What Was I Thining...And Still Thinking?

Last Wednesday, I had dropped Bo and Chloe off at I-20 Animal Medical Center for Chloe's Cushing's recheck.  I leave Bo with Chloe since he has a calming effect on her, so that gave me a little break from the usual routine.

On Thursday afternoon, I receive a text message from Random Cathy asking me if I was interested in meeting for dinner.  At first, I was going to decline.  However, the logistics of eating dinner before picking up the dogs made better sense.  I have been really horrible about eating dinner pretty late these days - say 9:30 - 11:00 PM.  I suppose since my knee issues, I have not been really motivated to stand to cook.

We met an interesting Asian restaurant, which was on my way to get the dogs.  While we were catching up, Cathy told me about having gone to see a presentation called "Oral Fixation."  She explained the concept and commented on how powerful the tales read were. 

At that point, she asked me if I would be interested in trying out for the next show.  The topic was "In the Doghouse."  The topic could be taken literally or metaphorically speaking.  The thought was that I should have plenty of dog stories with the dogs.  That should be true, but at the time, I was not thinking of anything.

The biggest hurdle would be trying to write something before the Monday 6 PM deadline.  Could I do it?

I agreed.  However, as I was driving to get the dogs after dinner, I was not sure what direction to go.  I could talk about the first dog the family had, "Girl".  I could talk about when I was 3 years old and how a dog mourning the death of her pups attacked me.  Discuss how BJ and the subsequent Pomeranians touched our lives.  Ugh - what a multitude.

I managed to put together a piece and submit it on Monday.  I pretty much glossed over each of the above ideas.  Unfortunately, I did not discuss "me" or one dog in particular.  I knew what I submitted was not going to get selected.  Many times, your gut just knows, but I wanted Cathy to be chosen.  She is better at this than I am and for whatever reasons, why did I want to open myself up that much?  

I fought over issues where I felt that were controversial.  I cried while writing the piece as it dredged up things I had deeply hidden.  Nothing was ever unlawful, but the exercise was one of really seeing how my life and ideals had changed so drastically.

Wednesday evening, I received the expected rejection letter.  Bottom line, it was probably one of the nicest rejection letters I had ever received.  I was not upset or hurt.  In fact, I was encouraged to try again.  That was a big positive and made me feel that maybe that there is something there in the writing.

I waited to find out if Cathy had made the cut.  I had already gone to the site to order a ticket, but I wanted to make sure that Cathy would be there.  If Cathy made the cut, there was no doubt about going - I wanted to support her.  However, if neither of us got selected, then I would buy the ticket to go with Cathy for an outing.

As I knew, Cathy made the cut.  I am so happy for her!  I know she will do a fabulous job and I bought my ticket to the show right there and then.  This will be exciting to see.

The next topic is "Too Many Cooks."  I am working on a piece for this.  I remind myself that these shows are recorded for posting on YouTube.  I need to make sure I can navigate this piece appropriately for humor as well as providing insight into me.

This should be interesting, but we shall see if I get picked this next go around...