Hec, my bro called me today to tell me that he JUST got your book today. (Amazon neglected to put an address label on the box, which makes me wonder how it even GOT to him; I assume the PO opened the box?)

Fuck yeah!

He's thrilled.

I'm more thrilled. I haven't gotten any feedback on the book (except from people who read it in manuscript).

So I feel a little bit like I threw two years of work down a deep well and I'm still waiting to hear the splash.

I am creating email folders. Next checking someone's files of invoices against the invoice binder and tossing all dupes. WHEE!

I was eating pizza! Now I'm digesting pizza. And getting back to work on my document o' the moment. For real. Any minute now.

I'm reorganizing my file folders.

I just remembered that there's a reporting schedule I need to create for 2008. SOMETHING TO DO, oh thank you baby Jesus!

I am eating apple pie and making myself a cappucino.

Soon I head to the east bay to have lunch with my friend Karen. Then I pick Emmett up early from school and we beat the traffic home.

I had a donut and chatted. That killed the first 20 minutes of my day. Only 7 and a half more to go!

He's thrilled.

I'm more thrilled. I haven't gotten any feedback on the book (except from people who read it in manuscript).

I'll let you know what he thinks. Or should I have him e-mail you himself, one Waits fan to another?

I am creating a document with released test questions. Enviable life, yeah?

I need to go buy a bottle of water before I dehydrate completely.

I had a friend in high school whose mother was a prescription drug addict and died from an accidental overdose. As far as I can tell, she was just used to taking a lot of stuff, but that day took the wrong amounts of the wrong combination. That's what this sounds like to me.

This combination thing is a big component in deciding that something was accidental. It's possible that the doses of individual drugs in his blood were all in the range of heavy recreational use, but that the combination was lethal. In that case they would normally conclude accidental.

For instance, diazepam and alprazolam are usually thought to be very safe drugs in terms of overdose, because their dose-response curve is so shallow. The general view is that it would be hard to get enough down, and keep it down, long enough to die from them. For most people, the more you take, the longer you sleep.

But that nice, slow, dose-response makes an long-lasting base on which other drug effects can build. If you put faster acting CNS depressants on top of if, they will spike higher than expected. If you took too much diazepam and alpraxolam a few hours ago, and discount it because, hey, it was hours ago, and then take a fast acting narcotic, it's easy to overdose.

So forensic pharmacologists have these classic patterns that they consider to be indicative of accidental overdose.

I'll let you know what he thinks. Or should I have him e-mail you himself, one Waits fan to another?

Either way. He's definitely somebody I'd like to get to know.