Rox in the Box.

"Kick ass."

That's what he said.
Pardon the language. (Also, what he said.)

That is the exact adjective (or perhaps noun or verb?) that my semi-famous, Wikipedia page bearing, poetry professor used when describing my poem.

I kid you not.
(Excuse me while I step outside for a moment, as my huge head might bump against the ceiling.)

Yes sir. We had an impromptu workshop and after I read my poem he said, "Pardon my language, but that was kick ass."

I may or may not have shed a tear. (Okay, I didn't, but inside I was weeping.)
Because things like this never happen to me.

I mean...sure, in my head, pretty much everyone I meet has told me that my writing does all kinds of ass-kicking, but never once has anyone ACTUALLY verbalized this.

In fact, most of my blogging career has been based around this very notion of expectations and reality.

I am the 10-year-old (with my miniature hands. No seriously...my hands are ridiculously small compared to the rest of me) in a room full of literate scholars who have "19th Century Russian Literature-themed Summers" (I was reading the Hunger Games) and not only understand cadence, (whereas I thought Cadence was the name of that girl from Shallow Hal) but use it in everyday language, along with iambic pentameter (which still rings no bells for me) and who know (and frequently quote) the greats like Virgil...(and other people like Virgil.)

But suddenly...I'm the winner. (And I'm sure fame, fortune and my own show on Bravo is shortly to follow.)
And I will revel in my glory as long as I can. I have also gone to great lengths to record this moment, in case one day I'm really sad and need to be reminded that once upon a time, someone told me I kick ass. (My mom is gonna be mad at the amount of times I have written this now.)

And you know what...I do!
I do kick (that word.)
I kick loads of it.
And if nothing ever comes of my writing career, except in that one moment, in a freezing palazzo, in a teeny tiny town in Italy, where one professor said one little comment, (that he probably immediately forgot) then that's okay.

Because I'll always know that I AM (or at least was, on that cold Tuesday morning in Orvieto) a good writer.
And sometimes, it's okay to NOT be modest. It's okay to have someone feed your ego, because dang it, sometimes we deserve it.
Cause it feels good. And it feels good to feel good.

And I will continue to walk with this spring in my step.

At least until the mean Italian man who works at the ONLY grocery store in town (it seems like) yells at me in Italian for being the weak little blonde-haired girl who doesn't have exact change. (Even though the whole time I was waiting in line, I was practically sweating from searching for those little coins, so this exact moment wouldn't happen, but as soon as I stepped up to the counter, they slipped from my excessively moist palms and scattered about the store, never to be found again.)

But yeah.
Best.Day.Ever.