Dear Reader,
From Gail G., a reader at the book club...
"Suzanne, I just wanted to thank you for your daily column and tell you how much I enjoy it! I look forward to reading it every morning and it's the first thing I look at when I open my email every day. I identify with you so much that I feel like I'm getting a letter from a long time friend! Love the recipes and giveaways, but especially the content of your missives--I really relate to your musings, they're so much like my own. The Mother's Day article especially hit home for me. Please keep up your efforts (it can't be easy to write these every day), but also know your column is better than therapy!"
(Suzanne replies:) You're a sweetheart. Thank you so much. Writing every day for the past 19 years (oh my gosh, that's a long time, isn't it?), you are right Gail, sometimes it's not easy. Your email reminded me of a column I wrote years ago, about one of the biggest problems about writing a daily column. Thanks for the trip down memory lane...
I never know what day it is anymore. I'm on deadline every day, but it's not for the day I'm on. See how confusing things can get?
I'm supposed to write my column at least two days before it's published at the book clubs, so it can get all tidied up and loaded into a software program, in time to show up in your email. So on Monday I'm writing Wednesday, on Wednesday I'm writing Friday, on Friday I'm already into next week. Sometimes things get even more confusing if I'm going on a business trip and I have to write further ahead. Then I'm not in this week, or next week, but in the week after that.
And that's probably why I showed up for a doctor's appointment, two weeks early. When the receptionist asked me what day my appointment was supposed to be on, I told her, "Today, Tuesday."
"No, it's Tuesday, a week from now," she pointed out, but I insisted that I'd already traveled through those days....
What day is it? When my husband first saw it in the magazine, a clock that doesn't tell time--it only displays the day of the week, he thought it was a stupid idea. Who in their right mind would need such a thing? (And then he thought of me.)
But I'm an old-fashioned kind of girl and I think I've found an old fashioned solution instead. When I was a kid, everybody wore them, "Day of the Week Underwear." Monday through Sunday, each pair came in a different pastel color and the day of the week was decoratively stitched on the outside left-hand corner.
It's perfect. I'll always know for sure what day of the week it is because my underwear goes everywhere I go.
Want to know what day it is? Hang on a second, let me check my undies.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
* It's my Summer Reading Giveaway! Summer is the perfect time to pull up a lounge chair and settle in with a good book. Every day this week I'm giving away books from my bookshelf and you can enter every day. Click here.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
* ICE, by Anna Kavan, is this month's Penguin Classics book. Enjoy a great Classics book and enter-to-win a Penguin tote bag. Click here to start reading.
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