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We had a bit of a scare with our Dougall on Sunday night. About bed-time he became very agitated and clearly wasn’t feeling well. Panting heavily, shivering and acting very clingy – that kind of thing. It only got worse over the next two hours, and he was just clinging to me in bed, obviously in some kind of distress. It's horrible when you don't know what’s bothering him. We phoned the vet at about 1.30 am – they're good at being on call for situations like this - and between us, we couldn't arrive at anything like a diagnosis. Anyway, he was starting to calm down by then, and after much cuddling and soothing talk, he eventually fell asleep. He was perfectly fine the next day.
Haven’t a clue what all that was about. Perhaps he ate something bad. Dudley, with whom he shares everything, was fine.
Do dogs ever have anxiety attacks? It looked a lot like that.
Talking of Dudley, he’s Meirion’s dog, but I love him equally, and I think he’s the more photogenic one. Here are three shots of him I’ve taken lately.
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Does anyone know if there are any sort of statistics or a report that says what is selling best at e-publishers? I know they often say "we're looking for" or "hot right now is" but I'd like some statistics to quote.
A couple of years ago I had a chance to ask a question of a panel of senior editors and agents about e-publishing and they hadn't a clue. Maybe if someone had the numbers to say 'Look. Gay/lesbian romance is really selling. There's money to be made" it might spark their interest.
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Title: One Foot In
Author: silver_etoile
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Owen/James
POV: Third
Disclaimer: These characters are mine and if you use them, I hurt you. Ahem. And all similarities to other people are coincidence.
Summary: Being a Phaser sucks, and Owen hates the most when he gets stuck in things like his locker or the wall, but it gets especially bad when his crush is the one to find him stuck this time.
A/N: This is sort of a coda to my NaNo novel... Owen has a very small minor character role in that. My friend said I was writing fanfiction about my own writing but i mean, it was too hard to resist... :D
( They also say that Teleporters and Phasers are great matches, but I personally don’t think that’s true. )
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The New York Times asks the question "Can a boy wear a skirt to school?" in this article from Friday's paper.
And from The New York Times Magazine, there's a long article on coming out in middle school.
I suggest reading these before they vanish behind the paid subscriber firewall. Or before the Times's creditors repo the servers...
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1467 pages left.
Finished Act V.1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream. This completes the play. |
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I finished the day's work before lunch, so what I do with an unexpected day off? I went to the Grand Re-opening of a library. The Main Branch of the St.Petersburg Public Library has been closed for several months for a much needed overhaul. I don't think that this has happened since it first opened in 1966. They did a nice job of prettying it up. They also made room for more books without knocking out any walls. This means that the aisles are a teensy bit closer together than they used to be. I found some books, no-brainer there, and sat in one of the new totally comfy chairs and looked out at the park that is part of the property. It was very relaxing.
Yesterday's Coke commercial sent me on a quest for more soda stuff. Here's the one that led me to fall crashingly in love with David Naughton.
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Saw this episode of Golden Girls today on WE and I just had to find and share this clip with you all.
Current Mood:  silly Current Music: CBS Monday Night Comedies |
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Windy
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Nov. 9th, 2009 @ 06:39 pm
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Well, the local newscasters have been saying all day outer bands of Ida would be reaching us around six pm with 70 mph winds and lots of rain. We've had some rain thus far, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of any such wind. Of course, in typing that I am undoubtedly tempting fate, and as such, I will undoubtedly be smitten by the universe with some such horror as losing power. Well, should such a thing happen, we've got lots and lots of candles...and pills to help us sleep through it all, should that become necessary.
I got some more work done on Scotty today before I went to the office (fear that Schoolmarm la Becks might come after me with a hickory switch again being the primary reason), and yesterday in the car I thought about a lot of things, got some things figured out, and also decided to add a new wrinkle to the plot which I hope works, because it is rather funny.
I have to say, I've been rather pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive response to Murder in the Garden District thus far. Some reviewers have gone so far as to call it my best book; which I deeply appreciate. (One I read today called me the--get this-- "undisputed king of gay mystery writing." As you can imagine, I laughed out loud when I read that. Please, girlfriend! I am hardly that. Besides, queen would be more appropriate, don't you think?) I guess when it comes to the reaction to my work, I follow the old adage: always expect the worse--that way you're never disappointed and sometimes you are pleasantly surprised. The response to "Blood on the Moon" has also been pretty positive as well. Maybe I finally have this writing thing figured out? Nah. More likely I just got lucky.
So, anyway, let me post some more pictures from the trip to Houston ( behind this cut ) |
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Tom and I have been gradually giving The Compound's main residence a thorough cleaning over the past two or three weeks. I knew Greg was coming for his signing this past weekend, and my sister was hoping to visit Bobo Butterbean with her dog Harley at Thanksgiving. I wanted everything to be in order before their arrivals.
I THOUGHT I'd taken care of all the dust. But then Tim's boss dropped by to do an inspection, and you can see by her expression that I missed a spot. The Big H is so relentless about these things.
