Last week was much quieter than usual; it was as though everyone was sort of stunned into silence by the end of the Dog Days, and just decided to lay low. So I used the time to catch up on my writing (I’m back to five days ahead) and finally finish decorating my apartment. Jae did most of it for me last year, but there was still one wall of the bedroom unfinished when she left on her ill-starred motorcycle trip, and as obviously she’s had bigger things on her mind since then. So I decided to just follow her pattern and finish it; she looked it over and declared my job “adequate”, but that’s a lot better than it was before. Also, I got to hang a picture of Aphrodite that Sol and Abby gave me for my birthday last year, and a large print of an artwork named “A Garden for Darwin’s Daughter” that I bought from Abby when she moved a few months ago. The place still needs a few little touches, but for the most part it’s done and I’m rather pleased with myself. I’m also rather pleased at the rush of traffic I got when Dan Savage quoted me in this week’s “Savage Love” column, but actually neither of those is the reason I look so…relaxed? in this picture; that, dear readers, is what I look like a few hours after the peak of an endorphin high, and y’all will simply have to figure out for yourselves what got me there. Yes, I’m teasing you again; it really is awful of me, I know.