Tenth Anniversary

I have no plans to stop fighting this war until there is no breath left in me.  And truth be told, I’m not even sure I could stop even if I wanted to.  –  “Ninth Anniversary”

Ten years is a long time for one human to do anything without a break, much less publish a blog post without missing a single day.  But then, I’ve never been one for taking breaks; I’ve always considered them little more than a delay in whatever it is that I’m doing.  And when that “whatever” is fighting a war for self-ownership and human rights…well, as the epigram says, I’m not sure I could stop even if I wanted to.  Certainly, I’ve slowed down; when I first started this blog a decade ago, I used to publish an all-new essay every day, and the essays were much longer on average.  But as I exorcised at least a little of the righteous fury which fuels my activism, and my other activities expanded to take up more of my time, I was forced to fill an increasing number of daily slots with shorter, easier-to-write posts.  Only two days in the average week now see original essays, and I feature a lot more of what most would consider typical blog posts than in the past.  On the other hand, I’ve written lots of non-blog articles for magazines, books, etc, and I’m about to publish my fifth book; I’ve also got a documentary called The War on Whores and I give dozens of interviews for articles, radio, video, and TV every year, plus more public appearances than I can count.  So even though my blog isn’t growing as quickly as it once did (and, thanks to Google’s censorship, is seen by fewer new readers than in times past), my public presence is still growing.  And given that all of that public presence is dedicated toward fighting for my cause, I would consider that a win.

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Back Issue #84

Many cops are simply not afraid of the consequences of their actions.  –  “LicenseTo Rape”

