You start the day with a funeral, and then you end it with this email in your inbox:
From: Joel Spolsky
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 8:44 PM
To: 'Rory Blyth'
Subject: fan mail, again
Dear Rory:
You are one of the best American writers working today. I mean it.
Jonathan Safran Foer has nothing on you. Seriously, your stuff is funnier and better written than Foer, Burroughs, Sedaris, and Eggers put together, and I actually like them.
OK, that’s all.
Joel
I know that people don’t typically associate Rory Blyth with a strong sense of humility (or even a weak sense (or perhaps the phrase “even an awareness” would be best)), but tonight I’m just the happiest little girl in the world, skipping through a prairie of buttercups like the Swiss Miss with her golden braided locks flowing behind her in a light, warm springtime breeze. Except that I’m the macho version of that with huge biceps. I mean… You know what I mean. Right? Swiss Miss + big guns. I mean… you know, like… uh…
Never mind.
Anyway.
When one of your heroes writes to you, not to say that he liked your talk, or that he dug what you said about how to make C# go beep, but to say that he digs your writing and then compares you to people like David Sedaris(!), that’s, like…
I don’t know, man. For once, I’m tongue-tied. I shall react in the only way I know how.
Seriously, Joel - thank you. It’s been a long day, and your letter was exactly what I needed tonight.
Word to the Spolsky.