Happiness ensued.

I was in the middle of writing a blog post about the words “wretched and dismayed.”  I had read them in a book I was going to review (The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair) and realized that wretchedness is a strong focused emotion and crowds out all but its own pain.  You experience your day through the dark velvet curtain of despair.  I was explaining how that is preferable to the general unfocused malaise most of us experience that simply shrouds existence in an indefinable blahness.

When I have an indefinable blahness, I run to food and say, “I have a general malaise, will you comfort me?” and food says, “Come here snookums, you need a hug.”  Contrary to Doctor Phil and Jillian Michaels, food can comfort you.  Really?  Of course, not.

Anyway, after a good snack of ciabatta bread and fresh mozzarella, I looked at my e-mail and there was a message in sepia tone that means my computer thought it was junk.  It even said to me, g-mail thinks this is junk.  Sometimes I get crazy comments on my blog from Russian robots and the subject line says, “there be many ideas to find.” Those e-mails are not only junk they will probably blow up your computer.  The subject line on this e-mail said:  Interest in Daughters. I thought:  either someone wants to marry my daughter (who is already married) or they like my book, Daughters.  I went up to the right hand corner of the computer and clicked “not junk.”

When I read the e-mail, I went into a catatonic stare – my usual reaction to good news - and stayed like that for a good two or three minutes.  Then I read the e-mail again.  Here’s what it said:  I’m an editor here at Amazon Publishing.  I’ve been reading the terrific reviews for DAUGHTERS and would love to consider it for our list. I see on your bio that DAUGHTERS has been translated into 15 languages--which is fantastic! I’m wondering if World rights are available.  If so, I’d like to give the book a read to see if it’s a good fit for our list.

I closed “Mail” and remained in a catatonic stare.  After a while I thought about how just minutes before I had considered the Great Zon (Amazon) an unreachable entity that resided in a galaxy far, far away.  And now?  It was as close as an e-mail.  The Mighty Zon was going to re-publish my book and use its marketing muscle to sell it.  Happiness ensued.