She's only a few days old but I'm already quite fond of her. She
doesn't have a name yet but she certainly is white and delightsome.

Ah, that new keyboard smell.

I have a niece. Well, I have a bunch of nieces, actually. But there's this one in particular. She's four.

Her brain is a magical place where words go in, rattle around and, like those million monkeys sitting at typewriters, come back out as miniature gems of priceless comedy. Which is why I always go out of my way to teach her new ones.

Take Friday, for example. The niece was at our house for a few hours while her parents ran some errands. Some time after I was done chasing her around the house and forcing her to admit that I was her favorite uncle, she informed me that, according to her mother, "pooh and pee are bad words."

It seems wrong to be blogging under the circumstances. But here I am... camping. And there's WiFi. And it's not like I'm at some froo-froo KOA or something. This is full-on dark dirt camping high up in the mountains.

Someone decided it was a good idea to give the bears internet access though so there you have it. I can't stay long though, the girls are taking my in-law's golden retriever on a snipe hunt and I've got to get to shining my flashlight in the camp fire.

Catch you when I'm back in civilization. That is, where I have internet access AND flushing toilets.

Our daughter is a big fat liar.

In fact, I'm going to start calling her wikipedia because if she tells you something, and you cite her as the source in your book report. Your teacher will write on your paper, in big red marker, "please use reliable sources for important work".

Whenever she answers a question like, say, "did you clean your room" or "who broke this wall into a hundred-thousand pieces" or "were you the one who licked all the graham crackers", my instinct is to click her history tab and check to see if the most recent contributor has a history of fact-vandalism.

I know some of you are curious how things have been. Here's a quick update.

Some seriously crappy stuff went down. I don't want to be too specific because, well, it's none of your business. Plus, it doesn't really matter. When you're eating crap, you don't stop to decide what flavor it is. Besides, I'm totally certain that most of you, like most everyone involved, would probably just think it was all my fault anyway. It really is times like these you discover the difference between friends and mere acquaintances. To those of you who sent kind notes, invited me to lunch, drank beer with me, brought me booze, took me to the movies, offered your professional and personal help... thank you so much. Oh, and if you happened to have invented Zoloft or Xanax, I owe you my life.

About that. The past few weeks I've hit some low spots emotionally. But not even close to the way I lived nearly every day before the medication. For the most part I've been calm, upbeat and positive. This whole experience has been completely manageable in a way simply putting one foot in front of another used to be totally overwhelming.

I have so much to talk about and so little that I can. For strictly selfish and therapeutic reasons I'd love to write a pages-long diatribe. An essay of epic proportions. A manifesto for the ages.

Instead, for being-polite-and-not-burning-any-bridges reasons I'll just say this.

Never underestimate peoples' ability to stab you in the back. And then, while you're on the ground writhing in pain, twist the knife.

Folks, there's a whole mess of shit going down right now. Add that to a couple of nagging technical troubles I've had prepping for the podcast, I'm not going to have a new episode of Blogger Love On Wednesday this week.

I promise to have a new episode ready to go next week.

Sorry, people.

I spent a long four-day weekend with nary a sign of internet access. And with the exception of a couple of photos I managed to get emailed from my phone, I took a vacation from blogging as well as work.

In fact, I forgot how until now. And even now, I'm only really motivated out of some OCD urge to get a post up before midnight. This is actually harder than you think because I've just discovered Top Gear on BBC America.

Rambling? Yes, yes I am.

In episode 3, Erin Kotecki Vest (http://www.queenofspainblog.com) tells the story behind The Tit Brigade, Barack Obama taking a leak and even takes a stab at interviewing Pete. And "I do, I'd do, Adieu" comes with a new twist.

PLAY