A lot of my writing time is spent thinking up cruel and outrageous situations to throw my characters into. Example: The current manuscript involves a squirrel attack. I've researched it. Don't let the fuzzy tail fool you. Acorn breath of doom, people. Acorn breath of doom.

Sadistic? Yes. But cruel and outrageous is the fastest train to funny town, and I'm buying a ticket. In the outline of my next book, which is sure to change seventeen or eighteen times, I have my series character, Suzy, stumble onto a porn shoot. Suzy doesn't date a lot, so this should be amusing for her. She's also a lapsed Catholic, so she'll feel really badly about it later.

Non-residents might not know that L.A. isn't just the home of the entertainment industry. It's also home to the ADULT entertainment industry. Well, okay, the Valley is home to the adult entertainment industry where it's cheaper and smoggier and somehow more suitable.

So when one of the pop culture sites I browse regularly linked to the blog of a male porn star, I genuinely thought, "Aha! Research!" (I did so.)

I can now ballpark the average porn "performer's" salary, realistically describe a set and toss around a little lingo should the situation arise. Not that knowing what "reverse cowgirl" is comes up a lot in the frozen foods aisle, but in case it does, I'm prepared. Oh, and about the salary business, forget law school. The money's in porn.

Unfortunately, you'll need to spend half that cash on anti-depressants.

For the record, this particular guy seems to love his job. He gets up, he shoots a scene or two, he works out, he eats dinner, he goes to sleep. Every. Single. Day. His blog is a running itinerary that makes my life look like a non-stop party. And for the record, I got excited today by a coupon for body wash. So, you know, context.

You'd think the monotony of this particular blog would be broken up somewhat by the inclusion of candid photos from his shoots and links to the performers' "resume" pages. It's not. It's also shockingly un-sexy. Who knew breast enlargement scars were so obvious? And did any of us need to see THAT? I'm not even going to tell you what THAT is. You don't want to know. It's troubling. I'd rather take on the squirrel.

And we haven't even started talking about the constant concern for staph infections.

Personally, I'm going back to watching the bedroom scene in "The Big Easy" on repeat. Now, that's sexy.