What? I can't stand that show when the people are dressed.

Also, I've narrowed the official snack down to three choices: Twizzlers, Chex Mix (still deciding on a flavor), and the ever-popular Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. I'll have a decision made after Labor Day.

You see? Now I'm going to spend the rest of the night wondering if I should have waited before posting that last sentence, or if I should have written it at all. I'll be wondering if my comments box is going to be filled with admonishments about the negative stereotype, to which I'll respond that being of Sicilian descent I should be entitled to some self-deprecating humor once in a while.

I could go on forever with this. Wow. Tim does have a point.

Seems every time I take a typing test my scores improve. Two more appointments and I'll set the keyboard on fire.

I received a bit of sad news today as well. A woman named Emily who worked as head of security at the corporate offices of my former employer was found dead recently. I did not know her very well, but I saw her often when I was in Atlanta and she was always pleasant to me. Details on her death are fuzzy; she exercised more frequently than most and consumed lots of caffeine and very little food. She was let go a few months before I was, and rumor had it that she was very depressed about it. Nobody can say for certain, though, if her death was a suicide. Some think she had a heart attack brought on by her lifestyle. She was only 40. Please pray for her soul.

So I will leave this to a vote. Let me know what you think.

BTW, I had mentioned to Malc about putting his Marina Sirtis-signed mousepad up for auction. I don't think I could describe his reaction to that. Sorry, guys.

While I still have a bit of downtime, I have taken the initiative of narrowing the field of suspects. While Nihil does not leave an e-mail address when he/she posts comments, an ISP number is left behind to trace. This morning I checked my visitor logs and found one match that resolved to a California-based company. Problem is, this particular company has CLEC certification in 30 states, whatever that means. I would hazard a guess that it means Nihil could be anywhere, but I believe I can safely eliminate a few people who will not yet be named.

The logs also tell me that the user from the matching ISP uses Windows and Internet Explorer. That should narrow down the list.

I don't think it's Dhani Harrison, though. (Salud!)

If you have joined the St. Blog's ring, you may be eligible for the Catholic Writers Webring as well.

• an opened pack of Space: 1999 trading cards, in near mint condition
  
• a Star Trek: The Next Generation mousepad signed by Marina Sirtis
  
• a photocopy of the Quantum Leap screenplay for "Swept Away," the episode where Sam is stranded on a desert island with Brooke Shields (how original)
  

Until then, you are welcome to browse this request from a writing mailing list. If you are a reader or writer of mysteries you will find this interesting, I hope:

"Just wanted to remind everyone that the next issue of the Mystery Readers Journal (Volume 18: No 4) will focus on Southern Mysteries. They're looking for articles, reviews and AUTHOR ESSAYS, as well as lists, e-mail addresses and names of Southern writers they should include.

Author essay: if you have a mystery set in the South, you should consider writing a 500-2000 word article, first person, on why you chose the South as the setting for your novel(s), your Southern connection or anything unique about your Southern setting.

Deadline for copy for the Southern Mystery issue has been extended until September 15.

Let them know if you plan to contribute, so they can save space. This is great publicity--and free! Their readers feel that they're up close and personal with the writers through their author essays.

CONTACT: Janet A. Rudolph, Editor, Mystery Readers Journal

Mystery Readers Journal is a thematic quarterly review. Issues in 2002 focus on Pacific Northwest Mysteries, Culinary Crime I, Culinary Crime II, The Deep South in Mystery. Articles, reviews, author essays, and a calendar of events with other mystery news.

I have to wonder if Baretta would have been selected for the honor of DVD preservation had this whole murder case not happened. I was a bit too young for that show, and I don't recall seeing it on any nostalgia TV networks or in syndication, so I would be led to believe that perhaps the show was not too memorable. I don't imagine I'll be shelling out the money for this one; I'm saving up for the remaining nine or ten seasons of M*A*S*H. I am surprised, however, that Baretta has not popped up on Nick at Nite or as part of A&E's blossoming crime/mystery programming.

Over 54 million Americans help care for ailing family members or friends. Millions more selflessly minister to people in daycare, emergency, and community services. While often rewarding, this benevolent care-giving requires tremendous emotional, physical, and spiritual strength. That's why we are creating Chicken Soup for the Caregiver's Soul, 101 Stories to Uplift, Honor, and Support the Caregiver. Please share your inspirational, true stories, 1200 words or less, to help us care for those who lovingly care for others. For each story selected, a 50-word biography will be included about the author and $300 will be paid. The submission deadline is December 1, 2002. For guidelines see LeAnnThieman.com or send stories with your name, address and phone number to ChickenSoup@LeAnnThieman.com.

Starting on Tuesday (8/27), I'll be hosting my own chat on AOL. Here's the info:

"Writing Right" is a chat to help aspiring writers perfect their skills through contact with guest authors and editors. Advanced writers will also learn new techniques and have an opportunity to find out how other successful writers "do it."

Grand Opening:

Aug. 27 @ Noon Eastern Time

Where: Keyword - Creative Arts>Field of Dreams

Hosted by WPLC MmeLiz and co-hosted by WPLC Rosa

I'm trying to line up guest writers and editors. I'd like to invite any published authors or editors to be my guest some Tuesday and talk about any writing-related topic you like. Only qualification is, it must be someone on AOL -- if you're not currently on AOL, you can sign up for the free trial if you'd like to be a guest.

If you're interested in being my guest, just let me know which Tuesday(s) will work for you, and some idea of what you want to talk about...and we'll take it from there!

If any of you would like to be on the reminder list for the chats, just send an e-mail to HOSTWPLCMmeLiz@aol.com and I'll put you on the list.

Thanks,

Elizabeth Delisi

Later!

Step One: Get a bottle of anything, liquor or whatever (except Sam Adams, because we're all still miffed about them sponsoring that whole Opie and Anthony thing).

Step Two: Take a drink every time...

• ...Mark Shea introduces a new Catholic blog on his own blog.
  
• ...Nihil Obstat points out that a particular blog has not yet made it to Gerard's list.
  
• ...any St. Blogger calls Nihil on a spelling error of his/her own.
  
• ...Pete Vere quotes directly from the Canon.
  
• ...the pictures on Amy Welborn's blog change.
  
• ...Kathryn Lively makes a Dhani Harrison reference on her blog (including this one).
  
• ...any St. Blogger mentions, hints, or alludes to the PayPal donation button on his/her blog.
  
• ...Victor Lams posts a Vic tract and/or a picture of his cat.
  
• ...any St. Blogger posts the results of any personality quiz.
  

I've been meaning to set up a separate website for the webring, so I'll put the drinking game there, too.

I can understand how somebody as important as Jeff Gordon can have an official snack, but what about all the unemployed dreamers who subsist on junk food and watch Beat the Geeks because our spirits are too discouraged by lack of self-esteem and the downturn of the economy to do anything else? It's people like us who keep companies like Frito Lay in business during such times. Isn't it time that we are so duly honored with an official snack?

This might just be the impetus I need to get off the couch. I mean, I can't just pick a snack out of thin air. This snack is going to be representative of me as a person, just as Fritos are representative of Jeff Gordon. When somebody passes by my official snack at the grocery store, he/she should be able to turn to others with pride and declare, "You see this? This is the official snack of Kathryn Lively. You need to buy some right now!"

I imagine also there are procedures to which one must adhere, not to mention all the research (yum). What factors, for example, should be considered when selecting an official snack? Caloric content? Savory to sweet ratios? The frequency with which powdery orange stuff gets all over fingers and clothing?

I'll have to choose wisely.

weight gain Archie comics (huh?)

ladies restroom stall

Dhani Harrison references are coming from AOL now. Nice to know one of us has universal appeal as far as search engines are concerned.

