A dark and dreaded word, indeed.  Read The Husband's (westonochse) entry at Storytellers Unplugged and see why he decided to pull a short story from a certain magazine and what happened when he did.  It's an enlightening experience, to say the least.

One of the nice things about not working for lawyers anymore is that I actually get holidays off. Lawyers, particularly large city corporate/real estate/franchise lawyers, will work their staff (and themselves) through every holiday they can get away with. In fact, if they can manage to get approval to pay staff overtime, they'll work on EVERY holiday (I am not exaggerating). And when they can't get approval for staff O/T, they'll make the staff work anyway, to the extent their bullying powers succeed. (And I have seen and been subjected to some significant bullying.)

Ah, but my days of corporate real estate law, mall leases, and franchise closings are far behind me. Yesterday was Presidents' Day and I enjoyed staying home immensely. Maybe too immensely, as I keep thinking today is Monday. Weather-wise, yesterday was a freakin' bear-- we had enormous wind gusts, with the patio chairs (even the heavy metal French one) blown everywhere, the pool cover landing IN the pool, etc. The cover on the neighboring resident's cooler was literally shredded by the wind, and at one point, in the space of literally a minute, the wind entirely changed direction... thereby blowing everything it had already blown over there right back over here, but now in dilapidated shape. Before the wind was over we had a nice, long blat of cold rain. :-P

But on to cheerier stuff. If anyone is interested, there are two auctions (not mine) currently on eBay. Both are Overlook hardback editions of my books, which can be on the expensive side if bought new, and both auctions end on Thursday at around 1 p.m., depending on your timezone. I think they're even signed:


In a few minutes, I'm going to start working on the Super Secret Project. I am plugging along, and the night before last I passed the ten thousand word mark, so I'm now into five figures (so to speak).



Here's my word count as of right now, and I need to start writing soon. I also went to the gym today and hammered out 2.49 miles in 30 minutes. That's not too shabby considering how horribly lax I've been and some other issues I've been dealing with cardio-wise. My goal is 3 miles in 36 minutes by my birthday. That's the point at which my back will start screaming and not allow me to run any farther (I learned this the hard way back around 1996 or so, when I'd worked my way up to half-marathons). As for now, I have to admit, I'm pretty freakin' tired. And, of course, The Husband westonochse made me my own form of favorite dinner sandwich: med. rare roast beef on a wheat roll with reduced fat mayo, a bit of garlic salt, layered with half a sliced avocado and sliced onion. We even had good old healthy broccoli.

Must write.... !

In keeping with the tradition of starting off the New Year all fresh and clean and such, The Husband (a/k/a westonochse) has decided to show the entire world His Stuff.  So I thought, "What the hell, why not?" and I decided I would also show His Stuff: