Sorry I burned your dinner; I was looking for the right emoji

What follows is a bit of satire for your pleasure... I’m sorry about the lasagna. I know you don’t like it quite so crispy, especially on top.

Believe it or not, while it was baking, I was texting you! I was making lasagna--your favorite. 💗 But how to put that all on 📣 to you without using too many words, because I know you said you hate to scroll. Gives you carpal tunnel while sitting at🚦.

So I figured emoji would be my friend! 😆

That’s why, the message read, “Making 🍝”--but then I thought that was kind of misleading. I mean, why would you leave work before 10 p.m. for spaghetti? So I went searching for an Italian flag emoji to elaborate.

Which is, I guess, when I neglected to hear the timer going off. 😮You know how immune to that I’ve become to the sound of the oven timer, especially after all the times you would tell me to set it when we’re about to have a 😡😡 because you didn’t want it to last more than 10 minutes. Of course, even when the timer was going off, you’d still be waxing on about how it’s all my fault; yet I’m supposed to just be all 😶 and 🙆 and 👸.

Basically, while I was searching for the Italian flag emoji, I ignored the oven timer. So, I just sent the text and then followed up with “🔝means lasagna, lol.”

That was partially a lie. I wasn’t actually laughing out loud. I wasn’t laughing at all. Because that’s when the smoke detector started blaring. I wanted to send you a text not to come straight 🏡 but I didn’t want to panic you. The whole 💥💭💂😖💨was my attempt at saying, “Gotta go.”

Now that I look back at that message, I can see why you immediately called and asked if a Russian spy had tried to kidnap me. That’s when I literally did LOL, except only for a moment because then I smelled burnt cheese ♨ and the kitchen started seriously 💨💨💨.

I started another text to you, but then I realized my time would be better spent calling 🚒

The dispatcher was prepared to walk me through using the fire extinguisher. 💦I looked for it under the sink and to my surprise, discovered your small but fine collection of women’s 👙👙👙. I suppose you never thought I’d be looking for a fire extinguisher since I myself am, as you say, “not exactly a nine alarm 🔥🔥,” but now it looks like there had already been a few in the house. ㈫🏡 ㈫

Sorry about the lasagna. 😂😂😂LOLOLOLOL.

The best thing I saw at #AWP15

I got to go the Association of Writers Program conference in Minneapolis this past weekend, thank you Workplace Pro Growth account! It was the best carnival of all for a writer, a smorgasboard of publishing goodies and a veritable Main Street USA of connections, all overstimulating and whipping one around at full-tilt. Also, I am now in possession of 45 bookmarks and 8,000 pens.

It's easy to fall prey to AWP overwhelm and to just want to stand bowlegged in a corner and hope someone is going to shout, Red Rover Red Rover, Girl with the manuscript come over. But one is better off wading into the book fair looking as though one has a plan. And waiting for something shiny to call out.

Which is why the BatCat Press was my absolute favorite booth. How darling are these girls? They were all shiny dappled cheeks and information and I was all standing stun-gunned, trying to get past the fact that they are in high school and cranking out professional books and hand-marbling pages and all kinds of other ridiculousness. They attend a high school called Lincoln Park in Pennsylvania, which I hope it's okay if I'm posting their pics here, because they're kind of a big deal. They operate the only press in the U.S. run by high school students.

This is the part where I tell you how I spent my high school years: shoving cup after cup of Reese's pieces into my wide open maw while I stood in the walk-in cooler at the Dairy Queen where I (supposedly) worked.

These girls make books. With their hands and their brains and probably some hipster pixie dust.

And here is their teacher, perhaps the most charming teacher I've ever snuck a picture of at AWP.

Shout-out to BatCat Press. Press on.....

Way recommending: "Who's Picking Me Up from the Airport?"

I am an unlikely audience member for Who's Picking Me Up from the Airport?: And Other Questions Single Girls Ask and for this reason, I read it with great relish. What I hadn't anticipated is how much I would enjoy it and, moreover, how much I would have needed it!

This book is effectively an encouragement for Christian women who are single and age 30+. These women are single not due to widowhood or separation/divorce but because they are still seeking a life's partner. Still seeking--that's the error in the perception as the book readily points out. Author Cindy Johnson lays bare what a raw deal single women, especially those in the Church, are given. Ever being postured as not quite whole, their lives not fully realized because they are not yet paired off with someone--we have done a terrible job of ministering to singles and focusing for way too long on their relationship status. The chapter that spoke most into my heart was "Call It What It Is: Why Being Single is Lame" where Johnson offers a "what not to say" to one's single friends. I have been the offender in almost every one of the points offered. Points. Well. Taken!

The book is not long--150 pages and it is organized in a brilliant way that reads easily, like a memoir. Johnson pairs her own anecdotes as well as letters from her single friends, both male and female, who share their stories in dating and seasons of singledom. Johnson discusses so many beautiful aspects of the single life and how rich it is, but she also shares her journey through relationships that she had expected to turn out otherwise. Her voice is delightful, not just in contrast to the voice one might expect from a non-fiction book on dating and the single life. Johnson's tone is consistently sincere and funny and she pulls no punches. This book is a gift and I believe that it would be a great gift for a friend, an addition to a pastor's bookshelf, and would be a great women's book club pick.

***

*Johnson and I have gotten acquainted through our mutual literary agent. I received a free copy of this book in advance with no expectation of review or endorsement.