ultra montane

Friday morning I fly to Wellington for five days. To attend the Montana New Zealand Book Awards next Monday night. Chronicle of the Unsung is a finalist in the Biography section (even though it is not a biography) which, I am told, includes Memoir (it is not a memoir either). Selection as a finalist obliges a publisher to transport their author to the ceremony, hence my trip. If I win my category I get a cash prize of $5000.00, almost the exact amount I have gone into (private) debt over the course of this year so far; all category winners get to compete for the Montana Medal for Non-Fiction, which, apart from the gong, carries a cash prize of an addiitonal $10,000. With that money I could also pay off my tax debt and probably live through until Christmas without having to drive a cab. However. I've been to these things before and know it does not do to get your hopes up. The first ceremony I was at I expected nothing and got something; the second I expected something and got nothing; how will I comport myself this time? I don't know ... by trying to defuse consequences perhaps; like driving a taxi, opening myself to the possibilities while at the same time knowing that, most likely, in the words of the Tall Dwarf's song, Nothing's going to happen ...