Despite their occasionally excoriating me for writing about "older men" of 28, I worry about the youth, I really do. There's just so much insidious, pernicious crap thrown at them every day of their lives, and while I'm sure many of them are smart enough to take it with a whole shaker full of salt, I know some of it must worm its way in. In the '90s we had Francesca Lia Block's Weetzie Bat books, which taught young ladies what sparkly fun it is to seduce your gay friends, get pregnant on purpose, and raise the baby on your own in a candy-colored, toothless version of L.A. Now we have The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which purports to teach them that girls can have fabulous adventures and form fast friendships despite their "differences." Maybe it does -- I've no intention of seeing the thing -- but unfortunately, it also teaches them that this (the girl in the middle) is a "fat girl." Now I know I live in one of the world's fatter cities, but to me she looks more like a "normal-sized girl," fat only in comparison to the skeletal cuties flanking her. And we tsk and mutter at the existence of those "pro-ana" websites.

(Those "differences," by the way, appear to be represented mainly by a few blue streaks in the hair of one of the otherwise conventionally-adorable girls.)

Gawd, I do hate the movies.

This morning I was supposed to go to the North Shore with Chris and his executive chef, all of us to hunt and pick chanterelles in a top-secret location, but I couldn't quite work up the stones for it. Actually, I seem to be having a hard time prying myself out of the house for more than an hour or two at a time lately. In my mind, I don't quite believe that I will soon have to travel to the opposite side of the world for nearly two weeks, but in my heart I know I will, and it makes me want to spend as much time as possible holed up with my cats and characters. Instead of mushrooming, birding, and maybe eating a few of those excellent hot wings and downing a few beers at the Abita Brew Pub, I will finish Chapter 13 today, or at least make extreme headway on it. At this rate I may, in fact, finish Soul Kitchen by its September deadline. God, I'm disgustingly responsible.

Couple of things I forgot:

I've been asked by the British Fantasy Society to tell you about its 2006 Horror Calendar, to which various well-known writers and artists have contributed text and artwork based on famous horror tropes. My bit is an excerpt from Crown of Thorns illustrating "The Dead." Other contributors include (text) Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, John Connolly, Christopher Fowler, Simon Clark, Muriel Gray, Stephen Gallagher, Kelley Armstrong, Stephen Laws, and Graham Masterton; (artwork) James Ryman, Mike Bohatch, Lew Lehrman, Michael Ian Bateson, David Anthony Magitis, Ian Simmons, Russell Dickerson, Lizzy Shumate, Lara Bandilla, Michelle Blessemaille, Bob Covington, and Paul Campion. They are expecting it to sell out quickly, so preorder soon if you want one.

TWITCHER (n): an obsessive list-keeping birder who goes after rare birds found by other people. Twitchers might cross half the country overnight to see one tatty brown thing sitting half a mile away on a bleak expanse of mud. Twitchers invariably have huge lists that only impress other twitchers. Surprisingly, they are not always good at identifying birds, because they leave all that tedious business to other birders. From twitcher you also get the verb to twitch, to go out with the deliberate intent of seeing one particular rarity you've been told about, and you don't need to be a dedicated twitcher to do this.

I've been birding for about three and a half years now, but yesterday was the first time I have ever twitched.