• Some implied I was a crank when I predicted this development years ago.
• The bizarre & stilted language used in African news articles about whores.
• In 30 years, “sex trafficking” films will be the new “reefer madness” films.
• The most vile, tone-deaf product the rescue industry has yet dreamed up.
• Another rescue industry character claiming to have been a “sex trafficker”.
• Portland’s bizarre attempt to draw “sex trafficking” attention from Seattle.
• Even the MSM begins to see the War on Whores is the new War on Drugs.
• It was only a matter of time before TSA’s surveillance role was expanded.
• Whores are morons whose lives must be micromanaged by governments.
• The question in the headline could be asked of any “rescue” organization.
• May has been pushing internet censorship since she was home secretary.
• NYPD’s newest sleazy tactic in its campaign to strangle whores’ business.
• Future historians will ponder the link between “sex trafficking” and pizza.
• Why are the supposed ordeals of “survivors” always decades in the past?
• I have zero faith in the magical protective powers of “restraining orders”.
• If you don’t want your business choked, you’ll have to fight for mine too.
• Exactly what prohibitionists wanted, despite their claims to the contrary.
• I wonder where she’ll get a real job once “trafficking” hysteria collapses?
• Massage parlor licensing is widely touted as a way to “fight prostitution”.
• Anybody who thinks this is “like a real human” needs a pro immediately.
• Another rape victim caged to force participation in a state morality play.
• Whores prefer not to be registered by politicians & “supervised” by pigs.
• Amateurs: a health menace who should be licensed & heavily regulated.
• Prohibitionists’ lies are never more blatant than when they misquote us.
• “Cuckoo Clock” McCain wants to vomit her poison over the entire world.
• Sex workers should avoid clients who could be called mentally disabled.
• A plan supported by useful idiots who don’t understand legal precedent.
• Who’d throw away valuable merchandise by giving it to penniless brats?
• Cops believe their tin talismans magically grant them omnicompetence.
• The sex ray intensity on these items must be well into the danger zone.
• Pig believes myths about what other pigs may do in entrapment scams.
• IWW was the 1st major union to support sexworkers; won’t be the last.
• Brave women overpower their captors to escape a brainwashing prison.
• We’re seeing ever-more columns like this from self-identified feminists.
• Has this histrionic has-been now made a moral panic her whole career?
• These same methods are used to manufacture “sex trafficking victims”.
• She has to prove she’s the polar opposite of every other cop in the US.
• More on the maltreatment of sex workers in another large police state.
• Quite possibly the most ridiculous excuse any politician has ever used.
• “Cuckoo Clock” McCain has a history of working against human rights.
• Japan’s descent into US-style anti-whore rhetoric is highly distressing.
• Another good, basic article on the success of the New Zealand model.
• Traveling without official permission is now called “human trafficking”.
• “Trafficking in Persons Report” is merely a tool for political blackmail.
• Remember, cops: raping whores is OK; it’s paying us fairly that isn’t.
• Some western states tolerated prostitution long after criminalization.
• Prohibitionists harass streetwalkers so as to scare away their clients.
• The “Super Bowl sex trafficking” myth is becoming a laughing stock.
• Cops no longer pretend that this is about anything other than profit.
• The “Facebook pimps” myth is one of the silliest of the whole panic.
• Seattle politicians’ pompous posturing reveals their deep hypocrisy.
• Good advice to a heavily scarred, sexually traumatized young man.
• It’s disgusting to see so much money wasted on debunked bullshit.
• The ACLU still has a long way to go if it wants to help sex workers.
• Most jokes about sex workers told by amateurs aren’t at all funny.
• Hackney cops carry out an organized effort to harass sex workers.
• A McNeill Rule specimen who’s had a complete mental breakdown.
• More harassment from a “safer neighborhood team” (ie vice pigs).
• Every woman molested or raped by cops should file a federal suit.
• Cops harass sex workers, yet believe we’ll come to them for help.
• Climbing into bed with the police state is nothing to be proud of.
• Sex workers have no interest in having our industry “disrupted”.
• No law caging people for consensual behavior is “well intended”.
• Articles like this are much more common in the Canadian press.
• Despite this popular UK cop fantasy, none has ever been found.
• Inflicting violence consensually vs inflicting it non-consensually.
• Cops pretend they need asset seizure to “go after drug cartels”.
• Cops want to convict people for “crimes” that never happened.
• Because the US cares so very much about “trafficking victims”.
• Small rescue industry profiteers learn the value of slave labor.
• Wisconsin’s try at the most mindlessly-draconian anti-sex law.
• Persecuting the homeless using the excuse of “sex trafficking”.
• Another state requires anti-whore indoctrination for licensing.
• Not a bad article on the benefits of sex work for the disabled.
• Another story credulously touting bullshit “safe harbor” laws.
• Another of those cases whose reported details don’t add up.
• Prohibitionists contort facts so as to support their fantasies.
• Cop calls adolescent sexual development “a police matter”.
• In case you thought I was too paranoid about mentoring.
• Still more infantilization of migrant Nigerian sex workers.
• From respected news organization to propaganda organ.
• Whorearchy from an empty-headed little twit in Nevada.
• An excerpt from Brooke Magnanti’s You Don’t Know Me.
• It’s nice to see the light bulb go on in someone’s head.
• “Sex trafficking” hysteria begins to spin out of control.
• A future serial killer gets more than he bargained for.
• Another country the US should be proud to resemble.
• Can y’all please send a delegation to talk to the ABA?
• “Correctional officer” is a term straight out of Orwell.
• Could you provide me a reference for a referral site?
• So-called journalists bleat out pro-censorship idiocy.
• Is nonconsensual shackling worse for kinky women?
• A couple of short interviews with Australian escorts.
• How the state uses language to shift responsibility.
• Another try at decriminalization in South Australia.
• Fetishists now want pigs spying on women in bars.
• It’s both honorable and moral to lie to busybodies.
• Politicians are totally losing their minds over sex.
• How can I develop a sex worker support system?
• Poor Nebraska; all panicked up & no place to go.
• Will a professional care if I can’t get an erection?
• I’m surprised this has taken so long to catch on.
• Fran & Dan Keller have been exonerated at last.
• ABC’s eager parroting of anti-sex propaganda.
• Stupid people are still afraid of solar eclipses.
• A memorable duo with Lorelei & Ghost Rider.
• San Diego ramps up its anti-whore pogroms.
• An anti-whore video featuring a fake game.
• The Swedish model eliminates prostitution!
• Partisanism is like a form of self-lobotomy.
• How the IRS facilitates “sex trafficking”.
• The first “child sex trafficking” lawsuit.
• I’m glad to see this piece of shit flop.
• How do I draw attention to my blog?
• Dear useful idiots:  I did tell you so.
• The outing of a fake escort blogger.
• How to summon me to your city.
• More good news about bad laws.
• Good advice from a newsreader.
• On feminist “choice” hypocrisy.
• Cops already do this to people.
• My first column on rapist cops.
• A testimonial for Velvet Swing.
• When anti-vax meets anti-sex.
• Ten tips for dealing with cops.
• I finally get a passport again.
• It just keeps getting worse.
• The first version of FOSTA.
• Rapist cops of June, 2017.
• Amateurs are dangerous.
• A quick trip to Chicago.
• Weird search terms.
• On wife swapping.
• A visit to Chicago.
• Tit-related laws.
• Don’t panic.

