And so, after beseeching friend after friend, after days of whining and pleading, pestering and wheedling, my Blog is once again serviceable. Some idiot had erased all the HTML code from the template, can you believe it? I hope that guy doesn't have access to a vehicle or we're all in trouble.

Ultimately, you must thank David DoBell. He slapped that HTML code around until it cried, and even then he didn't let up until it agreed to even straighten out those curly bracket things. Send him a picture of yourself and he'll do crazy stuff to it (not that you aren't scary-looking enough, of course.)

If the color bothers you, just think of it as wear and tear; a natural fading, like your favorite shirt after a hundred washes.

I have had a hard time not being able to blog. It really hit me just how poorly I communicate. And I have had much to communicate about.

It is unpleasant to get the seed of an idea and then have it land on the barren soil of my complete lack of template.

It's like when something good happens and then you go to call up your friend and tell them about it but he or she has run off to New York and sure maybe they had a latte with you and a drink or two but Dammit! don't they realize how comforting it was just knowing they were nearby?!

On a less passionate note [in this case, I am using 'passionate' the way my old roommate, Phill Rush, defined it, as a gooey mixture love and anger]...

If you have any old stuff you've written, run it through The Gender Genie! It's amusing, when I wrote about Sibbitt and I climbing mountains, it told me I was all man, but when I wrote about Christmas shopping the damn thing chided me for my too-short skirt and whore-ish rouge.

And yes, Donovan, I know the algorithm is based on a crass assumption of how males and females write, I read the article, but let me have my fun! And it seems to work well on published authors, anyway.

Holy Unexcused Absences! School starts today, which means I had better go and register. Ah, the wonders of community college.

And speaking of spirit animals...

Take care, it's been good talking to you.