the cornered animal poet

It's the "cornered animal poet" picture! That's what I call it. At my max for facial hair (I ditched the mustache a while back, but sometimes I contemplate its return) and looking like I am ready to kill and eat the photographer if they come any closer.

The weird part about this shot is that my hair is too dark...unlike the California shot, where it comes out blonde, here you can barely make out the fact that I am more salt than pepper (hey, what am I complaining about? at my age, I have hair!) and my omnipresent ponytail is nowhere in sight (it falls behind me, and thus it does not appear in full-on and three-quarters shots.

I arose at 5:05 this morning, per my alarm clock (I have a hand-wound replica of the same Westclox "Baby Ben" alarm clock that my parents had when I was a child, which has a loud, rude alarm, perfect for making certain that, on those occasions when I am lost in the dreamsphere, I find my off-ramp) and proceeded to stumble to the computer to check my email...two more questions...snort...I'm busy but I will get to them tonight. Is that all the better the readership can do? Softball relationahip questions? I've been asked more interesting things by random passers-by. Maybe the new workweek will spur some serious body-blows.

I miss Sydney. The dog, not the city. (I am allowed to reference her, am I not?)

I have slipped a few hours behind on my deadlines for Tag's edits...I must redouble or even retriple my edits.

The extremely attractive server at the Starbucks at the Barnes and Noble where I am doing a booksigning in about twelve days has been bugging me to buy a discount card...I promised her I'd buy one on the 22nd. She asked why, I told her she'd see. The great thing about flying under radar, you can surprise people. The bad thing? You can surprise people.

Some people don't like surprises.