Life...

There's so much more to say about Morocco, but since I got home I've been working on some assignments that are due this week (for which I am grateful). As a result I've been experiencing a certain sort of whiplash—emotional, psychic, intellectual—which reached critical mass during an interview for one of those assignments.

I'd sent an email interview request to Danielle Dimovski, a Canadian barbecue competitor (and champ) whose nom de 'que is Diva Q and when we got on the phone, she said, "Hey, are you the Elizabeth Hilts who wrote 'Getting In Touch With Your Inner Bitch?'" When I admitted I am that same Elizabeth Hilts, she told me she's a fan then asked me why, if I'd written that book, I was doing this piece (for which, again, I am grateful).

This is, of course, a question I ask myself fairly often. I ask this in spite of knowing that having published a book does not magically transform a writer's life, does not translate into financial stability, does not usher one through the automatic door to writing for "the big guys" (Vanity Fair has never called). When that book came out I had no idea how to parlay its existence into a big successful career, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't know how to do that now.

So I take these assignments (for which, let me just reiterate, I am very grateful) and I do the best I can with them. And every once in a while someone knows my name because they've read one of the books or another article and I have to say, it's weird and it's wonderful and I guess the point is...I'm glad that life offers up these little surprises.