She doesn't have to worry about that. Just collaborating on a work with only one other author can be a pain in the ass. This one particular project I am editing to send to a small publisher brought back many such memories. Some of them were actually good, don't get me wrong, but I would advise anybody interested in collaborating on a novel or play or whatever to see to it that your partner at least lives in the same city. During the time I wrote this project (which I'm now calling Dangerous Words) with my former professor, I was moving from Georgia to here while he traveled from his permanent residence in Florida to his seasonal home in Massachusetts and back again. We did the whole book via the US Mail, with me transcribing everything. Second cardinal rule of collaboration: use computer disks and/or e-mail. You will be so glad you did.

Third cardinal rule: if you are the controlling type, don't find a partner who is exactly like you. You will butt heads from the first word. Remember that episode of Frasier where Frasier and Niles try to write a book together and never get past the first sentence? Writing Dangerous Words wasn't that bad, but there were times I wanted to scream because I couldn't get my writing partner to see a particular point I wanted to make. The only advantage I have in this situation now is that it has been nearly two years since we wrote the work, and he is currently working on a million other things to be too involved with this. That I know a little more about the e-book industry may tip the influence in my favor as well, but unless an opportunity too good to decline comes along, I'll be flying solo in the writing department for a while.

Last night at the grocery store I saw chocolate creme Oreos, peanut butter creme Oreos, and a new one: mint creme Oreos. It's green, and it doesn't look appetizing.

Now for the evil thought: Malc leans over to me and whispers, "Wouldn't it be funny if you scraped that green stuff off and replaced it with wasabi paste and gave it to somebody?"

Bwah-hah-haah!

The Harriette Austin Writing Program at the University of Georgia is pleased to announce Elements of Fiction, a series of Internet-based creative writing workshops now open for registration.

The first 11-week workshop on Characters begins September 20, 2002, followed by workshops on Dialogue, Plot, Advanced Topics, and a Masters Class. The primary instructors are program founder Harriette Austin, assisted by Charles Connor, Director of the Harriette Austin Writing Program at the University of Georgia, and Heather Edelblute, Assistant Program Director, with guest appearances by agents, editors, authors, special experts and other professionals from the publishing industry.

Successful completion of the workshop series earns the student a Certificate in Creative Writing.

There is a free-access Beginning lesson to give a flavor of the format and style of the workshops.

Complete information about the workshops can be found at http://www.coe.uga.edu/hawc/.

Charles Connor is the husband of author Beverly Connor, who writes the excellent Lindsay Chamberlain mystery series. I took a mystery writing class with Harriette when I lived in Athens. She is a great lady, and I heartily endorse anything attached to her name.

Eruv supporters counter that the eruv itself is not a religious symbol like a cross or a Star of David. Some have accused opponents of anti-Semitism.

The opposition to the eruv, as implied in the article, concerns the religious aspect of such a thing, and some therefore charge that the eruv would be a religion/state conflict. What interests me about these charges of anti-Semitism is related to something that happened here two years ago. According to the Catholic League's 2000 Report on Anti-Catholicism:

The city of Norfolk secured from the Chrysler Museum of Art a statue to be placed in a downtown intersection until a permanent display could be funded. But the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater protested and town officials removed the art. The artwork was a statue of St. Francis of Assisi.

The statue was situated around the corner from where I used to live. It was removed to minimal public outrage. In its place now is some hideous obelisk.

Why is it okay when one group can protest a statue's removal on the basis of religious influence and nothing happens, yet when somebody opposes their plans on similar grounds, the detractors are now anti-Semitic? No, I am not anti-Semitic, I just find the situation interesting. If the Orthodox Jewish community wants an eruv, and my rights and freedoms are still intact, let them have it. I am not threatened, and I don't think it was the city's intent to make anybody uncomfortable by placing a statue of St. Francis in a traffic circle off the main road.

1. Many children have blankets, or a favorite nubby stuffed animal that they like to keep near them for security. Do you recall what you had for your "security blanket" as a child? When did you finally give it up? What brought that about? I slept with a plush Snoopy for many years. I still have it somewhere.

2. Now that you are a big kid, what do you have to give you that same sense of security? Security?

3. With a little over four months left in 2002, have you accomplished everything you wanted to for the year? Is there anything that you would like to accomplish before the year is over? It's been a busy year. I sold a few more copies of Little Flowers, got a mention in the National Catholic Register, started a blog, finally got to see Paul McCartney in concert, lost my job and won a contract for my next novel. Still trying to get pregnant.

