Waiting

You’re probably aware that I’m waiting to hear back from a London-based literary agent who’s reading my manuscript. That is, if she didn’t use it as kindling as soon as she saw its mammoth, unpublishable, size. (They did have a very cold winter over there.) I blame it on the double spacing and unhealthy margins required by standard submission formatting.

And yet that’s not the only thing I’m waiting for this year. In fact, the theme of my entire year thus far has all been about waiting. This could be due to the fact that we’ve entered the Year of the Rabbit and I was born in the year of the Boar. Another likely explanation is the meteor shower that sizzled over our heads in Auckland earlier in the year: I was asleep at the time so it may have affected me particularly badly.

I’m American so I’m not used to waiting. Waiting for things to happen makes me feel powerless. It makes me pace and check my email way too often and change my outfit four times and still not be happy with the way I look. It’s times like these I wish I was a smoker.

Some of the things that I’m waiting for – and hoping for – simply can’t be named, because if I say them out loud, they won’t eventuate. But I will risk sharing with you a few of the other things I’m waiting for:

I’m waiting for my passport to be renewed by the US consulate in Auckland, hoping that it will arrive in time for my trip next month.

I’m waiting for the next passport renewal opportunity in ten years’ time, so I can provide a photo that doesn’t look like the mug shot.

I’m waiting for world peace.

I’m waiting for the price of cheese to drop.

I’m waiting for someone to clean the oven after I melted my son’s plastic frying pan in it while baking fish fingers. Until then there’s a moratorium on homemade pizza. So please stop asking.

I’m waiting to see if I actually disintegrate on my upcoming fortieth birthday.

I’m waiting to learn French. By osmosis.

I’m waiting for my cold sore to heal. Until then, I find odd pleasure in telling people not to get too close because I have “herpes”.

I’m waiting to be beamed up and teletransported to a beach in the Dominican Republic.

I’m waiting for someone to translate Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks in Italian so that I don’t have to spontaneously translate “tweetle beetle puddle battle” to my bilingual son.

I’m waiting for my eyesight to improve.

I’m waiting for Maori to become the second most spoken language in the world after English, so that I have a reason to learn it.

I’m waiting for my crow’s feet to disappear. Like the cream said.

I’m waiting for Auckland City Council to build a walkway over the estuary separating our house from the cool brand-new playground they built for the rich people on the other side.

I’m waiting for money to drop from the sky. Or at least grow on the plum tree in our backyard.

I’m waiting for the pages to run out in my little notebook so I can finally end the obsessive record keeping of every grammatically correct phrase my toddler utters and every time he recognizes a color instead of calling everything “red”.

I’m waiting for the inspiration to write a blogpost so amazing that it will get 28,864,527 hits like that German beatboxing teenager on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w2wHUx8Q7w).

They say good things come to those who wait.