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Feb

1

My Life As a Greeting Card


If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then being imitated in the New York Times Sunday Magazine has got to be one of the biggest compliments an essayist could hope for. Read this (in case you don’t remember when I first wrote about it here in the blog) and then read this. Sigh. I really do need to pitch and submit more, don’t I?

But even bigger than that compliment?

Going into your child’s elementary school classroom and having his teacher and friends say, “You really are a professional writer ‘cuz your name’s in here!” because there, with the rest of the class’s books and magazines, on the top rack, in front of all the other materials, was this month’s Cleveland Family magazine, with my column, My Life As a Greeting Card, on the back page, with a cute graphic.

That’s what one of my kid’s classmates said to me as I worked with him on a monthly newsletter, and pushing hard to get him to describe why “It’s fun!” “It’s cool!” and “It was creepy!” (“Can you tell me why it was fun? It was fun because…why? What made it creepy? It was creepy because…why?”)

I’d written the piece so long ago that I had to read more than an entire column before I remembered exactly what I’d written. Ah, yes, my annual comeuppance for Valentine’s Day, with a twist and a few tears.

Sometimes, I think I’m the luckiest person on the planet, like when I realize that I get to write that stuff and read it, in my child’s classroom no less, sitting right there next to Eric Carle and Shel Silverstein.

Who cares if no one reads blogs.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:38 pm February 1st, 2007 in Politics 

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