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There is nothing better than putting on a pair of long underwear that's been warming on the heated towel rail overnight. Except, maybe, not having to get up and go to work, but if I do have to, at least my pants are warm.

Got this in the mail from my mentor this morning -- knock yourselves out, kids:

Quincy Jones has started a petition to ask President-Elect Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts. While many other countries have had Ministers of Art or Culture for centuries, The United States has never created such a position. We in the arts need this, and the country needs the arts -- now more than ever. Please take a moment to sign this important petition and then pass it on to your friends and colleagues.

www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html

If you like music, theatre, good television drama, museums, sculptures in parks, fiction, beautiful architecture, or having a country with a soul, sign it!

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Okay, I don't even know how to talk about this stuff anymore.

Long story short, I spent half an hour on the phone with my Mum at lunch convincing her not to get a divorce, for which I hope Lucky is profoundly grateful. While my mother has never been what you would call sane her insanity in recent years has ebbed and/or had good root cause (goddamn Bernard). I think in this case it's like...they are having some pretty negligible issues with their cashflow, but these tiny, miniscule issues are triggering some kind of emotional flashback to when my father died and she had no money or job and a family to support. I mean, you can't tell an irrational person that they're freaking out over nothing, so I didn't, but I think I talked her down from the divorce-ledge.

Anyway, in happier news, the first print of Other People Can Smell you arrived today. I'm glad I pre-ordered a print before anyone else purchased one, because there ARE some cover issues. I'm going to be fixing those tonight; I will make a post when it's fully ready for sale, plus I'll email those of you who requested email notification.

It's...really tiny. Thinner than I thought it would be, though that's not a bad thing -- it's truly pocket-sized. The interior looks great, the page numbering came out awesome and the layout is fine; the font is a good size and the margins are perfect. It's just the cover that needs some minor tweaks. The back is actually okay, but the blurred text on the front was a bad idea and part of my name is cut off. I will master cover margins someday! *fistshake*

It's...physically it's not much for $11, which is price-plus-postage. On the other hand, WHAT PRICE KNOWLEDGE? :D

I'll post some photos tonight :)

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Jon Stewart: So, there was a huge crowd at the inauguration -- and I know you're a bishop so you can only move diagonally -- did you have trouble navigating the crowd?
Gene Robinson: Well, what you have to remember, Jon, is that there was a queen on the board too.

I DIED.

(FYI: Gene Robinson is the first openly gay Episcopal bishop. He's super-cool.)

Just got back from EPIC WHEEL with R, though I'm still recovering from the Plague and he's been asleep all day so he pretty much toasted me in every single puzzle. He also gave me Mountain Dew and eleven billion mint milano cookies, which could have been part of it.

Fixed the cover for OPCSY but then I got an email (NOT UNWELCOME) pointing out a handful of typos in the text, and that's deeply embarrassing when I'm using my seven years in higher education as my establishing cred, so the new version won't be up until tomorrow (can't edit .doc files from home, OpenOffice will eat me).