Well, I finally sat down and read the comments on the rejected paper.

They're not as bad as I expected. (but then again, few things are. It's a bad habit of mine, expecting the worst in a situation. Somewhere along the line I guess I learned it as a defense mechanism - if you're expecting the worst, you never have too big of a shock). Instead of telling me "trashcan the paper", they seem to be telling me "rewrite the thing and submit it somewhere else."

so that's what I'm going to do.

And it's cooler today, which always raises my spirits. In fact, it's cool and overcast out, my favorite kind of weather - it always reminds me of the happy times of my childhood and adolescence:

sitting on the kitchen floor while my mom cooked dinner, trying to teach myself "cursive" writing using my Richard Scarry Encyclopedia (I would have been about six).

going hiking in what was then called the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area with my parents - this must have been when I was very young because I remember my brother as an infant in a Snugli. One year we even did the hiking-stick-badge thing they used to do.

playing tennis with my friends in prep school as leaves blew around the court. Running back to the dorm with them in the gathering dark to call my parents to come pick me up (I was a Day Student)

going "back to school" and all the new clothes, new books, new crayons, new art supplies that that meant. Even now, the "back to school" feeling makes me happy. Even in prep school and college it made me happy to look at the bright piles of new textbooks - even if it meant I was reading Aesculus that year or learning biochemistry.

sitting in my bedroom, at the giant old wood desk my dad bought me when Polsky's closed down and sold off all their office furniture, in a puddle of lamplight from a gooseneck lamp my mom used when she was in college, reading my AP History assignments.

going out to pick out pumpkins or to buy apples at a farmer's market.

caramel apples and pumpkin donuts showing up in the grocery store

planning what I was going to dress up as for Hallowe'en and working with my mom on my costume.

watching the Charlie Brown Hallowe'en special on television. Watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special on television.

that magic day (when I was a child, it was still *after* Thanksgiving) when the Christmas decorations went up in the stores.