The Differences Between the Sexes....

This came from a list I am on -- it's told by the appliance repair man, who says he has observed this over and over again:

When he pulls out stoves, he's noticed that women invariably act as I did and step right in to clean up the mess revealed behind the stove. But when his clients are men (this has happened more than once!) they spot the mess, and say to him, "What a mess. Hurry up and put the stove back before she see it."

I've been hoping that nothing important rolled under the stove in this apartment, because I do not want to go fishing for it! That said, dust can be removed by wrapping a damp paper towel around a yard stick and carefully sliding it under there. It's part of why I keep a yard stick. (As for the cleaning fetish -- Once I was going nuts from mold blooming behind a counter. It took a bottle of X-14 dumped behind the counter to kill the mold. Be warned!)

Half-sticks are also great for smoothing wallpaper behind toilets. (The trivia writers pick up!)

Aspiring Writers Info: Practical Meerkat's 52 Bits of Useful Info for Young (and Old) Writers

I was all set to write about how great Laura Anne Gilman's writing observations are -- as a writer, as an editor, as a self-employed professional. This classy meerkat also loved Night Calls, showing off her good taste in books.

You could use her writing book. If you missed these columns, save yourself hours of Internet time and pick it up at Book View Cafe for a song ($2.99). In the meantime, I'm not the only one who has gotten good advice from LAG -- here's Linda Nagata's story.

I may have just hit overload, here...

My inbox is filling up faster than I can dismiss things.

Time for a break.