--THERE'S SOMETHING SWIMMING IN MY DRINK AND IT LOOKS A LOT LIKE YOU

…I have an interview and reading with Anne Levine on her radio broadcast, "Anne at Night." It's also here under "Words in Print" under the "Anne at Night" heading.

…Spent nearly the entire day yesterday researching agents to query for last year's novel, "House of Rats," and publishers for my story collections. It was exhausting as well as a tad depressing, but there are a lot of worse things I could have been doing, that's for sure.
Oh, what was depressing about it was how many great agents don’t accept unsolicited work, that or not being able to find contact information for an agent who'd sold one of my favorite books.

…But that was yesterday.
Now it's today.
Today will be a good day and an even better evening.
Today, in a few hours, I fly to Palm Springs. From there, some friends and I drive to Las Vegas to meet some more friends.
It will be fun.
There will be many stories.
People will laugh a lot. Those people will mostly be us. We will laugh until our stomachs hurt and until we cry and cannot take in oxygen.

…We are all individual, unique with our own idiosyncrasies, and yet we are probably a lot more a like that we are different.
Here are many ways we are unique and different:

-- Percentage of college students who consumed these microwavable foods in the past week:
23% Soup
21% Popcorn
16% Chicken wings/fingers/nuggets
14% Burritos/tacos/enchiladas
14% Oatmeal
14% Macaroni and cheese

Top things healthy workers did after they called in sick:
53% -- Stayed home and watched TV
45% -- Stayed in bed
38% -- Took care of a sick family member
25% -- Went shopping
23% -- Met up with friends or relatives.

When asked, "Is a college education still a good financial investment?" the percentage who said yes:
2007-- 78%
2008-- 81%
2009-- 79%
2010--64%
2011-- 58%

--In an online survey of 500 Virginia Tech students, they say that because of alcohol they have:
Vomited: 64%
Blacked out: 50%
Missed class: 31:
Had an unwanted sexual experience: 23%
Had an incident involving the police: 21%
Damaged property: 15%

--8 of the top 20 bestselling books in 2011 were e-books

Population living in Battery Park City-Lower Manhattan (Ground Zero):
2000-- 20,088
2010-- 39,699

72% -- Percentage of women who trol Facebook or Twitter to investigate their dates
57% -- Percentage of men who think social networking leads to sex faster
41% -- Percentage who think it's possible to have a romantic relationship with someone exclusively online
30% -- Percentage who've had sex with someone they met via social media

Once every 30 minutes, someone is killed by an impaired driver
1 in 7 drivers on the road is impaired
1 in 4 drivers is impaired on Friday and Saturday nights.

--According to Pediatrics journal, more than 5,000 American children and teens are injured each year in falls from windows.

--In 2010, 2 million people moved out of the state of California
--1.5 million moved out of New York
--1.4 million moved into Florida
--Texas was next with 800,000 new residents

How important is your potential mate's profession to you?
--Women: 60 percent said it's very important
--Men: 5 percent said it's very important

--9 out of 10 adults surveyed said they've seen people misuse technology including:
74% using a mobile device while driving
64% talking loudly while in public
40% using a device during a performance or event
37% divulging private information in a public area
24% using a mobile device at a funeral

--I find the following figures hard to believe, however, according to StrategyOne, Features that first catch an adult’s eye are:
33% Overall attractiveness
23% Smile
20% Eyes
10% Body Shape
6% Apparel

--According to Kurgo, Things People Have Done While Driving With Their Dog:
52% Patted dog
18% Reached into the backseat to interact with dog
17% Allowed dog to sit in lap
13% Gave food or treats to dog
4% Played with dog

--According to Newsweek, the average life expectancy of a prostitute is 34 years, 50 times the next dangerous occupation (liquor store manager)

--According to Nielsen Bookscan, overall sales of print books have dropped 10.2% over the last six months. Adult fiction dropped by 25.7% over that same period. Yikes! It doesn't say if electronic book sales have made up for this plunge.

--On more delicious news, Rasmussen reports American's favorite ice cream flavors as:
Chocolate 23%
Vanilla 23%
Butter Pecan 9%
Cookies and Cream 8%
Strawberry 8%
Mint chocolate chip 6%
Coffee 4%
Other 17%