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Diary #518

Last week was such a busy one, I actually need a few days in Seattle to catch up on my writing.  Most of my time was spent marking out locations for posts (for my bathhouse), drilling post holes, then leveling and squaring each post before setting it in place with concrete (remember the cement mixer?)  But in addition to that, I worked on trim; cleaned up branches pruned from the apple tree closest to the house; helped Jae clean a big rug; gave three different phone interviews; and probably a dozen other things I’m forgetting.  And that’s all despite being handicapped by no fewer than five broken nails.  That situation is being fixed today; though my regular salon called to cancel my appointment because the government’s unrealistic (her word) requirements for re-opening couldn’t be accomplished in time.  Fortunately, the county in which Sunset lies had a head start, and I was able to secure a late afternoon appointment today; it’ll be good to once again be able to touch my hair or anything made of fabric without my weak, peeling nails snagging in them.  And then I’m off to Seattle for the aforementioned writing break, before returning to Sunset on Thursday to prepare for the next stage of construction.

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Back Issue #83

When the subject is sex everyone’s brains shift into “neutral” and the most outlandish claims are accepted as reasonable.  –  “Reaction Formation”

• “I don’t want to see heroin-injection sites” is this whole thing in a nutshell.
• If Sweden gave a damn, it would’ve just pledged not to extradite Assange.
• Kaytlin’s sex work past isn’t germane to this; reporter goes there anyhow.
• Yes, “prostitution investigations” are part of a larger problem: prohibition.
• Don’t want people spreading stupid rumors? Stop spreading ’em yourself.
• People kept out of the formal economy survive via the informal economy.
• Imposing order on the chaos which dominated my life for over two years.
• The fantasy that emojis in low-rent sex ads are part of some pimp “code”.
• Cops raping whores is so common, rapists pose as cops to facilitate rape.
• Tennessee “authorities” say sex workers are “victims” even if we say not.
• Hilariously, cops are now starting to believe their own wanking fantasies.
• Why is everyone so willing to believe “fake news” about “sex trafficking”?
• Destroying men’s ability to support their families is latest anti-whore fad.
• “Rescuers” are so invested in their own fantasies they’ll believe anything.
• How many kids need to be sacrificed to this obscenity before it’s enough?
• Why are people surprised when cops push for the “right” to rape whores?
• Where “inside” means “in fantasies of busybodies peering from outside”.
• This man has repeatedly said Seattle is not interested in prosecuting us.
• Delusional “trafficking” fetishist thinks the inflated numbers are too low.
• Encouraging prosecutors to file more charges for non-criminal behavior.
• A teen girl riding in a car now constitutes “evidence” of “sex trafficking”.
• Assume any strange man who fucks you will try to remove the condom.
• UK cops have never found more than a tiny # of “sex trafficking” cases.
• Nevada is now one of the most vile fonts of anti-whore vomit in the US.
• This needs to be repeatedly hammered into the faces of prohibitionists.
• They realized they could expand the panic by adding male “sex slaves”.
• Sullying a sex worker by surrounding her words with prohibitionist lies.
• Another cowboy raid staged for the entertainment of rich US moralists.
• Two piles of filth want to cut sex workers off from the banking system.
• I told y’all that this wasn’t gonna work, but of course y’all didn’t listen.
• PA politicians define women as imbeciles whose consent is immaterial.
• Hopeless bootlickers can’t grasp what “denounce & cooperate” means.
• In the contemporary US, people can be fired from jobs for blasphemy.
• I won’t answer controversial questions about groups I don’t belong to.
• No government commission will suggest reducing government power.
• This is what robo-fetishists want you to believe will take my job soon.
• Seattle cops aren’t the only ones with a fetish for creepy surveillance.
