I offered the following reading-list suggestions to my writing students:

Personal Essays/Political

Republican Party Reptile: PJ O'Rourke

Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?: Molly Ivins

Consider the Lobster: David Foster Wallace (the titular essay is remarkably distasteful)

Travel Writing

Holidays in Hell: PJ O'Rourke

The Best Travel Writing of XXXX (yearly edition)

Short Stories

The Things they Carried: Tim O'Brien

The Age of Grief: Jane Smiley

Novels

A Prayer for Owen Meany: John Irving

A Very Long Engagement: Sebastien Japrisot (Motormouth's favorite novel)

Angels and Demons: Dan Brown

The Eight: Katherine Neville

A Ridiculously Long Novel that is Totally Worth It

Infinite Jest: David Foster Wallace

I haven't said anything to my bloggy public, but I'm selling a domain name I registered about eight months ago. Someone wants to buy it and the likelihood of having the time to put up my own site with it is slim, so hey, free money, right? So we're most of the way through the escrow process and last night, when I checked my email? There was a message from someone ELSE who wants to buy it. I told the johnny-come-lately no, because I'm already deep in the escrow process and that's just not how I roll. But I'm pretty happy that my creativity is going to equal free money and has already earned me a cult following. 🙂

One of the best analysts in the high-tech field is currently accepting opportunities to help companies with product management, marketing or pre-sales analysis.

Randall knows everything, will tell you what he thinks without any conflict of interest, and is the most responsive analyst with whom I've had the pleasure of working. His resume is sterling (hello ARPA-net) and he's a heck of a guy, too. Tough combination to beat.

If you know of a technology company that might be looking for someone with his remarkable skill-set, email lynn at shotwellpr dot com.

The drugstore CVS seems to be quietly discontinuing its line of Bright Beginnings Milk-Based Infant Formula with Iron and Lipids. I have purchased 25.75-ounce cans for as low and $4.25 apiece. Yes, four dollars and twenty-five cents. You read that right. Call your CVS now and see if they have any. (If you're in the Northampton area, they're probably all sold out, and you have me to thank for that.) It is not available from cvs.com.

So I've been writing for Wallet Blog for about a month, and I put up a cool article a week or so ago: basically, you can get FREE & LEGAL mp3s from Amazon.com. But you have to read my Wallet Blog story to get the link. Happy music-hunting!

So I sent an email to the editors of Playboy yesterday:

I attended a graduate-student conference at CSU-Chico the week Playboy's poll downgraded the university from number one to number two party school in the nation. Under the auspices of literary-journalism research, I pestered the cutest Chico State guy at the conference to show me what they did for fun. He was hung-over from the night before but ultimately acquiesced. Now, seven years later, we're married with kids. CSU-Chico may be out of the top ten, but I'm damn glad you downgraded it when you did back in 2002. Go Wildcats!

And today, they wrote me back:

Great story! We hope you renew his subscription every year. –The Editors

To which I responded:

Thanks, but who says it's *his* subscription??? –LBJ, 15+ year subscriber

To which they said:

You're right; our bad.

And I said:

heh heh heh. 🙂

And they said:

We hope you let him see it.

And I said:

Well, I keep him pretty busy, if you know what I mean (and I think you do). –LBJ

So tonight I had to pay up or shut up. It was a matter of principle! And of us both being well-rested for the first time in weeks. Thanks, Playboy.

Decided to go a little more upbeat today because I think we could all use it, especially what with it being Earth Day and all. I hope you like it!

Thanks for the new hot-pink iPod nano, sweetheart. I think it's pretty much the cutest thing you've given me since Babykins.

Here's what I've done since awakening at 8:15 this morning (it's now 3:16 –hi John!)

Fed babykins a million times

Put the toddler in the bathtub after he used a dry-erase marker to color himself green from his toes to mid-shin

Written a refund-request letter I've been meaning to write since November

Contacted my local copy shop about a proof

Investigated Google analytics for a client

Scrubbed a mailing-list database

Edited the introductory letter for a press release

Scheduled one press release to go out on Monday

Scheduled another press release to go out on Tuesday

Confirmed with one client he wants his PR to go out on Tuesday

Spoken with the pharmacist about the ramifications of leaving the toddler's ear-infection medicine on the counter overnight

Spoken with the health center about whether the toddler's currently explosive diarrhea is due to his ear-infection medicine

Consulted with the doctor as to whether we should change the toddler's ear-infection prescription

Futilely urged Monstro to go see Yusef Komunyakaa read at UMass tonight

Showered

Helped my best Northampton friends rid my home of all non-money recycling

Watched Susan Boyle on YouTube — justified because one of the aforementioned friends hadn't seen the clip yet

Listened to Susan Boyle sing “Cry Me A River” on a different YouTube clip

Gone to the post office to send the aforementioned refund letter certified mail with a return receipt

Gone to the bank to deposit a check and get some cash to convert into laundry quarters

Folded a bin's worth of laundry

Gone to the grocery store for $116 worth of groceries that would have cost me $160 at another store, plus I was able to buy the good local microbrew sampler at this store — those in California will laugh their butts off to learn that one cannot buy beer at all grocery stores here

Dropped off the old bottle of ear-infection medicine at the pharmacy, to get a new bottle

Gone to the pharmacy for baby supplies, cold medicine, ear-infection medicine, and birth control

Blogged

Confirmed that the press release for Tuesday will indeed go out on Tuesday

No wonder I was awake between 3:00 and 4:30 this morning, fretting about everything I needed to do today!

I'm working on a briefing book for a client who'll be at RSA next week, and found the following description of one of the journalists they'll be meeting:

“As both a manager and analyst, Steve succeeded by explaining complex technologies– such as aviation and IT — to lay audiences.”

Heh heh heh. I guess it's true: technology *is* sexy!