Hey, munchkins. I was a…

Hey, munchkins. I was a little cranky this morning 'cause many of my regular journals haven't updated yet, but since I skipped yesterday, I guess I have no real call for complaint.

Well, the first session of Kaplan training was last night (even with David giving me a ride from BART, I got home around 11ish, oof. Luckily, my boss had said that it would be okay if I came in late today, so I did get almost eight hours of sleep). It went reasonably well. It's an interesting mix of teaching and salesmanship. Kaplan is a for-profit, after all, and they really emphasize that. I'm pretty sure I agreed not to say anything nasty about Kaplan in that legal agreement I signed, so it's a good thing I don't have anything too nasty to say. I doubt they're any less ethical than any other major corporation. :-)

You'll probably hear a fair bit more about this; in the next several weeks I'm hoping to stop doing this temp secretarial work and move to at least half-time Kaplan teaching. That'd be enough for me to get by; even better, of course, would be to have more work. There are some other tentative tendrils in that direction; you'll hear more as they emerge.

As for one of my *real* [translation: pays squat, but matters to me] jobs, Clean Sheets is going pretty darn well. I decided to drop the advertising rates to something more reasonable, and have gotten some nibbles. We may raise them again later, but for now, better to get *some* money flowing in. I'm also considering setting up a section asking for donations. I'm not sure if it's a good idea. I want to keep it clear that this is a free magazine -- but if people *want* to give us money, I certainly don't want to turn them down. And we really *are* starting to have trouble living on donated material. The supplies are running low...what do you think? Will it sound sleazy if we ask for supporters to send cash, if they like? It'll be totally optional, of course.

I have this great idea for a whole fund drive, with staggered prizes for support:

  • $15-$25; get an autographed photo of the editor
  • $25-50; get a free book of erotica, our choice
  • $50-100; get a free book of erotica, a free erotic audio tape, a sex toy, and some safe sex supplies
  • $100-500; get everything from the last set, plus a thank you note signed by the whole staff and a button that says "Clean Sheets Supporter!" (or maybe "In Favor of Clean Sheets!" :-)
  • $500+; get a autographed *nude* photo of the editor, or whichever other staff members I can coax into this. :-)
Would be a bit of a nuisance to organize and administer, and we'd have to be careful that the cost of the items + shipping (to possibly foreign countries) didn't outweigh the donated money. Probably too goofy, eh?

Anyway. Having a bit of a hard time concentrating today. Despite getting a reasonable amount of sleep, my whole body is exhausted. I suspect this is directly due to the half hour of exercise with Ellie yesterday morning. We were so virtuous! Stretches, sit-ups, weights, jumping jacks (okay, she skipped the jumping jacks 'cause she has bad knees, but she did more stomach things). And now it feels like every muscle in my body aches. I was rushing this morning, so I only did the sit-ups (and I'm pretty sure you're supposed to alternate days on weights anyone, to give the muscles time to heal), but oof. The second and third days are always the roughest, I know. Just gotta sweat it out. So to speak. (It's Ellie's influence -- I don't pun on my own, I swear!) Anyway, aside from forgetting my medicine this morning in the rush (I'll get it tonight, I promise), I'm still on track. We'll see if I manage tomorrow.

Hey, can I throw out another plea for CS? I know I've asked this already, but I'm asking again -- link to us link to us link to us! And if you don't have a web page, go to any even vaguely relevant site and recommend that *they* link to us. The number of sites linking to Clean Sheets gets factored into search engine queries; even if not many people stop by your site directly, it still helps us indirectly.

Which brings me to another thing, and I've probably covered this already, but I don't quite remember, so I'll risk repeating myself: buy books through Clean Sheets!

Not just smut -- *any* books you would normally buy at Amazon. If you go to Clean Sheets and *then* follow one of our review or bookstore links to Amazon, anything you buy in that browsing session gives us 5% of the purchase price! I'm not asking you to buy books you wouldn't normally buy...just to make CS your starting point for book binges. I know you're all addicts here. :-)

Now I'm feeling a little guilty for all the shameless plugs -- but oh, I want this magazine to succeed. It's my baby, y'know? It my justification for otherwise sorta flaking off job-wise this last year. Who knows -- if it does well, maybe it'll be what eventually keeps me from *having* to have a day job. So it's an investment as well as a joy (and heck, I think it's politically important too), and it matters a lot to me.

Hey, and here's another pitiful plea, while we're on the subject -- does anyone have a higher than 14.4 speed modem (for the Mac) to donate to the cause? I am giving up all pride to admit that I can't afford one right now, and I know people have faster modems sitting in their basements ('cause they're using even *faster* ones), and 14.4 is just a little too slow to handle the CS chatroom. So I can only do chat from work, and I probably won't be on this temp job much longer. If you've got one to spare, drop me a line, and I'll thank you profusely. You can even have one of those aforementioned photos if you want (no, not the nude ones. Don't be silly.).

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