I am waiting.

Editor X at Penguin Young Readers Group just emailed, saying he (or she) won't get back to me until January. This could mean that she (or he) is a remarkable person who values family time more--yes, even more!--than reading my manuscript. Or it could be that he (or she) is a lazy bum who is using the holidays to shirk his (or her) responsibilities--to me. Perhaps it means she's already read it and hates the changes. Maybe he loves it so much he wants to extend the ecstasy as long as possible, like some sort of tantric sex thing. Eww.

Or maybe he (or she) just means what she (or he) said: "I want to make sure I give it the time it deserves. So with a week away from phone and e-mail, I should have plenty of time to read without distraction."

She (or he) also made mention of hoping she (or he) gets an iPad Mini for Christmas. I hope (s)he gets one. I hope Editor X is deep in Apple-fied bliss while (s)he reads my manuscript.

I hope the Spirit of Steve Jobs visits him (or her) three times on Christmas Eve and that she/he wakes up, shouts "The Spirits did it all in one night!" then opens a window and tells a boy to run to the Publishing House on the corner and get the biggest, fattest advance check hanging in the window. And I hope Editor X thinks of me as his (or her) own personal Tiny Tim.

Tiny Tim. Tiny Tom. Medium-sized Tom. Whatever.

In the mean time, here's a poem about waiting by one of my favorite poets ever:

I Am Waiting
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up  
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting  
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier  
and I am waiting  
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming  
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona  
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored  
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find  
the right channel  
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth  
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed  
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered  
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did  
to Tom Sawyer  
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting  
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again  
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn  
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting  
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder