So I’m in Tucson, with no Internet access (I’ve wisely scheduled these posts so that it looks as if I’m more connected than I really am, hee, hee),  and when I finally got my butt to the library and opened up my email, I was met with good news:

My hybrid creative nonfiction piece How Mary, Joseph and Jesus F*cked up My Love Life was just accepted by “The Hunger Journal.” The editors said, “We absolutely love it.” That’s good to hear. In fact, that’s great to hear because so much of my life is about receiving rejection letters.

Then, less than an hour  later, I opened an email from “trampset” about publishing the same essay. Unfortunately, I had already accepted “The Hunger Journal” and they were a bit too late.

And, my Running essay that was published in “Sport Literate” a few years ago and also published in the “Best American Sports Writing” and selected as a “Best American Essays” mention, will be included in an anthology of the best of “Best Americans: Our Honored Writers” with such renowned writers as Rachel Luria, Michael J. Hess and Frank Soos.

And after all of that good news, I also received a rejection notice for a chapbook contest that I literally have no memory of entering. None. Null. I faithfully record my submissions and yet this one wasn’t listed in my file. Very, very odd. Obviously, it wasn’t meant to be.

But, the heck with rejection, right? I’m in Tucson, where it’s still spring and everything is blooming and there is so much color, so much green and yellow and pink. We’re pulling our new condo together and it hasn’t been easy. We bought it as a short sale and the previous owners didn’t exactly leave it in tidy condition. We hired a contractor for the worst of it but have taken care of the smaller things ourselves.

I spent two days scrubbing out the calcium deposits and rust stains in both bathrooms. Two days. Of scrubbing. Then more cleaning, more painting and furniture buying—ahhhhh! It’s almost over, though. The living room, dining room and kitchen are finished. We’re still waiting on flooring in the bedroom and guest bedroom and in the meantime have been sleeping on an inflatable mattress. Imagine what great fun this is.

We also have no TV, no Internet and both of our phones are almost out of data. And, oh, yeah, we only have a rental car on the weekends. So after it gets dark at like 7:20 p.m., we have to be very, very careful not to get on one another’s nerves. Mostly we take walks. And then I cook. And then we eat and take another walk. Then we read. And sometimes, yes, we take still another walk.

But the warmth is heavenly and returning to Alaska in two weeks is going to be a shock. But I’ll quickly adapt and get back in the groove of running my favorite trails with my favorite dog and walking the beach at midnight in the summer twilight, and I’ll be happy, happy, happy, and Tucson will fade into the background. Until autumn rolls around and it starts getting cold again, that is.