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More Good NewsJanuary 29, 2010 Pretty soon I'm gonna be dropped from the Gloom N Doom Club and strong-armed into the Pollyanna Society, but here goes anyway. Trivia 10 is now up. My "And Will Rise? Notes on Lesbian Extinction" is in it. That's thrilling enough, but so is the company it's keeping: Ruthann Robson, Dolores Klaich, Cynthia Rich, Elana Dykewomon, and Margie Adam, among others. I've started reading the other contributions, and I keep having to stop because Morgana's screen gets blurry through the tears streaming down my face: these people speak my language, which I thought was dead, and know my country, which I'd begun to think was a hallucination. I've begun to bless the day my sourdough starter died. Writers' Journal just bought "Copyediting Demystified: How to Help Your Copyeditor Make You Look Good." This is an 1,800-word article I wrote at the end of last summer and had almost forgotten. Validation is good. I had to celebrate. In the last week, Lands' End has probably e-sent me four sale notices. Big Sale! Even Bigger Sale! 10% Off Even Bigger Sale Prices! I used to buy all my jeans from Lands' End, then Sears bought them out and I couldn't find the no-nonsense working jeans I loved. However. A few weeks ago I was in the up-island Cronig's. (Note to off-islanders: Cronig's is the upscale supermarket on Martha's Vineyard. They have two stores, both on State Road, one in Vineyard Haven, the other in West Tisbury, right next to the West Tisbury p.o., where I get my mail. I make fun of Cronig's and Cronig's shoppers all the time, but there's no denying that (a) they carry The Mud of the Place, and (b) no one else carries steel-cut oats in bulk, and that's what I eat for breakfast every morning.) So I was in up-island Cronig's a few weeks ago, the one next to the West Tisbury post office, en route either to or from the barn and wearing my red down vest. A woman approaching me stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth open. I am not kidding. What stopped her dead in her tracks was the blackness of my down vest, which started off red. The blackness is ground-in barn dirt. Laundering doesn't make a dent in this blackness. I suppose I could wash it more often and use more toxic chemicals, but this isn't me. My filthy red vest kept me warm, so what's a little dirt? My filthy yellow Gore-tex rain slicker lasted me almost 10 years because I didn't wash it every two or three months. I believe it and that settles it. Still, it was a little unsettling that my down vest was so dirty that it stopped approaching shoppers in their tracks, even if those shoppers were in Cronig's the upscale supermarket. This wasn't, however, enough to make me buy a new down vest, though when the second Lands' End e-flyer arrived, I did check out women's outerwear. Hmm. There were a couple of possibilities, the prices were right, and they came in dark colors that wouldn't show dirt. I kept thinking. Yesterday I noticed a rip in my red down vest. Down was starting to leak through the hole. Hmm again. Filth might not be enough to justify replacing the vest, but filth plus a hole that was leaking down? Filth plus a down-leaking hole plus a passionate desire for a vest that wouldn't clash with my red, burgundy, and purple sweaters? How was I going to celebrate the publication of one of the best essays I'd ever written?? Sold! I ordered a dark gray vest, two turtlenecks, and a pair of brown chinos, all for $56, free shipping.
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