• In which sex workers’ desire for individual rights is called “surprising”.
• I’m delighted to see “creepy clown” hysteria still has a bit of life in it.
• Why have you remained a sex worker for so much longer than most?
• Prohibitionists demonize sex workers’ partners into “loverboy pimps”.
• The egregious lie that the “sex offender” registry isn’t a punishment.
• Why yes, I do get tired of saying “I told you so.”  Thanks for asking!
• Canadian prohibitionists desperate to cash in before panic implodes.
• Minnesota “authorities” claim to bust another “sex trafficking gang”.
• Korean men are more honest about buying sex than Western men.
• Stenographer parrots clueless cop’s weird masturbatory fantasies.
• Another example of the War on Whores as the new War on Drugs.
• Pig tricks desperate woman so as to expose her to public ridicule.
• Every outed sex worker or client should sue the party who did it.
• If you want a professional to entertain you, you need to pay her.
• Despite all the Dutch anti-whore campaigns, it’s nice to see this.
• Too bad they still criminalize having sex for the “wrong” reason.
• The poor widdle sheriff “had no alternative” because sex is bad.
• The term for nonconsensual sex isn’t “sleeping with”, it’s “rape”.
• A Truthout article echoes what I said in the original of this title.
• The San Francisco Bay Area Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival.
• Serial rapist tries to reframe himself as a protector of children.
• Liz Brown dives into the ugly facts about federal vice pogroms.
• A petition against politicians who want to destroy the internet.
• Kate Lister on the background history of the Harlots TV show.
• Nice lady goes to slums and is horrified by poor sex workers.
• Sending dick pics to a stranger is a bad idea, but this is epic.
• Indian court rules that acts which aren’t illegal, aren’t illegal.
• Rashida Jones & company are even worse than we thought.
• A simple primer on interacting with sex workers on Twitter.
• Neurological disorders cannot be cured by happy thoughts.
• Another racist anti-whore pogrom in “progressive” Seattle.
• Because one moral panic at a time isn’t enough any more.
• More racist infantilization of Nigerian sex workers in Italy.
• The profound stupidity of lawheads is a marvel to behold.
• A week full of sexual violence committed by state agents.
• Another bullshit story touting bullshit “safe harbor” laws.
• Nearly every single sentence in this pile of shit is wrong.
• Mocking people for their tastes is stupid and puritanical.
• If this wasn’t intended as a vigilante action, then what?
• On the defense mechanism called “reaction formation”.
• Is Iceland just going to recycle this story every spring?
• How do I return to sex work after a years-long hiatus?
• An excerpt from Brooke Magnanti’s The Turning Tide.
• This is kinda like the Super Bowl of basketball, right?
• “I can’t help but think this is vindictive prosecution.”
• Not just a feminist, but an “anti-trafficking” activist.
• Another hysteria-free look at sex work in East Asia.
• The ugliest part of a peak moral panic: lynch mobs.
• Is this enough blood yet? Can we please stop now?
• Once in a very great while, the bad guys still lose.
• A high-tech version of the “barcode tattoo” myth.
• My first article on federal “sex trafficking” stings.
• Playboy needs to do a lot more articles like this.
• Authoritarians say self-employment is immoral.
• The rescue industry is nasty from every angle.
• The release of The Forms of Things Unknown.
• What a belief in sympathetic magic looks like.
• US cops discover “Swedish model” rhetoric.
• So much fantasy, so many contradictions.
• Kaytlin Bailey on coming out to a lover.
• “Evil” is not a noun; it is an adjective.
• Paperwork, coffee and Velvet Swing.
• My essays at Reason and elsewhere.
• I’d love to be wrong once in a while.
• The many rapist cops of May, 2017.
• Marines are among the best clients.
• OMG an invasion of foreign whores!
• Lorelei & I at The Secret Garden.
• Now, this is an interesting twist.
• Goodbye, Avalon; hello, Sunset.
• A short biography of Mata Hari.
• “Johns” are the new “faggots”.
• Booze, benzos and airplanes.
• A marriage made in heaven.
• Reviews of several books.
• On drama queens.
• Is this dude gay?