4. I don't know about you, but it seems to me children have it pretty good these days. Game systems, computers in the home, microwaves, cable TV, the Internet, cell phones and pagers. They certainly have a wider variety of technology than most of us did as children. What modern convenience, if any, do you think it would be good for children today to do without? What would they gain? They could do without cable, game systems, and the Internet. They would gain exercise.

5. Many of us have one thing in which we believe we excel. What do you do better than most? I do a mean Judy Tenuta impersonation.

6. In the United States, and possibly other countries, teenagers in high school usually wind up falling into several social circles or "cliques." Stoners, Rich Kids, Jocks, Cheerleaders, Band, Drama, Goths, and so on (though the names are probably different today). What high school "clique" did you find yourself in? Was it by choice or did it just happen? Did you look down on other groups? I didn't belong to any cliques, actually. I was my own clique: the hippy chick with hair too short (before Jeanine Turner made it fashionable) who listened to the Beatles and Doors while everybody else was either into metal, rap, Hank, Jr. or the Cure. It was an eclectic neighborhood.

7. (it begins) I have great news! I won the contest and we now have plane tickets to anywhere in the world. The bad news is we have to pick a place now and leave in the morning. I can't decide where to go, so you get to pick. Where should we go, and what is the first thing we should do when we get there? Let's go to London and take Judi Dench out drinking.

BONUS: Must I beg you? Yes.

The average, non-A. Rod player in the MLB makes no less than a million dollars a year. Meanwhile, people all over the country have lost their jobs (yours truly included). This afternoon Malc and I went to a Phar-Mor which was scheduled to close for good today; this comes on the heels of Hampton Roads losing all of their Ames stores to bankruptcy (22,000 jobless all over the country in that case). I'm sorry, my heart just doesn't bleed for these guys. I realize playing these sports is not a cushy job; I realize there are risks, and that they should be paid accordingly. My parents were schoolteachers and they should have been paid accordingly as well, but they made do.

I've been burned by a baseball strike before. We had tickets for a game at Wrigley Field on my birthday the last time the players went on strike. One thing we always wanted to do was go to Wrigley Field, see a day game and hear Harry sing at the seventh inning stretch, but the players went on strike two days before our game. We were never able to get back, and Harry has since died.

If the players strike again, I won't tell them not to come back. I won't come back.

Meanwhile, a contract is in the mail for my next job, along with the check for the last one. Dorothy Parker once wrote that the two most beautiful words in the English language were "check enclosed." I'd have to put it in my top ten, at least.

I made good with the time I had. I redid Bob Stanton's homepage. Bob is my former creative writing professor; in fact, he is still teaching courses at JU, and probably still arranging groups of students to write collaborative fiction. One such effort, The Devil's Rood, was published two years ago. Amazon.com says it is out of print, though it sold well. Now it's on to fix Tony Burch's site.

Yes, we're still on the statue.

I would hazard a guess that the main reason for discomfort about this statue is that it could be considered a break from tradition. For years and years Marian statuary depicted the blond, less angular image of Fatima, among other images. One thing that sets the Church apart from other denominations is our use of imagery and art in worship, and my theory is that people are loathe to change. My mother's grandfather, for one, stopped going to church after the Vatican II changes took hold. Some people are very resistant to change, and that's why we see schisms form. Just ask Pete Vere about that.

Do I think it is a bad thing that I might have misidentified the statue out of context? Probably not. I'd have looked at the statue and moved on with my life. The Catholic Church is not summed up in one man's vision of Mary. I am Catholic because I believe it is the Church Christ founded. It is the Church's teachings that keep me coming to Mass, not so much the decor. I also recognize that people have different tastes in art and have different perceptions of beauty. Look at me, I think Steve Buscemi is cute. What does this say about me?

So long as that artist's intention is not to offend, I am not offended. I've seen enough offensive representations of Mary to last me the rest of my life. No more.

