I just spent an hour trying to explain the relationship between television shows, networks, advertisers, and viewers in less than 200 words. Kill me.

Kill you? Try, hire you for metric fuckloads of money, to write that up in blurb forms for the network executives.

You'll still want someone to kill you afterward, but you'll have a lot of T-bills and things.

I felt a need to try the lies drabble, but I went a different way with it.

“Come on, it will look good.”

When he first brings it up, you laugh, thinking he can’t be serious. A dozen florescent white statues of naked men, lining the driveway? Right.

He doesn’t let the idea drop though, and soon you find yourself agreeing, and even helping him plan. Painting the wrought iron fence to match the boys is your idea. So are the Santa hats.

For a while you can still hear the echo of your own laughter sometimes, as you wonder what the neighbors really think. It fades though, and by the time you catch the first group of tourists taking pictures you can’t imagine not loving Youngwood Court. It is yours, and it looks good.

Tentatively titled, "Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby"

I wasn't there, but I usually forget that. By the time I am 80, I will think I was at all these events, and so, I must say, I adore this title. When you're working with a publisher, if s/he thinks it is too long, you must insist upon it as a subtitle.

MONIQUE! Hi, hi, hi.

(Lee, the piece flows nicely, but I feel like I am missing a reference. Can you tell me about it?)

Oh, in other news, especially for P-C and Bev - not going to do White Sands, because a) radiation is sort of overused and I don't want anyone to go in expecting science fiction (it isn't) and b) have something far better and far scarier, that I can actually tie into the Hollywood community in the fifties, which is my timeframe for the grandparents of the kids with nasty anemia.

Ooh, does it involve some Hollywood magnate receiving a blow job when suddenly she stops sucking his dick and starts SUCKING HIS BLOOD?

Hey, has Laurell K. Hamilton done that before? I should write her.

Cindy, it is an LA thing, but one a few Buffistas have seen. Youngwiid court is a house near me in a very chi-chi neighborhood. It has a a blindingly white wrought iron fence, with the driiveway painted to match, and 12 (or so) matching statues lining the driveway, all of which are naked men. At Christmas, they put Santa hats on them.

Lee -- ::snerk::!! I love the Davids!

I want to float an idea for a future drabble, to see if y'all think it would require too much extra "work," or if you like it, or if you think I'm just a crazy word nerd.

The idea is -- write a personals ad from the POV of a painting that's looking for the ideal viewer. *Not* the POV of the subject of the painting, like the Mona Lisa herself, but from Mona-Lisa-the-painting.

Thoughts?

t edit The drabble does NOT have to be about the Mona Lisa; that was just my example. It can be about any painting.

write a personals ad from the POV of a painting that's looking for the ideal viewer

Oooh! That's intriguing. I'd definitely be up for that. (And I promise not to do "Dogs Playing Poker".)

(And I promise not to do "Dogs Playing Poker".)

"They're dogs, and they're playing POKER! Yeaarrgghhgh!! Aaaagght!" t /Homer

attempt at the Lies drabble, from the recipient of the lies' pov

"This might squeeze a little."

My upper arm is bruised from the automatic blood pressure cuff, swollen and sore to the touch. Every four hours, unless they want to double-check something, and they come in every half hour.

"You might feel a little stick."

Slow, slow insertion of the needle into a vein, then a wiggle as the nurse tries to get the blood to flow. I have tiny veins, hard to find. She mutters, pulls out the needle, twists my arm to try and find a good vein.

4 AM. When the clumsy vampires come.