I understand wanting to cleave to design standards, I really do. But that's a very distinctive cover template, and I think that squishing the font a little is one of the least obvious modifications you could make to it.

I admit, I like the breaking up of the text, but I don't know the subject matter at all, so that's a feeling divorced from the content at hand.

I seem to have lost one of my new, unworn earrings. Which I bought because I had a similar pair, but I lost one. Only similar, though. Can't wear both abandoned earrings together without looking loopy.

I know it's here somewhere. There's just too much somewhere.

Who is Alan, and why is he silly?

Alan is our friend, and he is silly because Eve thinks so. He's a big flirt with little kids.

Eve is 3.5 and washes her own hair pretty well. She is very lax about the body washing, though. I don't worry about her drowning in the bath or anything any more, so I feel free to leave the room for a while during the elaborate plastic animal adventures, but she definitely needs supervision to be clean.

Dear ita's neck,

Cindy re-injured me this morning, while blow drying her hair. You are free to get better now, without disturbing the net amount of suffering in the universe. In fact, you must get better, to keep things in balance.

Fondly,
Cindy's Neck

Hec, I hope your publishers give a little. I think they're talking about the kind of standard only their design department cares about. If I bought that book and had all the other books in the series, if I noticed narrower font at all, I'd probably only notice it in the context of thinking, "Well, 'Swordfishtrombones' is a long word."

Otherwise, I'd want to go with

SWORDF
ISHTRO
MBONES

In F2F update news, the hotel continues to be miserable, we did not have an excellent lunch at the pub down the road (aside from the horrible food, everyone at the table sat silently, sighing every once in a while), we did not go out to a district of amazing second hand clothing stores and find lovely clothes for cheap, and I did not have a delicious Thai dinner.

Nor are we hanging out in the hospitality suite right now, eating breakfast and gossiping about Paris Hilton and hockey.

Glad to hear it, Theopinocchio. Wallflower on.

Liese -- I kind of like Street Sense (Illinois connection) and Any Given Saturday (he was named for the Derby, wasn't he?) - plus also being named for a football movie, which reminds me of Friday Night Lights which I love.

Yesterday there was lots of racing on ESPN which I taped and they did a segment with Barbaro's brothers: Nicanor looks very lean and adolescent and the 2 week old baby is ADORABLE. I hope that they show it on the NBC coverage. Or maybe in the special tonight.

ugh, dealing with an annoying seemingly new to net communities person on a yahoo group. typing shutup shutup shutup would probably not be the best solution.

Hec, GF really enjoys the 33 1/3 series. She was even thinking of trying to submit an idea for a book at some point. Her obvious one would be Throwing Muses but I think someone's already pitched it. Anyway, cool on ya' for the book!

The weather is perfect today in NY. Utterly gorgeous.

FCBD update: The first comic book store I went to, the one around the block from where I live, had very few customers, they were sold out of Buffy, and they didn't let you pick which free comic book you got, you had to pick one at random. I keep wondering why they're still in business. You would think that after selling out the previous two issues of Buffy, they would know to order more by now. Anyway, I did get a copy of LSH, which will make its way to mac.

The second comic book store I went to had lots of customers, including lots of kids, and they had lots of Buffy issues on hand. I also got the back issues of Jeff Smith's Shazam that I needed. The let you choose which free comic book you got, and I got the Unseen Peanuts.

Still to do today:

• Dishes
• Fold Laundry
• File last month's bills
• Vacuum
• Go to Kentucky Derby party

We'll see how many of those will take priority over napping.

I also had Mexican food for lunch, so I got FCBD, Cinco de Mayo, and the Kentucky Derby all covered.

Hec, GF really enjoys the 33 1/3 series. She was even thinking of trying to submit an idea for a book at some point. Her obvious one would be Throwing Muses but I think someone's already pitched it. Anyway, cool on ya' for the book!

It is a cool series, and it's starting to get a bit more traction now that it's been out for a while. I think my book will stay in print longer in this series than the others did.

I do think somebody pitched Throwing Muses in the most recent round, but I'm not sure if it was selected.