READERS DIGEST THIS

I’m tired of these rainy overcast days. Give me my eighty-degree weather pronto! I’ll take my chances, I’ll lather up with my SPF45, slip into my long sleeve UV protected shirt, and don a big floppy hat. What better way to enjoy the sun? Also, the warm weather will help with my stink bait – the smellier, the better. I need to be on the water A—SAP! I’ll open up a package of rotten chicken gizzards, listen to the other fishermen gag and complain—"Why can’t you use night crawlers like the rest of us?"—and bait my hook.

Once my line’s cast, I’ll catch up on reading short stories from back issues of literary journals such as: Orchid Literary Review, Witness, Driftwood Review, or Third Coast. I’ll reflect on each story, study technique, transition, plot, dialogue, character and whatever else catches my eye. There’s so much writing talent out there and so little time to show my worth. Sometimes, if a story is awesome, I’ll become depressed – thinking, I’ll never write half as good as what I’ve just experienced. Other times I’ll make a mental note to contact the writer. It’s an interactive process and I enjoy doing it even if my stink bait doesn’t always work.

Reading these journals outdoors on a warm sunny day is what life’s all about. It beats perusing the Reader’s Digest cooped up in the can. I shouldn’t complain too much though—RD saved my life with their photographs of ugly asymmetrical moles. Now the doctor plays connect the dots with my back, legs, and arms every six months and scoops pieces of skin off me. I'm the Swiss Cheese Man. "We’ll send it to the lab for a biopsy," I’m told. This means a follow-up appointment to have the results read. They refuse to do it over the phone; their way of getting another office visit, another bill sent to you and to your health care provider. But hey – I’m alive and ready to catch some cats! Meooow!