January 14, 2020

Rain pours from dark skies, though it is curiously warm, not wintery at all.

Today at 2 PM Circe the Cat crossed the Rainbow Bridge and continued on her journey. Something in her glance last night told me it was time for it to be over. I came home immediately from class and held her in bed all morning. She still had the strength to climb on the stool I placed for her onto the bed, though she had stopped eating and moved only between my side on the bed and, curiously, the waste bin in the study. Last night she did as she had always done, sat on the floor and stared at me in that unfathomable way, though one eye was swollen shut. Her eyes and her fur were beautiful, and her soul was the gentlest in the world. I have wept almost non-stop for two days, one in anticipation, one in desolation. Of course I made a fool of myself at the vet’s and crept out the backdoor so I would not be seen by the people in the lobby. I noted that though I can control anger and fear and modulate hatred and joy, in the face of grief I am helpless. It was good to drive home finally and simply give myself over to it. Exhausting, though; I can hardly move. There are her toys, there her stool, there the place where she lay in the sun. I am happy in those things. They will encourage a remembrance which, after bitter grief has worn off its edges, will be wholly sweet. No creature in the world ever loved me more. I must sit for a while with my face to the wall.

An hour of the day was taken up with a department meeting. Worried about Circe, I resented it, but also I felt it as I had not since I decided to leave it. I want friendships with W and E and K, but I will never have them, Our ways are parting too quickly, and I do recognize they feel themselves of another generation, and do not spontaneously look at mine with thoughts of friendship. No one in that room had read my books, or thought they ought to, and were bragging about reaching into far countries for texts and qualities I would provide them–better–a few feet down the hall. I blamed myself for being unattractive or personally uninteresting, but perhaps it is the general case that one looks far afield for what one might have had at home.

Listened to a colleague meet her first class. I would have shot myself in the head had I been her student.

As if the day were not remarkable enough, the following letter:
Publisher
Attachments
1:21 PM (3 hours ago)
to me

David,

Thank you for giving us the chance to read your manuscript. It is an unusual work and well-written. We think it will be a good fit for our future publishing plans. We therefore take great pleasure in attaching our current publishing contract for your consideration.

As part of our normal publishing program, we will produce a print edition and an E-book edition. Our contracts with distributors and wholesalers ensure that the book will be available throughout the United States and in many other countries including most European nations, Canada and Australia.

To accept our offer to publish your work, sign on the last page after filling in the blanks on the first page. To return the agreement to us, you have the choice of either scanning the signed signature page and attaching it to a return email or signing two printed copies and mailing them to the address at the end of the contract. I will return a copy with my signature for Moonshine Cove Publishing in the same manner. It is important to include the mailing address we are to use for sending royalty checks. Please also list a phone number and, if royalty payments are preferred through PayPal, list the email address used for your PayPal account.

If the completed contract is being returned through regular mail, please send an email to that effect so in case the letter doesn't arrive, we'll know to contact you. As a highly selective independent publisher, we publish only a limited number of books each year. We are currently trying to decide on future publishing contracts, so your decision affects other pending works. Please let us know your decision in a timely fashion.

We look forward to our work together turning your manuscript into a published book.

Best regards,

Gene

Gene D. Robinson, publisher
Moonshine Cove Publishing, LLC

The book in question is The One with the Beautiful Necklaces.  I’m too emotionally exhausted to be as elated as I ought to be, just now. The first thing I did was search the Internet to see if Moonshine Cove is a real publisher, like Red Hen, or some other laborious thing, like BMP. It is real.