Done. Really truly done.

Our magnificent May-like April has morphed into a chilly, April-like May. Right now I should be walking the dogs, but it's spitting rain and the wind is blowing, so I am dragging my feet.

Oh well--the cooler weather means the lilac blossoms will hang around a little longer. Boscoe loves this weather, and he trots along happily in the mornings. Once the sun comes out and things heat up, I know that he'll slow way down. So let's not hurry summer.

Galleys of my book are floating around, being mailed out to reviewers and bloggers and other people who might find something good to say.

I spent the last two weekends going over page proofs, re-reading everything again ... and again ... and again.

Think about how many times this book has been read, and by how many people--and yet I still found things to fix: Awkward wording, clumsy construction, misplaced commas, poor word choice, and, most alarming, a couple of errors of fact. How is this possible? How did I miss these the previous ten million times I read this? How did I write them wrong in the first place?

I marked up the manuscript, carefully attached post-it notes to each page that needed attention, typed up the fixes, and planned to spend this weekend going over everything one last time.

And then yesterday morning I realized I couldn't. I just couldn't. I have read that book hundreds of times, and I just could not face another Saturday sitting down to Chapter One, Page One, Paragraph One. ("I was eleven or twelve when I decided that journalism was my future. I loved to write, I loved to snoop, I always wanted to know everything first. Those are pretty much the only qualifications, when you get right down to it.")

(And yes, I have it memorized.)

So I gathered it all up, stuffed it into a big padded envelope, printed out my corrections, and on my lunch hour I walked over to the Press offices over by the Mississippi River and turned the whole mess in.

But I could not quite let go; I very politely asked the managing editor if I could get one last set of page proofs once these corrections were keyed in. And she very politely said no. (She also explained their very excellent system for ensuring that the corrections are made, and I am confident that everything will be fine. Except for the control freak in me, who wants to see with my own eyes.)

"The next time you have to think about your book," she said, "you'll be holding a finished copy in your hands."

Oh boy.

The book is available for pre-order on amazon U.S., but I won't post the link yet because it's just a bare-bones site right now, no book jacket or description of contents. Once all the information is there, I'll let you know. And for my European readers, stuck at home because of the Icelandic ash and looking for something good to read, it will also be available soon on amazon uk.

Thursday nature note: Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits! They're adorable, but I'm thinking this neighborhood could use a few hawks.