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Building a Bathhouse

This blog has always been unusual in a number of ways.  I publish once a day, every single day, at exactly the same time every day for the past ten years.  For the majority of that time, posts that constituted anything less than a full essay were rather rare; diary columns and Friday columns are often short, and holiday columns are now the online equivalent of a card, but other than that it’s mostly essays or news commentary.  But as I pointed out in March, the pandemic has crowded crude masturbatory fantasies out of the public consciousness, and since I don’t really do history columns any more, that actually leaves me a bit short on things to write about at this stage of the game.  That’s actually kinda convenient because I’ve been doing a lot of work out at Sunset, and therefore have less time to write.  However, the columns about that work have proven popular, so today I’m starting a new (albeit temporary) feature logging the progess on my bathhouse.  So consider this the first installment; right now it’s just a recently-delivered refurbished hot tub sitting on the slab outside my back door.  But I think you’ll find the weekly development interesting, and I’ll certainly welcome a little more time to work on it.

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Diary #517

On Saturday, as I was working on setting the piers for my new bathhouse, my manicurist called to let me know that she’s opening on June 1^st; of course I made an appointment!  It will be so good for my hands to look and feel like those of a civilized lady again.  As of right now, I’ve got four broken ones (three on the right hand and the forefinger on my left), so not only do my hands look like shit, they’re also far less functional than usual.  I’m not used to hands without nails, which means my right hand is basically useless for fine work righy now (I am typing this with my middle finger) and I keep getting hairs, threads, etc snagged on the rough edges of the broken nails (which tear as they grow even if I file them).  And I don’t even like to look at my toenails.  Since I had my Botox week before last, now all I’m waiting for is my hair salon to call, so I can make these awful roots invisible.  Fortunately, it doesn’t grow all that fast, and I’m not due for a trim for a while yet, so I will not end up like Jonathan here (whom we’re probably going to have sheared soon).  And since the gent I call Dr. Quest has informed me that he’ll probably be able to see me soon, things for me are beginning to look like they’ll soon return to more manageable conditions.  And it’s about damned time.

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Back Issue #82

Police…will continue to be [corrupt] until humanity grows up enough to stop giving power…to its least-evolved members.  –  “Election Day”

