Ex. Huh. Lation. (In Which Alice Recalls She’s a Self-Powered Engine and Makes a Choice)
Hi.
Wasn’t dead; just down some rabbithole-thing, there. Just been busy learning a number of things. Here’s one: No, they were not cold and hard and mean at Number One Nonfiction program. In fact, not only do they have an amazing faculty: People who write regularly for magazines like Harpers, like the New York Times Sunday Magazine, magazines I want to write for, but those faculty members are also gosh darn cool. This is how I know this: They liked me. Funny how that works, huh? Had my head swirling and waltzing some Cinderella dance of the veiled promise of future agents and connections-

I was infatuated. Clearly, this was the place for me. Clearly, there was love there.

And then I checked out the price-tag on that big, wet kiss.

And then I plugged that into an online loan calculator. And fricking yowza and ouch. Spent the next week trying to see if I could scrounge funding from somewhere to go there. Became, how shall we say…a tad obsessed? A tad self-absorbed? A tad um, delusional?

But I’ve come down from that. Concluded it just won’t happen. This morning I called up School formerly known as Choice Number Two and you know what? Not so bad. In fact, I was reminded: pretty darn great. And located somewhere it’s not cloudy from October through April, either. And everyone I’ve talked to there is so gosh darn enthusiastic about the program, it’s nuts. And? Psssst-! They tell me I’ll have fun there. Fun? Writing? Wha-? Oh, yeah…

Sometimes I forget that small point: That when I write well, it’s my little secret garret; it’s more than fun; it has nothing to do with me and nothing to do with now; it’s better than chocolate and as good as sex and puts the same stupid, secret smile on my face when I’m all alone, hours later, thinking about it. And it’s been mine all my life and no matter where I go it will continue to be mine and – (gasp) – the point was supposed to be this: two or three years to write. Um, yeah? Remember that?

So off I go at the end of July not to Arizona, not to Pittsburgh or Massachusetts, but just several hours away to the coast, to a school at my favorite state. Two hours from my grandma and with a damn teaching assistantship to teach fricking Creative Writing, to boot. This is not a let-down. This is good. Good, good, good. No slush, no grey, no fears of never being able to eat again post-graduation.

Back in the world. Hello.