Literary failure, square dancing, and Stinson Beach

Well, there is good news and there's bad news.  And there is some medium news. First the bad.  Apparently my spit shining skills aren't up to snuff because the new agent on second thought just sort of dumped me and my little book proposal, leaving me stranded once again in the literary wasteland. 

The medium news is that because I am now so mature and well-seasoned I can see this with a modicum of perspective and attempt to take a few lessons. 

Here's the first, an oldie but goodie: don't write with "the marketplace" in mind.  Just write what you want to write and try not to think about how anthologies are dead and memoirs are in.  Kay Ryan, our new Poet Laureate wrote a terrifically funny essay that is in part about all the extraneous chattering that writers do in an attempt to connect, when really, just maybe, what they should be doing is writing. Read it here. Really, it's so good.

The second lesson I am gleaning from my most recent literary failure is that one should never send an agent a poorly formed, undone half-book hoping that said agent will recognize in said mess of pages a true spark of genius.  It's not how it works.  Duh.

So, as Howard Junker says, Onward!  To what, I don't know.  I'm thinking of becoming a nurse or maybe a nursery school teacher.  

Ok, now the good news: Mark & Chelsea's wedding was super fun in a million ways.  

The mister and me at the wedding

A few highlights:

Stinson Beach's most perfect weather of the year.

Wedding vows exchanged against the backdrop of kids and dogs frolicking on the beach.

Eating leg of lamb around a campfire and then getting to go back to our nice beach rental and sleep in a bed.

Mark's sister's family band consisting of her seven children, two of whom were wearing kilts.

Following mother-daughter fiddlers through town to the reception.

Two clogging nieces.

Late-night chicken wings (an true moment of wedding inspiration).

Learning a wedding reel dance that included do-si-doing and swinging our partners.

Square dancing

Dancing for non-squares

Hip hip hooray for love and marriage and all that fun stuff!

The good life

This is getting embarrassing and I'm sure my pinko grandparents would not approve, but my little  family is sure getting used to the good life (probably good to get while the gettin' is still good).  

This past weekend we spent a lovely 24 hours up at the lovely Stinson Beach with our lovely friends from England and their lovely son, born on the same day as the twins.  

For like the fourth time in as many weeks we partied like members of the chattering class in good standing—with wine and cheese and these outrageously tasty little Gorgonzola crackers from Trader Joe's. The weather was, as my friend Hilary likes to say, "absurdo" and the view was beautiful.  All of it was just too, too pleasant. Pleasant enough for me to feel the fuzzy outline of guilt (again, with the Commie grandparents whispering "softie" into my ear).  

So what if the economy is crumbling around us?  So what if we are at war?  Nothing beats an afternoon of crab fishing with your two-year-olds off the edge of your private dock, glass of wine by your side.  

So what if I'm toast when the revolution comes?

Oliver checks out a crab we caught with my ingenious

plastic-citrus-bag-and-raw-hamburger invention

This picture is all the husband's fault, but those are the $100 jeans