For the past few months, every time I sign on to blogger, when I view my blog - it freezes the machine, I have to do a Ctrl-Alt-Del, sign back on - and then it is OK. It doesn't happen when I make a post, only when I view it. Very irritating.

I went to a two day conference on Friday and Saturday. Overall, it was fairly good. Some speakers just read a 40 page paper in a monotone voice - really, TMI! We are going to get a book of all the papers eventually, we can read them, whey bother presenting? Others were truly dynamic and the two keynotes (Friday dinner and Saturday lunch) were truly inspiring. It hit me that we haven't had intellectual leadership in the SUNY System for 15 years.

About my last post: I wasn't happy about not entering. I checked the magazine again and saw that the deadline was Friday, April 3. So, I searched the hard drives of all my computers, and couldn't find a thing. I couldn't find a print out of anything suitable in my file drawer either. Then I tore apart the bedroom, looking for old floppy disks. Bob has been saying he plans to throw them out, but luckily he hasn't yet - I found a box, went through the ones that seemed promising, and found the story I was seeking in an older version, plus a bunch of other things.

I got together two entries (you can enter up to three) - one old story and a new story that I created from snippets I'd written about my grandmother in the past. Needless to say, I spent nearly all day Wednesday on this. I knew I had to teach all day on Thursday and go to the conference on Friday, so it was the only time I had.

I went to the magazine website to submit - and discovered that they extended the deadline until April 17! So I could have been doing what I should have been doing (grading midterms). [I did manage to get a bunch done Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings. I only have 13 left at this point. But I have a LOT of things to do over break, including the taxes. Still swimming upstream.] I am going to wait to submit until the new power supply comes, keep my fingers crossed that it fixes the problem, and assuming it does, see if there is anything on there for a third entry, or if I like something better than what I have assembled now. Also it will give me a chance to make more revisions after I sleep on it, for the new story in particular.

The Mimmie story is extremely appropriate because she has been gone 16 years as of yesterday. Hard to believe. Seems like yesterday she was there at the kitchen table in her trailer drinking tea and heating up a danish in the toaster oven. I remember how many times we talked about death when I was a teenager and stayed overnight at the old place (actually should be talked almost all night - she was even more owl than I am). She said, "it is likely that I will die before you and I will come back and tell you what it is like."