Glee in Roy

Okay, I've always wanted my photo taken with my body on prominent display across other giggling female bodies. I could be Dolly or Mame or Venus de Milo. This wonderful book club in Roy, Utah made me feel pretty good about being Louise Plummer this evening. I've been crying in my cups for days. It's been a melt-down of self pity and these kind women shocked me out of the doldrums with laughter. This afternoon, I was lying under a hair blanket trying to stop breathing, because there was no joy in my life and there never would be again. Ever.

I needed a serious swat in the side of the head. These women smacked me around good.

I mean, look at us. In another five minutes we would have broken into warbling and whistling. They read me quotes from my own writing--things I'd forgotten I'd said. They had devined, miraculously, without using chicken entrails that I had a stalker. We gossiped. I told them all my secret potions and wisdom for living, like "Space your children five years apart. You can still have four." And "There isn't a woman on earth who hasn't secretly wished her husband would fall under a bus and she would collect the insurance and live in Paris." And this nugget: "Behind every silver lining, there's a cloud." And vice versa. Or versa vysah.

And here's the miracle. I almost always say no to book clubs. I don't like driving in the dark looking for strange people's houses. And how do I know it isn't Sister Hannibal Lecter inviting me into her dungeon apartment? You never know.

The miracle is that C.F. invited me last June when I was in Vienna and I thought to myself, "Oh sure, why not? I could be dead in September." That's a trick you should all learn. If you want to invite a speaker or whathaveyou for some function, invite them way far in advance, because people like me always are pretty sure they'll be dead before said event comes up.

Roy is an hour from my house. This afternoon, under the hair blanket, I did not want to go.

But I went and was healed. Thank you book club angels. May all your dreams come true. Every last one of them.

P.S. to C.F. It's 5518. I think I wrote it down wrong. And thank you for the grasshopper cookies and delicious berry punch and for the chocolates and STAMPED cards. You know how I love stamps!