• Ghanaian sex work articles can be just as weirdly stupid as Nigerian ones.
• Prohibitionists now claim Backpage was “barred” from publishing sex ads.
• Judge lectures young sex workers about cop-created danger of sex work.
• Never mind the concentration camps Russia already had for sex workers.
• A kind of essay that’s common in the Canadian press, but rare in the US.
• Michigan cops now have to lie about raping us, as in the other 49 states.
• Prohibitionists’ attachment to this dumb canard is working against them.
• A politician is someone who believes one can never have too many laws.
• UK press, partying like it’s 1999 & nobody’s heard of escort reviews yet.
• Laura Lee on the possible wider effects of her Swedish model challenge.
• What’s more pretentious than an opera based on a current moral panic?
• This was only investigated because unsolved cases make cops look bad.
• Again, prohibitionists demonstrate their total contempt for sex workers.
• Technically competent but woefully naive kids exploited by police state.
• Another of the men who want to “protect” Seattle from consensual sex.
• Female free will is incomprehensible to “law enforcement” misogynists.
• Delicious schadenfreude: prohibitionists’ lies coming back to bite them.
• “Having sexual conduct” is an especially clumsy euphemism for “rape”.
• Defining adults as children makes it much easier to create bogus stats.
• Cops empowered to diagnose us as “victims” no matter what we think.
• It’s especially important that women make anti-prohibition arguments.
• If only amateurs realized that this is the norm, not a deviation from it.
• The UK/US competition to destroy civil liberties using “sex trafficking”.
• Hysterical phone calls don’t correlate meaningfully with actual events.
• Trying to stop an omnipresent voluntary activity older than humanity.
• Facts magically become evil when somebody says “THE CHILDREN!!!”
• Turkey continues its campaign to close brothels despite their legality.
• Pigs claim they have to stick their snouts into people’s personal lives.
• “Authorities” rape toddlers if shamans declare their parents unclean.
• Has this histrionic now made a rotting moral panic her whole career?
• Americans want anyone who ever did wrong to be punished forever.
• Puritans hate women who are comfortable paying our rent with sex.
• SCOTUS recently reaffirmed the unconstitutionality of loyalty oaths.
• NCMEC is among the most dangerous of the anti-sex organizations.
• One day I hope to see myself described as a “rebellious prostitute”.
• Our cop-worshiping culture lauds this sexual predator as a “hero”.
• “Rescuers” swoop in to “regulate” women’s jobs out of existence.
• Describing an act of barbaric violence like a visit to a thrift store.
• “Competition” from fancy fleshlights?  Really, ladies, calm down.
• If I weren’t already sterile, I’d get myself sterilized immediately.
• Defining a non-crime as a “crime” creates all kinds of problems.
• Edmonton, Alberta literally treats sex workers like wild animals.
• Others recognize the War on Whores as the new War on Drugs.
• When sex is involved, a poison pen letter is considered “proof”.
• Nice to see cops ruin the life of one of their own for a change.
• Even if PROUD supports this, I’m still skeptical of the subtext.
• There’re so many reasons sex worker licensing is a bad idea.
• The coven in which I feel safe and loved grows a little larger.
• The censors who want the internet destroyed are at it again.
• Do prohibitionist idiots ever bother to think before speaking?
• From the headline writer who asked, “Is the Pope Catholic?”
• Arizona wants hospitals to rat sex workers out to the pigs.
• The whorearchy here is so thick it can be cut with a knife.
• US elections are always accompanied by virtue-signaling.
• “An increase in sex trafficking in northwestern Montana“.
• How can a newlywed woman increase her sexual desire?
• Men: pay your whores!  Ladies: get the money up front!
• US courts declare taboo pictures worse than child rape.
• It’s no longer safe for men to travel with their children.
• The Libertarian Republic is Republican, not libertarian.
• Prohibitionists just can’t stop beating this dead horse.
• An interview with Laura Agustín about her new book.
• The one and only case of an actual barcode tattoo.
• More on the oppression of Ukrainian sex workers.
• Politician wants to prosecute crimes in civil court.
• Once again, actual figures disprove the hysteria.
• An excerpt from the new novel by T.J. Corcoran.
• Massage parlor pogroms are coming to Canada.
• Thaddeus Russell interviews me on his podcast.
• Sex is an exchange, whether you like it or not.
• This tells me all I need to know about Harlots.
• Even Myanmar gets it more than the US does.
• The release of The Forms of Things Unknown.
• Bollywood figures support sex worker rights.
• The larger implications of anti-sex toy laws.
• Preparing to launch my website bookstore.
• I’d really like to be wrong once in a while.
• May Aphrodite grant that I learn to relax.
• Who comes up with this infantile rubbish?
• Melissa Petro on working while pregnant.
• A snazzy T-shirt to support sex workers.
• Why April Fools’ Day isn’t fun any more.
• The real effect of “sex trafficking” laws.
• My last visit to my ranch in Oklahoma.
• George Will is apparently going senile.
• An argument I’ve often made myself.
• This would never happen in the US.
• The many kinds of Roman whores.
• Miranda Kane on annoying clients.
• Moral panic + censorship = profit.
• My first Guy Fawkes Day column.
• Sex worker rights at the UN.
• On Jezebel and other stuff.
• Rapist cops of April 2017.
• An incredibly busy week.
• My last selfie at Avalon.
• Cishet male privilege!
• An antique dildo.
• On Amsterdam.

