*flop*

Good news: getting a lot of writing done. Bad news: the last slat fell out of my bed late last night and I had to sleep, for inferior values of "sleep," on the couch. Explanation of bad news: I have an old hand-me-down queen-sized bed (it has appeared in Secret Life pictures a couple of times) that I ended up with after my mother and stepfather got married and merged their furniture. It's great and all, but it has only three, loosely-fitting wooden slats beneath the box spring; they tend to shift diagonally over time until one falls out and onto the floor. Well, me being a lazy cuss, I was like, "What? There's some boxes under the bed, it'll hold." Because wrestling with the various slabs of mattress on that bed is a two-person job, and wahhhhh I don't wanna. Well, here we are seven months later: I'm sleeping on two fallen slats, a packing box, four piles of old magazines and a precariously sunken mattress. Because I rock it classy like that. And then the other shoe--or slat, rather--dropped. Which wouldn't even have stopped me except that the bed was severely tilted towards the headboard and shuddered weirdly when I sat on it. So the couch it was.

I did not sleep very well, is what I'm saying.

Which is pretty much what the couch looked like by the time the dogs had finished piling onto me.

Meanwhile, longtime reader spectralbovine writes,

I'm raising money for 826 Valencia, which provides writing workshops for students from elementary school through high school as well as resources for teachers. They offer one-on-one tutoring for everything from fiction to college application essays. They even publish their work in books, which does wonders for their self-esteem and confidence. They also run the pirate store in the Mission, and I try to support them when I can because I believe in their mission to promote the literary arrrrrrts.

On February 17, 826 Valencia is hosting a Spelling Bee for Cheaters. I am on a fundraising team of LIBRARIANS (Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe), and the more money we raise as a team, the more we can cheat in order to beat such luminaries as Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon and the inimitable Lemony Snicket, not to mention Adam Savage from Mythbusters, John Vanderslice, and Tracy Chapman. Of course, the real reason we're raising money is to benefit the children. Every little bit, from $1 to $100, helps keep these programs free for students. It's a great organization and a fun fundraiser that I think would be relevant to your readership! I'm trying to raise $5,000, and I think I can pull it off with everyone's help. Here's my donation page. Thanks!

While you consider this, I have to go assist my mother. She's now under the bed with a hammer. "Your job," she says, "is to call for help."


ETA WTF:

@cleolinda: I just found a bottle of 1995 cabernet sauvignon under my bed. I HAVE NO IDEA.

( There's wine under my bed and you're invited! )