Monday, May 17, 2004 eat loserville rutabegas
Summer colds knock me down, every one. I called out today, when I should probably have just gone in and worked the hours. I would have if I could've escaped being on the phone all day.
Blame lies with Decision 2004: Boston/Baltimore. Stress attacks my body. When I little, I used to get a "nervous stomach" (oh, my lands! and the vapors, too!) when I was upset. My senior year of college, pieces of one of my teeth started coming off in my breakfast snausages and in gooey candy. That's one way to figure out one is grinding one's teeth in one's sleep. If crowns weren't so expensive, I'd still prefer that over the "nervous stomach". A little cold seems like getting off easy.
My old college college just gave out the big cash prize for the best writer in the senior class again. They do it at the end of graduation. When they started giving out the prize in the sixties, they would quietly call the recipient in a few days before. Sometime in the late seventies, they decided that it was funnier not to tell the winner until his or her name is called out in front of everybody.
According to school's the press release, this year a really great girl won. My feelings of goodwill towards her are probably helped along by my lack of poisonous jealousy this year.
The Big Cash Prize is big, as far as windfalls go, about $50,000, but that's subject to gleeful taxation, and even if it wasn't, it's not a "set for life" amount. I wanted it so badly, though. I think I would've broken my teeth about it if it had been ten bucks and a gift certificate to Dress Barn.
The newspaper articles never discuss, "The losers: where are they now?" Maybe it's because there are so many of us, or because it seems a little cruel, like sports broadcasters who chase down the barely-composed bronze medalists as they try to flee the arena. Instead, the articles talk about how the winners tend to be overwhelmed. Many of them complain that winning the prize caused them to put enormous pressure on themselves so that they couldn't write for six months or a year, or really, ever again.
I hope the nice girl who won this year can ride that out. She always gave me the impression that she was wise and tough, and I think she can do just fine.
Still, there are days when I am perhaps less grateful than I should be that I was not burdened by an opressive 50,000. posted by Frenz | 5/17/2004 09:00:00 AM
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