If you’re reading this, you can see that I’m back, and know that I’ve been absent. Again.
In addition to life, and the novel, and “the upcoming move that freaked me out,” my face turned “worse sunburn of your life” red, and blistered and weepy. It was gross, it really hurt, and to say I was concerned is putting it mildly. Fortunately, it turns out it was contact dermatitis–i.e., I have an allergy. An allergy patch test showed sensitivity to (get this! I’ve learned to both spell and say this–cool, I think?) methylcholorisothiazolinone / methylisothisazonlinone. Turns out, it’s a synthetic preservative that was in my sunscreen. Every time I slathered sunscreen on my face, my face flared–making me think that, somehow, I’d gotten sunburn despite the sunscreen. Puzzling, as I rarely (like, once a decade) get sunburned. Ironically enough, while this is one of the 36 most common allergens contained on the standard allergy patch test, it’s in most “hypo-allergenic” dish soaps. Oh, the ridiculous things I keep discovering in this world…
My move has not yet happened, so I’ll likely go missing for a week or so in early-mid August. Just a warning.
Other than that, let me show you what’s up:
Raspberries! They are lush and delicious and overflowing the canes that grow wild in the nearby park. Warmed by the early morning sun, they explode with sweet-tartness in my mouth. I have a small container of them yet, and I’m pondering what to do with them. On cereal (seems like a cruel thing to do to something so divine), on yogurt? Mmm, maybe in scones…
This isn’t to short-change the blueberries, let me say. They are awesome, and they came ripe first. But they’ll linger, ripening all through summer, while the wild raspberries are here and gone again too soon.
Finally, I’ve been writing–on the novel and on flash fiction. It’s contest time in my writing group, and I’m writing a flash fiction story once every 2 weeks. So far, I’m doing pretty well (better than I anticipated, in fact) in the scoring–not that the scoring means much. Some of these stories are so amazing they hurt to read. Others aren’t there yet, not in this incarnation, but I can see the stunning gems they’ll become with polishing, now that contest time-constraints are off. So the scoring really means nothing at all. It’s the comments that are the real gold, as these will help me edit the stories into something better (and salable, I hope).
These are the ups and downs of the summer for me. The season’s half over (eek! how?), and I hope it’s been good to you. Here’s wishing you raspberries!
Everyday Magic | M. E. Garber 
We call those salmonberries around here (in the Pacific NW). I love finding out the regional differences on stuff like that! I am curious what you call “real” raspberries, though, since they definitely taste nothing like these.
Salmonberry? I’ve never even heard that name. (Not surprising since we don’t have salmon outside grocery stores here.) You’re right–regional differences are cool. And, since I’ve always called these things standard “wild raspberries” (as opposed to domestic), I’m not sure what I’d call your raspberry :-). Probably I’d just eat them and call ’em “good.”
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