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Remodeling

When I bought the property I now call Sunset, I got a great deal (half the price of similar properties in the area) because the house was somewhat run down and had problems with the supports of a section that was added perhaps 25 years after it was first built.  So I knew that in addition to fixing the floor, I’d have to remodel much of the house.  Grace and Chekhov spent most of 2018 rewiring the house and shop, adding gutters, building French drains, constructing fences, and other such basic tasks; 2019 was spent in innumerable small fixes, planning the floor repair and redoing the plumbing in preparation for said repair.  Then just after Christmas we started building bookcases in the living room:

Here’s what they looked like on Tuesday:

As you can see, I’ve decided to use the top shelves for CDs.  And see that door in the corner?  The inside isn’t yet stained, but here’s what I’m using it for:

Across the room, and around the TV, we built shelving for DVDs:

They continue across the room, where the movies are followed by TV series:

Soon the walls will be painted and we’ll put in new flooring there and in Grace’s room (mine is upstairs, and the carpet is in good condition). Then on to the kitchen, where we’ve already redone the cupboards and built this:

It’s not quite done yet; Grace has to install brass railings on the two bottom shelves, and there’s an upper section (outside of the shot) which she’s installing doors on.  But the living room is almost done and the kitchen is underway, and when I return to Sunset next week we’ll be starting on the bathhouse.

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Diary #510

Another week full of improvements at Sunset!  I finally finished the laborious process of going through every damned box in the garage to figure out what was in it, who it belonged to, and what to do with it; since our garage is huge (the previous owner used it as storage space for a small-scale lumber mill) it held a lot of stuff.  But all that has now been properly dealt with, so we can use the space as we please (such as parking in it or receiving deliveries of large items such as construction supplies).  I did find a few treasures, though, including a stash of old photos which have been sealed up in a box since 2002; I’ll share a few good selections with y’all as soon as I get time to go through them.  I also finished reorganizing my CD collection on the top level of the bookshelves, helped Grace design the movie shelving, and built it; since Jae finished staining the shelving for DVDs of TV series, I was able to move my collection there from the closet space it has resided in for two years.  As you can see, the shelves on the left were still open when I took this picture on Sunday night; it’ll house the tail end of our combined movie collections.  And speaking of combined collections, the resolution on this pic is high enough for you to read most of the titles; it may amuse you to guess which are mine and which Grace’s.

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The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume Two

As promised, The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume II is here!  Now that I’ve figured out how to fit working on the books into my schedule, I should be able to keep up the pace and put one out every three months for about another year.  My next project, Ask Maggie, Volume I, will contain about 80 of my answers to reader questions; I’ve already made the selections and plan to start editing them as soon as I go back to Seattle after Easter.  So barring unforseen developments, it will be out in July.  If necessary, I could do most of the work here, but it’s harder to write here because I don’t have the quiet and privacy my brain needs for focus (not to mention distractions like building bookshelves).  Anyhow, you can buy the book at Amazon (and here’s the Kindle edition); if you prefer an autographed copy, they should be available in my bookstore in the next day or two.  Thank you for reading!

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