bee + spool

On two emails received within twenty minutes of each other today. 

11:17:17 PST–First, email from Mary Biddinger, founder and poetry editor of brand new Ohio-based journal Barn Owl Review:

Dear Debbie Yee,
 
Thank you for submitting your poetry to Barn Owl Review.  We would like to accept the following poem for our inaugural issue, which will be released in January 2008 at the AWP book fair in NYC. 
 
I Hesitate to Convey to You the Importance of Cornbread

(Yippee!)

11:37:15 PST–Second, email from Sid Miller, editor of Portland-based journal Burnside Review:

Debbie-

Thanks for the submission.  Sorry to have to pass on these.

Best of luck,

(Gulp. *sigh*)

Barn Owl, Burnside.  Burnside, Barn Owl.  Both B’s.  Both Reviews.  Even Steven.

Mary Biddinger’s subject header: “Acceptance from Barn Owl Review.”  Sid Miller’s subject header: “Burnside Review Submission.”  Does one come to the conclusion that I am a fantastically greedy writer if I admit that for several seconds I imagined that the Burnside Review email sitting in my inbox might also be an acceptance?  Guilty.  (Hand raised sheepishly.)  Or, better yet, perhaps editors could save me from having to fire even a single happiness neuron grounded in ecstatic potential that soon after crashes out against a competing synapse meting out a bummer neuron with the use of a “Thanks, but. . .” or a “Bad news from. . .” in the subject header.

And so it goes.