I had a really splendid day today. I woke up super early, 8:30!, and walked to the gym for an hour of trotting and pumping that was, actually, fairly nasty and heinous and pathetic thanks to lingering shakiness and self-pittiness from the cold-and-television weekend, but it did generate a righteous sense of accomplishment that paved the way for a long and luxurious french toast with genuine maple syrup, all the tastier for being earned, at the Porkstore with Jill.

Rippling Ripley!

After breakfast I walked up to Borderlands Books, my favorite, favorite, favorite bookstore. It specializes in new and used fantasy and science fiction (I got four books for six dollars!) and, much, much more importantly, it is the home of Ripley the hairless Sphynx. She doesn't even have whiskers! She has an adorable rat tail that she LICKS if you hold it up for her! She's warm and pink and looks like the world's softest gargoyle! (Or, like it says in her bio, like a "suede hot water bottle"!) And she sat in my lap and purred for twenty minutes while I scratched and patted and giggled over her complete cute alien-ness. Awwouch, so cute it stings. Anyway, it's a really nice bookstore full of super nice people who chat freely without seeming put upon and recommend good books and who once opened up ten minutes early because they saw me loitering out front, the end.

Then I came home and took a long, deep bath, then I took a long, deep nap, then I baked up some double chocolate chip cookies and hefted them to Caroleen's for chinese food, french lavendar ice cream, "Six Feet Under" and "Christian Models versus Naked Models." We also had grapes, tart and plump.

They look semi-fecal here, but that's not how they look in your stomach!

Then we met up with Amy (happy birthday!) and Leisa (congratulations on the new job, the complete cooter wax really paid off!) at 12 Galaxies, where Sunny had put us on the list, and we listened to some kind of hippy jam music, drank drinks, and watched Roadhouse, featuring the world's raunchiest "sex against a wall while still wearing sweater vest" scene ever committed to film. Swayze!

And now I'm home, typing, my back to "Queer Eye UK." These words are totally being typed in real time! These too.

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Want to have your very own splendid day? It is very easy:

Fannie Farmer's Chewy Chocolate Cookies
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
8 tablespoons (one stick) butter
1 packed cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons powdered instant coffee
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate morsels

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease some cookie sheets. (I used my fabulous cookie sheet liner.)

Melt the chocolate in a bowl or pan over a pan of simmering water, stirring often until smooth. Set aside to cool.

Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs and beat until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and powdered instant coffee and mix well. Beat in the melted chocolate. Stir and toss the flour, soda, and salt together and add them to the chocolate. Stir and toss the flour, soda, and slat together and add them to the chocolate mixture, beating until completely blended. Stir in the chocolate morsels.

Drop the dough by rounded teaspoonfuls about one inch apart onto the cookie sheets. Bake for about ten minutes (I rotated the pan half way through) until they have spread slightly and the tops look dry. Remove from the oven and transfer to racks to cool. (Then cram as many as you can into your hole!)

(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)

(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)