. This fact -- that meditating is on my list -- should somehow take away meditation points, I think. There are points, right?

I healed pretty quickly from the surgery last month, and except for feeling like my birthday suit's zipper is stuck in a few places, I feel pretty good. But I'm still looking for my mojo. I've found bits and pieces of it scattered here and there, but that's the thing. It's scattered, like bits of string. I think mojo is a whole thing, like a ball or a clothespin. You don't want part of those.

I went to a gigantic writer's conference in Boston a couple of weeks ago. No, wise guy, it was not only for gigantic writers. I met with an agent who had read 20 pages of my manuscript for Flat 'n' Happy ahead of time. Oh! She loved my writing. She guffawed or snorted in several places, she swore. She wrote in her notes that she would "love to read anything by this author other than a cancer memoir." Cancer, it seems, does not sell. Unless you are really famous, or unless you have a near-death experience where you walk toward a bright light and then get pulled back toward the humdrum of life only now you are One With The Universe and So Are We All So Don't Be Afraid; unless you are these things, people don't want to read about cancer. "People want to be transported," she says, this seasoned agent, "but not to downer places."

I've heard this from several agents by now, only this time I heard it. I believed her. I sobbed my pathetic way down Boylston Street, soaking in the news that Flat 'n' Happy is actually flat 'n' dead. I did. I sobbed, as both Laura and Ellen will attest, who had to listen with cell phone at arm's length, I imagine, so that my tears didn't drip through.

I have sobbed a couple times in the past two weeks, now that I think of it. Maybe I am not as emotionally stable as I think I am. The other time was a few nights ago when Yani and I were dog-sitting for Ting's dog, Pip, who, while ostensibly out on a peeing mission, jumped through our fence and escaped into the dark night. There is actually no darker place than our neighborhood on a moonless night when you are searching for a dog who, unless there is raw hamburger attached to the request, does not care a whit for "Pip, come!"

Losing someone else's dog is worse than losing your own. Take it from me. I've had both things happen now. When your own dog disappears, you're just worried about the dog. When someone else's is missing, you're worried about the dog (because you are a Good Person who worries about the Poor Dog), but the real problem is that you could be in the doghouse for decades. You are actually just worried about that.

When Animal Control brought Pip -- cheerful, clueless Pip, going for another happy ride in a stranger's car -- back from the dumpster area at the Farmington Inn, Yani and I clung to each other and sobbed like we had just survived the sinking of the Titanic.

Afterwards, flossing, as I do, because it's on my list, I shook my head at myself. I must really be on edge, only most of the time I don't know it.

A couple of you will want to comfort me about the book. I appreciate that. I am okay. I am not at square one. I am at square two or three. I am just going to sit quietly here for awhile. There is a nice bench, and from here I can see bits of string that I hope to roll into a ball.