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Get tested & use a raincoat

Quick quiz: when was your last HIV test? And where are your condoms?

What? You don’t know?

Don’t worry. I’m not going to lecture you. You don’t want to hear it and I don’t have the time. I will just give you two marching orders:

Order #1 – if you are sexually active, you must always use condoms to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (nasty little buggers) from infecting your body. The only exception to this rule is if you are in a long-term, really committed, monogamous (i.e. no playing around) relationship. Even then, you should think about it. Nah – don’t bother. Just wrap it up.

Order #2 – Get tested. I did it. Senator Barack Obama did it. It’s fast and easy and it’s the righteous thing to do.

Celebrate World AIDS Day by saving your own life. Get tested. Use protection all the time.

And keep reading.

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Cue the partridge in that pear tree

My least favorite part of Christmas – shopping – is done!

::dances in comfort with joy::

I loathe shopping, hate it, hate it, hate it. This is probably because I was raised by a woman (hi Mom) who loves it. My mother was born to shop. She has a special shopping gait – when she gets to a store she likes, she walks so slowly that she actually slows down Time itself. As a child, this used to make me fling myself on the floor, howling in frustration, pretending to be dying of a rare virus, begging strangers to take me home – anything to get out of the store. Mom and I don’t shop much together anymore. When we do, I am convinced that she slows down even more, touching Every. Single. Thing. in the whole blooming building, just to irritate me.

These days, when forced to shop with other family members, I am known to bring a book. It should be noted, for the record, that all of my kids love to shop. I encourage them to take Grandma whenever possible.

So now that the shards of glass under the fingernails portion of the holiday is over, I can relax. Wrapping, I like. Decorating, cooking, humming out of tune to ancient carols, feeding birds, counting stars, sitting in front of the fireplace, and ho-ho-ho? I adore all that.

If you are still shopping, consider buying original art. Or improving the world.

Happy birthday, Mark Twain!

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Scribble, scribble

Thanksgiving was the best ever in my whole life. Details to come when I get a photo to share with youse guys.

Today I’m off to the library to write, then off to the gym where, while sweating, I will figure out the next chapter.

While I am otherwise engaged, I figured the time had come to unveil the cover of my new book, TWISTED. It goes on sale mid-March, 2007, roughly 107 days from now.

drum roll, please…

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What do you think?