Beginnings and Ends (and Middles too)

Tonight I have my first workshop of my last year. I'm looking forward to it, though I know my skin about my stories isn't as thick as it is about my novel. When you revise something for years, you just get really tough about it, and you can objectively judge if someone else's comments are helpful. With a new story, everything is up in the air, and I feel very sensitive about it, like if someone says the wrong thing I'll give up on it completely.

Meanwhile, the world continues to amaze me. Sometimes I think I should blog about every single thing that pisses me off, but lately I have had no energy to perseverate on the universe's woes. What difference will it make if I do?

Happy Ramadan to all you fasters out there! I'm proudly not fasting this year. Every year I feel guilty about not doing it, but this year, I'm happy not to, and happy for everyone else who is.

I'm only 40 miles away from a huge Arab American community, yet I feel completely isolated. My trip to Egypt this summer was also a nice little slap in the autheticity face. Every year, I think, I'm a little older, I need to get over my ethnic confusion. Oh, but it keeps getting thicker and thicker and thicker...