He really does.

high fives Lee.

Did I leave my lunch at home, or in my car? hmmm

I brought in homemade gingerbread to the office today. If I could, I'd share it with all the Buffistas having hard times.

I ordered a print from a local artist I like, and he googled me and was very stoked about Sam the Bat. So I sent him a copy with my check. In addition to the print I ordered from him, he's sending me this:

[link]

His version of Sam. SO CUTE.

All of his stuff is adorable. This is the print I got a few years ago: [link]

Allyson, that is *adorable*. Do you mind if I send a link to my mom, who is another of Sam's biggest fans?

Oh please link away! I'm stoked that I'm getting my own little art print inspired by a character I wrote. That's just boggling.

Ugh, Mother Jones has a dispiriting piece about warehouse workers for online retailers. Reporter went undercover.

It's like everything unions ever fought for just completely got plowed under by temporary staffing, and outsourcing shipping. Hard to believe there isn't more OSHA requirements to prevent people from getting massive static electricity shocks all day when they're moving books for your Amazon order.

In the books sector, in the cold, in the winter dryness, made worse by the fans and all the paper, I jet across the floor in my rubber-soled Adidas, pant legs whooshing against each other, 30 seconds according to my scanner to take 35 steps to get to the right section and row and bin and level and reach for Diary of a Wimpy Kid and "FUCK!" A hot spark shoots between my hand and the metal shelving. It's not the light static-electric prick I would terrorize my sister with when we got bored in carpeted department stores, but a solid shock, striking enough to make my body learn to fear it. I start inadvertently hesitating every time I approach my target. One of my coworkers races up to a shelving unit and leans in with the top of his body first; his head touches the metal, and the shock knocks him back. "Be careful of your head," he says to me. In the first two hours of my day, I pick 300 items. The majority of them zap me painfully.

"Please tell me you have suggestions for dealing with the static electricity," I say to a person in charge when the morning break comes. This conversation is going to cost me a couple of my precious few minutes to eat/drink/pee, but I've started to get paranoid that maybe it's not good for my body to exchange an electric charge with metal several hundred times in one day.

"Oh, are you workin' in books?"

"Yeah."

"No. Sorry." She means this. I feel bad for the supervisors who are trying their damnedest to help us succeed and not be miserable. "They've done everything they can"—"they" are not aware, it would appear, that anti-static coating and matting exist—"to ground things up there but there's nothing you can do."

I'm stoked that I'm getting my own little art print inspired by a character I wrote. That's just boggling.

That's fantastic!

That sounds like a challenge.

Warm? Yes, at the times not featuring ice cubes. Healthy? Possibly partially recommended against by your Chief Surgeon person.

I would say it is another reason to avoid Amazon, except I gather B&N outsources to the same or similar warehouses. I guess it is one hell of a reason to buy through your local independent bookstore if you have one. Or use the library. (My publisher is as thrilled at people getting on a waiting list at their local library as at direct sales, because it increases library orders, which is the core of their business.)