It’s gratifying that so many of you have emailed, Facebooked or tweeted to ask if I’m alright and not, for instance, in traction after being hit by a train or trapped under something heavy — but really, truly, I’m fine. Apparently I needed a bit of a break. I can’t tell you how lovely it’s felt to step away from the everyday grind of writing for a while, and after six-plus years of doing so I don’t feel the least bit compelled to apologize.

If history is any indication, this period of unexamined brainlessness will end in relatively short order. Soon enough I’ll have things to share, but for now I’ll simply point to my Twitter where I continue to chatter in 140-character bites. If you don’t use Twitter you can find my tweets and more on Facebook. I wish you the happiest of holiday seasons and again, thank you for checking up on me.

So last week someone got upset and threatened to sue me for defamation of character. After an hour of hand-wringing, during which my emotions ranged from extreme annoyance to abject terror, I contacted my very own legal counsel, who happens to be wise in the ways of the ‘net as he is also a blogger.

With his permission I am republishing a part of his advice, which you might also find to be helpful:

That’s a fake lawyer threat if I ever saw one.  Anybody who thinks “Legal Counsel” needs capital letters, doesn’t have a lawyer, much less a lawyer on retainer.  Second of all, the truth is an absolute defense in all charges of defamation.  That wouldn’t stop a nutcase from suing you (nothing can stop that) but it should stop any lawyer from doing more than blustering, as long as you don’t say anything about [person] that’s untrue — which you haven’t and won’t.

[Person] writes like a desperate failing sex toy white label owner who has no *clue* why ze’s not making money the way the fast-talking franchise salesman said ze would, so the universe is punishing hir stupidity far worse than you ever could.  Third, since you didn’t identify the store in the tweet, there’s utterly no grounds for concern based on what you’ve said so far.

If you haven’t already responded to hir about the ad space refund, I’d refuse that too. All of my ad sales are for blocks of time that are prepaid; the advertiser is free to put up whatever image I’ll approve. But I don’t refund because they are unhappy with the traffic or the conversions or my body odor or that I didn’t fellate them as vigorously as expected.  Or, to date, for any other reason whatsoever.  At my house and I expect at yours, that money was long ago spent on tomatoes or tangerines or toilet paper; and you’ve done nothing wrong that ze should demand it back.  I’d refuse the refund, as politely as I could manage, which would be not very:

Dear [Person]–

I’m sorry you no longer wish to do business with me.  Given your unreasonable expectations with regard to web traffic and review-writing, I’m content with your decision to terminate our business relationship.

However, all advertising sales are prepaid in advance for a set period of time, final, and non-refundable.  If you choose not to run advertising for the complete term you paid for, that’s your prerogative.  In that case, please confirm that you would like the ad removed.  Alternatively, I’m just as happy to continue running your existing ad until the paid-for period is done.  Just let me know.

Thanks for the advice, lawyer-blogger friend. I owe you at least a full crate of clementines for the help and commiseration. And for making me laugh, which I desperately needed after this ridonkulous little episode.

To my blogger friends who are accepting toys for review and/or allowing ads on your websites: If you haven’t already taken the time to write up some terms and conditions for these services, what’s stopping you? Please allow my experience be an example of what can happen when you’re not beyond abundantly clear about your expectations.

I’d love to know what you come up with. Post a link below or email me, okay?

In the mists of time when humankind was still thudding around on square wheels, I kept a paper journal. In fact I kept piles of paper journals, all written in cheap spiral-bound notebooks with a variety of ink colors that would make a pre-teen swoon. My pattern was to write obsessively and multiple times per day for months and even years at a time. If you could have graphed the number of words I wrote as a function of my internal angst, you would have seen a direct correlation to the point that during times of extreme upset I’d spend hours a day hunched over the paper trying to sort it all out.

Whether I even once succeeded is a matter for determination by better brains than mine; however, there can be no question if over the past six years I’ve been angsty. I have been. I was. The end of a marriage, the unexpected arrival of a newborn, a divorce, lots of sex, lots of dating, even more sex, a painful breakup, mental illness and its attendant medication struggles — who wouldn’t have been in a whirlwind of emotions? And that’s not even counting the everyday vicissitudes of raising children, working more than full-time and trying to maintain some scant level of personal bodily hygiene.

But over the last twelve months, and especially in the most recent six, I’ve felt more stable than I have in pretty much forever. Work is good. The children are happy. Medicine is¹ fixing what’s wrong with my brain. And difficult relationships have been crowded out by ones in which I am sent love notes, asked after when sick, and brought olives, ice cream and wine on a Saturday night. I am surrounded online and off with friends who want me to succeed, and who moreover believe that I am actually already succeeding.

It is awfully nice. I’m enjoying it very much. And as was the case when my words went onto paper instead of a keyboard, the happier I am the less need I feel to dump out tens of thousands of letters on a weekly basis. This is all my very long-winded way of saying that the blistering schedule of posting five times a week that I’ve maintained for ages — and which was preceded by the even more blistering schedule of posting six, and seven, and almost-twice-a-day — will probably not continue. I cannot be upset about this for who in our little niche of sex-positive perverts has written so long, so much, so personally? There aren’t many others, and I can’t be unhappy that I’m in a position where I feel good enough about life that I don’t need so much of an outlet as once I did. I’m aiming for a couple-three times a week, and if I fail at even that far less demanding task because I am too happy, you will surely forgive me.

Right?

1. for now [↩]

To keep me from growing too hubristic the universe, far more frequently than I’d desire, throws into my path obstacles so extreme in their fiddly-ness that I weep with frustration and shake my tiny fist to the heavens. I really do. The neighbors think I’m a loony.

The thing keeping me humble today is Widget Logic. Go ahead, read the description. “That’s easy,” you’re probably saying. “A Springbok antelope, were it suddenly to acquire thumbs, could manage that!” And maybe you’d be right! Maybe there is some small thing I’m missing which would reduce the hideous complexity of this puzzle to such simplicity that I’d be through the issue and onto something a tiny bit less challenging, like buttsex. Or rewriting the tax code.

Offer up a small prayer for the quick dispatch of this conundrum, ok?

Random facts about the owner of Scandal Shack dot com:

• He changes his underpants a single time each month, by sitting in the tub ’til they dissolve.
• Once he tried to take an online IQ test but time ran out before he could locate the “next” button.
• For three weeks he had a girlfriend. And then the batteries died.
• After the incident with the hawkmoth his barber refuses to see him again.
• If not for the free cable his mother would never visit.
• His cat can’t stand his touch.
• He believes that his state of residence is Tupelo.
• The zoo kicked him out for flinging poo at the monkeys.
• He challenged Ed Begley Jr. to a duel but ran away when Ed pulled out his greatsword.
• The doctor won’t make an appointment (the ringworm’s acting up) for him because she’s afraid he’ll eat all the KY Jelly again.
• He had to repeat third grade reading twice. When he was a sophomore.
• The Tea Party took his membership fees and then decided he was too dumb to join.

and finally:

• After receiving 47 phone calls from a debt collector he turned to Google for advice on how to block someone; his misspelling of the word “block” lead to the creation of this very site.

Are all these facts true? MUST BE, since they’re published on Scandal Shack dot com, and who would possibly publish work on his own site unless he himself had written it?