Remembering some of my writers' conference in New York

      While I was at a writers' conference in  Hamilton, New York, in June, the husband sent me an email that he couldn't open his hotmail account. Now how was I supposed to help with that? It asked me a bunch of questions for secret passwords and special questions I didn't know about, or what was the subject of his recent emails--- how am I supposed to know that? Since we didn't have a phone to share, I sent him and his brothers and sister-in-law messages over Facebook. I think they eventually informed him I was trying to contact him, and through the Facebook account of his I "messaged" when to pick me up on that Thursday.
     On the third day at the writers' conference at Colgate U. I finally got to use the umbrella I had been carrying around. It was wet and the big white pine across from my window gently swayed in the wind.
     Greg Ames' reading about a older professor trying to challenge his students to many things (including arm wrestling) was hilarious. He also spoke at length about magic realism and fabulism, Kafka and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the latter of whom read Kafka and thought you "weren't allowed" to write like that. We also read Aimee Bender's "Rememberer", a fabulistic tale, where you change just one thing, her boyfriend devolving from a person into an amoeba she puts into the sea.
I don't know if I can write like that, but it seems I can have a flair for humor, probably more than for the serious, except in the case of nonfiction. I'd love to get a nonfiction book deal!

Wondering Things at Work in the cafeteria

    Well, everyone is so close together in the revamped Dalton cafeteria that it's easy to eavesdrop on people. My adjunct colleagues (I guess to be economical) don't lunch here, so I lunch alone, which is fine. I read The Writer magazine and write down thoughts (like this one) amidst clanging dishes and the quiet roar of so many voices around me. There is a TV embedded in the building's support column, maybe 30 feet away. It has "closed captioning" but I can't really read it from here. I had a light breakfast and now, after a meal and a dessert, should I get another dessert....
    It turned out, yeah, I ate another dessert (gluten free chocolate cake with vanilla yogurt with it, like a frosting). Then later, after my classes, I was thirsty, but instead of buying a water bottle, I got a drink at a fountain and bought one of those "Cadbury egg" chocolates with the gooey center -- what a mess on my fingers as I drove!
    But before I had class and left the dining area I heard a woman across from me talk about how you should help a doctoral candidate more with his/her work, doing a book. I'm not that ambitious and don't have a doctorate.Well, I want to write a book that involves some research (about nature), but geared toward a general audience. But I should consider writing a book for my "Core" course, as the present handbook is lousy. Could I make money doing that?

Found Good Cancer Site, Semester Moving Along, need book deal

     The semester is well underway and I guess I am doing okay. You normally have no idea what the students think till the end of the semester, but I gave them an "interest survey" in the beginning and had an idea about what they knew, or supposedly, what they said they knew. And in one of my classes I heard a student say "this is my favorite class." Well, someone likes my class !
And that's a good thing.
      But it pays so awfully little, this adjunct faculty gig. I have a Master's degree and they pay me like I just graduated high school!
     Wish it paid better as I think I have low thyroid-- hair keeps thinning, brain is getting fuzzier in the memory dept. I ordered iodine online and it 'says' it's natural-- from a place in Las Vegas, no less. Vegas, where a stubborn mother, mentally deficient, juvenille sister and unhealthy brother live. Not a lot to cheer up your day. If my mother passes then what then I have to deal with? They don't have a lot of money to live on and the same here. Wish my mystery "The Butler Didn't Do It" would be considered by some agent/publisher. But who am I kidding, as I am not a great novelist. But it would be nice, and then I could afford healthcare.
      So I look online. I found 1uponcancer.com and I need to go back to it as it has some  good information. Well, I need to leave soon for class. Tah tah.