After a rough brutal-looking-over-your-shoulder weekend that still haunts, it's been a pretty good rebound...at least, better than one could expect.

First, had dinner and drinks last night at the Hotel Washington free of charge courtesy of the associate dean. That makes the extra quarter in Caracas totally worth it, provided I don't get kidnapped. Deborah's Venezuelan boyfriend Joe was in the office today. The first thing he recommended was that I invest in a "vest." I wish I were kidding. The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades...

Secondly, 'just getting in from karaoke night at the National Press Club - slightly inebriated, needless to say. Sang some Barry White, hung out with RND, Frosty, Jedayla, and the 19th Hole, who took the honors for closing the bar with a stirring rendition of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

Thirdly, mad props to my cousin D. As if I needed another reason to conclude she married well - her new hubby C-SPAN found a new link to my Seattle Ft. Lawton story on bookslut.com.

For those keeping score at home, that means that little ditty was linked both on a touchy-feely right-wing blog, and a touchy-feely book blog. I guess I'm doing something right...

Fourthly, according to Seattle resident B&G the good news is that I had a business section front page story today in the Seattle Times, about the woeful state of affairs in the airline industry. Having just traveled via the luxurious accomodations of United Airlines the night before, well, I was inspired. (Book your trip now!)

(And to quote B&G over the phone: "I HATE newspapers!" This is the same guy who feels naked without a laptop. And he's a lawyer. What can you do.)

The bad news is that the bastards spelled my name wrong...again! - calling me "Dickie Cronkit." It's funny - the News-Press never seemed to have this problem. Worse, I'd include a link, but unsurprisingly they didn't post the story. Even though it's section front page. Good times.


Fifthly, that Iraq-sanctions-story actually has a chance of running - we'll see. Here's how it went down on Tuesday, while I was still recovering from the West Coast redeye around 3PM EST:

phone: [RING!]

me: "hello?"

dickie's editor: "sorry i didn't get back to you yesterday [Monday]"

me: [wondering why he said Monday, because I left a humble message petitioning for the story back on Friday, which feels like ages ago] "no problem."

dickie's editor: "so you say you can connect Bert closer to the story with 50 more words...?"

me: "[holy shit, where did this come from?!] sure thing."

dickie's editor: "let's do it then."

me: "[giddythefuckup!] okay - i'll file you an updated version today."

...here's the catch though: He told me yesterday, Wednesday, that it was running for sure. But it got bumped for space issues and he said "hopefully" it'll run tomorrow, Friday. So we'll see.

But just the chance - at a second chance - well, it's nice. Any clip in the Seattle Times is a plus; I'm still getting used to being a smaller fish in a bigger pond.