See the new profile picture? I'm smiling.

It is the doldrum day I have been dreading. Yesterday was the culmination of the hoopla over the release of THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES. Tomorrow is my sons' birthday (they will be 12! Booth Tarkington and Mark Twain would both acknowledge the importance of that birthday). So here I am, dangling between peaks.

I changed the photo on my profile to something less forbidding, on a whim. The shot now in use is a crop from a family shot taken last year...my hair has further grown back out and I'm a little sleeker...but it's me. I'll never admit to what emotional moment I conjured to bring the smile, though. I'll leave some mystery.

I've been getting some great feedback on the new book, and the mere accomplishment of putting out the three books in the last 100 days. Yeah, it took a little work...but it is amazing what you can accomplish when left to do your job. Still miss my primnary distraction, but get back channel reports that all seems well in her sphere.

Barring a mid-course correction (gee, do I ever change my mind?) I have decided on my next book...but I won't reveal that until my talk on August 17th at Arts Week. Someone forwarded me a press release about a local professor sponsoring (with the unlimited resources provided to him by WVU) a writers' workshop. I snorted. It's eggs and ham. (The old saw about how contribution versus commitment is like breakfast - the chicken makes a contribution with her eggs, but the pig, with the ham, makes a commitment. Poetry isn't my day job. It is my state of being...) I'm pretty secure about my place in the firmament.

Ran into a person on MySpace purporting to be one of my all time favourite actresses. Don't know if she's real or not, but it was a pleasant enough jolt to the week...I shall be circumspect. My years in LA, meeting some of the elite, have taught me how to avoid being star-struck...but if this is her, at very least we are talking about one of the more attractive women on the planet, and talented besides, so I am more femme-struck (I dodged a pun there) than star-struck.

Caffeine...need caffeine.