Mail

I just checked one of my email accounts and found something that's been popping up more frequently as of late. What is it, you ask?

Hmm...it is fan mail. Yes, I know it's hard to believe, especially for me, but I, apparently, have fans.

Um...Excuse me while I sit here and giggle for a moment or two...still giggling...ahem, right. Yes, I'm fine now. No more giggling...well, almost no more giggling... I'll control myself, I promise. Sometime - snort! - soon.

When my cookbooks came out last summer I did get some fan mail. Elderly women who told me they hadn't had apple pie like the one in my book for fifty years, not since their dear sainted mothers had last baked it for them. And homemakers who wrote to tell me the breakfast recipes were fun and easy. Oh, I even got one or two letters telling me of typos, which were ...um, appreciated. Really. But although the letters and emails were wonderful, kind and fun, I never really considered them fan mail. Just letters from fellow cooks, I thought.

But since "Lucy Comes Calling" was published in Spinetingler magazine I've been getting fan mail. At first, it came in fits and starts. Then, a small trickle. Now, a fairly steady stream. It's great and wonderfully exciting and completely rewarding to learn that people are reading, and enjoying, what I've written.

Yet, it's still sort of strange. I read this morning's letter, a touching note about how much this reader thought of Freedom's Touch, and felt fabulous. My feet, had they been on the ground, would have left it. I felt a definite heat in the center of my chest, a warmth spreading from my heart out to the rest of my body.

Then, and I've got to be honest here, I shuddered. Yes, shuddered. Because for someone as private as I am, knowing that so many people are reading my words is sort of like standing in the street in my underwear. And not my fancy, go-to-parties panties, either, but my everyday, plain, ordinary bloomers.

Still, I hope the fan mail continues. Maybe I'll begin to wear lacy underwear every day. And who knows? Maybe all that shuddering will burn a few extra calories, too!