Kind of a strange day . . .

Baby's sick, for only the second time since we took her out of day care six months ago. (At day care, both kids seemed to pick up every bug going around town and had perpetually drippy noses.) Lily's got the stuffy nose thing, along with a slight fever, which conspire to make her a very unhappy little oompa-loompa. Fussy and clingy, she only wants to be held. I am typing this with one hand.

Slacked off writing this morning, to watch CNN.com's "real-time" replay of 9/11/01. Unlike most human beings on the planet, I hadn't seen much of this before. I didn't have cable TV back then, so the horrific images weren't hammered repeatedly into my brain. I think, on retrospect, that this was a good thing. From that day, I do remember that Lea was in the midst of the one of her very convincing false pregnancies, so it was like the ultimate good news/ bad news scenario. I might soon be a Dad, but on the other hand World War freakin' III is breaking out.

Given the filter of time, without the "what the hell is happening? are we all gonna die?!?" factor, the footage is still pretty intense. Seeing it on TV (or computer screen,) though, for me reduces the human tragedy to the level of a great disaster movie. The thrill and beauty of pure chaos. The shameful charge of bad news which keeps getting worse. I had cable when Katrina hit, and I had the same feeling then. What is so attractive about disaster? When I was a kid, I used to pray that a tornado would hit so I could experience this feeling first-hand. Am I some kind of sicko, or just honestly expressing an unattractive aspect of human nature?

These thoughts precluded the writing of radio comedy.

The family went down to Prescott this weekend, so I was afforded a rare opportunity to sit down with Drew and go over material for the Coyote Radio Day of the Dead show. Very productive meeting. I came away with lots of great ideas and energy, which I squandered by watching 5-year-old news on the internet. Oh, well. Back to the grind tomorrow.

In other news, I received an interesting e-mail from my Canadian porno connection: "I think there has been a little confusion... The novel 'The Education ofLisa' has already been published by us. I will be sending out your paymentas well as your complimentary copy as soon as I can:)

This means that they published the version on the Literotica web-site, and all my months of editing were for naught. I guess it doesn't matter. At least the check's in the mail. I am now officially a published author. Woo-hoo. Break out the champagne.