As somebody has commented elsewhere, I think a veil or perhaps a Rosary would have been a nice addition in order to give the impression that it is Mary. Looking at the picture alone, I probably would have not identified it with a Catholic church.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't think anybody really knows what Mary looked like. Representations of Mary from various apparitions show women who appear indigenous to the regions - this is why Our Lady of Guadalupe appears to be Hispanic, even though Mary is historically Jewish. I have to wonder, though, what Mary would look like were she to appear to some Hollywood player with a cell phone glued to his ear.

As for getting out the house, as one St. Blogger comments, I've been out of the house for the past two weeks. I came home with three stitches in my left leg. I'm staying put.

I shudder to think what my grandchildren will say fifty years from now about the photos I leave behind. Grandma, did you always go to the midnight movies wearing a feather boa and clown makeup? On second thought, maybe I shouldn't leave anything behind.

Well, it gives me time to change the template. Stand by. In the meantime, I've posted my nephew's latest sonogram. We're less than eight weeks away!

Tolkein, by the way, ranks seventh in earnings among dead celebrities, according to Forbes. He's nowhere close to Elvis, however, but that's only because there are no Franklin Mint Tolkein salt and pepper shakers or Hobbit chess sets to buy. Not yet, anyway.

Bud then tries to correct the situation by saying something like, "No, when he says 'Slaughter,' he means Slaughter the baseball player." You can imagine Lou's reaction to that. I wish I still had that tape.

There is one mountain bike trail at the Olympic horse park, I think mountain biking was an exhibition sport at the 1996 Olympics, I'm not certain. Anyway, the trail is very technical, with many steep climbs and downhill runs. I managed most of the bottom loop of the trail, though on occasion I had to get off the bike and walk. I was about fifty yards from the head of the first leg of the trail when my rear tire slipped (I must have hit something) coming down a sharp curve. The bike went one way, I went the other. I stood up to blood gushing down my left leg from a very deep wound. The bike is fine, BTW. Not a scratch on it.

Malc was ahead of me, and apparently not within earshot, so I limped off the trail and across this open field to the main road. Blood soaked my sock and streaked down my leg, and it hurt like hell. The parking lot was about half a mile away from the trail, and I had made it halfway when Malc met me. He flagged down a truck to take us to the parking lot, where luckily a pair of EMTs had just finished treating somebody who had fallen from a horse. They took me to the emergency room.

If you ever fall from a mountain bike in Conyers, GA, Rockdale Hospital is a good place to go. I only needed three stitches and was out of the ER in about ninety minutes. We had reservations in Bryson City, so we decided to go forward. Little did we know that the cottage we rented had no television or phone hookup, so I couldn't access the Internet for three days. I couldn't go mountain biking, either. The only thing that saved me from complete cabin fever was my iBook; it has a DVD-ROM, and luckily we had purchased Lord of the Rings before we left Jax. I'm almost to the point where I can insert Rocky Horror-style feedback into the dialogue. Hey, Gandalf, where's your neck?

I am not completely truthful, however. I did manage a four-mile loop at Tsali on our last day in North Carolina. My leg did not hurt much then, not like it does right now. The wound itches like crazy, ugh! I promise, however, not to dwell too much upon it in the blog. If you see me at the CWF in September I'll show you the scars. I'd show you pictures, but my stupid camera decided to break, so I have nothing but my skewed memories to share.

Anyway, I have dark hair, so I suppose I would have to go blond before sharing the Divine Secrets of the Blog-Blog Sisterhood.

I invented a few choice words today when Malc and I went out for a drive. State troopers rarely pull over people who drive the speed limit, but apparently the guy in the minivan ahead of us today did not know that. He decided to play safe and hit the brakes. Had his rear bumper not already been six inches from the grill of our truck (the guy cut us off to get there), we would not have minded so much. You just don't do that to a truck, especially if said truck is loaded down with mountain bikes.

I just had a few glasses of Shiraz, so I will refrain from making any suggestions myself.

