fyi ... Ben & Jerry now make Spekooloos (spelling?) ice cream. According to the container, bits of cookie with a cookie butter core.

just sayin' ....

Haagen Daaz coffee ice cream. Or Ben & Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough.

I have an actual freezer, I can buy bigger containers of ice cream. The universe trembles.

edit: Or, dare I say it . . . both?

I've been doing some house painting for a friend of a friend lately, and I drive right by a place that sells some of the best ice cream in the state to get to the house. (For those in the area, Maple View Farms ice cream.) I've been helping for over a month now, and I've only stopped for ice cream once. I'm thinking that that's going to change in the next day or two.

I got a rejection for one of my stories, and then was stupid and read the comments on a Facebook story(So awful, like poking a boo-boo under a bandaid.Why must some people continue to believe that the answer to every black single woman's problem is to wear a paper hat at McDonald's? Why? Have I mentioned lately that I hate it here? Because it's still true, even though I thought repeating it was like "Francisco Franco's still dead." I am in a Mood now. (I know this is probably the wrong attitude, and writing was my "dream!1", but how many rejections count as giving it my best shot, do you think? 50? 100? Because rather than hurting less, like I expected, every time I get rejected a voice in my head says "Plenty of people live decent lives without ever dealing with a submission generator, you know?" How do I know if it's my conscience or KFKD?

I went to a talk given by Ray Bradbury when I was a college student. He mentioned a number of rejections. It seemed absurdly large. I believe he pointed out that writing is a strange profession, requiring a person to be very sensitive to observe the depths of people's emotions while simultaneously being thick-skinned enough to deal with rejections. The way I figure it, if I had been serious about writing, I would have imagined myself as a successful, older writer, saying to a gathering of young impressionable types, "When I was starting out, I got rejections by the shovels-full. My rejections file currently has ____ notifications in it. I haven't closed it, I'm still getting them, more of a teaspoonful these days. If writing is your passion, start your collection of rejection letters proudly...." and not quit until I had reached that number. I don't know what your number should be, erika. But I do know that the process sucks.

I mean, I have read about the 10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell thing, but he doesn't really tell you when the clock starts, either. If it starts when I was five, or eight, when I started to make stuff up, I'm covered, but maybe not if we think about writing *professionally*. I just don't want to be the woman who got published in one famous magazine and never got over it, either.

I'm pretty sure my lungs hate Pennsylvania. After a week in Hawaii, where I was coughing some but definitely coughing less, I'm back to the gagging wheeze/cough now that I'm back in PA. So, back to the doctor tomorrow.

Now that I think about it, the places where I've had the least trouble breathing have all been desert-y places next to an ocean. Though I haven't spent much time in desert-y places not next to oceans, so I can't really say if the ocean is part of the breathing. The ocean is certainly nice, though.

they charge for valet with a handicap plate.

That's some bullshit.

Vortex, they do charge a discounted rate, but I am used to my other hospital charging nothing when you have a plate.

I've been up all night with terrible stomach ick, probably from all of the antibiotics I've been on. My stomach seems to be finally settling down, but I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight.

Hil, for me the ocean definitely helps with both my lungs and with my allergies. I was feeling much better by the ocean last weekend than I do now that I'm home.