First, thanks to Gayleen and Paul for meeting me for lunch today. I needed that. Thanks for all your kind words and encouragement. I’m working on a query letter for The Girls Nobody Wanted to Date Gayleen. I swear it.

I finally got out and bought the new KISS album, Sonic Boom, today. I like it a lot … and I didn’t expect to. Even "Modern Day Delilah" has kind of grown on me. I"d have to say "Never Enough" is my favorite song on it so far. It isn’t the Destroyer meets Love Gun that Paul Stanley said it was, but it has some real klassic moments. I have to say it does have several riffs and licks that sound like they were … uhhh … borrowed from older songs. Still, I’ll be playing the heck out of this one for a good long time. Right now I’m listening to the bonus CD. These recordings are a little different than the originals, I think. Or maybe it’s just that I haven’t listened to them through headphones in a long time. Every track on the bonus CD is a killer, except that horrible piece of shit "Forever." Yeah, skipping right over that one for "Christine Sixteen." By the way, "Lick It Up" has to be one of the best KISS songs ever, and really sums up what I think the band is all about.

It’s fall break. The wifey had a list of appointments for me, plus my youngest daughter came down with an ear infection and strep throat, so I haven’t gotten any real writing done, but I have been doing some research on something that’s stumped me for a while. Fenris, the lead villian of The Werewolf Saga, needs a deeper identity. Who is he, really? And, why is he so against the Pack uniting? These are things I’m working out. Right now he seems to much like an Arnold Schwarzenegger bad buy from one of his 1980s action flicks. And that’s not a good thing.

I have a stack of essays to grade. First drafts of persuasive essays exploring whether man is more prone to a state of barbarism or civilization. Should be "interesting" reading. Plus some shorter benchmark essays analyzing a quote from John Steinbeck’s Cup of Gold. There are also some makeup quizzes and such to grade.

Speaking of Steinbeck, I’ve been on a real binge with him. A while back I ordered an omnibus of his short novels, his journal from the writing of The Grapes of Wrath and an annotated version of that novel. I’ve been reading the essays in that one while listening to East of Eden in my car. East of Eden is a book I read a long time ago, while working in some machine shop. I remember loving it … and am surprised at how little of it I remember. It’s weird. It’s also pretty damn depressing, but the writing is beautiful and inspiring. He was a master at finding the perfect little detail to define a character or place. I just ordered the East of Eden letters, plus a Steinbeck biography and an examination of the banning of Grapes from Alibris. How much of it will I read before I burn out? I dunno. It seems I prefer reading nonfiction to fiction these days.

You say you want to go for a spin, the party’s just begun, but let you in. You drive us wild, we’ll drive you crazy …