• Biscotti's on St. John's Avenue for dinner
  
• The Grotto in San Marco for a glass of wine
  
• Peterbrooke's for chocolate ice cream; Lady Godiva is a homely teenaged babysitter compared to this stuff
  

So if you have published through 1stBooks.com or any other POD program which also published your book as an e-book during this time, you may enter the contest. Though Little Flowers was published by a royalty press in 2001, the e-book was self-published through FrancisIsidore in 2002, so it will be eligible this year. Murder Most Trivial is also eligible, so I'm going to go ahead and enter both. In fact, two other titles from FrancisIsidore are also eligible, but I will leave it to the individual authors to decide if they want to enter the contest. Again, you don't need to be an EPIC member, but it's a great organization to join if you are interested in electronic book publishing.

I have one piece that is about 30,000 words long, co-written with a former writing professor. The style of the story doesn't quite fit FrancisIsidore's guidelines, but Echelon may be interested to see it. It is a "he said/she said" type of story set during a writers' conference. Things get nasty, then eventually deadly. I wanted to call the story Poison Pens, but my professor liked the title Seminar of Death. I hated that title. It sounds too much like a cheeseball Vincent Price flick to be taken seriously.

Maybe I will submit it. It will need quite a bit of work, however, but it's better than letting the work sit unread on my PC.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Betty Kasischke, EPIC EPPIE Committee

Website

EPIC Announces Opening of Entries for EPPIE-2003, Awards for Excellence in E-books

EPIC, the Electronically Published Internet Connection, announces the opening of entries for EPPIE-2003. Awards will be presented in twenty categories for the most outstanding books published in electronic format in 2002. Winners will be announced at EPIC's gala banquet on March 8, 2003, topping off EPICon-2003 in Tampa, Florida, March 7-9, 2003.

EPPIE was the first award for e-books, with the first presentation in August, 2000.

EPPIE entry is open to any English-language book published in electronic format between October 1, 2001 and September 30, 2002. Categories include action-adventure, romance, mystery, thriller, speculative fiction, poetry, non-fiction and western. For a full list of categories and entry information, go to the official EPPIE website.

SWIM: 20:11

SWIM TO BIKE TRANSITION: 7:11

BIKE: 45:38

BIKE TO RUN TRANSITION: 2:28

RUN: 32:00

OVERALL TIME: 1:47:27

The swim to bike transition would have been shorter, Malc says, had a cramp not seized him. Running on the sand is not the best thing for bare feet, either.

Malc, nonethless, was a trooper. He dropped twenty-five pounds and trained for the event, and finished at 1:47:20. This put him in seventh place in the Clydesdales division - over 30 and over 200 pounds. Not bad for somebody who hasn't done a triathlon in over a decade. Mark won his division, which was great. I had never been to one of these things before, so at least I knew somebody who received a plaque.

Next year Malc wants to get me in one of these things. I wish him luck; I'm a horrible swimmer. Maybe I would participate in a relay team as the biker. I'm not much of a runner, either.

I'll think I'll keep the old one up, too. It's growing on me.

I received no accompanying message, just the photo. No virus alerts sounded when I opened the file, so I'm grateful for that. I'm not really sure whether or not to interpret this as a compliment, a joke or an insult, and part of me is afraid to reply to the person's e-mail to ask why it was sent. Does this imply that I have a big mouth, or that I should be packed in ice, or that I stink? Considering how much cash I drop at Bath and Body Works on a regular basis, it can't mean the latter.

For all I know, it was sent to me to see whether or not I would post it on my blog. Well, here it is.

After some digging, I learned that the Chiacgo Tribune printed an article about this loose affiliation of Catholic-flavored blogs. On the whole it is a nice article - there is no such thing as bad publicity. The lone dissenting voice quoted in the article seemed not to have completely grasped the concept of St. Blog's Parish. He was quoted as if we were actually trying to pass ourselves off as an actual parish. That, of course, is not the case - St. Blog's is only a name. We're like a club, only without dues and matching jackets.

I can only guess that many people were led to this blog in particular because I started the webring. I've received a number of applications today, and once everybody has the code up I will be happy to add them.