Back in the saddle....the writing saddle

Hi folks! Sorry for missing my usual Learning Tuesday. The reason I didn't write was that I was feeling sick Monday night and slept in until 10 Tuesday, which put me behind the 8-ball since I was going to meet people for drinks at 5 before seeing Wicked. Just didn't have enough time! So that's my reason.

Interesting commentary in The Red Eye today in the social section I think about 'reasons' versus 'excuses'. Reasons, the author posits, are what innocent people use when they don't call to cancel a date in advance. Liars use excuses. It's really a decent article for being in a free publication. Here's the article: http://redeye.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/red-122006-sexplaybook,0,1377692.column?coll=red-frontheadlines

Did you guess the "man-o-lantern" quote from last Friday? A very funny line from The 40-Year Old Virgin.

Thanks to Victoria's Secret, the catalog count has gone up to 29 now! On Monday I received another catalog....can't remember from whom though, oh Lord and Taylor. Anyway, one more to go and three more days of mail before Christmas. It's going to be close!

Most of my thoughts are a bit scattered today, so my blog will be scattered as well. For instance, this picture doesn't relate to anything at all that I'm writing, but it's cool as hell!!




It's a picture from space of "lake effect" snow coming off the Great Lakes.

Today is day 15 of the marathon and I'm not doing too bad, despite the random hacking cough. Tonight shouldn't be bad, but tomorrow is Mexican food with a group of folks headed by a gay ex-coworker and friend from L.A. (you know who you are!! Like I have a second gay friend from L.A. right?) Anyway, the Mexican dinner means margaritas, most likely, and then we are going to a gay bar around the corner from me (remember I live in the heart of boystown?) for my one gay bar visit of the year. It's fine actually, except you focus more on talking to the people you are with when 90% of the people around you "play for the other team" and the other 10% are gay women who aren't looking at me! Too funny. Anyway, they have Kettel One Purple slushies that are just killer.

Finally, I Tivoed the Northern Illinois versus TCU game from last night and I haven't seen that kind of domination since the Bears of 85-86. Ugh. Northern just got hammered. TCU would have two or three guys in the backfield before Garrett Wolf even got the ball and just stymied him. And this running back is no slouch. He leads the NCAA in rushing and is 9th all-time in college rushing yards. The score ended up 35-7 though in favor of TCU and that was WITH Northern blocking three kicks! Yikes.