 Current Mood:  abashed |
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I scanned and edited 27 photos today, which is a lot. Except for the first two photos, the other 25 were not labeled, so I couldn't pin them down to specifically one year, so labeling them between these three years was the best I could do. |
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I just saw an excerpt from an 'interview' by Natalie Morales with Kate of "Jon and Kate Masturbate". However, I wonder how many questions she actually got to ask since the footage of the interview I saw consisted of Kate asking herself questions and then answering them. This can be an effective device in communicating, but only if it's done sparingly. It seems like lately I've heard so many people (over)use this device, and now it just grates on me whenever I come across it. |
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Perhaps you might have noticed my disappearance from these pages for the past couple of weeks. I was more than willing to communicate, but unfortunately the internet was unavailable whenever I was available. And like most of the stories of my life, it was strange to say the least. It all started on Friday afternoon two weeks ago when I was attempting to add an unusually witty anecdote to my journal. When suddenly my computer told me I was not connected to the internet. With Disabled Cable you expected this to happen periodically. It usually reconnects in a few minutes. After 15-minutes had past I check the phone and TV and discover they were also inoperable. So I called the Disabled Cable service hotline ... HOTLINE typed with raucous laughter ... and was connected with the automated Let me help you solve your service problem. machine. A thousand curses on the wretched humans or unhumans that invented the technology that replaced inept live human service people with these totally inept machines that think they can have an intelligent conversation with you while implying you are a total dolt. After shouting I WANT TO TALK TO A REAL PERSON a dozen of so times, the machine finally said, "Apparently you would like to speak to a live support person."
At last! Unfortunately the Disabled Cable support staff is housed in an underground bunker somewhere in the middle of Utah and have no idea where Saint Louis is even located. I say this because the support staffer was happy to inform me that there was a service outage in the Little Rock area. After explaining that Saint Louis is in Missouri and not Arkansas he rechecked and discovered that there also was a service outage in my area. And it was an outage that should be corrected in an hour or so.
I called back at 11 p.m. and discover that there now was three outages in my area, but they should be corrected in an hour or so.
Saturday afternoon I checked the phone, TV and computer and found they were still lacking computer support. With dread I called the service hotline, and was told that they were aware of the outage and expected it to be corrected shortly.
Sunday afternoon everything was still inoperable, but instead of trying to call the hotline I went outside to do some winter-prep yard work.
That's when I discovered ... 
Yes, it was the line that connects the cable to the house and apparently it had been severed by the fangs of some gigantic squirrel that was running along the wires that carry the cable service into the basement. Or that was what a totally innocent Mlle Renee tried to explain. 
Well, after discovering I had a dog that had eaten the cable line I realized that I then had to eat crow and call the cable company. By this time I discovered that my number was automatically by-passing the automated service machine and sending me direct to a human. He didn't scold me or Mlle Renee and said because the phone service was out he would schedule for a RUSH service call ... which wouldn't be until Wednesday.
The repairman showed up on Wednesday reconnect the cable and also replaced my internet modem which was about ten years out of date although I've only had it for three years. He also discovered that there was a problem on the main line that would have to be repaired by a lineman that might cause me some minor problems with the internet connection. Minor problems like loosing a connection every couple of minutes. But I had TV and phone with no problem.
Finally last week everything went out again and I again called the Hotline and they sent out a new repairman. He ran a meter along all the wires and connections in the house and discovered that the man who had original installed the cable connection had bent the cable line while pushing it through a hole. He also mentioned that the lineman had discovered about a dozen breaks in the main line so far and that I should expect a momentary outage each time he corrects one.
Oh well I guess I could limit my internet use to late night -- but unfortunately Mlle Renee is now having a hard time adjusting from Central Daylight to Central Standard time and she keep waking me up at an ungodly predawn time each morning which means I've had to go to bed earlier each night. And after I fenced off the area around the cable connection. What did I do to get all this bad karma?
There was one good aspect about the cable outage. I was able to catch up with some reading ... starting with the fifth mystery adventure of Chanse MacLeod.
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A GREAT MYSTERY READ
Murder In The Garden District by Greg Herren Published by Alyson Books October 2009 |
This time Greg has created a triple threat thriller for our hero. It starts with the murder of a powerful Louisiana politician with too many possible suspects. Then New Orleans is faced with the possibility of yet another deadly hurricane. And finally, someone is trying to eliminate Chanse himself and possible his friends. If you're looking for a well written masterful mystery that will keep you guessing while turning the pages, give this one a try! Highly recommended.Current Mood:  optimistic |
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Pixie was not adopted last weekend, so she's with us for another month. Everybody at The Compound is thrilled, because we all adore her. But nobody, as you can see from the photo below, is happier about this than Pixie's BFF, Sugar, who apparently loves it when Pixie sits on her head.
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While my visit was a bit shorter than originally planned due to the unfortunate situation with Sophie, we still had a really good time celebrating the 2nd anniversary of Chris's 39th. This year he opted for a night in with pizza, cake and board games; although, he, Michael & I did drop in at Tryangles after Kat went home(sorry Lisa, the gogo boys sucked this time).
( Loads of photos under the cut ) |
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Title: Black and White
Status: Complete, One-Shot
Genre: Genfic
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Length: 2,100
Summary: Someone unexpected has caught David's eye and his best friend Jack notices the change.
A/N: Black and White is the first piece in a series of short stories I've written involving David and Jack, and later Shawn. They started out as something to work on when things were not flowing with my novel and have now become quite addicting. A huge thanks to theskimblishone for being a great friend, as well as giving me feedback and helping me edit this piece. I don't know what I would do without you!!
Black and White
Current Mood:  accomplished |
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